Just had an idea and haven't really thought it through myself yet, but card frames have a background color and a border color (I don't mean black/white/silver border, but around the text boxes). For example on the cheetah, would it make sense to have the background color be green and the border color be white?
Under the assumption that Blue Hurricanes are fine, all these cards seem fine. I think I'd rather see Blue Hurricanes at uncommon, though.
I like all of these a lot, but I think giving Aphetto Hypnotist intimidate might be pushing a little too hard on the concept, especially at common. New players aren't necessarily a concern in a custom or expert set, though they'll be most confused, but I feel like the first round of these cards should ease everybody in. I'd opt for deathtouch instead.
I decided last night that Dominaria is going to focus on ally pairs / enemy triads, and Icefall is going to focus on enemy pairs / ally triads.
Are you sure this is a good idea ? When you promote UW you're indireclty promoting any shard with UW in it. When you promote WBR you're indireclty promoting wb, wr and br as well.
You're adding like 20 color subthemes in each one of your set and making the life of people who play triads a lot harder by not providing dual coloed cards...
Anyway, I don't like the "blue hurricane" concept either. Colors and cost are something so basic in mtg, to mess with it demands a big mechanical relevanceand i'm not seen it here. I might be wrong through !
I'm just going to go ahead and crank out the uncommon cycle while the inspiration is striking me:
Kifalme Skirmisher1G
• Creature - Human Soldier [U]
(This card is always white, not green.)
When Kifalme Skirmisher enters the battlefield, you may have it fight target creature.
[2/2]
Tolarian Unicorn1W
• Creature - Unicorn [U]
(This card is always blue, not white.)
Lifelink
When Tolarian Unicorn enters the battlefield, return target permanent you own to your hand.
[2/3]
Company Decoy2U
• Creature - Siren [U]
(This card is always black, not blue.)
:symtap:: Target creature an opponent controls attacks you this turn if able. When that creature dies this turn, if it was attacking you, draw a card. Activate this ability only during the beginning of combat step.
[1/2]
Ghitu BonesB
• Creature - Skeleton [U]
(This card is always red, not black.)
Whenever another creature you control dies, you may pay :symb:. If you do, return Ghitu Bones from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
You're adding like 20 color subthemes in each one of your set and making the life of people who play triads a lot harder by not providing dual coloed cards...
One thing I should mention is that this isn't like Ravnica / Alara where the theme is "play this Guild" or "play this Shard." I'm going back to Ice Age / Invasion "everything in the pot" multicolor, so the inducement here is to play as many colors as you can manage. I think the way I've divided it up allows for this to happen without having Dominaria becoming "the ally set" and Icefall becoming "the enemy set."
These are a pretty solid batch of commons/uncommons, the only one I really don't like right now is the Shivan Slagform. Mechanically it's fine, but I thought that one of the points of the blue hurricanes was to expand the number of colors of your permanents, to play into your other Dominaria mechanics. Since the Slagform is guaranteed to only last a turn, it's main purpose (as I see it) is mostly lost.
These are a pretty solid batch of commons/uncommons, the only one I really don't like right now is the Shivan Slagform. Mechanically it's fine, but I thought that one of the points of the blue hurricanes was to expand the number of colors of your permanents, to play into your other Dominaria mechanics. Since the Slagform is guaranteed to only last a turn, it's main purpose (as I see it) is mostly lost.
Yeah, I had that struggle with it, too.
I tried compensating for that with Ghitu Bones, which has rather the opposite problem, but in the same color pair.
(Granted, that doesn't help you get black on the board any easier, but I am OK with the colors operating a little differently from one another. My other idea was that Shivan Slagform could help you pull off a surprise assault with Spectrum, if I end up using that mechanic or something like it.)
You can Decoy an opposing creature outside of combat then cast a removal spell on it, or Decoy an opponent's chump-blocking creature, to get a free card. Was this intended?
You can Decoy an opposing creature outside of combat then cast a removal spell on it, or Decoy an opponent's chump-blocking creature, to get a free card. Was this intended?
