MTG (Magic the Gathering) Land Nodes

First, I'd like to mention tht you don't need to be knowledgeable about mtg to help.
Well, I'm working on a mtg themed map where the goal is to capture all its land nodes. I'm having trouble deciding on what these nodes should do. Examples: mana bonus, decreased spell cooldowns, defense auras, etc.. I welcome any and all ideas you have. Thanks.




Here are my own ideas and a little more info on the subject, however it isn't necessary to read if you're in a hurry:

One possibility is to give a small mana income bonus for each, but it can't be too large or else it would start a snowball effect.
Since there are five land types, I'm also trying to think of some way that each type might do something a little different specifically for its color. An idea for this might be to lower the cooldown of all red type skills by one second for each red node captured. And as a player will have access to each color's skill tree at once, should they be able to change the color of a node after it's captured?
One more thing to consider: destructables such as trees (green) or rocks (red) as targets of spells in these nodes.

Skill tree explaination:
Each player will be able to learn skills from any of five color skill trees, each tree with three tiers and receiving maybe six skill points throughout a game. So a player can choose to focus on a couple colors, learning higher level skills in those areas, or learn lower level skills in a diversity of colors.

I think this fits more into general development.

Alright, thanks.

well it depends on how large of a role land will play in your game. I played a lot of MTG back in the day, and as for the card game, how many spells you cast is dependendant directly on how much land you have. Maybe every land you get unlocks a skill point for spells of that color? Or if you don't want land to play that large of a role, lowering the cooldown for that type of spell is also a really good idea. Also, you definitely have to allow the owner to change the color of the land, so people that focus all into one color don't get the short end of the stick. Maybe make it so that the effect depreciates in some way, so that stacking all in one color isn't overpowered. for instance, 6 red nodes would cut cooldown by 9 seconds, while 3 for green and 3 for red would cut both cooldowns by 5-6.
that's kinda a lot of outpour, just first thoughts when reading your post.

Hey FadedImage, thanks for your input.

I like how you're idea. I'm planning on having around 36 lands to capture among six players, so I'll have to think more about how that would work.

I agree. Perhaps giving them a choice of land type when a player first captures it. Then they would have to plan ahead since it would take mana to change later.

Exponential depreciation sounds like a good idea for balance.

My thought: If you want to base something on MTG, you either make a direct copy of the game (difficult and potentialy boring to play) or you make a game heavily inspired by a part of the MTG lore and having gameplay elements reminiscent of the MTG gameplay mechanics. Anything less does not deserve to carry the name MTG, make up your own thing in that case.

It is heavily inspired. However, I'm not just going to copy the game and sacrifice original gameplay in my map. Not to mention playing mtgo is more fun than playing a wc3 emulation of it any day. If you want I can post my ideas, but it will take you a while to read them all. Thanks.