Magic the Gathering: Brainstorming

[Silfir]

Good points. I wanted black/white decks to be able to get it out without worrying as much about their white vs black density - can I just make it (W/B)(W/B)(W/B)(W/B)(W/B)(W/B) so both colors can use it, or do 4(W/B)(W/B)(W/B)? I want both board wipe colors to have access.

Here's the thing, though: Black can't do this effect at all. It's a mono-White effect - Planar Cleansing is the best evidence for that. Per the color pie, Black doesn't get artifact or enchantment removal, whereas White can remove anything, even exile anything, especially if it does so for all players instead of just one. Making it cost W/B six times is worse still since it would turn it completely into a mono-black-playable card. It *has* to require White mana to fit into the color pie. Preferably at least two pure white mana symbols.

If you want to add Black to the cost of an exiling Planar Cleansing (which might be fair at six mana, not sure), give the card an effect that is Black - similar to how you can replace 1 by U on a Day of Judgment to make it uncounterable. Life drain is a possibility.

I think it was supposed to enter tapped - that's what it'll do now.

Don't think that'll do it. Entering untapped and tapping for any color without restriction or drawback wasn't even the most broken part about it - the free repeatable land tutoring is worse.

[Carl]

Here's the thing, though: Black can't do this effect at all. It's a mono-White effect - Planar Cleansing is the best evidence for that. Per the color pie, Black doesn't get artifact or enchantment removal, whereas White can remove anything, even exile anything, especially if it does so for all players instead of just one. Making it cost W/B six times is worse still since it would turn it completely into a mono-black-playable card. It *has* to require White mana to fit into the color pie. Preferably at least two pure white mana symbols.

If you want to add Black to the cost of an exiling Planar Cleansing (which might be fair at six mana, not sure), give the card an effect that is Black - similar to how you can replace 1 by U on a Day of Judgment to make it uncounterable. Life drain is a possibility.

Also black is selective, (hits opponents only), not uniform. Check this article for what goes whee, i'm still learning to keep track of everything listed there but it helps.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...017-2017-06-05

[Silfir]

Also black is selective, (hits opponents only), not uniform. Check this article for what goes whee, i'm still learning to keep track of everything listed there but it helps.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...017-2017-06-05

Yeah, there's certainly truth to that - Black takes what it wants and doesn't care about fairness.

Though it needs to be said that Black is still at least secondary for symmetrical board wipes, they just tend to be -X/-X now. Languish, Yahenni's Expertise - as recently as Amonkhet there is Rags (from Rags // Riches).

As far as "Destroy all creatures" effects go - there is even one in the set that pre-releases this weekend. It's listed as secondary, which means it's perfectly possible, it just won't happen every set, and on higher rarities than primary effects would go. (Though board wipes are at least Rare on principle anyway.)

The point to take away is that Black is very good at killing creatures, and while it doesn't care about fairness, it also doesn't care about sacrificing its own forces as long as it suits their plans. Hence a "kill everyone" effect suits Black just fine in principle.

[JBPuffin]

Here's the thing, though: Black can't do this effect at all. It's a mono-White effect - Planar Cleansing is the best evidence for that. Per the color pie, Black doesn't get artifact or enchantment removal, whereas White can remove anything, even exile anything, especially if it does so for all players instead of just one. Making it cost W/B six times is worse still since it would turn it completely into a mono-black-playable card. It *has* to require White mana to fit into the color pie. Preferably at least two pure white mana symbols.

If you want to add Black to the cost of an exiling Planar Cleansing (which might be fair at six mana, not sure), give the card an effect that is Black - similar to how you can replace 1 by U on a Day of Judgment to make it uncounterable. Life drain is a possibility.

Hmm, fair enough...what would be a fair cost for a normal boardwipe which exiles the graveyard afterward? Like, CC 7?

Don't think that'll do it. Entering untapped and tapping for any color without restriction or drawback wasn't even the most broken part about it - the free repeatable land tutoring is worse.

So if the tutoring had an additional cost, it'd be fine? I want there to be some sort of pseudo-accessible nonbasic tutoring on a land; if I have to gate it behind a mana cost, that's fine, but the idea is to provide landfall while limiting how often you actually get to tutor (since almost no deck in this collection [heck, it might be a Cube by now...] can afford to run only non-basics).

Also black is selective, (hits opponents only), not uniform. Check this article for what goes whee, i'm still learning to keep track of everything listed there but it helps.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...017-2017-06-05

Also this looks like it will come in handy quite a bit...

[Silfir]

So if the tutoring had an additional cost, it'd be fine? I want there to be some sort of pseudo-accessible nonbasic tutoring on a land; if I have to gate it behind a mana cost, that's fine, but the idea is to provide landfall while limiting how often you actually get to tutor (since almost no deck in this collection [heck, it might be a Cube by now...] can afford to run only non-basics)

If the card is intended just to be played within your own block, it's not quite as horribly broken - I was thinking about the landslides of breakable non-basic lands of Magic's history.

If you want to keep it colorless, you can use Expedition Map or Journeyer's Kite for orientation, but keep in mind those are artifacts whose entire purpose is fetching lands, and Expedition Map sacrifices itself to serve the cause while Journeyer's Kite fetches only basics for 3 generic mana a pop. You've stapled this ability to a five-color land with only the tap drawback, which would border on too good even if it had no other text on it.

The closest thing to repeatable non-basic land tutoring I've found is Knight of the Reliquary, which has to sacrifice Forests or Plains to do it.

Since you said the card is intended to help fuel landfall, consider adding the sacrifice of a land to the cost. That way, it's not card advantage, but will trigger landfall just fine. So, say:

Bedrock of Jexalis
Legendary Land
Bedrock of Jexalis enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Sacrifice a land, 1, T: Search your library for a land card and put it in your hand. Shuffle your library. Activate this ability only during your upkeep.