Forgive my ignorance... what is the purpose of Blue Hurricane cards?
The Coalition faction has a "play more colors" angle. (Mechanically speaking, I'm not sure how that will be represented, because my other Coalition mechanics haven't really gelled so far.) In any case, the idea behind these "Blue Hurricanes" is that you can get more colors on the battlefield with less of a mana base. That, in theory, should be a significant benefit when all is said and done with the set's mechanics.
I also think they're kind of cool in-and-of themselves, but "play more colors" is the mechanical justification.
"Activate this ability only during an opponent's turn, before attackers are declared" does what you want. (As written, it can't activate during the beginning of combat step, which is when you want to use your Alluring Siren/Master Decoy-type effects.)
Ghitu Bones and Femeref Skirmisher don't feel sufficiently red and white (respectively.) Femeref Skirmisher can slide, I guess, but I really suggest you work on improving it. Ghitu Bones though... that's just not red at all.
Tolarian Unicorn would feel more blue if you made it actually work as a rescue spell. As it is... I just dislike the design. I get it, but I dislike it.
Aphetto Hypnotist is close, but not quite there - it only feels blue when you think of intimidate as weirdo-unblockable.
I agree with the sentiments re: Slagform. Consider having it instead sacrifice for an effect?
Also if you did not know, there's a set at MSE called Keltz that also uses the 'Blue Hurricane' mechanic. (He's been working on it for a while; I helped him with his initial grapplings with the mechanic.) Might want to check it out for some inspiration. He focuses more on enemy colors and nonpermanents, though.
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What kind of color pie do you apply to them? Only the color you pay for them or (as the previous poster suggests) hybrid colors.
I personally would like clearly hybrid abilities or something that's distinctively not available to the overwritten color.
The mock-ups are not significantly different enough - you really should use both the mana cost color as well as the overwritten color in the frame. Remember that frames are an important signifier in the deck building stage and hence also Limited. You want players to be able to look at the frame and put those cards into the right pile more easily than the current mock-ups allow.
I think differentiating between the outer frame and text box color can achieve that. But I also say it's necessary to make this work well.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
What kind of color pie do you apply to them? Only the color you pay for them or (as the previous poster suggests) hybrid colors.
I am not using hybrid pie for these. They are all supposed to be very clearly something that the mechancis of the mana cost color could do, but that the card frame color can't do. But ideally, I would like them all to be big flavor wins for the card frame color. From a top-down (flavor-driven) perspective, these should all be rock-solid designs.
Some of them are closer than others. Besides the ones I've mocked up so far (Karoo Cheetah, Llanowar Goblins, and Company Decoy) I'm quite happy with Aphetto Hypnotist, Femeref Skirmishers, and Elfhame Spirit Channeler. The and ones need a little flavor help, IMO, and that means also possibly a mechanical overhaul in a couple cases. I don't think the / cards are bad, but I don't think they're the best ambassadors of this mechanic, either.
I know you want to use this to enable your Coalesce mechanic
I'm not even sure if I'm using that mechanic in this set anymore, so this particular act of trying to sleuth out my intentions is not quite on point.
While I acknowledge (and have acknowledged since the beginning) that hybrid cards would be an easy, established answer for the mechanics I'm trying to build in this set, I'm also trying very hard to do something new. Because if this is just Ravnica 3.0 / Shadowmoor 2.0, there is no reason for me to waste my time trying to do it.
It wouldn't be Rav 3.0 if you only used {2W}, {2U}, etc...
If you stick with Blue Hurricanes, in MSE you could use the Hybrid/Vertical border with the mana cost color for the upper portion of the border and the actual color of the card on the lower to visually convey that a card is a Blue Hurricane.
It wouldn't be Rav 3.0 if you only used {2W}, {2U}, etc...
If you stick with Blue Hurricanes, in MSE you could use the Hybrid/Vertical border with the mana cost color for the upper portion of the border and the actual color of the card on the lower to visually convey that a card is a Blue Hurricane.
I like the look of your suggestion in MSE. I think the vertical gradient signals "There's something different about this card," which I definitely want to signal to players.
