by CrispyBasket
Alive is a 125-card set designed to be a stand-alone, slight variant Magic experience.
Mechanics
Richard Garfield recently spoke about Netrunner being
redone by Fantasy Flight Games. He said that Netrunner beats
Magic because Netrunner has bluffing and double guessing, meaning
that players aren't sure what to do because they don't know what's
in their opponent's hand. While, according to Garfield, Magic cards
tell the player what to do, based on what cards the player draws.
It would make little difference if both based knew what cards
were in each others' hands, reducing Magic to non-stop army versus
luck of the draw.
Alive was engineered to create that sense of double guessing what you
should play and what your opponent might have in their hand. Akin
to playing with or against a blue deck filled with counter magic, I want
players to know their opponent might have a Spellbomb or a Shrine
or a creature pump in their hand. "Do I cast a small creature to bait
my opponent into playing that pop card or do I go full force, et cetera,"
It doesn't look like a normal set of cards, but the game situation will
be far more mental and enjoyable than the standard game of: lay down
the mana, play the creature, attack with the creature, wait for combo,
rinse, repeat. Here, it will be, to use the Echo Magnet now or later in
that moment of truth. (The Echo of Magnet picture might be changing. What do you think?)
Theme
Long before the time of dwarves, elves, demons, and angels, the land
lay in wait, like a Pandora's Box of baubles and trinkets to be enjoyed
and abused. A wayfaring, disperate fleet of waring aliens haphazardly
choose this place as their landing site. They militaristically regard
everything in terms of technological efficiency and supremacy. Each
faction is housed by a interstellar ship that, at varying times, settle
on our land. Over time, these aliens begin to be wowed by the natural
technologies available to them. They discover an indigenous race of
aging golems that they quickly enslave, disassemble, and use to refit
themselves for survival and the eminent war of dominace over their
alien counterparts. As the aliens begin to rely upon these natural
technologies, they are fundamentally change and become the
races of mythological creatures we know today. Aliens find powerful
seeing devices in the caverns. Others find hidden weapons in the earth
beneath trees. Some find all-consuming power in the dark places. Some
retreat the depths of the water, while others bravely fight on in the valleys.
The flavor text describes these otherworldy, militaristic aliens coming
to understand their landing site and it's affecting their alien brothers.
Alive could be played in a preconstructed and booster draft format.
Some people feel this is rubbish, while others see it as a pet project to
be enjoyed at my local game store, and some feel that the WOTC Hammer
of Kamigawa will befall me very soon.
Please, please make all the comments you like about what could be revised
because I'm sticking a fork in this project one day. A few of the colors are
a little askew, but they're just discovering the land. And if you feel that
a spell is 'broken,' I've found an exemplar on Gatherer.