The Facets of Sienira

Read about:
The green-white enchantresses
The white-blue artificers
The blue-black criminals
The black-red demon-worshippers
The red-green beasts
The rest of the plane
Or see the full list of cards at the cardlist, or read the FAQ for all the cards.

Enchantments: green-white

I didn't want a "oh look, the world's at war" like about half of Magic sets seem to have. I wanted more a feeling of "this is a world, with tensions and different groups with different aims, and everyday people going about their lives."

I was looking for five particular groups in this setting that could be associated with a card type and with two of the five colours. I then tried to use the ideas I had for the flavour of those groups to suggest card ideas, so flavour isn't just tacked on to the design, but influencing it as it's influenced by it.

The green-white group of enchanters is perhaps the most unusual. A lot of the upper class are in this group: it's become fashionable to take a country stately home and grounds, and augment them massively with layer after layer of magical enhancements. These augmented mansions are claaed mirrorglades.

One particularly prominent mirrorglade is the Ralatine, in a forest near the city of Terina. Its owner is an arrogant duchess and enchantress named Atine, who's unusual in that she applies most of the augments to her mansion herself rather than hiring enchanters to do it for her. She's liberally enhanced every part of her home and its extensive grounds with magic, and is rather proud of her work. Designing enchantments is quite a prestigious role in this society, so although it's unusual for a noble to do it herself, it's certainly not looked down on.

This is a fairly unusual setting for Magic: the Gathering, and it lends itself to some card names and terms that aren't as traditionally warlike as many sets. But there's still plenty of scope for conflict.

A few sample cards:

Enforced Deference 2W   Enchantment – Aura C Enchant creature Enchanted creature doesn't untap in its controller's untap step. Reminisce 1W (1W, Exile this card from your hand: Return target enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand.) "My shrubbery bows when I walk past, and so shall you." – Atine	Lavender Mist 3W   Enchantment U Lavender Mist enters the battlefield with a fog counter on it. Remove a fog counter from Lavender Mist: Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn. Sacrifice Lavender Mist: Prevent all combat damage any number of target creatures would deal this turn.	Wings of Lightning WW   Enchantment – Aura R Enchant creature Enchanted creature has first strike, flying, vigilance and lifelink. WW: Return Wings of Lightning to its owner's hand.
Pools of Fortitude 1G   Enchantment – Aura C Enchant land Enchanted land has "3, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature." When a noble arrives at a mirrorglade, the outdoor baths are one of the first places she visits.	Silkvine 2GG   Enchantment Creature – Elemental Spider U Creatures you control have reach. Reminisce 1G (1G, Exile this card from your hand: Return target creature or enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand.)   1/4	Ralatine Sentinel 3   Artifact Creature – Bird C Flying Ralatine Sentinel has shroud as long as it's enchanted. Atine's daughter sculpts filigree falcons. Atine enjoys bringing them to life to patrol the skies around her mansion.   1/2

Artifacts: white-blue

The primary-white-secondary-blue sphere is all about artifacts. The flavour focus is on magesmiths, a general term for any artificer who imbues his creations with magic somehow. Magesmiths are mainly human or dwarven, and live in structures called musearies, which are something between workshops, shops and display rooms. These often take the form of towers with gates locked and warded except on sale days: many magesmiths are eccentric and reclusive.

Three notable musearies feature in card names and flavour text. Ironcaste is the home of Tanith, a grizzled human smith who tolerates a number of other apprentices and journeymen. Soliforge is the most famous dwarven museary, and weapons and equipment from there are particularly highly prized (not just because they take some persuading to sell most of it). Atrapice is unusual in that it's a museary in an urban area: its tower is one of the landmarks of the city of Ridan. There are occasional faerie magesmiths working here, and they have been known to hire Elusi as guards.

Flavour-wise, there's not much question that blue and white have a strong affinity for artifacts (as it were). The main aim of this sphere was to distance it from the blue-white-black artifacts shard of Esper. To that end, I set a firm rule that no artifacts would have coloured mana in their mana costs: there's a firm delineation between the artifacts and the artificers here. A few of the white cards care about equipment rather than just any artifacts, because that seems to be clearly within this remit. I did also make occasional efforts to keep distance from the Azorius, Ravnica's white-blue guild, but that was pretty easy as the concepts don't have much in common.