My concern is that it's providing them with inaccurate information. The card isn't blue, regardless of its mana cost, so why would it have a blue frame? Even moreso than when you're drafting out of a pack, you want to be able to look down at your board state and be able to easily say 'That's blue" or "That's black." If you have a gradient card frame, the assumption would be that it's 2-colors, but it's not.
There are three points of signaling on each of these cards. First, the mana cost that doesn't match the frame. Second, the presence of a color-indidcator dot. Third, the reminder text. I think those three things triangulate the "There's something different about this card" factor pretty well. But if people still don't think it's enough, maybe there could be something like a night/day indicator or an enchantment frame overlay.
The more I think about it, probably the best solution would just be to revise the color indicator dot a little bit so that it's more visible. That's not something I can do in MSE with my skills, but I think if that dot is as big / as graphical as a night/day indicator, you would not have any kind of problem.
I think these could be more interesting if they were an enemy-color set. With type changes, you could set it in such a way that the blue one becomes green, the black one becomes white, the red one....uhh, doesn't work as-is, the green one becomes black and the white one becomes red.
A possible redesign for the red one:
Shivan Slagform2R
Creature - Elemental (c) (This card is blue, not red, even if it's not on the battlefield.)
Maybe worded like Fog Elemental? However, I'm not sure if these should be mechanics that so easily could just be hybrid cards. It might be better to do mechanics that fit with the color of the mana cost but would be an obvious color bleed in the color of the card frame.
I decided last night that Dominaria is going to focus on ally pairs / enemy triads, and Icefall is going to focus on enemy pairs / ally triads.
Grouping with ally pairs/enemy wedges and enemy pairs/ally arcs, while maybe more interesting since it is a little further from Alara design, would be more restrictive for draft. For example, for ally pairs, if you start drafting WU and you want to expand to a third color, then you are pretty much locked into RWU. Likewise, for enemy pairs, if you start drafting WB, then you need to expand into WUB.
Grouping with ally pairs/ally arcs and enemy pairs/enemy wedges would be easier for draft because both groupings utilize a main color that branches into two other colors. For example, for ally colors, if you start drafting with WU, then you have the option of expanding into GWU or WUB. Likewise, for enemy colors, if you start drafting WB, then you have the option of expanding into WBR or BGW.
I like all of these a lot, but I think giving Aphetto Hypnotist intimidate might be pushing a little too hard on the concept, especially at common. New players aren't necessarily a concern in a custom or expert set, though they'll be most confused, but I feel like the first round of these cards should ease everybody in. I'd opt for deathtouch instead.
I was thinking the other way. Intimidate is the one that gets a significant mechanical change with an alternate color. This kind of design, especially at common, should be looking for simple mechanics where the color shift is mechanically relevant. Even just a small mechanical change like, for example, a Sparkmage Apprentice variant with a red mana cost but that is another color could work because it would, like Ghostfire, allow it to get around protection from red.
Colored pinstripes have been used pretty consistently on colored artifacts to show the color of the card, from Sarcomite Myr to Esper Battlemage to Bident of Thassa. If there is anything funky with the mixing of border colors, I think it would go the other way. i.e.: make the background the color of the mana cost and the pinstripe the color of the card. I know that making the card frame all the same off-color was the original seed of the idea, but I do worry about having an obvious indicator to highlight that it is different from normal cards.
Academy Trustees - Looting in white is a decent bleed, but 0/3 defender feels too white. Could this just be a 1/1?
Aphetto Hypnotist - Intimidate is really close to a blue mechanic, so this could maybe work even better shifted to another color. Maybe as a 1B white card? I like the idea for using deathtouch here.
Shivan Slagform - Mechanics that red has but black does not... Hard to think of. Black has haste, and black has sacrificing creatures... Anything really aggro-heavy might feel like too much overlap, like it could just be a hybrid card. Maybe looting? Maybe "T: Target creature gets +N/+0 ueot"?
Llanowar Goblins - This could technically be done like Avacyn's Pilgrim without the color change, but the colored mana is still a nice enough difference from a mana Elf to allow this to not feel too weird.
