The first step towards solving a problem is admitting that you have one, I guess...or in this case, a couple?  Yesterday I decided that I've got some lifestyle habits that really are not doing me that good at all, and it'd be best if I really try and get myself back in shape.

Fortunately, today was actually a pretty great day!  I slept in and caught up on sleep, got some stuff done that I wanted to, and haven't done anything that I regretted.  Hopefully I can keep it up.

More unpacking progress!  Everything is basically in its general location where it should be -- now we just have to take care of the gigantic task of trying to put all the decorations up and everything.  I might wait until after Fanime to try and put things up on the walls, though -- there's a significant chance that I'll end up getting some art prints to put up or something.

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I haven't really made any good headway on my current MtG set design (Conspiracy 2) -- I'm still stuck at the design skeleton phase.  I think I was trying to take a large pass at it but after my first attempt I realized that my as-fan for keyworded mechanics was too high -- I had each new mechanic showing up FOUR times at common, for example (2 in each of its colors), so I decided to dial that back.  However I'm still struggling with two of my new mechanics.

So, in my design, all 5 colors have a landcycling card (not really a core "mechanic" but worth noting), but they also each have a Monstrosity card at common.  The idea is to create a cycle at common that helps provide players with mana sinks since multiplayer games go long.

Aside from that I have hidden agenda, draft-matters, parley, and dethrone as returning mechanics.  Parley shows up in G and W (again), and dethrone this time shows up in B as well as R and U.

In addition I have Inspired as a returning mechanic that I think works well as a build-around theme as well as incentivizing attacking (along with dethrone).  Inspired shows up in R, G and U.

The new mechanics that I have definitely ironed down so far are:

Hidden Trap: Appears in all colors.  This is a conspiracy card that you start with face-down (just like a hidden agenda), and at any time you can pay the Hidden Trap mana cost to flip it face up and trigger a one-time effect -- for example, 2R to give a creature first strike.  These effects are overcosted compared to a normal spell effect since they are "free" to put in your deck.

Assist: Shows up primary in G and W, but maybe secondary in R.  A creature mechanic -- when the creature ETBs, you can "assist" an opponent by having that opponent put N +1/+1 counters on a creature they control.  If you do, you get a bonus (usually, +1/+1 counters on your own creature).  I like this mechanic as it forces you to pick an "ally" and there's a strong incentive to assist someone.  You're also incentivized to assist a player who's behind.  Overall I like the design space as well.  In R I may have a creature that assists but then steals the assisted creature (though this is more difficult given the current templating).

So with those I have:

W: Monstrosity, Assist, Parley
U: Monstrosity, Dethrone, Inspired,
B: Monstrosity, Dethrone,
R: Monstrosity, Dethrone, Inspired, (Assist?)
G: Monstrosity, Inspired, Assist, Parley

My plan to get color balance between the mechanics was to have 2 more mechanics (for a total of 4 new ones, which is a good amount), one in WB and one in UB.  Here are the candidates.

Ritual: A different spin on Will of the Council.  This has gone through many iterations but currently I'm thinking of doing something based on Tempting Offer.  Something like:
As you cast this spell, you may have any number of opponents [positive effect].  Copy this spell for each opponent chosen in this way.  You may choose new targets for each copy.
So basically, you're incentivized to give everyone benefits so that you get the maximum effect, but you don't have to.  This plays around in the same space as Assist but is a little more flexible, yet also more clunky.

Infiltrate: Some sort of Ninjutsu effect.  I initially had this as a mechanic where your creature can only be blocked by tapped creatures (and can't be blocked by untapped ones), but I realized that that was just going to be too complex for a multiplayer game.  This could end up being Ninjutsu exactly, but I also was playing around with trying to let you be able to replace a creature that's actually getting blocked.  Getting that to work correctly is sort of awkward with respect to rules though.

Anyways, with that we have:

W: Monstrosity, Assist, Parley, Ritual
U: Monstrosity, Dethrone, Inspired, Infiltrate
B: Monstrosity, Dethrone, Ritual, Infiltrate
R: Monstrosity, Dethrone, Inspired, Assist
G: Monstrosity, Inspired, Assist, Parley

All colors: Hidden agenda, hidden trap, draft matters

If I have 93 commons (which there are in the current skeleton), I have about 37 keyworded commons, so that's 

40%.  There are 10 commons in a booster so the as-fan is then roughly 4, which is an amount I'm happy with.  Note that Conspiracy 1 has as-fan of about 3.6 if we measure in the same way, but I'm happy with increasing as-fan since we have a bunch of returning mechanics.  If it ends up being too high we can always add more non-keyworded commons.

Anyways, trying to figure out Ritual and Infiltrate...