"Overgrowth" is the working name for the big block expansion concept I've been hammering out for the past few months. It is very, very much in progress and even as I type this I'm trying to think about how and where the mechanics should fit and I still have some gaps in the conceptual phase.
The reason the set is called "Overgrowth" is because the brainstorm that led me to the set is a top-down concept of a plane's growth cycle becoming dangerously out of control. Nature and evolution going bonkers and the tropes that follow. It's not just about life unbound and being very sort of green-focused. It's the idea that the very life cycle itself is being threatened by too much abundance. It's not just causing growth of creatures and populations, but disease and the plagues that feed on them.
My initial idea is that the cause of this problem was a green/white planeswalker who was obsessed with purging the strongest black influences out of this (still unnamed) plane, and she succeeded. This would be a set with no vampires or demons. She wanted the abundance of life to rule, and she got her way, but in her obsession she has purposefully neglected the death part of the cycle of life. She rages against the plagues and diseases that have come with this overgrowing world, but refuses to consider the idea that she's the one responsible. Even without the most powerful of black forces, there are still undead and plagues as she resists even natural ends to the life cycle. Sentient races find themselves backed into corners as both dangerous wildlife and deadly diseases approach. There' s a blue/white contingent that has built a flotilla of ships to live off the coast. There are red hermits living up in the mountains trying to stay above the encroaching wilds.
I'm not entirely sure if that concept of the green-white planeswalker will remain. I'm having a hard time visualizing the nature of the conflicts of the set in terms of green-white as the adversary. So for now I'm going to focus on building mechanics I believe help illustrate the Overgrowth concept and then see where they take me. I have three mechanics that I have conceptually nailed down, but a lot more to think about.
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