Bloomburrow Vision Design Handoff, Part 3

For the last two weeks (Part 1 and Part 2), I've been showing off the vision design handoff document for "Rugby," written by Doug Beyer. Today is the third and final installment.

As with all my vision design handoff articles, most of what I show you is the actual document. My notes, giving explanation and context, are in the boxes below the text.

---

Predators

Predators are large, insentient animals and are the "monsters" that the anthropomorphic animal characters must face. They might be giant owls, hawks, wolves, bears, wildcats, moose, snapping turtles, crabs, river eels, giant predatory fish, and so on. The whole gimmick of this setting is that a mouse is a normal person, so a bear, comparatively, is a terrifying monster.

Predators' mechanical identity – We looked for ways to make the predators feel huge and eye-popping while being dealt with by the small, brave animalfolk. Since most animalfolk have a low power and toughness, it's usually hard to block big creatures. We looked for ways to make large creatures that read impressively but have ways to overcome them.

Some ideas we had included predators that can be worn down over time.

Scary Bear
4G
Creature — Bear
Whenever CARDNAME is dealt damage, put that many injury counters on it.
CARDNAME gets -1/-1 for each injury counter on it.
10/10

We also experimented with having multiple creatures block predator animals.

Consumable Moose
5GG
Creature — Elk
Trample
When CARDNAME dies, if it was attacking, defending player creates a Food token for each creature blocking CARDNAME.
7/7

Some predators have drawbacks that make multiple creatures blocking them easier.

Single-Minded Bear
4GG
Creature — Bear
You can't cast spells during combat.
7/6

By giving a predator a powerful effect when entering that moved to an opponent upon death, this helped balance their scale.

Giant Grub
4W
Creature — Insect
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you gain 5 life.
When CARDNAME dies, each opponent gains 5 life.
5/5

We experimented with replicating the feeling of battles with predators.

Scareable Moose
4GG
Creature — Elk
At end of turn, if you have taken 4 or more combat damage this turn, shuffle CARDNAME into your library.
8/8

We also tried out non-Siege battles, which behaved like enchantments that could be attacked.

Battle with the Wildcat
4W
Battle
Loyalty — 5
At the beginning of your end step, exile target creature until CARDNAME leaves the battlefield.

We ran out of time before we got an expression we loved into the file, but we encourage the Set Design team to explore these directions for fun, scary, flavorful predator creatures. We're aiming for predators that you're happy to put in your deck, look scary when they hit the table, and can be defeated dramatically.

How often should predators win? – One note we got at the Vision Summit was that predators were often closing out the game, prevailing over the animalfolk in a lot of games. Ideally, the story of the set is that while predators are dangerous and occasionally win the day, the animalfolk should be able to triumph a lot of the time.

Noncreature Mechanics: Gift, Classes, Holidays, Epic Feats

"Rugby" is a very creature-focused set, so we wanted to make sure to find it a spell mechanic and other resonant designs that could live on noncreatures.

Noncreatures express the flavor of the plane, not its creatures – For the set's spells and enchantments, I wanted designs that would feel at home in the anthropomorphic animal world of "Rugby." So, we first tried a bunch of spell designs that clicked with the set's animal theme. Should we have spells that can flash back if you tap an animal. Or should we have spells that get better if you control three different creature types?

Ultimately, we realized we wanted a mechanic that wouldn't mention creatures or animals explicitly but would still evoke the flavor of the charming animal world genre. The gift mechanic, Class enchantments, Holiday cycle, and the cycle of "epic feats" were all the result.

Gift

Gift is a mechanic on instants and sorceries that lets you "kick" the spell by giving your opponent some kind of resource, such as a Food token, a 1/1 creature, or a card. Flavorfully, it represents the activity of exchanging gifts with other animals in the village; functionally, it can be a fun way to make some pretty spikey choices!

Gift is in all five colors in the handoff file, but we might want to focus on blue and red as the spell colors.

Here are some examples of the gift mechanic on various cards.

Reviver's Offering (common)
1B
Sorcery
Gift — A Food token. (You may have target opponent create a Food token.)
Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. Then if you gave the gift, you may return another target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

Shower of Pebbles (uncommon)
1R
Sorcery
Gift — A card. (You may have an opponent draw a card.)
CARDNAME deals 3 damage to any target. Then if you gave the gift, CARDNAME deals 2 damage to any other target.

Set Design did add a card with "Gift a Treasure" in red, but the three types of gifts that Vision Design handed off stayed. The thing I liked most about gifts is that they added to the tone of the plane without caring at all about the animal theme. Part of building a set is finding different ways to approach the world to increase the sense of depth.