Hmm, fair enough...what would be a fair cost for a normal boardwipe which exiles the graveyard afterward? Like, CC 7?

"Normal" as in, only gets creatures? You could probably have that for CMC 5, if you follow current design principles, which stipulate that Wraths ("Destroy all creatures") should be at least 5 CMC. (Or have additional costs.) A 5 mana Wrath in two colors (2WWB) with that bonus attached to it will likely work quite well.

If it's still intended to get all nonland permanents, I think CMC 6 is okay, actually. Costed 3WWB?

[JBPuffin]

If the card is intended just to be played within your own block, it's not quite as horribly broken - I was thinking about the landslides of breakable non-basic lands of Magic's history.

If you want to keep it colorless, you can use Expedition Map or Journeyer's Kite for orientation, but keep in mind those are artifacts whose entire purpose is fetching lands, and Expedition Map sacrifices itself to serve the cause while Journeyer's Kite fetches only basics for 3 generic mana a pop. You've stapled this ability to a five-color land with only the tap drawback, which would border on too good even if it had no other text on it.

The closest thing to repeatable non-basic land tutoring I've found is Knight of the Reliquary, which has to sacrifice Forests or Plains to do it.

Since you said the card is intended to help fuel landfall, consider adding the sacrifice of a land to the cost. That way, it's not card advantage, but will trigger landfall just fine. So, say:

Bedrock of Jexalis
Legendary Land
Bedrock of Jexalis enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Sacrifice a land, 1, T: Search your library for a land card and put it in your hand. Shuffle your library. Activate this ability only during your upkeep.

That works.

"Normal" as in, only gets creatures? You could probably have that for CMC 5, if you follow current design principles, which stipulate that Wraths ("Destroy all creatures") should be at least 5 CMC. (Or have additional costs.) A 5 mana Wrath in two colors (2WWB) with that bonus attached to it will likely work quite well.

If it's still intended to get all nonland permanents, I think CMC 6 is okay, actually. Costed 3WWB?

Perfect!

[Carl]

Yeah, there's certainly truth to that - Black takes what it wants and doesn't care about fairness.

Though it needs to be said that Black is still at least secondary for symmetrical board wipes, they just tend to be -X/-X now. Languish, Yahenni's Expertise - as recently as Amonkhet there is Rags (from Rags // Riches).

As far as "Destroy all creatures" effects go - there is even one in the set that pre-releases this weekend. It's listed as secondary, which means it's perfectly possible, it just won't happen every set, and on higher rarities than primary effects would go. (Though board wipes are at least Rare on principle anyway.)

The point to take away is that Black is very good at killing creatures, and while it doesn't care about fairness, it also doesn't care about sacrificing its own forces as long as it suits their plans. Hence a "kill everyone" effect suits Black just fine in principle.

Note -1/-1 effects, are seperate things from destroy as far as getting it goes and what if any rider effects are common to each colour.

Hmm, fair enough...what would be a fair cost for a normal boardwipe which exiles the graveyard afterward? Like, CC 7?



So if the tutoring had an additional cost, it'd be fine? I want there to be some sort of pseudo-accessible nonbasic tutoring on a land; if I have to gate it behind a mana cost, that's fine, but the idea is to provide landfall while limiting how often you actually get to tutor (since almost no deck in this collection [heck, it might be a Cube by now...] can afford to run only non-basics).



Also this looks like it will come in handy quite a bit...

Yeah dead useful. So any comment either of you on my mechanics bit from upthread, i'll repost for clarity and because i want to make a minor edit/adittion.



First Mechanic:

Communal X: When a card with Communal enters the battlefield, you may gain life equal to the highest Communal value amongst others cards you control that are Permanents.

Spoiler: Conceptual Stuff

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This represents the way the Mothers section of society provides virtually all the basic supplies, (food water, wood, stone, ores, if it's fished, farmed, hunted, mined, or is somthing collected from natural sources they're involved in some way), and also their role in providing healers, cooks, and certain other vital elements of a society in terms of basics of survival centered professions to the rest of elvish society. They're a very green white focused faction. Though the underlying motivation, (that they care about everyone), brings a certain amount of red in on some cards. and lore wise avoids the worst excesses. How much you give of yourself to the community is self determined and individual, the more you give the more important you are in the hierarchy, but there's no force pushing you to go up and no shame in staying on the lower rungs.

Notes: The main thing i'd say is that i'd expect the communal values to fall behind the CMC by at least 2-3. OFC green/white is a good combo for really big creatures with a high cost so that still allows a lot of lifegain. One of the key things to be wary of is overdoing the lifegain however, and to provide ways of working around it for each colour without directly subverting it.

Second Mechanic:

Enslaved: This is a new subtype e.g. "Creature - Enslaved Elf". Cards care about the presence of enslaved permanents and can gain bonuses or trigger effects based on their presence and/or numbers. Most forms of Enslaved will be 0/1 Enslaved Elf creatures tokens with "cannot attack, block, or deal damage; sacrifice this creature and prevent 1 damage that would be dealt to you" put into play by various means. Though at least two more serious capability cards will turn up that have the enslaved subtype.