Karoo Cheetah - Green doesn't usually get first strike, so it is a good off-color mechanic. I do want to see at least one green bordered card in these cycles with flying though. Either the white mana cost or the blue mana cost could work for the flying green card.
Femeref Skirmisher - ehh... Fight is green's poor removal. White doesn't have cards with fight, but it still has better removal so I don't think this is as strong of a bleed as it could be. Maybe something like a 3G 4/3 Elephant with trample?
Tolarian Unicorn - Lifelink is a good bleed. But the bounce is too much of a hybrid mechanic. A Unicorn could have first strike and lifelink, which are two non-blue mechanics.
Company Decoy - The Siren ability has been in blue, black, and red. If you are using this mechanic in this cycle, then I think it needs to be either white or green. For blue mana cost black card you could do something protective like shroud/hexproof.
Ghitu Bones - Interesting. The return cost probably still needs to be 1B like Tenacious Dead so it isn't too easy to combo. It triggering on other creatures dieing does also harder to permanently stop it since your opponent can't time removal to when you are tapped out to stop it.
Elfhame Spirit Channeler - Too much of a red-green hybrid mechanic. This kind of mana could work in either white or blue for this cycle. Maybe the red mana green card should have first strike so that the white mana green card could have flying?
EDIT: Two mock-ups of how I think the border could be more visually distinct. I like the gradient of the second, but it has visual artifacts around P/T in MSE.
If you really must use these, at least make them all uncommon. They're much too complicated for common even without the rules text, and what you've got for the uncommons should really be rare. I guarantee players will play these for the wrong colors of mana accidentally.
I like the look of your suggestion in MSE. I think the vertical gradient signals "There's something different about this card," which I definitely want to signal to players.
My concern is that it's providing them with inaccurate information. The card isn't blue, regardless of its mana cost, so why would it have a blue frame? Even moreso than when you're drafting out of a pack, you want to be able to look down at your board state and be able to easily say 'That's blue" or "That's black." If you have a gradient card frame, the assumption would be that it's 2-colors, but it's not.
There are three points of signaling on each of these cards. First, the mana cost that doesn't match the frame. Second, the presence of a color-indidcator dot. Third, the reminder text. I think those three things triangulate the "There's something different about this card" factor pretty well. But if people still don't think it's enough, maybe there could be something like a night/day indicator or an enchantment frame overlay.
The more I think about it, probably the best solution would just be to revise the color indicator dot a little bit so that it's more visible. That's not something I can do in MSE with my skills, but I think if that dot is as big / as graphical as a night/day indicator, you would not have any kind of problem.
If you really must use these, at least make them all uncommon. They're much too complicated for common even without the rules text, and what you've got for the uncommons should really be rare. I guarantee players will play these for the wrong colors of mana accidentally.
I don't think Blue Hurricanes are too complicated for an advanced set, but I think the common ones should be mechanical vanillas or French vanillas since ultimately they only exist to serve a greater mechanical purpose. (They also present a cool flavor twist, but that's an aside. The flavor twist would add an extra dimension to vanilla that it isn't usually capable of.)
I don't think Blue Hurricanes are too complicated for an advanced set, but I think the common ones should be mechanical vanillas or French vanillas since ultimately they only exist to serve a greater mechanical purpose. (They also present a cool flavor twist, but that's an aside. The flavor twist would add an extra dimension to vanilla that it isn't usually capable of.)
I think vanilla ones are probably alright at common, but they eat up a lot of complexity points...
As I understand it, these cards are meant to help you assemble more colors among permanents. What is the use then for a creature that sacrifices itself at the end of turn?
I like Llanowar Goblins and Aphetto Hypnotist, because here the off-color makes sense (from flavor and from mechanics respectively), but for the others it doesn't. You said you don't want these to be hybrid designs, but they need something that connects them with the off-color. There is nothing green about Karoo Cheetah and nothing black about Shivan Slagform.
• Creature - Merfolk Advisor [C]
(This card is always white, not blue.)
Defender
:symtap:: Draw a card, then discard a card.