Sample cards:

Soliforge Marshal 3WW   Creature – Dwarf Artificer R WW, T, sacrifice an artifact and an enchantment: Creatures you control get +2/+2 and gain first strike until end of turn. He earned his reputation at the Battle of Darkwood on the shockwave of an exploding skyship.   2/3	Master Puppetsmith 2U   Creature – Human Artificer U 3, T: Put a 1/1 Construct artifact creature token onto the battlefield. Whenever an artifact is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may draw a card.   1/1	Silvertongued Skypirate 4UU   Creature – Human Artificer Rogue R Flying U: Target creature becomes an artifact creature in addition to its other types until end of turn. 1U: Target artifact creature gains flying until end of turn. 3U: Gain control of target artifact creature with flying.   4/4
Amphitheatre of Titans 6   Artifact M 3: Each player puts a 3/3 Golem artifact creature token onto the battlefield. Any player may activate this ability. Golems block if able. WW: Creatures you control gain first strike until end of turn.	Lofty Guardian 4   Artifact Creature – Golem U 1U: Lofty Guardian gains flying until end of turn. Reminisce 1W (1W, Exile this card from your hand: Return target artifact or creature card from your graveyard to your hand.)   2/3

Instants: blue-black

The primary-blue-secondary-black sphere is themed around instants. The flavour here is that these cards represent members of several criminal factions in the urban underworld of the setting. These mafia-style gangs are constantly struggling for power, making plots and schemes and counter-plots, shifting their plans at the last minute in response to new information. There's a heavy black market in information and they often run raids on each other's hideouts. When a confrontation between two gangs does happen it's a spectacular blur of action and reaction, bait and bluff and swift changes of tactics.

There are a few specific factions whose names feature on cards. The Ecriot are information dealers whose raids tend to be focused on stealth, backed up by fierce drakes when brawn is needed. The Spidra are vampire drug barons, running a network of dealers of an addictive substance called chaze. The Condri are malicious thugs with faerie messengers. These three are factions in constant rivalry with each other. But all of them hold a nervous respect for the Elusi, who are elite and aloof infiltrators, practically undetectable mercenaries with no affiliation except to those who pay them. Each of the first three gangs is headed by a Don, represented by a legendary creature. The Ecriot appear on blue cards, the Spidra on black, and the Condri on both.

Does this fit the flavour of blue-black? Organised crime is quite classically black, but there's a long history of blue having infiltrators, dodgy merchants, information dealers and so on. Blue values knowledge and preparation, and doesn't much care whether its means are legal or not. Mechanically, on the other hand, caring about instants is classically blue; black doesn't have much history of cards which specifically like either instants or sorceries, but there'd nothing out-of-pie about it – it's no more a stretch of the colour pie than Lorwyn – Shadowmoor putting merfolk in white and black.

Whenever designing a group in Magic, there's always a need to distance it from other similar groups in other Magic sets in the past. In this case, it's the Dimir, who were a secretive underworld group of infiltrators. But they had their own purposes; they weren't really organised crime – that was the Orzhov's role – and they were very united, their conflict being against the law enforcers. My blue-black factions' primary rivalry is with each other.

Sample cards:

Fivefold Braid 4U   Instant R You may reveal exactly five instant cards from your hand. If you do, you may cast those cards without paying their mana costs. If you choose the same target for all five, draw five cards.	Fleeting Whispersilk 1U   Tribal Instant – Rogue C Creatures you control gain shroud until end of turn. Rogue creatures you control are unblockable until end of turn. The Elusi are expensive, but there are many benefits to having one on your side.	Surprise Flutter 3U   Instant C Put two 1/1 blue Faerie Rogue tokens with flying onto the battlefield. The Condri lure marks into winged ambushes to ensure they get paid.
Infiltration Raid 2U   Instant R Cast Infiltration Raid only on your turn during the declare blockers step. You may reveal a creature card from your hand and pay its mana cost. If you do, put it onto the battlefield tapped, attacking and unblocked. Draw a card.	Don Spidra the Merciless 1BB   Legendary Creature – Human Assassin R T, exile an instant card from your graveyard: Destroy target nonblack creature. "My plans are far too important to be disrupted by one such as this. Kill him."   1/1	Cryptic Demand 4UUU   Instant M Return up to one target permanent to its owner's hand. Tap all creatures you don't control. Counter up to one target spell. Draw a card.

Sorceries: black-red

The primary-black-secondary-red sphere is themed around sorceries, and its flavour is all about the Zerian church, one of the major religions in the setting. They're unashamedly a church to a demon, Eharot. They have dark chapels in most villages, and major cathedrals in the big cities. They're very big on ritual and ceremony, because that's the tie with the mechanic – most of the sorceries in these colours are flavoured as church rites of some kind. Many of the rites of the church have a very visible and specific effect. A number of them summon beings from dark etherial planes: those beings have creature type Elemental in this set. They're also correspondingly big on hierarchy: there are cardinals at the top, assorted ranks of clergy below, and the mostly terrified laity.

Oh, they're also about half vampires. I'm following Wizards' lead from Zendikar of treating Vampire as a common race type: this world's society has a lot of vampires in, and they often gravitate towards the Zerian church. The rest of the clergy are ogres or humans.