Still "stuff" focused – A lot of the gift designs in the handoff file create Food or 1/1 Fish tokens. At the Vision Summit we got feedback that the set was very battlefield-centric and that even our spell mechanic, gift, was still often adding permanents to the battlefield. This might be ameliorated with some different gifts.

Gift on permanents? – Functionally gift is just a kicker cost, so it can really go on anything. We mostly needed it to give spells something to do, so we didn't use it much elsewhere. We experimented with gift on some rare artifacts, but the designs ended up performing strangely.

Classes

The Class enchantments in the handoff file are functionally just like the Dungeons & Dragons: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Classes, but instead of representing classes in Dungeons & Dragons, we're using them here to represent pastoral trade professions like Fisher, Merchant, Baker, or Blacksmith. We had a lot of fun creating flavorful top-down designs for them that added texture to Limited and created building challenges for Constructed. They add a lot of charm to the set, letting you lean into the feel of being an animalfolk villager with some kind of agrarian trade skill. They also give players something to focus on that isn't creatures or creature types.

Fisher Class
2U
Enchantment — Class
At the beginning of your upkeep, surveil 1.
//
Level 2 — 1U
When this class becomes level 2, return target instant, sorcery, or Fish card from your graveyard to your hand.
//
Level 3 — 3UU
You may look at the top card of your library any time.
You may cast instant, sorcery, and Fish spells from the top of your library.

Holidays

Holidays are another top-down design meant to add some additional charm and texture to the set. They are spells that tutor for a different Holiday when you cast them. They create a small build-around cycle that drafters can try to snatch up, similar to Kamigawa's Shrines. Flavorfully, they represent celebrations or festivals on this plane that are celebrated around the calendar year.

Troutsgiving Holiday
3W
Sorcery — Holiday
Create two 1/1 blue Fish creature tokens. Search your library for a Holiday card not named CARDNAME, reveal it, put it in your hand, then shuffle.

Wreath Holiday
3G
Sorcery — Holiday
Put three +1/+1 counters on target creature you control. Search your library for a Holiday card not named CARDNAME, reveal it, put it in your hand, then shuffle.

Epic Feats

The Worldbuilding team expressed an interest in animalfolk telling tales about epic feats that they or their ancestors performed, such as "bringing a feather to the highest pine tree in the valley." We looked to Kaldheim's Path to the World Tree as a way to implement this flavor.

They're enchantments with a small enters-the-battlefield (ETB) ability up front and a large effect you hope to achieve in the late game, with the flavor of getting to accomplish some kind of feat of courage and daring that would be very scary for a small animal. They're nothing new mechanically, and they don't hook onto much else in the set. They're just another way we used noncreatures to deliver some of the flavor of the setting.

I Once Crossed the Deadliest Bog
2B
Enchantment
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, target creature an opponent controls gets -4/-4 until end of turn.
5BB, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Return up to two target creature cards from your graveyard to your hand.

Food

"Rugby" has a small Food theme. There are plenty of interesting designs that create Food, and those designs fit well into the feel of the setting, so we leaned into that as the set's main noncreature token. The handoff file is probably too Food-dense overall. But, as a design tool, it worked well for the white-black-green wedge. Black-green Squirrels cares about hoarding and sacrificing Food tokens, green-white Rabbits cares about making tokens, and white-black Bats cares about life gain. Food was also a nice flavorful "gift" for the gift mechanic.

Limited Color Pair Archetypes

Each of the ten Limited color pair archetypes is themed to an animal type. We designed the archetypes to express as resonantly as possible the character and personality of that animal while providing fun gameplay that made sense in that color pair.

Not all "go wide and lords" – One of the big goals for Play Design was to make sure the animal archetypes played differently from each other. While all the animal archetypes are fairly creature-centric, we worked to push the feel of the decks away from each other, so they didn't all fall into the play pattern of "play some small creatures, cast a lord to buff them, and attack." Some are slow spellslinger decks, some are focused on graveyard interactions, and some are focused on life gain

Details on the Ten Main Archetypes

Colors	Animal	Archetype	Speed
White-Blue	Bird	Flying, buff my creatures	Mid
Blue-Black	Rat	Saboteur	Fast
Black-Red	Lizard	Bloodthirst/spectacle	Fast
Red-Green	Raccoon	Ramp/two spells	Slow
Green-White	Rabbit	Go-wide tokens	Mid
White-Black	Bat	Flying, life-change matters	Mid
Blue-Red	Otter	Spells/prowess	Mid
Blue-Green	Squirrel	Graveyard	Mid
Red-White	Mouse	Heroic	Fast
Green-Blue	Frog	Creaturefall	Slow

White-Blue Birds

Birds are helpful, chipper companions. All Birds already have flying, so white-blue Birds has a light theme. They don't share a particular line of text (other than flying) but are a helpful archetype, buffing or protecting your other creatures. White-blue Birds grants flying, stat increases, or other abilities to your fellowship team that help them get through for damage. Birds tend to be small to mid-size, from 1/1 to about 3/3. Bird creatures are at a slightly lower as-fan in the handoff file than most other animals to prevent an overabundance of flyers in the set.