Spoiler: Conceptual Stuff

Show

Conceptually the faction this mechanic is focused on are pure dark hedonists. They're all about personal self fulfillment even at others expense, and a key part of that is their widespread practise of enslaving others. Though since the Elvish society in question has been isolated from non-elves until very recently they're 99.99% elves they enslave. They don't tend to produce a huge amount of goods or the like, but they are very good at many aspects related to warfare. But you'll also find spies, assassins and a number of other professions that aren't really in line with the other factions. They also contain the party planners though as an example of a much more benign aspect, in fact most of their contributions to the rest of society can be described as entertainment focused. It's one of the few but it does exist. For a long time much of that was of only theoretical use though a lot of it's become much more valuable recently. Colour wise they're black/red at heart, but a strong strand of white runs through due to the various rules and laws surrounding enslaving and several other activities. These exit to ensure that whilst elves can express their personal desires, to engage in blatant self gratification the section of society as a whole does not become outright self destructive.

Notes: this mechanic is a lot more flexible than Communal but it requires sources of enslaved. Thats tricky as i need to include enough cards to make it work but it takes design space away from others thing both on an overall scale, (cards dedicated to it rather than other things), and on a specific level, (cards with it as an add on effect displacing other options). A lot also depends on the kind of rider effects it gets. It's also awkward as a black/red mechanic. Black and Red can absolutely care about other cards but it's not a typical effect of theirs as such. Thats definitely a bit of somthing i don't like, but at the same time i rather like the core underlying concept, because enslaving and their fundamentally dark hedonism really are what defines the faction.


The final faction doesn't have a mechanic concept yet, i'm tossing ideas back and forth but in case anyone wants to suggest somthing i thought i'd throw basic conceptual stuff out.

Spoiler: Conceptual Stuff

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Conceptually they're odd. Mostly because he, (the overarching god which each section has behind it), doesn't sit on the needs of the individual vs the needs of the individual vs the community scale. He's off on a whole other axis. He cares most about creativity.
Magic, Technology, Science, and Industry all fall under him. As do many arts and similar concepts. At the same time he doesn't have as much structure as either of the other two,. The first is all about structure whilst the second imposes it on a serious level as a counterbalance. With the other two taking the extreme on the personal vs group needs he ends up taking what amounts to a neutral position in matters, he doesn't explicitly push towards either. This coupled with where he does focus level little need for the strict structures of the other two and that largely leaves him as the most individualistic faction, the others advance by outcompeting, or by outright stepping on their rivals, whilst you can advance by being best at somthing with him, he's just as interested in new ways to use your talents and abilities as he is in being good at somthing. You're likely to find a lot of absentminded professors and the like in his faction and most technology comes from them, (in that vein you'll find engineers, architects, e.t.c with him too). At heart he's very blue focused, but that individualism and creativity bring a strong though different band of red to things. On a lesser secondary scale however that doesn't mean that his section of society can't stumble into black occasionally. Inevitably somtimes the line in the sand for morality can be very hard to see somtimes and many a well meaning individual has strayed in a direction that perhaps a bit far off the beaten path and black is the other individualistic colour. Still it tends to be be result of excess enthusiasm, leading to amorality rather than strict immorality.

Notes: I considered doing somthing with artifacts but thats a bit narrower in focus than i want to go, there certainly will be a few artifact creatures ofc, but i don't think i'll be going extreme on them.

[solidork]

I can't quote-copy solidork's comments, sadly, but I'll respond.

Yeah, I think I won't be using that particular commenting style again.

I think I'll bump the cost - now that I see it, I don't quite like it either. How would they word if, since the absence of "this turn" is something I like. Would it make an emblem or something?

EDIT: Oh yeah - Swiftspear's a 1/2, this is a 1/1. That's why he only costed R. I'll still make it 1R, though.

I think the mana cost is fine. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was talking about the cost of the activated ability while also thinking that you were supposed to activate it the same turn as you cast the spell (like Soulfire Grandmaster). Now that I understand how it is supposed to work, I like it. If you want to make a concession to WOTCness, adding an explicit duration to how long the triggered ability will hang out invisibly in the void is probably the cleanest way to do it.

[solidork]

Trial by Fire RW
Instant
Exile target creature. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step. If you do, Trial by Fire deals 2 damage to that creature.

Keeper of the Primal Order RG
Creature - Human Shaman
Bloodthirst - 1
Creatures can't leave the battlefield unless they die.(If an effect would cause a creature to be exiled, returned to a hand or placed into a library, that creature remains on the battlefield instead).
2/2

[JBPuffin]

I think the mana cost is fine. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was talking about the cost of the activated ability while also thinking that you were supposed to activate it the same turn as you cast the spell (like Soulfire Grandmaster). Now that I understand how it is supposed to work, I like it. If you want to make a concession to WOTCness, adding an explicit duration to how long the triggered ability will hang out invisibly in the void is probably the cleanest way to do it.

Oh! Gotcha, yeah, I can do that. Beginning of next upkeep?

[solidork]

Oh! Gotcha, yeah, I can do that. Beginning of next upkeep?

Until the end of your next turn seems fair, and it's been done on Commune with Lava. You'd usually activate the ability the turn before you want to tap things.

[Carl]

Oh! Gotcha, yeah, I can do that. Beginning of next upkeep?

Sounds decent to me, TBH it did raise an eyebrow on my end too but i let it pass overall.

Trial by Fire RW
Instant
Exile target creature. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step. If you do, Trial by Fire deals 2 damage to that creature.

Keeper of the Primal Order RG
Creature - Human Shaman
Bloodthirst - 1
Creatures can't leave the battlefield unless they die.(If an effect would cause a creature to be exiled, returned to a hand or placed into a library, that creature remains on the battlefield instead).
2/2

First one dosen;t raise any flags, it's a dual mana spell and long road home is a pure white withe the same base effect but a different rider.

The second, thats a pretty powerful counter to blue white tricks, i'm not sure how expensive it should be or thats even red/green combo appropriate but it's raising flags in the back of my mind, not sure why.



Also going with a completely different enslave mechanic for review:

Enslaved is a type, (like creature/Enchantment/Land/Instant/e.t.c.).

