I like the Gatewatch and all, but as a group they're all pretty powerful. You could say they can do anything... that the story demands of them. And their cards... sometimes illustrate some of that.
But I'm interested in laying out a new set of "Core Set" legendary creatures that can be protagonists (in flavor text and an animated show alike). I think we'd want our band to start on Dominaria, with the possibility they'll visit other planes as their popularity and the story demands it. (In a sense, I want you to think of these as an alternate team of protagonists alongside the gatewatch.)
I've narrowed it down to 3 options:
1) Students at a magic school (You can't get much more Harry Potter than this)
2) Adventurers off on a quest (You cant' get much more Weatherlight than this)
3) Explorers off to explore and achieve their own goals (Think One Piece... yeah, I went there)
Here are the "Flagship" cards (no pun intended) for these archetypes:
Chromia Academy
Legendary Land (M) T: Each player adds one mana of any color to his or her mana pool.
Iconor, the Chosen 5
Legendary Artifact - vehicle (M)
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield or attacks, you may search your library for a legendary creature card, reveal it, and put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
Flying
Crew 4
5/4
The Everhome5
Legendary Artifact - vehicle (M)
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield or attacks, you may search your library for a land card and put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
Flying
Crew 2
4/4
Thoughts? Have I balanced them right? Which feels better in a core set? Which is most likely to see play?
I would go with the students idea. The characters are learning magic, and the players are themselves learning Magic through the core set.
To be realistic though, the core set would probably have a group of new planeswalker cards as the focus, as that is what seemingly sells nowadays and is such a heavily pushed part of the game's brand image.
I think the core set should have gatewatch planeswalkers (probably reprints as needed) too, but I think that if you're going to tell a story you want creatures, not planeswalkers.
Besides, "Planeswalker decks" are really damaging the brand. How can you design cards that aren't even supposed to be fun?
My concern with students at a magic academy is that they are likely all wizards, MAYBE a shaman or a druid but realistically, probably not. With adventurers off on a quest, you can show off a variety of class creature types across all colors and sort of build mechanics around it, where you want to assemble a diverse team. Here's a bad, top-of-head example of a kind of mechanic this can enable:
Company Longbowman2W
Creature - Human Archer (U) W, T: Company Longbowman deals 1 damage to target creature. If you control a tapped Assassin, destroy that creature instead.
2/2
I kind of like a mechanic that encourages you to run a variety of creature types, but Company Longbowman seems like he's asking for too much uniformity in the set.
But overall, I'm inclined to agree with you. I like the idea of a ragtag group on a quest. Yeah, they can be young, but being students does limit their variety. I also fear that if they're students, Wizards would want to print new cards for each of the characters on a regular basis, which would be super confusing (especially with how the legendary rule works).
As for the interaction between main characters, outside of a Captain Sisay-style card/archetype, I don't see any reason they should care about other members of the crew. As I mentioned above, I'm really thinking One Piece here - experts in their related fields, their own motivations and interests to "join the crew", and a developing friendship.
Here are the themes I'm thinking a main cast would explore: W something with unity? G variety (either in lands, or creatures) R Games/chance B something with greed? U something with artifacts
I'm really trying hard to avoid just saddling the black character with zombies/reanimator. It's a great mechanic, one that Liliana has a good grasp on, and also one that doesn't seem like it would "play well" with others.
White is tough to crack too. I guess "legendary matters" is clear enough, and would work well with white being the leader of the team... but honestly? I'm thinking black should be the leader of the team. You can play with expectations here quite nicely; Black isn't evil, it's just willing to do anything for power/greed/etc. So if you feature a black hero that is willing to give of himself (or you?) to benefit his friends... that's on color, interesting, and open-ended. And yeah, having the black guy sacrifice himself for the team to "change things up" seems like an interesting option to keep open. Apart from planeswalker/legendary love, I think white's best option is a life-gain engine/mechanic.