Blue-Black Rats

Rats are cunning rogues and strategists. Blue-black Rats is a saboteur archetype, so most of them have abilities that trigger upon hitting the opponent or that help your creatures sneak through. Rats grant attack triggers, saboteur abilities, evasion, or other sneaky abilities to your fellowship team. Rats tend to be small, from 1/1 to about 3/2.

Black-Red Lizards

Lizards are twitchy, cold-blooded freaks who will bite you as soon as they look at you. Black-red Lizards is the "opponent has taken damage matters" archetype, so they have bloodthirst- and spectacle-like abilities, which are creatures and spells that get better if your opponent has lost life during your turn. Black-red Lizards brings pinging, removal, light evasion, and other aggressive opponent-hurting abilities to your fellowship team. Lizards tend to be small to mid-size, from 1/1 to about 3/3.

Red-Green Raccoons

Raccoons are resourceful, dumpster-diving rascals who are also the biggest of the anthropomorphic animals. Red-green Raccoons is about ramping into casting multiple spells or high–mana value spells on your turn, often using the line of text "If you've cast four or more mana value worth of spells this turn, [effect]." They have a light "trash panda" theme of getting lands out of your graveyard. Red-green Raccoons brings mana-ramping, power- and toughness-pumping, and big midrange effects to your fellowship team. They work well with Frogs and Otters. Raccoons tend to be mid-size to large, from about 2/2 to 4/4. They are the largest of the animalfolk.

Green-White Rabbits

Rabbits have huge families, reproduce quickly, and eat a lot of vegetables. Green-white Rabbits is the "go wide with tokens" archetype, with a slight subtheme of making Food tokens. Rabbits bring raw numbers to your fellowship team, letting you build a big army of attackers or helping you trigger creaturefall abilities. Rabbits tend to be small to mid-size, from 1/1 to about 3/2.

White-Black Bats

Bats are winged hunters that feed on blood. Other than having flyers, white-black Bats is a "life total changes" archetype, with various triggers that care about whether your life total has gone up or down. White-black Bats offers flying attackers, lifelink, and life payment to your fellowship team. They work well with Food tokens generated by Rabbits and Squirrels. Bats tend to be small, from 1/1 to about 2/3. Bat creatures are at a slightly lower as-fan in the handoff file than most other animalfolk to prevent an overabundance of flyers in the set.

Blue-Red Otters

Otters are clever, playful tricksters who are always up to antics. Blue-red Otters is about casting noncreature spells, with a lot of effects like prowess, small cantrips, combat tricks, removal spells, and ways to recover instants and sorceries from your graveyard. They offer card filtering, finishers, and controlling elements to your fellowship team. Otters tend to be mid-size to large, from about 2/2 to 4/4.

Black-Green Squirrels

Squirrels are scurrying hoarders who bury acorns and dig them back up later. Black-green Squirrels is a graveyard archetype with a subtheme of Food, often using the line of text "Exile two cards from your graveyard or sacrifice a Food: [effect]." They offer midrange creatures, graveyard filling, milling, card filtering, and Food creation to your fellowship team. Squirrels tend to be small, from 1/1 to about 2/3.

Red-White Mice

Mice are small, brave heroes who defend their community with courage. Red-white Mice is a go-wide "heroic" archetype, with a lot of small creatures that get benefits from being targeted with combat tricks. In the handoff file as written, most Mice benefit from spells targeting them and abilities. This lets Mice trigger from buffs given by other animal creatures in their fellowship. It remains to be seen whether that's too flexible. This difference in templating is what makes them different from Theros's heroic ability, which we saw as upside. Red-white Mice offers speed, combat tricks, and aggression to your fellowship team. Mice tend to be quite small, from 1/1 to about 2/2. They're the smallest of the animalfolk.