Some cards have Master keyword. Master: You may attach Creatures with the Enslaved type to this card. Anytime this creature would be destroyed, if there is one or more attached cards with the Enslaved type you may sacrifice one and regenerate this creature. If you do so create a token that is a copy of the sacrificed creature but that lacks the Enslaved Type. Attached Creatures cannot attack or block but may activate abilities and tap as normal. Attach only anytime you could cast a sorcery.

Notes: This fits better thematically and is a lot simpler. Cards can then react based on having stuff attached or on being attached. And it works much better as a primarily black/red feature as you can expend the attached creatures for a benefit but it's got the nice white and thus theme appropriate element of not strictly graveyarding the sacrificed creature, rather it's freed, represented by getting a token back. It also works nicely in that since each enslaved can only be attached to one creature at once, it's a very all about me effect for each individual creature. You don't have the whole board getting benefits from just a few enslaved. Biggest complaint is the length of the basic rule text, it looks very awkward from the pov of fitting it on the card as reminder text.

Obviously Enslaved are only intended to show up as "Enslaved Creature" types, probably mostly 1/1's. Though again there's at least a couple i can think of that will be bigger and more special than that.

[solidork]

The second, thats a pretty powerful counter to blue white tricks, i'm not sure how expensive it should be or thats even red/green combo appropriate but it's raising flags in the back of my mind, not sure why.

That's fair. I'm not sure if it even works. There is a good chance that there is something out there that would immediately force the game to end in a draw if combined with this.

[Carl]

That's fair. I'm not sure if it even works. There is a good chance that there is something out there that would immediately force the game to end in a draw if combined with this.

Partial reply as gotta head out soon:

Oh it works and i'm not sure there's necessarily a way to cause this to go in circles though i'm a long way from an expert on that obviously. There are two problems for me.

A) this completely shuts down 100% of Blue creature removal and 50% or more of white's creature removal. That is very, very powerful and shouldn't come cheap. however that creates it's own issues as this is a 2/2 thats well inside easy direct damage or forced chump block territory, if it's cheap thats fine, if it's expensive not so much. Having a really impactful effect on a creature that is really weak tend to end up being a bit of a nightmare, it's so expensive it wants to be a game decider but so easy to remove it wants to be cheap to play.

B) I'm not sure what colours blocking these kind of effects is actually most associated with, so i'm not sure what exactly how colour appropriate it is. And even assuming it is colour appropriate, do R/G combined decks necessarily need this kind of a buff/help?

[solidork]

A) this completely shuts down 100% of Blue creature removal and 50% or more of white's creature removal. That is very, very powerful and shouldn't come cheap. however that creates it's own issues as this is a 2/2 thats well inside easy direct damage or forced chump block territory, if it's cheap thats fine, if it's expensive not so much. Having a really impactful effect on a creature that is really weak tend to end up being a bit of a nightmare, it's so expensive it wants to be a game decider but so easy to remove it wants to be cheap to play.

That is totally fair. I often find myself in a situation where I've got an ability I really like but don't quite know what kind of card to put it on. I made it inexpensive to be in the same kind of vein as other 'hate bears' like Gaddock Teeg, but I could totally see it on a midrange or even large creature, a planeswalker ability/emblem, a comes into play ability, etc.

The flavor behind it is that he enforces the natural birth -> death cycle; it was as much about preventing your opponent from bouncing/flickering their own guys to cheat death as it was preventing the unnatural unmaking of your own creatures. I vaguely remembering that the card was intended to be someone from Jund reacting to the blue and white magic of the other planes. I guess I included red since to signify jund-ness as well as anti-blue and anti-white ness? I just kinda threw bloodthirst on there when I decided to repost it for no particular reason.

Looking back, I make a lot of things multicolor that don't necessarily need to be. It's something to work on, I think.

I was honestly a little more worried about how it interacted with reanimation effects that are supposed to be temporary (especially Unearth), since UW frequently has wrath effects that will still kill this.

[JBPuffin]

Until the end of your next turn seems fair, and it's been done on Commune with Lava. You'd usually activate the ability the turn before you want to tap things.

End of next turn it shall be.

[Carl]

That is totally fair. I often find myself in a situation where I've got an ability I really like but don't quite know what kind of card to put it on. I made it inexpensive to be in the same kind of vein as other 'hate bears' like Gaddock Teeg, but I could totally see it on a midrange or even large creature, a planeswalker ability/emblem, a comes into play ability, etc.

The flavor behind it is that he enforces the natural birth -> death cycle; it was as much about preventing your opponent from bouncing/flickering their own guys to cheat death as it was preventing the unnatural unmaking of your own creatures. I vaguely remembering that the card was intended to be someone from Jund reacting to the blue and white magic of the other planes. I guess I included red since to signify jund-ness as well as anti-blue and anti-white ness? I just kinda threw bloodthirst on there when I decided to repost it for no particular reason.

Looking back, I make a lot of things multicolor that don't necessarily need to be. It's something to work on, I think.

I was honestly a little more worried about how it interacted with reanimation effects that are supposed to be temporary (especially Unearth), since UW frequently has wrath effects that will still kill this.

Life death cycle is typically black/green. I think the problem you've fallen into here is you've had a cool idea and are trying to fit it to a specific colour, (totally understand BTW, thats another reason i was asking for feedback on my mechanics idea's for my WIP set, i want to be sure i'm keeping with an appropriate theme for the colour generally whilst still meeting my lore themes), rather than having a concept and a colour and fitting the two together.

The problem i'd say with this card is that it really doesn't do the whole life death cycle thing very well, though i totally get why you set it up this way, instead of enforcing the unending cycle it directly counters efefcts that works against the cycle. it;s a subtle distinction and i'm pretty sure i'd have done exactly the same thing as you here, outside in is much easier than inside out.