In theory, I'd like each of the legendary creatures to inspire their own deck archetype, but each should be "efficient enough" to toss in a "legendary deck" and not suck. The final thing to worry about is how to make these characters efficient enough to see play without making them all 1-3 drops. I think that's a bullet to bite, though. We can have giant legendary 6/6s for 5 or whatever, but our main crew needs to be relatively small - humanoid - and they shouldn't dominate combat so much as do interesting things that affect the game.
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But I'm interested in laying out a new set of "Core Set" legendary creatures that can be protagonists (in flavor text and an animated show alike). I think we'd want our band to start on Dominaria, with the possibility they'll visit other planes as their popularity and the story demands it. (In a sense, I want you to think of these as an alternate team of protagonists alongside the gatewatch.)
I've narrowed it down to 3 options:
1) Students at a magic school (You can't get much more Harry Potter than this)
2) Adventurers off on a quest (You cant' get much more Weatherlight than this)
3) Explorers off to explore and achieve their own goals (Think One Piece... yeah, I went there)
Here are the "Flagship" cards (no pun intended) for these archetypes:
Chromia Academy
Legendary Land (M)
T: Each player adds one mana of any color to his or her mana pool.
Iconor, the Chosen 5
Legendary Artifact - vehicle (M)
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield or attacks, you may search your library for a legendary creature card, reveal it, and put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
Flying
Crew 4
5/4
The Everhome 5
Legendary Artifact - vehicle (M)
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield or attacks, you may search your library for a land card and put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
Flying
Crew 2
4/4
Thoughts? Have I balanced them right? Which feels better in a core set? Which is most likely to see play?
To be realistic though, the core set would probably have a group of new planeswalker cards as the focus, as that is what seemingly sells nowadays and is such a heavily pushed part of the game's brand image.
Besides, "Planeswalker decks" are really damaging the brand. How can you design cards that aren't even supposed to be fun?
The Everhome seems too strong because that the lands come in untapped. You could consider making it cost 4 but make the lands enter tapped.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Company Longbowman 2W
Creature - Human Archer (U)
W, T: Company Longbowman deals 1 damage to target creature. If you control a tapped Assassin, destroy that creature instead.
2/2
But overall, I'm inclined to agree with you. I like the idea of a ragtag group on a quest. Yeah, they can be young, but being students does limit their variety. I also fear that if they're students, Wizards would want to print new cards for each of the characters on a regular basis, which would be super confusing (especially with how the legendary rule works).
As for the interaction between main characters, outside of a Captain Sisay-style card/archetype, I don't see any reason they should care about other members of the crew. As I mentioned above, I'm really thinking One Piece here - experts in their related fields, their own motivations and interests to "join the crew", and a developing friendship.
Here are the themes I'm thinking a main cast would explore:
W something with unity?
G variety (either in lands, or creatures)
R Games/chance
B something with greed?
U something with artifacts
I'm really trying hard to avoid just saddling the black character with zombies/reanimator. It's a great mechanic, one that Liliana has a good grasp on, and also one that doesn't seem like it would "play well" with others.
White is tough to crack too. I guess "legendary matters" is clear enough, and would work well with white being the leader of the team... but honestly? I'm thinking black should be the leader of the team. You can play with expectations here quite nicely; Black isn't evil, it's just willing to do anything for power/greed/etc. So if you feature a black hero that is willing to give of himself (or you?) to benefit his friends... that's on color, interesting, and open-ended. And yeah, having the black guy sacrifice himself for the team to "change things up" seems like an interesting option to keep open. Apart from planeswalker/legendary love, I think white's best option is a life-gain engine/mechanic.
In theory, I'd like each of the legendary creatures to inspire their own deck archetype, but each should be "efficient enough" to toss in a "legendary deck" and not suck. The final thing to worry about is how to make these characters efficient enough to see play without making them all 1-3 drops. I think that's a bullet to bite, though. We can have giant legendary 6/6s for 5 or whatever, but our main crew needs to be relatively small - humanoid - and they shouldn't dominate combat so much as do interesting things that affect the game.