Steam punk set

[InfinitiveDivinity]

Green could also have artifact destruction and "possessed", so to speak, mechanations. Vines controlling suits, a bug hive mind inside of a contraption, just some ideas.

[Dudecore]

White could care about contraptions if they were equipment. White could use red (enemy color) to assemble them. Blue would care because they're artifacts, and assembling them because blue is intellect.

Gotta come up with some way for White to care about Red assembling contraptions vs. white caring about blue doing it. White and Blue are allied.

[izik99]

White could be the government, and the other colors are the working people.

[Birdbrain]

Alright. But I don't want to put contraptions in every color because, to quote dudecore "it would ruin the uniqueness of having them."

[Dudecore]

I like the conflict of playing enemy colors. Maybe have contraption equipment and artifact permanents? That way white would prefer red assembling the equipment for creature combat, and green would prefer blue doing it? I dunno. Set development takes a long time.

Maybe Blue is just better at it, but more mana intensive so it needs green to help mana accelerate, or black ritual spells. Red maybe gets more ways to tutor contraptions so they can hit drops better, or more creatures to reduce the cost of assembling them? Or some combination there-in to balance it out and make enemy colors overlap.

[Dudecore]

The biggest hurdle is making contraption playable. If they're just thrown in to be "the new way to make equipment" or "new way to make artifact permanents" then it's just silly, design equipment and artifacts then. There has to be a level of uniqueness to them. I like the idea of them "leveling up" so to speak, the more and more attached to each other. But more then anything, a reason to put them in a 60 card deck, good design is not "deal with it because that's all we're giving you", or "all creatures are vanilla unless they have X on the battlefield/equipped/in the graveyard".

[InfinitiveDivinity]

I like the conflict of playing enemy colors. Maybe have contraption equipment and artifact permanents? That way white would prefer red assembling the equipment for creature combat, and green would prefer blue doing it? I dunno. Set development takes a long time.

It really does. Even though the basis for mine was an already created game, making cards for said game wasn't easy. I got inspiration for about 4 cards one day because I was freezing my ass off, must be what it's like in the Ice Cavern, etc. You just have to stick at it, start with a few. Cards create cards a lot of the time. Made an O.P. card? Made too many O.P. cards of a certain type? Nerf 'em, subtlely. It's a really fun and frustrating adventure. Wording cards for me was the hardest, a card is nothing without words, you have the power to do some amazing things with your punctuation as well.

[Birdbrain]

The biggest thi ng I'm wonderIng. How can you assemble two contraptions? {steam flogger boss} really sets limitations for contraptions because I want them to be comparable with him. Because he sorta looks steam punk. Even though he's obviously not using copper

[Birdbrain]

Do you think token equipment could work? Or would that be too messy?

[Birdbrain]

Yea. Creatures that make contraptions put contraption counters on themselves. And they get boosts/abilities depending on the number of contraption counters on them. And if you move a contraption counter around, the creature redoes the contraption counter to fit there own purposes. This even fits with the red/white flavor...although I will still consider your idea dudecore

[Dudecore]

Token equipment could work. Maybe something like:

Darksteel Junkyard {4}
Land - Contraption
{T} - Add {1} to your mana pool.
{2}{T} - Assemble (Attach to target creature a token permanent that says "attached creature is indestructible.")

The rules text need work, but I would say that is a very cool idea. Equipment that does not survive boardsweeps, flickering, and is recurring.

[Birdbrain]

I think my idea is a little more clean, but I'll consider it

[Dudecore]

I think attaching them to lands makes them exciting enough to include in people's decks. Red can get Riggers that can assemble multiple contraptions. Blue can get Technicians, they're smarter so it gives a cost reduction to assembling.

I worked on the keywording a little bit.

{X}{T} - Assemble (Attach <name> contraption to target creature.)

A "contraption" by definition would be a token card. The token card would have the artwork, what it does and listed as "Artfact - Contraption". Things that reference Artifacts effect contraptions. Also it follows the token rules, cannot change planes, ect. Multiple tokens can be designed per set, and more then 1 permanent or source could create the same contraption.

[Birdbrain]

What do you guys think of this idea. And enchant land that turns a basic land into a scrap heap? Basically a scrap heap is a basic land, and taps for {1}. It fits with the artifact/steam punk theme, and allows for new land abilities like "scrap heap walk"

[Dudecore]

It would be similar to anything like {Midnight Haunting}, it says "Put two 1/1 white Spirit creature tokens with flying onto the battlefield." We'll a permanent with assemble would say "attach <name> contraption to target creature."

Target creature can be important because examples of potential contraptions could be:

Energy Field
Artifact - Contraption
Equipped creature cannot attack or block until that controllers next turn.

Repulsion Ray
Artifact - Contraption
When equipped creature attacks, tap two creatures an opponent controls.

There is so much design space really. An additional benefit is, if the contraptions themselves fit a future flavor, they can be reused because they are similar to reusing a Spirit Token.