A great example might be the following rules text:

Anytime a permanent leaves the battlefield, if it would be placed anywhere other than it's a graveyard, place it in its owners graveyard instead of wherever it would otherwise be placed, (hand, library, exile,, e.t.c.).
Anytime a card would enter a graveyard from anywhere other than the stack or the battlefield shuffle it into it's owners library instead of placing it into the graveyard.

This cares about enforcing the cycle rather than simply countering things that subvert it.

I'd actually argue that the effect you have is more blue/white with maybe some other colour in it. It's about imposing order through directly countering effects which is a very blue/white thing to do, but in the process it tends to disfavour some of the mechanics those two colours use whilst playing up creatures, direct damage, and outright hard destroy effects, things that every colour but blue can do to one degree or another.

I think that makes this strong white, light blue and any other colours are down to anything else on the card tweaking it one way or the other. Any colour could get an edge in with the right keywords though i think that favours green generally as it's a strongly creature centric colour, buffs to creatures would tend to come out white whilst direct damage would be red and destroy effects black. You could probably using purely keywords for blue make a whole cycle of cards based on the same base ability with extra riders. with each of the 5 colours getting to be dominant alongside the base blue/white mix.

[solidork]

Some thoughts on your mechanics:

Communal - This seems fine if unexciting on its own. Creating cards that interact with gaining life would be what makes it interesting, and it is great that those cards would also be interesting in the larger context of all preexisting cards.

Enslave - this is really awkward. Wizards wouldn't do something like this for a lot of reasons, some of which you can ignore, but some of which I think would leave to better game play.

These are the non-aesthetic non-philosophical issues I see:
- You need to have both a Master and a Slave in play for the mechanic to matter.
- To compound this, the mechanic is only in a couple of colors, making it even less likely that the effect will end up mattering
- You have to spend another turn equipping for the mechanic to matter.
- To compound this further, only certain types of creatures make sense as masters and slaves.(This is technically aesthetic, but you've stated yourself that you imagine the slaves as usually being small creatures.)

I'd start over and find a way to do this that is entirely self contained or interacts with all/a sizable subset of existing creatures. Personally, I'd have the mechanic make 0/1 serf tokens that can't attack or block and then have a number of cards that have activated abilities that require you to tap untapped creatures.

[Amechra]

Why not have Enslaved trigger off creatures you control, but don't own?

[Carl]

Why not have Enslaved trigger off creatures you control, but don't own?

Coming at these in slightly reverse order, the thing to remember is a few special exceptions, (one of which will probably show up as a legendary), the bulk of elvish society is, well, made up of elves. This obviously means one side effect is going to be elves in every colour combo present has elves in it. But the side effect of this is it's not really appropriate to have them going out and grabbing lots of non-elf slaves, they don't go forming slaving raiding parties. In fact most outsiders have been brought in by one elf who is a bit of a pacifist, he got the slaves by ambushing various invading armies, (at various times), and then basically after making it clear he's in a position to totally demolish them, then negotiating a treaty not to bother the elves again whilst getting to pick out an individual or two to take home with him. He's incidentally also the one who went to the mat arguing with his own god and convinced him to adjust the letter of his own laws to prevent the loophole abuse by certain individuals who weren't extending the same protections to non-elves that elves enjoy and then spent the last few decades basically getting even on behalf of of those wronged. He's not necessarily nice, but he does have his own code of behavior and that means he's generally not a violent type unless you really push him. He more or less exists to show just how blue/orange the morality of the elves is by human standards.

Anyway some cards that let you add the enslaved property to other cards where absolutely an idea i was going to play with, including enemy cards, but the general point i'd make is that almost all slaves are drawn from internally so whilst it makes sense to have a few cards that let you play with your opponents creatures and enslave them, it's not really appropriate for the mechanic as a whole to function off of enemy cards.

Some thoughts on your mechanics:

Communal - This seems fine if unexciting on its own. Creating cards that interact with gaining life would be what makes it interesting, and it is great that those cards would also be interesting in the larger context of all preexisting cards.

Enslave - this is really awkward. Wizards wouldn't do something like this for a lot of reasons, some of which you can ignore, but some of which I think would leave to better game play.

These are the non-aesthetic non-philosophical issues I see:
- You need to have both a Master and a Slave in play for the mechanic to matter.
- To compound this, the mechanic is only in a couple of colors, making it even less likely that the effect will end up mattering
- You have to spend another turn equipping for the mechanic to matter.
- To compound this further, only certain types of creatures make sense as masters and slaves.(This is technically aesthetic, but you've stated yourself that you imagine the slaves as usually being small creatures.)

I'd start over and find a way to do this that is entirely self contained or interacts with all/a sizable subset of existing creatures. Personally, I'd have the mechanic make 0/1 serf tokens that can't attack or block and then have a number of cards that have activated abilities that require you to tap untapped creatures.

Yeah interacting with that lifegain will absolutely be important. But then that works just fine thematically, the needs of the community is a strong element of the section of elvish society and the natural interaction of having a spell produce lifegain only for the lifegain to then benefit your permanent is very in character for them.


Ok to address some of the worry points:

A). This is going to be a problem whatever i do, there's no real way to represent slavery that doesn't need seperate slave creatures. At least with this type of slavery anyway.

B). Remember there's only 3 groups to elvish society. One of the things my exploratory design turned up is that conceptually whilst there's some ability to use the non-primary colour pairs to create creatures, (and black/white works great for slaves in this respect), the majority of creatures are probably going to be of one of the primary colour pairs. That means there's going to be a lot more black/red cards running around than you might expect. Green/White as the two creature colors will obviously get the biggest chunk, but black/red comes out very neutral on the creature scale, (and and blue/red is firmly on the lower end), so the second biggest chunk of creature cards will be in that pairing, and if you add in the easy black/white options vis a vis slavery theres a ton of room for creature cards in the right colours.