[0/3]
• Creature - Vampire Wizard [C]
(This card is always blue, not black.)
Intimidate
[2/1]
• Creature - Elemental [C]
(This card is always black, not red.)
Trample, haste
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice Shivan Slagform.
[5/1]
• Creature - Goblin Druid [C]
(This card is always red, not green.)
:symtap:: Add to your mana pool.
[1/1]
• Creature - Cat [C]
(This card is always green, not white.)
First strike
[3/1]
Under the assumption that Blue Hurricanes are fine, all these cards seem fine. I think I'd rather see Blue Hurricanes at uncommon, though.
I decided last night that Dominaria is going to focus on ally pairs / enemy triads, and Icefall is going to focus on enemy pairs / ally triads.
"Blue Hurricanes" are all going to be split up between the sets as color pairs, rather than triads.
This cycle is definitely going to extend into Icefall, so those enemy-color "Blue Hurricane" designs will be possible there.
I'm planning on one common cycle and one uncommon cycle in each set. (The uncommon cycle will go in the opposite direction around the color wheel.)
Are you sure this is a good idea ? When you promote UW you're indireclty promoting any shard with UW in it. When you promote WBR you're indireclty promoting wb, wr and br as well.
You're adding like 20 color subthemes in each one of your set and making the life of people who play triads a lot harder by not providing dual coloed cards...
Anyway, I don't like the "blue hurricane" concept either. Colors and cost are something so basic in mtg, to mess with it demands a big mechanical relevanceand i'm not seen it here. I might be wrong through !
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
• Creature - Human Soldier [U]
(This card is always white, not green.)
When Kifalme Skirmisher enters the battlefield, you may have it fight target creature.
[2/2]
• Creature - Unicorn [U]
(This card is always blue, not white.)
Lifelink
When Tolarian Unicorn enters the battlefield, return target permanent you own to your hand.
[2/3]
• Creature - Siren [U]
(This card is always black, not blue.)
:symtap:: Target creature an opponent controls attacks you this turn if able. When that creature dies this turn, if it was attacking you, draw a card. Activate this ability only during the beginning of combat step.
[1/2]
• Creature - Skeleton [U]
(This card is always red, not black.)
Whenever another creature you control dies, you may pay :symb:. If you do, return Ghitu Bones from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
[1/1]
• Creature - Elf Shaman [U]
(This card is always green, not red.)
When Elfhame Spirit Channeler enters the battlefield, add GGG to your mana pool.
[2/1]
That would, in theory, represent the totality of "Blue Hurricanes" for Dominaria.
Yep! Check out the mockup for the Karoo Cheetah that I linked in the first post.
One thing I should mention is that this isn't like Ravnica / Alara where the theme is "play this Guild" or "play this Shard." I'm going back to Ice Age / Invasion "everything in the pot" multicolor, so the inducement here is to play as many colors as you can manage. I think the way I've divided it up allows for this to happen without having Dominaria becoming "the ally set" and Icefall becoming "the enemy set."
Yeah, I had that struggle with it, too.
I tried compensating for that with Ghitu Bones, which has rather the opposite problem, but in the same color pair.
(Granted, that doesn't help you get black on the board any easier, but I am OK with the colors operating a little differently from one another. My other idea was that Shivan Slagform could help you pull off a surprise assault with Spectrum, if I end up using that mechanic or something like it.)
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Nope. I will fix it.
The Coalition faction has a "play more colors" angle. (Mechanically speaking, I'm not sure how that will be represented, because my other Coalition mechanics haven't really gelled so far.) In any case, the idea behind these "Blue Hurricanes" is that you can get more colors on the battlefield with less of a mana base. That, in theory, should be a significant benefit when all is said and done with the set's mechanics.
I also think they're kind of cool in-and-of themselves, but "play more colors" is the mechanical justification.
Me too. Especially when you see the visual. Same with the "snow" border cards.
"Activate this ability only during an opponent's turn, before attackers are declared" does what you want. (As written, it can't activate during the beginning of combat step, which is when you want to use your Alluring Siren/Master Decoy-type effects.)
