Dawn Part 1: The Beginning

Hello, fellow Magic players and designers, to the Dawn. This is my first major Magic: the Gathering set design and it has been a looooong labor of love.  The first card designs for this set date way back to 2009 not long after I began playing Magic in full-force.  I learned to play when I was younger, but I became a card-carrying member of the DCI right during the release of Zendikar.  As for my game design aspirations, they date all the way back to my exploits in the Age of Empires series, trying (and often failing) to create maps, cinematics and "eye candy".  I guess it was only natural to gravitate towards Magic design so early.

As for progress on my first set, it was very slow and steady.  I often wouldn't touch my MSE file for months as I had other pursuits (including my college studies) to often bring my attention away.  But I would always remember my set and work on it at little chunks at a time.  For the last 6 months though, I've been upping my efforts simply to get it out the door.  I kinda know how Wizards must feel: you can spend eons trying to perfect your set, but I now know that you need to set deadlines of you want to get shit done.  My problem is also compounded: I don't have a large staff to playtest these designs on the fly either.  I can sit here and debate designs in my head all day without anyone telling me to put pen to paper.

On to my set premise and design philosophies:

So Dawn is the planeswalker set.

Many people will shake their head at this.  "Planeswalkers are mythic for a reason", which are the following:

1. Flavor-wise, they are super-legendary and can exist and travel to any plane in existence unlike any creature in the multiverse. Hence, they should only appear at the highest rarities.
2. Gameplay-wise, they are often very powerful and exciting to play. Hence, they should only appear at the highest rarities.

So we have to resolve two main issues with a planeswalker-focused set: flavor and gameplay.  I have a pretty convincing story setup for Dawn which takes care of the flavor, but the gameplay will require good mechanics and balance to make the set work. Let's find out how I tackled each issue...