C). That is a fair point and not somthing i'm a fan of either.

D). Yes and no. Absolutely any elf of any level within the specified segment of society can be enslaved if the person doing so has the sheer gall to go after someone powerful. But of course that carries with it a considerable difficulty and more risk than usual. That means the majority of slaves are drawn from the lowest rungs, meaning most are the weakest members of the society. Hence why they'd tend to be smaller creatures. But there are some powerful ones roaming around too.

E) One of the important things to remember is that whilst each section of elvish society is fully interconnected, outside of special festival days for each god no section of society can force another section to act in accordance with it. (And since the laws got changed the same applies to outsiders). Anyone who becomes a part of a given section is subject to whatever framework exists, and bargaining with those who normally are protected in some fashion is perfectly fine, but they don't have complete freedom to go after and enslave anyone they want in any way they like completely at will. This is basically why i messed with the subtype, it's not really appropriate for them to go around enslaving just anybody. In the same vein Slaves are protected from permanent harm, can only be enslaved for certain periods of time and once freed are protected from further enslavement for a period. So it's very atypical of slavery as it's traditionally considered. Whilst the god that heads the society does have slavery as one of his "things" within elvish society it's primarily a societal construct to facilitate the rest of the stuff he embodies since much of it would be impractical to find mass volunteers for in the usual sense.



All that said some of what you've said has made me reconsider a point. I was worried about stopping the whole enslavement thing interacting with other cards in the sense that it would be inappropriate to have enslaved cards attached to creatures from the other factions. But there's no reason they couldn't work just fine with a number of other cards out there allready extant. I also avoided putting the keyword on the enslaved creature cards because i planned to produce most of them via token generation, but i don't think that's strictly as big an issue as i thought and maybe i let my OCD get to me again.


Let me throw out a new take on it:

Serf: When this creature enters the battlefield attach it to a target creature you control that shares a colour with it. Whilst attached it cannot attack or block, but abilities may still activate and it may still tap and untap. If sacrificed, at the next end step create a token that is a copy of this creature but which lacks the Serf keyword.

Example Card:

Serfdom B/W
Sourcery - C
Create a 1/1 Black creature token with Serf: (When this creature enters the battlefield attach it to a target creature you control that shares a colour with it. Whilst attached it cannot attack or block, but abilities may still activate and it may still tap and untap. If sacrificed, at the next end step create a token that is a copy of this creature except it lacks the Serf keyword.)

And then a simple example card for it to attach to:

Warrior Apprentice BR
Creature - Elf Warrior U
1/2
For each creature with Serf attached to Warrior Apprentice it gains +2/+0
Sacrifice an attached creature with serf, Apprentice Warrior is Indestructible till end of turn.

[Svata]

I've got 4 cards. Sorry for no art, but I don't really feel like stealing art for them. They share a mechanic I've made, and I think I may slowly make a set, focused around the shards, I think. Not sure if this mechanic is deep enough to make it the main mechanic of the Jund colors in it, but I've literally just started.

Spoiler: Common

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Spoiler: Uncommon

Show

Spoiler: Rare

Show

Spoiler: Mythic

Show

I've been messing around with the uncommon a lot. I'm still not sure I'm happy with it.



ETA: Bonus! A white card!

Spoiler: who doesn't love removal

Show

Even if that removal is conditional.

[khadgar567]

is wish draw card works as mechanic? And how you word it?

[Svata]

Pardon? I understood all of those words, but they didn't make a coherent sentence. Could you perhaps try rewording it?

[solidork]

Reverse (cost) - You may pay (cost) as you cast this spell. If you do, apply the numbered effects in reverse order.

All of these basically read like weird entwine cards, so I'm not super convinced it's worth the potential headaches of the mechanic.

Seedling's Strength 1G
Sorcery
Reverse - G
1: Choose a creature with the least toughness among creatures you control and put 2 +1/+1 counters on it.
2: Create a 0/1 green Plant creature token.


Coup de Grâce 2W
Sorcery
Choose target creature.
Reverse - B
1: Destroy that creature if it is tapped.
2: Tap that creature if it is on the battlefield.


In for the Kill 1BB
Sorcery
Reverse - Pay 2 Life
1: Create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.
2: Each player sacrifices a creature.

When I first posted this mechanic a few years ago on Good Gamery, the best card for it was designed by F♠️less. I will include it here since it shows the mechanic off better and because it is pretty sweet!

Open Grave 2.0 3BB
Sorcery
Each player returns all creature cards from their graveyard to the battlefield
Each player sacrifices each creature they control
Reverse 1B

Unrelated card idea:

Electric Corona 3R
Sorcery
Electric Corona costs 1 less for each creature it targets.
Electric Corona deals 3 damage divided as you choose among one, two or three target creatures.

I guess this would be fine at rare? There is probably a better vehicle for this particular idea than a red burn spell.

[Silfir]

I've got 4 cards. Sorry for no art, but I don't really feel like stealing art for them. They share a mechanic I've made, and I think I may slowly make a set, focused around the shards, I think. Not sure if this mechanic is deep enough to make it the main mechanic of the Jund colors in it, but I've literally just started.

Spoiler: Common

Show

Spoiler: Uncommon

Show

Spoiler: Rare

Show

Spoiler: Mythic

Show

I've been messing around with the uncommon a lot. I'm still not sure I'm happy with it.



ETA: Bonus! A white card!

Spoiler: who doesn't love removal

Show

Even if that removal is conditional.

