Dawn Part 3: The Mechanics

Like most new sets, I have developed several new mechanics to support a decent amount of planeswalkers and pulled one old mechanic from the past.  Let's dive in:

Planeswalkers

As stated, this set has a lot more planeswalkers than traditional 229-card big sets.  Generally, those sets only have 2 planeswalkers at mythic rarity.  In this set, however, there are 7 mythic, 12 rare, and 10 uncommon planeswalkers.  Now, I am supporting the new planeswalker uniqueness rule that will come into effect with the release of M14 (something I hadn't intended on before, obviously), so remember that you can control your own version of a planeswalker.  In typical FAQ fashion, here is a pretty typical planeswalker from my block:

This guy follows the typical planeswalker design of a small plus ability, a small minus ability, and a large ultimate.  He is one of the three multicolor planeswalkers in the set (all of which fill certain...voids) and he came relatively late in design.  The rare and mythic planeswalkers either follow this design characteristic to the T or wildly deviate from normal 'walker design.  Here is one of those wild deviations:

So this guy has a 0 ability and 2 minus abilities. Sarkhan the Mad had a similar design and the fact that both cards are black is no coincidence.  Black is a very selfish color and while Sarkhan's design made him seem "mad", this guy simply only has so much loyalty to give.  Well, I assume that you are probably wondering about the uncommon planeswalkers and their impact on gameplay, so here is a sample of one of those:

Two very simple effects: one that protects, and one that incrementally helps you.  All of my uncommon planeswalkers only have two abilities, mostly for balance reasons.  I think one will always play a uncommon planeswalker in Limited, but despite there being many more planeswalkers around, they have to watch out for the potential downsides...

Bounty

Bounty was the first mechanic I came up with for this set.  In a set filled to the brim with 'walkers, you may spend a lot of your time attacking them to get rid of them.  Well, when you are attacking planeswalkers, you aren't killing your opponent, so there is always a pretty decent trade-off between the two.  Cue the whynotboth?.jpg.

Bounty - Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a planeswalker, DO SOMETHING.

For this longest time, I called this "walker strike" and while I wish I can just call it that and be done with it, I needed a flavorful name.  Bounty, in this sense, is like what it means in bounty hunter: you are rewarded for attacking planeswalkers instead of people.  Some creatures in this set have bounty, which makes attacking planeswalkers a much more attractive thing to do.  Here is a common design:

This is a lovely damned-if-you-block, damned-if-you-don't-block type of design we've come to expect from those sneaky snakes (looking at you, Orhan Viper!).  Uncommon one next!

Woahhhhhh.  Pretty big effect we have going on here.  Thankfully, she costs a lot of mana.  Finally, a rare design:

Hopefully, her little poke doesn't kill the planeswalker, but having her take an entire team of planeswalkers would be a glorious thing to do in Limited.  Bounty appears across all colors and rarity levels (except mythic) and was one of the mechanics I made to help define the gameplay of the set to feature heavy interaction between planeswalkers and creatures.

Mana Counters

This is the other mechanic I created for the set.  Flavorfully, I wanted to get into how the denizens of the Dawn use small amounts mana like a currency that I would connect to mana counters.  The bulk of mana counter-associated cards are in red, green, and black since those are the main mana generation colors.   Here is a card to explain the mechanic:

So we see the mechanic here: Permanents with mana counters have "Remove a mana counter: Add one mana of any of this permanent's colors to your mana pool. Activate this ability once per turn."  This cycle is across all of the colors and uses the color indicator to show what color mana the particular Conduitron produces.  There are many ways that cards produce mana counters in this set:

A simple aura to get at least one mana counter per turn on something.  Here is another:

A pretty typical black mana counter card, and a pretty typical black mana generation card (see Pawn of Ulamog).  Now that we have creatures with mana counters, what can we use them for?

This is a pretty saucy uncommon with a high potential to kill a lot of smaller things (it may need some balancing :P).  Finally, I have a black mythic to show off the mechanic:

I know, it is an enchantment that taps, but I wanted to limit this action to once per turn and I find tapping a cleaner way of doing it instead of the bulky "you may only activate this ability once per turn and only on your turn".

Type cycling

The returning mechanic of the set is type cycling.  Cycling is one of the most beloved Limited mechanics as many would attest, and this set expands the type-cycling mechanic to other types beyond basic lands.  We do have some good reprints with basic landcycling and some new friends as well at the common rarity:

Traumatic Visions is typical "good early, good late" quality that we expect from basic landcyclers.  Haze occupies a similar vein in which it gives you lands when you really need them and still is very relevant late-game.  Like I said previously, I have expanded the typecycling to include other card types in this set:

They mostly appear at uncommon and rare, but there are some common typecyclers that aren't basic landcycling.  The whole point of the cycling is flexibility; either the card itself is good early and the cycling good late, or vice versa, all very card dependent.  Awesome Elf is a great mana ramper, but it can find your bomb creature if you have enough mana.  Finally, a mythic rare design:

Namely talking about the Survival of the Fittest-esque ultimate here.  It both invokes the great cards of ages past and incorporates the typecycling effect I wanted to include.  I think that this emblem is just finely worded.

Well, there you have it: my mechanic preview is complete.  Join me soon as I spoil the entire set as it stands currently!