Green-Blue Frogs

Frogs are amphibians that hop, evolve over their lifetimes, and catch bugs. Green-blue Frogs is a "creaturefall" archetype, with a lot of triggers for creatures entering the battlefield, as well as ways to flicker and bounce your own creatures for benefit. That input is a little abstract for the flavor of frogs, so we tried to make sure that Frogs also have some froggy-feeling outputs—they get +1/+1 counters (like tadpoles growing up into frogs), gain temporary flying (hopping), and gain reach (to gobble up insects). Green-blue Frogs offers the ability to reuse ETB abilities, build clever creature-focused engines, and give +1/+1 counters to your fellowship team. Frogs tend to be small to mid-size, from 1/1 to about 3/3.

Triad Strategies

We looked at the three-color triads to make sure that each color pair was getting some fun strategic overlap from its adjacent colors and color pairs. Big thanks to Daniel Xu for constructing this table (these are his comments, with some of my tweaks).

Triad	Animals	Missing	Themes	Speed	Description
White-Blue-Black	Bird, Bat, Rat	Raccoon	Evasive  Saboteur	FMM	Birds and Bats grant buffs and evasion to race and help your Rats connect for saboteur triggers. Rats give card advantage back to the fliers. This triad wants to snowball and is bad at blocking and stabilizing from behind.
Blue-Red-White	Bird, Mouse, Otter	Squirrel	Heroic  Spells	FMM	Otters incentivize spells, Mice incentivize targeted spells, and Birds turn on Mouse heroic. An attacking triad centered around pumping your Otters and Mice. Needs some setup, very soft to removal, and bad from behind.
Green-White-Blue	Bird, Frog, Rabbit	Lizard	Go Wide	MMS	Rabbits provide early tokens that Birds and Frogs can power up. The empowered tokens then hold down the ground while your boosted fliers attack. The slowest Bird triad.
Red-White-Black	Bat, Lizard, Mouse	Frog	Aggro	FFM	Bats provide multiple avenues for damage to turn on spectacle for Lizards, while Mice are hasty and generally strong in combat. Rush your opponents down early, and finish with empowered Lizards and direct damage.
White-Black-Green	Bat, Rabbit, Squirrel	Otter	Food	MMM	Rabbits and Squirrels incidentally generate and consume Food, which triggers your Bats that care about life change. Stall out the ground and grind out incremental advantage.
Red-Green-White	Mouse, Raccoon, Rabbit	Rat	Midrange	FMS	A straightforward triad that plays to the board. Your creatures are just better on rate, so you can dominate the midgame and go over the top with Raccoons.
Blue-Black-Red	Rat, Lizard, Otter	Rabbit	Spell  Saboteur	FFM	Rats and Lizards really want to get through. This triad enables that through strong removal and tempo spells, granting saboteur triggers, enabling spectacle, and turning on prowess. Leans heavily on getting enough spells, since creatures are individually weak.
Black-Green-Blue	Rat, Squirrel, Frog	Mouse	Good Stuff	FMS	Seems like a good stuff triad to me; Frogs buff a board over time, Rats provide card advantage when they connect, and Squirrels eat the graveyard, so every zone is being utilized. Frogs trigger on recasting Squirrels and Rats. The value is slow, so Rats don't fit particularly well here.
Green-Blue-Red	Otter, Frog, Raccoon	Bat	Ramp	MSS	The slowest triad. Wants to use Otter removal to survive the early game while you ramp and build the fattest board possible with Raccoons and Frogs as mana sinks.
Black-Red-Green	Lizard, Raccoon, Squirrel	Bird	Graveyard  Good Stuff	FMS	Another value triad. Like black-green-blue in that Lizards don't fit great with Raccoons and Squirrels. Squirrels let you recur or even reanimate your Raccoons, which could be cool.

Closing Thoughts

Our biggest goal for this vision design was to enable players to enjoy a Magic setting as much as they enjoy the genre. It was a cool opportunity to think about typal in new ways, prioritize the charming and delightful in mechanical design, and lean into people's love of animals. Big thanks to my Vision Design team for their innovative brains and diligent work, the Worldbuilding team for their inspiring creative work and their flexibility as the set changed, Jess Dunks for his rules feedback, and especially Mark Rosewater for his guidance and mentorship on my first set as a vision design lead.

Doug Beyer
June, 2022

---

It took three weeks, but that's all of the Bloomburrow Vision Design Handoff Document. As you can see, there are a lot of ideas that didn't end up making it to print, along with many that did. I hope you enjoyed reading it. As always, I'm eager for feedback, be it on the articles, the mechanics discussed, or Bloomburrow in general. You can email me or contact me through any of my social media accounts (X, Tumblr, Instagram, and TikTok).

Join me next week for a look into the stages of design.

Until then, may you enjoy all that Bloomburrow has to offer.