Shield of Honor seems like perfectly flavorful, if average, common rarity removal.

As for the "Hunger" keyword - it's flavorful, but it's not at all fun to actually play with, especially once you go to Hunger 2+. Imagine staring at an empty board and looking at a hand full of these. Imagine sacrificing your board to summon a big dumb 9/10 Trample, and your opponent plays Unsummon.

Having drawbacks as keywords is something Wizards tries to avoid, for good reason - keywords define the block and show up on a multitude of cards, and when they represent drawbacks (especially ones as severe as this one) players are going to grow to hate them.

What's more, the steep cost in creatures this represents means you can, at best, put one Hunger 2+ in your Limited deck. Maybe two Hunger 1s. And even that is questionable.

Ultimately, I can't help but feel that the Magic design team already got the mechanic right when they did Devour.

[khadgar567]

Pardon? I understood all of those words, but they didn't make a coherent sentence. Could you perhaps try rewording it?

lets say you have a new mechanic called wish allowing you to draw up to three wish cards from your deck how you word it?

[Carl]

Reverse (cost) - You may pay (cost) as you cast this spell. If you do, apply the numbered effects in reverse order.

All of these basically read like weird entwine cards, so I'm not super convinced it's worth the potential headaches of the mechanic.

Seedling's Strength 1G
Sorcery
Reverse - G
1: Choose a creature with the least toughness among creatures you control and put 2 +1/+1 counters on it.
2: Create a 0/1 green Plant creature token.


Coup de Grâce 2W
Sorcery
Choose target creature.
Reverse - B
1: Destroy that creature if it is tapped.
2: Tap that creature if it is on the battlefield.


In for the Kill 1BB
Sorcery
Reverse - Pay 2 Life
1: Create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token.
2: Each player sacrifices a creature.

When I first posted this mechanic a few years ago on Good Gamery, the best card for it was designed by F♠️less. I will include it here since it shows the mechanic off better and because it is pretty sweet!



Unrelated card idea:

Electric Corona 3R
Sorcery
Electric Corona costs 1 less for each creature it targets.
Electric Corona deals 3 damage divided as you choose among one, two or three target creatures.

I guess this would be fine at rare? There is probably a better vehicle for this particular idea than a red burn spell.

No i think it's distinct enough to stand apart from Entwine and kinda cool. I like.

lets say you have a new mechanic called wish allowing you to draw up to three wish cards from your deck how you word it?

You wouldn't. You'd just write "draw three card" on the appropriate card.

Whilst this goes for Svata below you the key thing ti remember is new keywords are about representing a mechanic that will occur repeatedly throughout a set. They're shorthand basically. Thus if somthing isn't present on a large percentage of cards in your set, especially at common, it isn't keyword worthy. Draw three cards is such a powerful effect it belongs at uncommon at the bare minimum, and probably rare or mythic rare. It can;t ever be a set level mechanic theme so it doesn't belong as a keyword. Also most keywords have a conditional for when their effect applies. They don't just say "Do X", they say "When Y is true, Do X"

I've got 4 cards. Sorry for no art, but I don't really feel like stealing art for them. They share a mechanic I've made, and I think I may slowly make a set, focused around the shards, I think. Not sure if this mechanic is deep enough to make it the main mechanic of the Jund colors in it, but I've literally just started.

Spoiler: Common

Show

Spoiler: Uncommon

Show

Spoiler: Rare

Show

Spoiler: Mythic

Show

I've been messing around with the uncommon a lot. I'm still not sure I'm happy with it.



ETA: Bonus! A white card!

Spoiler: who doesn't love removal

Show

Even if that removal is conditional.

Shield of Honour is cool. The others.

A) I agree that Devour does it better.

B) that keywording somthing like this is very awkward, it's technically keywordable if sufficiently present, but getting somthing like this present in sufficient amounts is very awkward. Again it needs to turn up on a significant percentage of your cards in the appropriate colour/s in all your rarities, (especially common), to work as a keyword, and this being non-optional all downside makes that very difficult to do.

[Svata]

Yeah, I totally get that criticism. That's why red was going to have a moderately strong tokens presence, to offset that. And I was kind of inspired by devour, honestly. Well, that and the cards that make you put -1/-1 counters on your creatures from AKH/HOU. I'm glad you liked the flavor of it though. What sort of drawback would you craft that makes them more playable, but still has that predatory feel? Or should it maybe be a sort of kicker thing, except on ETB rather than cast to prevent blowouts?

Like, its a 3/2 that enters with a +1/+1 counter (+whatever ability for the non-vanilla ones) if you sacrifice a creature as it enters the battlefield. Would that be mechanically distinct enough from devour, as it is a set cost and effect, rather than a variable one?


Also, glad you liked Shield of Honor.

[Carl]

Yeah, I totally get that criticism. That's why red was going to have a moderately strong tokens presence, to offset that. And I was kind of inspired by devour, honestly. Well, that and the cards that make you put -1/-1 counters on your creatures from AKH/HOU. I'm glad you liked the flavor of it though. What sort of drawback would you craft that makes them more playable, but still has that predatory feel? Or should it maybe be a sort of kicker thing, except on ETB rather than cast to prevent blowouts?

Like, its a 3/2 that enters with a +1/+1 counter (+whatever ability for the non-vanilla ones) if you sacrifice a creature as it enters the battlefield. Would that be mechanically distinct enough from devour, as it is a set cost and effect, rather than a variable one?


Also, glad you liked Shield of Honor.

First if you're going to have hunger turn up outside of red, then non-red needs the token generation too. You can't restrict it to one colour unless you restrict Hunger the same way, (obviously multi-colours with red as one equired colour are fine)

Nah i don't think that would be especially different from devour really. The thing to remember with the -1/-1 cards from those sets, (only familiar with a couple mind), is that they have a theme of being able to spend them as a resource. Your just throwing away creatures to get somthing big for less. In that respect it also has overlap with convoke.

