Great Designer Search 2 - Essay 10: Revisiting A Plane

Choose a plane to revisit other than Dominaria or Mirrodin. What is a mechanical twist we could add if we revisit this plane?

The plane I would revisit is Ulgrotha, the location of Homelands. Homelands was loaded with flavor but lacking mechanics and good cards. Enough time has passed to let much of the bad taste fade while references to the setting have been made such as The Dark Barony (Planechase), Barony Vampire (M11), and near the end of the “Future Sight” novel. With Vampires now a much more established race in Magic, the time is ripe to return to a plane dominated by a vampire.

The set should have many Legendary Creatures and many references to the flavor of cards from the original set. This would include a Tribal subtheme. The setting has Dwarves and Minotaurs, two races that have been barely touched thus far in Magic. Dwarves in particular could appear in colors other than red and be defined in ways to set them apart from Goblins. Vampires would also be a main tribe allowing more of their design to be shown (most other tribes have a much bigger head start).

With Baron Sengir having conquered most of the plane, the block could be “Torment 2”: the dominance of black and how the other colors react to and interact with it. This needs to be done differently than Odyssey block: no uneven distribution of colors and no the intentionally weak white cards in certain colors. Instead of hosing, make them mechanically different. For example, all triggered abilities on black creatures could be “put into a graveyard” triggers while all triggered abilities of green and white creatures could be “enters the battlefield” triggers. With a black focus it would also be appropriate to revisit a Graveyard-oriented mechanics. A twist on Madness could be a variant that triggers when milled instead of discarded. Instead of Threshold and Flashback, there could be cards like Bridge From Below that have abilities when they’re in the graveyard. The Delve and Gravestorm mechanics from Future Sight could also be used. Grandeur would also combine the Graveyard and Legendary themes as discarding a card to Grandeur can feed other graveyard abilities, especially Delve.

Of all my essay submissions I've posted here, this is the only one I've tweaked before posting here. My final paragraph didn't end as nicely as this one does: I had made a note to include Delve and Gravestorm but forgot to do so. Grandeur and it's synergy with graveyard abilities only occured to me later.