One other aspect to mention about the Zerians is their black and red aspects. The black is fairly clear: demon worship, unholy rituals, power-hungry leaders – these are all very black. The red is a bit trickier. The slant I ended up with was that the red Zerians are those who care about the emotional feelings of worship services, or about religious freedom. Emotions are an aspect of red's flavour that's well-established but rarely represented on cards; freedom is generally a red trait as well, though it fits white too. Many of the red Zerian clerics are actually heretics of some kind.

Once again I find myself running the risk of being too similar to a Ravnica guild: the groups my Zerian church want to avoid being too similar to are the Rakdos (a black-red cult to a demon) and the Orzhov (a black-white "organised religion" church). Differentiating from the Rakdos was fairly easy - just major on the ritualised meetings and avoid any themes of torture or hedonism and it's fine.

Differentiating from the Orzhov was a little more of a problem. I tried to achieve this by making the Zerians really care about their dark rituals. They're not businesspeople, and they're generally not corrupt and after extorting cash from the laity the way the Orzhov do. Many Zerian bishops and cardinals are in it for the power, because that's a very black trait; but I think there are enough differences from the Orzhov for it to be okay. The Orzhov also had thrulls and spirits rather than elementals and vampires.

One pleasing aspect of making the Zerians authentic rather than corrupt, and holding passionate beliefs rather than being in it for the cash or the socialising, is that they end up a bit more sympathetic. They're still demon-worshippers and often power-hungry, but nonetheless, taking a role that could naturally be the villains of the setting and casting them in a more nuanced light is rather satisfying.

A few sample cards:

Eleventh Rite of Eharot 4BB   Sorcery M If you have exactly 10 sorcery cards and exactly 10 other cards in your graveyard, you win the game. "The blood urns are boiling. The victims are in place. Ultimate power awaits you, Cardinal."	Chokebillows 5B   Creature – Elemental C Overpower 1B (1B: Target creature blocking Chokebillows gets -1/-1 until end of turn.) When it summons you to church, you don't say no.   5/1	Chaze-Fed Ritualist B   Creature – Human Cleric U Whenever a player casts a sorcery or instant spell, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Chaze-Fed Ritualist. His flock don't like to speculate what he's addicted to.   1/1
Pulse of Pain 2B   Sorcery C Target opponent loses 4 life. Then if you have less life than that player, return Pulse of Pain to its owner's hand. The cathedral bells toll the oppressive rhythm of the city.	Weave the Strands 2B   Sorcery U Exile target instant card from a graveyard. Put an X/X black Elemental creature token onto the battlefield, where X is that card's converted mana cost. Reminisce 2B (2B, Exile this card from your hand: Return target sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand.)	Disaffected Altarhand 2R   Creature – Ogre Cleric C Disaffected Altarhand can't attack unless you've cast a sorcery this turn. The church rituals energise him, bringing him out of his stupor. He spends the rest of the week glaring blearily at anything that comes near.   5/2

Lands: red-green

And then we have the primary-red-secondary-green sphere, mechanically focused on lands. These are associated with the wilderness spaces between and around the setting's cities. Soliforge and Ridan are both in high, mountainous country, and the road between them goes through rugged steppe country called Khert where many orc and ogre barbarians lurk.

The direct road from the Atrapice side of Ridan down to Terina on the plains is notoriously dangerous, passing beside a vast lake of lava known as Rayja. So travellers tend to take the more circuitous route through the Heaten Steppes and on through Darkwood, a forbidding forest of ferocious beasts apart from the grounds of scattered mirrorglades. All these regions are home to a number of shamans who're deeply attuned to their lands, and can sense travellers approaching from miles away. If a passing mage were to try to establish a mana bond with their land, they'd take that as a challenge, and many of them are skilled lavamancers.

When designing these cards I acquired a new respect for the Zendikar design team. It's really hard to make interesting cards that care about lands (fallingman's excellent work on Verdia notwithstanding). I tried not to reuse too many ideas from Zendikar, despite how much the set wanted (for example) a red common sorcery burn spell with "sacrifice a land" as an additional cost. But there are a few cards in the set that have abilities identical to the "landfall" abilities in Zendikar. I decided it wasn't worth going to contortions to avoid this. I have one cycle of commons which get +2 when one of their associated card types enters the battlefield (for permanents); for lands, this is identical to landfall, but oh well. I didn't give mine the "landfall" ability word, as I think this is consistent with Wizards' policies: they didn't give Chub Toad bushido. This set would have really liked Plated Geopede and Magma Rift, and perhaps in development I'll swap them in for the cards that have those slots at the moment.

As a red-green fierce wilderness group, comparisons are natural with the Gruul. I'm not that bothered about that; there are enough differences flavour-wise. And mechanically, there's much more overlap with Zendikar.