If you wanted to do a devour like mechanic that plays with AKH/HOU type spend as a resource mechanic i'd try one of the two following idea's:


Idea 1:

Hunger N: When this card enters the battlefield you may Exile up to N creatures you control under "CARDNAME" until it leaves the battlefield.

Then put Tap: As an additional cost to activate this ability sacrifice a creature exiled under "CARDNAME" "EFFECT"

Where CARDNAME is the name of the card and EFFECT is an effect that occurs.


Idea 2:

Hunger N: CARDNAME enters the battlefield with N -1/-1 counters on it, anytime a creature enters a graveyard remove a -1/-1 counter.

You could use dies instead of enters the battlefield. Or you could replace "enters a graveyard" above with "ZONE" and give each colour it's own trigger. Black could be stuff hitting the graveyard, white stuff being exiled, blue stuff being returned to the hand, red could be land destruction, (or somthing), and green straight up "dies". for example. It's a bit hard to explain how blue is eating stuff returned to hand of course but that means building a few returns to hand effects that have a lore appropriate explanation.

[Carl]

Ok had an idea for a mechanic to cover the third of my elven societies factions so i'll throw it out for review, (i did reply btw to the last lot of critique on the other two, last post of the previous page, not sure if it managed to get missed or if your just all considering responses ;)). Th spoiler tags will contain some basic notes on how i created the mechanic in my head, and some stuff on how i see it fitting the colour pie.

As a general note on the faction they're Blue-Red primary with a secondary of black, being focused on creativity and civilisation as a whole, you'll find mages, scientists artificers, artists, poets engineers, architects, and gourmet chefs, amongst other things. They embody a well balanced mix of the two colours however not as a whole being subject to the worst excesses of either colour creativity and individualism in balance is a good sub description, that said on an individual level excess enthusiasm can push them towards some of the negatives of the individual colours and thats shared territory with black.

Spoiler: Mechanic Creation

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It may sound odd given it's name but i was really starved for inspiration on this one, i just wasn't quite sure how to get the feel of the faction across, part of it was that it was the least well defined faction, i was struggling to find some common ground in amongst all this at the time. Thanks to the early part of this thread however i've been rewatching MLP. So after a fruitless bit of thinking i put down the problem and started thinking about an episode i'd just watched, and in my mind's action replay rarity said a word. Inspiration. Clever Girl. I swear a lightbulb must have appeared above my head at that moment. Comical as all that sounds the key thing it really opened my eyes to is that the big thing all the the facets of the relevant section of elvish society is that they're creative in nature. This led me to thinking about a set of concepts encapsulated in 3 tropes,; Bunny-Eared lawyer, Super OCD, and Absent Minded Professor. Whilst not all creative types are like that, (and neither is the whole of this section of elvish society), what separates the greats from the rest both IRL and especially in fiction is that they're prone to acting in ways that seem borderline insane in some respect, but lead to greater creative ability on their part.

In fact that epiphany helped me firm up my concept of the relevant section of Elvish society quite nicely. So cool.

Ok so i had this idea that cards representing that segment of elvish society should be prone to seeming a little insane whilst giving you an advantage in exchange for the seeming insanity. That led to two questions. First was that appropriate to the colour combination, and Second, what would be insane for this colour combo specifically?

The answer to the first question was a clear and unequivocal yes, Blue/ed is the colours of mad science. It's the colour combo that specialises in this.

The second was to ask what defined these two colours as beneficial things they commonly do, well blus big stand out was card draw. Red, it doesn't do direct card draw, but between impulsive draw effects, wheeling effects, and a few tangential effects that grant a form of card advantage, all at a cost. Thus whilst card draw wasn't strongly red, messing with it in a negetive way in exchange for a benefit for you was well within the realms of a blue/red mix. There's a bit more to it than that, (specifically the commonest way i intend to use it was inspired, (hur, hur), by the thought process of "what's the obvious direct exchange? Which led to exchanging one type of card advantage for another), but thats the gist of it.

The mechanic functions as an extra cost mechanic for somthing in exchange for a benefit, much like exert. Though what you pay is very different:


Inspire: As an additional cost to "EFFECT" until the end of your next turn anytime you draw a card, discard it immediately without placing it into your hand.

EFFECT is generally either "activate this ability" or "cast this spell" though i expect the latter to be rarer.


There's a corollary or two to this in terms of effects i'm planning on heavily using.

The two commonest effect it will allow are:

On permanents:

"Tap, then pay N. As an additional cost to activate this ability, Inspire yourself, (Until the end of your next turn, anytime you draw a card, discard it immediately without placing it into your hand). You may cast a copy of CARDNAME drawn from outside the game without paying it's mana cost, you may choose new targets for this copy.

On Instants and Sorceries:

"So long as it's owner is Inspired CARDNAME has Flashback N"


The first one may change to "Create a token that is a copy of CARDNAME" depending on how many effects i end up with that need non-token permanents to target to work.

There's also doubtless going to be a lot of "on enters battlefield" effects to reward you for using inspire.

Both basically boil down to using the inspire mechanic to get a different kind of card advantage, turning your battlefield permanents and graveyard non-permanents into a weird kind of extension of your hand, at the cost of higher casting costs, (probably +2 mana in most cases), for most things since your getting so much potential, card advantage, and a sort of pseudo tutor for things you allready have.. Being able to mass multiply your creatures is a very red/blue thing to do as well. Flashback is a red thing and Blue and Red are the core colours for pulling instant/sorcery spells respectively out of your graveyard. So it all lines up nicely.