Overgrowth Equipment

A de-emphasis on creature auras so that mutate doesn't get too oppressive creates a need for equipment for decks that aren't going to be having significant access to mutate or growth mechanics.

But Guthreham under Janell's rule has a massive cultural opposition to artifacts, and they tend to end up destroyed when found.

So I came up with a trio of uncommon artifacts that can be used, but then sacrificed for value if the need arises. Granted, the flavor isn't exactly perfect if the player gets to decide whether to destroy the artifact. But it's sort of a compromise and the set really needs these guys, I think.

Altogether this puts the set at about a dozen artifacts, and that seems about right. In common there's a mana helper and a bunch of simple artifact creatures. Then equipment at uncommon. Then some weird stuff at rare and mythic.

Iterating Suppress

Doing some brainstorming about how Suppress might work as it's fleshed out. It is kind of similar to detain or tap spells, but with a different feel that seems appropriate for Overgrowth's emphasis on growing creatures.

So I've reworded the text a bit and also made it so it can be both an end-of-turn effect or also an ongoing aura.

So to make it clearer in the rules, it won't affect any sort of power and toughness alterations that are endemic to the creature itself. That gives the mechanic a little bit of a weakness, but it also makes it more clear and avoids a lot of rules conflicts.

I do realize that using words like "unaffected" and "external" might cause some level of confusion. I want to make it clear that it doesn't destroy auras or equipment or even counters. They just don't "affect" the creature. And I think this wording sets it up that additional combat tricks or buffs in response also don't work. I think. This will obviously need to be playtested quite a bit.

Fecund 4.0!

Yeah, I know. But trying to make limited creature duplication is a challenge. So here, now, I'm essentially making a keyword out of a trigger that already exists in Magic.

There's typically something in a set that gives a bit of a spin on this. Currently we've got Hunted Witness in Guilds of Ravnica. This is an uber-simple version. It simply makes a token version of itself when it dies. Token versions don't create duplicates when they die. So it doesn't essentially create immortal little vermin creatures that keep coming back. But it does create some nice B/G autorecursion of small creatures that feels very on-color.

It also allows this type of card.

The one thing I worry about with this, though, is that these creature types seem already primed for inclusion of fecund within this set. We'll have to see when I really start fleshing out the commons.

Trading Out Detain for "Suppress"

Detain doesn't seem to be fitting well, though I do need a mechanic in U/W that matches the controlling/defensive/reactive playstyle I want for them.

Blue and white both have the ability to alter and set a creature's base power and toughness. What if I gave them a mechanic that essentially temporarily represses power and toughness boosts?

So the big question here is what it means rules-wise that a creature loses all modifiers. What I have in mind is anything from instant effects, enchantments, equipment, and even counters that alter a creature's base power and toughness. But what does that do to */* creatures? Typically when U/W meddles with a creatures abilities or removes their abilities the ability gives the creature a base power and toughness to avoid a situation where a creature has an undefined power or toughness. Does this effect abilities that set a base power and toughness on a creature?

Krunanan, Skyprodder

I had an idea in mind that deep within the "Untended Cradle" is a creature that had evolved itself enough over a long period of time to become secretly extremely powerful U/G creature that manipulates in subtle, psychic ways, some of the high-speed evolution taking place there.

This eventually made me think of a highly intelligent dragon that the humanoid races of Guthreham are completely unaware exists.

And then as I was thinking about my U/G theme of self-directed evolution I hit on the idea of creatures learning to control triggered abilities. Multitriggering abilities has become an interesting, janky component of blue's identity. Tying it to a creature's abilities seems green. So I end up with Krunanan, here:

This card just seems like it's going to break stuff, but unfortunately I'm not really good at mentally recalling/thinking about what has been published in the past. I've attached it to an attack trigger and then set it target a single other creature to gatekeep it just a little bit.

Within the set itself, you can use it to trigger pretty much all the special abilities in this set. Mutate and Fecund are both triggered abilities. Reave itself is a casting cost, so it doesn't trigger reave, but if there's a creature with an ability that triggers when you pay a reave cost, you can trigger that.

I also had a story idea in my head that Krunanan becomes evolved enough to "spark" and becomes a planeswalker with a build-around focus on creature abilities. I'm still brainstorming what that might look like.

If You Reave, I Won't Cry

Given the parasitic nature of reave and things triggered when cards are reaved (riven? whatevs), I'm a little concerned about its playability in limited. So I decided there should be a cycle of common sorcery/instant spells that would typically be used as useful if not terribly exciting tools for sealed/draft 40-card decks. The twist is that there's a bonus if they get exiled from anywhere. So you're essentially double-dipping with reave. The reave card itself gives you some sort of bonus if you exile a card from the graveyard. These cards also do something when they're exiled.

The bonus on this one is not terribly exciting. But it could be useful if you're playing W/B and need to be reaving out cards to make zombies in order to survive.

Keep in mind how this also triggers if you exile a card off the top of your library but are still able to cast it. Which you can do with Plundered Sanctum. And don't forget about effects that let you play a spell from your graveyard and then exile it.

The familiar land tutor. Note how this significantly boosts R/G if you reave it out and have creatures with the mutate ability. Each one you untap gets a +1/+1 counter.

Ashen Illumination as the typical discard/draw red card also has the bonus of putting another card in your graveyard for potential reaving. I haven't designed it yet, but I'm sure there will be a red spell of some sort that will let you exile, then cast the top card of your library in some fashion. Which means that if Ashen Illumination is the top card of your library it will cost only 1 colorless to cast (plus the discard).

This one might be too powerful for common, given that black has primary access to reave and other reave effects that create zombie tokens.

It actually taps for colorless mana, but I think the Magic Set Editor is old and doesn't have that symbol. I think I'm going to take the "non-land" restriction off of reave kickers. I don't think it's necessary.

More Artifact Concepting

While Gutherham (and the Overgrowth set) is not an artifact-heavy plane, there are artifacts present due to its long history. It's Janell's anti-artifice mentality that's been purging them for the past several decades. So there are artifacts--and some of them are going to be quite impactful. Really they're going to kind of exist on the edges--either they're low in powerful and beneath Janell's notice, or they're very powerful but are hidden deep in places where Janell does not know they exist.

Some common artifact creatures:

As you can see, flavorwise the mages used to use artifact birds to pass along messages. They still have some in the Runetide Flotilla, but make sure the Arbor doesn't know about them.

An updated version of this early creation. These creatures are underground so Janell doesn't even know they exist. Note the spider creature type. This is compatible then, with black/green's vermin identity. Should I give it reach? Hmmm.

Since the cephalids are deep under the ocean, they obviously are not affected by Janell's efforts. That could have made it possible for a B/U artifact-heavy theme, but I've noticed that sets that try to sell an artifact theme in a color pairing kind of struggle unless there's a good as-fan of artifacts.

So even if Janell at the Arbor is very down on artifacts, I did want there to be some defensive artifacts accessible to white, given the emphasis on playing defensively in this set. In this case I flavored/balanced it as something very limited that only serves to protect.

I flavored the typical card-draw tome to go with the red hermits. Obviously anybody can play this artifact. It's going to be particularly good late game in red/black if you also have a reave card that cares how many cards left the graveyard.

Here are a couple of cards that tell a story about whatever secrets are hiding deep within Guthreham:

And the new version of Womb of Guthreham:

There's some stuff going down deep inside this plane. What does it mean? It's a secret. (Which means I haven't actually really figured it out yet.)