What is Maisonou?

Maisonou is a custom magic set themed around the different Voodou practices found in Haiti, Louisiana, and West Africa. The set has themes of persistence, community, and kinship. The set has a “permanents matter” theme, and the mechanics of the set are designed to encourage you to have more permanents on the board. The goal of the set is to create a play environment that allows players to develop an interesting board state, and then pit their armies against each other. Build your home, protect your home, and destroy the invaders!

Story

The people of Maisonou are not native to this plane. In fact, they were brought to this plane by a planeswalker named Bondi. Before the mending, Bondi used his god-like powers to create a device capable of allowing others to traverse the planes. With this, he was able to allow his people travel with him, exploring the multiverse.

Bondi in his people found themselves exploring a fledgling plane; a world so young that the primordial forces have only begun giving shape to reality. It was at this plane that Bondi felted his power begin to sap away from him. The mending had taken place, and he was weakening at an astonishing rate. Before he had time to react, he was no longer able to power the machine, and his people became stranded in this hostile new world.

Bondi knew that he would need to seek help, to find some way to repair this device and save his people. But he also knew his people wouldn’t be safe in this hostile world. Using the last of his god-like powers, he remade the world, at least on face value. The primal forces and entities were locked underneath the surface of reality, and an image of their homeland was overlaid upon the plane. Bondi saw this as a sufficient temporary solution, and planes walked away to find a way to fix the device.

This was hundreds of years ago.

Since then, the people of Maisonou have forgotten their old lives, and have called this world home. However, the primordial forces of the plane have begun to break through their banishment, and terrorize Bondi’s people. And now, rumor has it that Bondi has returned, with promises of being able to fix the device. But the people are happy in this home, and won’t leave without a fight. Do the people of Maisonou relinquish the world they call home, or will they contend with the horrors spawned from this world?

Keywords & Mechanics

Linger - When this creature dies, if it had no essence counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner's control with an essence counter on it. As long as it has an essence counter, it's not a creature

Linger is the marquee mechanic of the set. It is used to represent how the influence of the spirits can be felt, even when they are not visibly around. Linger appears in every color.

Haunt

Haunt is another mechanic that represents the dead influencing the living. In Maisonou things rarely truly die, they just pass on to the spirit world. Haunt, however, has has been reimagined from its original usage. Haunt is instead predominantly used to allow creatures and spells to take on an “Aura” like while haunting. This is more flavorful, and also leads to better gameplay, as you can feel the impact of the haunt immediately. Haunt appear predominantly in WUB

Unity -

Unity is an ability mechanic that conditionally gives a bonus if you control at least 4 non-land permanents. Unity is a mechanic that rewards you for maintaining a board state. Unity is one of the ways to capitalize on your large board that’s available in this set. Unity appears predominantly in RGW

Beckon - You may cast this spell for its Beckon cost if you tap three untapped non-land permanents you control.

Beckon is similar to Unity, in that it rewards having a larger board. However, where Unity gives you additional bonuses for having the board, Beckon gives you another avenues to utilize your board. Beckon is especially useful when you have several enchantments on the board, as these enchantments can be tapped with little downside. Beckon appears predominantly in UGR

Horrors

This set has a small tribal component, and that is found in the horrors. The horrors are the antagonists of the set, and they represent the primordial forces of the plane, that were banished to the nightmare when Bondi remade the world. Horrors are found in BRG

Tokens

While tokens aren’t explicitly a theme of the set, due to the nature of the themes, tokens are featured heavily.

Archetypes

WU - Haunted Flyers - Control the ground with powerful haunt spells while barraging your enemy with an army of fliers.

UB - Haunt Control - Utilize a variety of high value haunt cards to control the game and exhaust your opponent of resources.

BR - Horror Aggro - An aggressive tribal deck that seeks to utilize horror synergies for a quick and brutal victory.

RG - Horror Midrange - A midrange deck that utilizes horror tribal, but is not especially reliant on it. This deck seeks to overpower the opponent with efficient creatures and answers.

GW - Unity Tokens - Create tokens to quickly turn on your Unity effects and overrun your enemies.

WB - "Haunted" Auras - Take advantage of haunt cards to boost your creatures, making them monsters to contend with.

BG - Horror Rock - Play a series of resilient and aggressive threats, with some options for horror synergies.

GU - Boggles - Use haunt and auras on evasive threats to overpower your opponent.

UR - Beckon Control - Gum up the ground with tokens and walls, then go over the top with beckoned out powerhouses

RW - Unity Aggro - Aggressively curve out to quickly turn on Unity, then beat them down with powerful unity payoffs