Mechanically, it was really tricky coming up with interesting things for red to do with lands. Green always gets to interact with lands, and it was partly for that reason I avoided having green the major colour for lands, in the same way as I deliberately avoided having blue be the major colour for artifacts. But this did mean I had a lot of work looking for effects that could fit in red and interact with lands. A few of the set's red cards could have been printed in green, but not that many. It did mean it took some unusual turns though. There are a vertical cycle of enchant land Auras in red, and a few in green as well, with both colours getting a rare enchant land which affects all your enchanted lands equally. Most sets wouldn't have that.

Sample cards:

Mana Scars 2R   Sorcery C Mana Scars deals 3 damage to target player. Whenever a land enters the battlefield under you control, if Mana Scars is in your graveyard, you may have Mana Scars deal 1 damage to target player.	Talespin Worldwalker 3R   Creature – Human Shaman U T, return a land card from your graveyard to your hand: Add 1R to your mana pool. She weaves tales of vistas lost, making them live again in her listeners' minds.   1/1	Unstoppable Lithosaur 3R   Creature – Lizard U Trample Overpower 1R (1R: Target creature blocking Unstoppable Lithosaur gets -1/-1 until end of turn.) The only time its hooves stop moving is when it's dead.   3/1
Scented Briarball 3G   Creature – Plant Elemental U All creatures able to block Scented Briarball do so. Overpower 2G (2G: Target creature blocking Scented Briarball gets -1/-1 until end of turn.) Fighting a thornbush is a bad idea. It's got more thorns than you have limbs.   1/1	Spitting Volcano   Land U When Spitting Volcano enters the battlefield, it deals 1 damage to target creature. T: Add 1 to your mana pool. 3R: Return Spitting Volcano to its owner's hand.	Venerated Plateau   Tribal Land – Shaman C Venerated Plateau enters the battlefield tapped. When Venerated Plateau enters the battlefield, return a land you control to its owner's hand. T: Add 1R to your mana pool. Tap an untapped Shaman creature you control: Untap Venerated Plateau.

And more

This isn't Lorwyn, where every creature is in one of the tribes. There are cards associated with multiple of the spheres, particularly a couple of cycles which key off both card types for a given colour. The majority of the cards don't specifically mention one of the five themed card types, but just work fairly well in one or more of those decks. And there are a number of other cards which don't have anything to do with the theme explicitly, but I think will be fun to play with.

Here are a few of them:

Imperturbable Guardian 4WW   Creature – Giant Soldier R Imperturbable Guardian can't become tapped. (You can't tap it to pay a cost. If an effect would tap it, it doesn't.) Vigilance Eternally alert, eternally wary.   6/6	Naughtbringer 2WW   Creature – Avatar M Flying Unblocked creatures have "6, sacrifice this creature: Destroy target permanent." It attacks not you, but what you depend on most.   3/3	Twist the Form U   Instant R Change the text of target spell or ability by replacing one permanent type with another, or by replacing instant with sorcery or vice versa. If you need loyalty or toughness, use toughness, loyalty, or converted mana cost. (Irrelevant subtypes disappear. For example, you could change "Put a 1/1 Faerie creature token" to "Put a 1-loyalty planeswalker token" or "Put an enchantment token".)
Ubiquitous Strike 1W   Instant U Until end of turn, target creature gains first strike and becomes an artifact, enchantment, and land in addition to its other types. Untap that creature. Draw a card. Peering through the sudden glare, each onlooker saw what they desired most.	Force the Hand BB   Instant R Target permanent's controller activates an activated ability of that permanent of your choice. You make all choices. (That player pays all costs, activating mana abilities as necessary. You can't make a choice that player can't pay for.) While Force the Hand is on the stack and not resolving, spells and abilities can't be played.	Demented Lavaflinger R   Creature – Human Shaman R Whenever Demented Lavaflinger deals damage to a player, that player loses half his or her life, rounded up. At the beginning of your upkeep, Demented Lavaflinger deals 3 damage to itself.   2/1
Tarmoblast 1R   Instant U Tarmoblast deals damage to target creature equal to the number of card types among cards in all graveyards. (The card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery and tribal.)	Heart for the Lost 3G   Enchantment – Aura R Enchant creature Whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to a player, you may return an exiled card you own to your hand.	Tower of Eternity   Artifact Creature Enchantment Land – Elemental M Tower of Eternity is all colours. (It isn't a spell, and it's affected by summoning sickness.) When Tower of Eternity enters the battlefield, pay WUBRG or sacrifice Tower of Eternity. T: Add two mana in any combination of colours to your mana pool. WUBRG, T: Cast a nonland card from your hand without paying its mana cost.   5/5