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Tolarian Unicorn would feel more blue if you made it actually work as a rescue spell. As it is... I just dislike the design. I get it, but I dislike it.
Aphetto Hypnotist is close, but not quite there - it only feels blue when you think of intimidate as weirdo-unblockable.
I agree with the sentiments re: Slagform. Consider having it instead sacrifice for an effect?
Also if you did not know, there's a set at MSE called Keltz that also uses the 'Blue Hurricane' mechanic. (He's been working on it for a while; I helped him with his initial grapplings with the mechanic.) Might want to check it out for some inspiration. He focuses more on enemy colors and nonpermanents, though.
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I personally would like clearly hybrid abilities or something that's distinctively not available to the overwritten color.
The mock-ups are not significantly different enough - you really should use both the mana cost color as well as the overwritten color in the frame. Remember that frames are an important signifier in the deck building stage and hence also Limited. You want players to be able to look at the frame and put those cards into the right pile more easily than the current mock-ups allow.
I think differentiating between the outer frame and text box color can achieve that. But I also say it's necessary to make this work well.
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I am not using hybrid pie for these. They are all supposed to be very clearly something that the mechancis of the mana cost color could do, but that the card frame color can't do. But ideally, I would like them all to be big flavor wins for the card frame color. From a top-down (flavor-driven) perspective, these should all be rock-solid designs.
Some of them are closer than others. Besides the ones I've mocked up so far (Karoo Cheetah, Llanowar Goblins, and Company Decoy) I'm quite happy with Aphetto Hypnotist, Femeref Skirmishers, and Elfhame Spirit Channeler. The and ones need a little flavor help, IMO, and that means also possibly a mechanical overhaul in a couple cases. I don't think the / cards are bad, but I don't think they're the best ambassadors of this mechanic, either.
I'm not even sure if I'm using that mechanic in this set anymore, so this particular act of trying to sleuth out my intentions is not quite on point.
While I acknowledge (and have acknowledged since the beginning) that hybrid cards would be an easy, established answer for the mechanics I'm trying to build in this set, I'm also trying very hard to do something new. Because if this is just Ravnica 3.0 / Shadowmoor 2.0, there is no reason for me to waste my time trying to do it.
If you stick with Blue Hurricanes, in MSE you could use the Hybrid/Vertical border with the mana cost color for the upper portion of the border and the actual color of the card on the lower to visually convey that a card is a Blue Hurricane.
I like the look of your suggestion in MSE. I think the vertical gradient signals "There's something different about this card," which I definitely want to signal to players.
My concern is that it's providing them with inaccurate information. The card isn't blue, regardless of its mana cost, so why would it have a blue frame? Even moreso than when you're drafting out of a pack, you want to be able to look down at your board state and be able to easily say 'That's blue" or "That's black." If you have a gradient card frame, the assumption would be that it's 2-colors, but it's not.
There are three points of signaling on each of these cards. First, the mana cost that doesn't match the frame. Second, the presence of a color-indidcator dot. Third, the reminder text. I think those three things triangulate the "There's something different about this card" factor pretty well. But if people still don't think it's enough, maybe there could be something like a night/day indicator or an enchantment frame overlay.
The more I think about it, probably the best solution would just be to revise the color indicator dot a little bit so that it's more visible. That's not something I can do in MSE with my skills, but I think if that dot is as big / as graphical as a night/day indicator, you would not have any kind of problem.
Maybe worded like Fog Elemental? However, I'm not sure if these should be mechanics that so easily could just be hybrid cards. It might be better to do mechanics that fit with the color of the mana cost but would be an obvious color bleed in the color of the card frame.
Grouping with ally pairs/enemy wedges and enemy pairs/ally arcs, while maybe more interesting since it is a little further from Alara design, would be more restrictive for draft. For example, for ally pairs, if you start drafting WU and you want to expand to a third color, then you are pretty much locked into RWU. Likewise, for enemy pairs, if you start drafting WB, then you need to expand into WUB.
Grouping with ally pairs/ally arcs and enemy pairs/enemy wedges would be easier for draft because both groupings utilize a main color that branches into two other colors. For example, for ally colors, if you start drafting with WU, then you have the option of expanding into GWU or WUB. Likewise, for enemy colors, if you start drafting WB, then you have the option of expanding into WBR or BGW.
I was thinking the other way. Intimidate is the one that gets a significant mechanical change with an alternate color. This kind of design, especially at common, should be looking for simple mechanics where the color shift is mechanically relevant. Even just a small mechanical change like, for example, a Sparkmage Apprentice variant with a red mana cost but that is another color could work because it would, like Ghostfire, allow it to get around protection from red.
Colored pinstripes have been used pretty consistently on colored artifacts to show the color of the card, from Sarcomite Myr to Esper Battlemage to Bident of Thassa. If there is anything funky with the mixing of border colors, I think it would go the other way. i.e.: make the background the color of the mana cost and the pinstripe the color of the card. I know that making the card frame all the same off-color was the original seed of the idea, but I do worry about having an obvious indicator to highlight that it is different from normal cards.
Academy Trustees - Looting in white is a decent bleed, but 0/3 defender feels too white. Could this just be a 1/1?
Aphetto Hypnotist - Intimidate is really close to a blue mechanic, so this could maybe work even better shifted to another color. Maybe as a 1B white card? I like the idea for using deathtouch here.
Shivan Slagform - Mechanics that red has but black does not... Hard to think of. Black has haste, and black has sacrificing creatures... Anything really aggro-heavy might feel like too much overlap, like it could just be a hybrid card. Maybe looting? Maybe "T: Target creature gets +N/+0 ueot"?
Llanowar Goblins - This could technically be done like Avacyn's Pilgrim without the color change, but the colored mana is still a nice enough difference from a mana Elf to allow this to not feel too weird.
Karoo Cheetah - Green doesn't usually get first strike, so it is a good off-color mechanic. I do want to see at least one green bordered card in these cycles with flying though. Either the white mana cost or the blue mana cost could work for the flying green card.
Femeref Skirmisher - ehh... Fight is green's poor removal. White doesn't have cards with fight, but it still has better removal so I don't think this is as strong of a bleed as it could be. Maybe something like a 3G 4/3 Elephant with trample?
Tolarian Unicorn - Lifelink is a good bleed. But the bounce is too much of a hybrid mechanic. A Unicorn could have first strike and lifelink, which are two non-blue mechanics.
Company Decoy - The Siren ability has been in blue, black, and red. If you are using this mechanic in this cycle, then I think it needs to be either white or green. For blue mana cost black card you could do something protective like shroud/hexproof.
Ghitu Bones - Interesting. The return cost probably still needs to be 1B like Tenacious Dead so it isn't too easy to combo. It triggering on other creatures dieing does also harder to permanently stop it since your opponent can't time removal to when you are tapped out to stop it.
Elfhame Spirit Channeler - Too much of a red-green hybrid mechanic. This kind of mana could work in either white or blue for this cycle. Maybe the red mana green card should have first strike so that the white mana green card could have flying?
EDIT: Two mock-ups of how I think the border could be more visually distinct. I like the gradient of the second, but it has visual artifacts around P/T in MSE.
You're right on all points.
I don't think Blue Hurricanes are too complicated for an advanced set, but I think the common ones should be mechanical vanillas or French vanillas since ultimately they only exist to serve a greater mechanical purpose. (They also present a cool flavor twist, but that's an aside. The flavor twist would add an extra dimension to vanilla that it isn't usually capable of.)
I think vanilla ones are probably alright at common, but they eat up a lot of complexity points...
Maybe just a horizontal cycle of flavorful vanilla or French vanilla common creatures is is the way to go?
I like Llanowar Goblins and Aphetto Hypnotist, because here the off-color makes sense (from flavor and from mechanics respectively), but for the others it doesn't. You said you don't want these to be hybrid designs, but they need something that connects them with the off-color. There is nothing green about Karoo Cheetah and nothing black about Shivan Slagform.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!