Ice Lance3S
Snow Instant [C] (S can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
Ice Lance deals 3 damage to target creature.
Plumb the Depths2SS
Snow Sorcery [U] (S can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
Return up to two target cards from your graveyard to your hand, then exile a card from your hand. Exile Plumb the Depths.
EDIT: Changed Ice Lance from 2S.
EDIT: Changed Plumb the Depths from 3S.
EDIT: Changed Plumb the Depths from a 1SSRegrowth.
Dahammer4
Artifact - Equipment (R)
Choose one - Equipped creature gets +4/+0; or Double Strike; or "When this creature deals combat damage to a creature, exile that creature"; or t, unattach ~ from this creature: ~ deals 5 damage to target creature." t: Equipped creature gains flying until end of turn.
Equip 3
I wouldn't want blue to have either one of these. Any particular reason you decided to make colorless removal and retrieval?
Here's more or less my treatise on the idea. Also here.
The very short version: I'm trying to cost these effects much as you would an off-color effect that an artifact can get. They're being promoted for the block's monocolor + snow faction as a way to shore up weaknesses that monocolor inherently faces by not being able to splash.
I chose these two particular effects due to the belief that they'd be Limited-relevant outside of the colors that normally get such effects. For the most part I am leaning towards control + utility for these cards.
The very short version: I'm trying to cost these effects much as you would an off-color effect that an artifact can get. They're being promoted for the block's monocolor + snow faction as a way to shore up weaknesses that monocolor inherently faces by not being able to splash.
Ice Lance is Ghostfire for snow instead of red -hitting players. Comparable artifacts include Goblin Boom Keg which costs 4, can only be cast at sorcery speed, and the damage is delayed to your upkeep, and Flamecast Wheel which is 1 + 5 mana. Note these are both uncommon as well.
The only comparable artifact I see to Plumb the Depths is Codex Shredder, which is also 1 + 5 mana.
Ice Lance should be snow mana Bee Sting imo.
Or it could be "Ice Lance deals 2 damage to target creature or player and 1 damage to you." So it's at least old-school blue.
Or better yet cost only one S and only deal 1 damage like Gut Shot.
Plumb the Depths should be random like Fossil Find and be named "Ice Fishing"
I would consider Ice Lance at 3S. I still think drafters would maindeck it. I probably need it at common.
I don't think anybody would touch Plumb the Depths in any format if it goes higher than its current cost.
Some of these are going to be common, and some of them (including some commons) are going to be costed attractively. I'd like to find the "fair" cost for each, first (which I imagine is going to be 1 - 2 more expensive than "attractive").
I wouldn't want either of these as an artifact at their current cost. (Plumb the Depths in Daretti? Sign me up!)
Compare Ice Lance to Flamecast Wheel. Flamecast Wheel is terrible, but it says something about the power level WotC thinks colorless removal can safely be at these days, and your card is a common.
ETA: Or, to put it another way: The tradeoff for splashing additional colors in a nonsnow deck is that you have to adjust your manabase to produce more colors of mana, which generally means slowing your deck down with ETBT lands and getting clunkier opening hands. If monocolor snow decks are a thing, there should be a tradeoff for "splashing" additional numbers of snow-colored cards other than "play the snow basics I was going to run anyway."
Here's generally the issues I have with the current state of the "snow-colored" mechanic, compared to Eldrazi and Phyrexian mana:
1. Snow-colored does not reward being in the correct color for the effect any more than being in an off-color "splashing" the effect.
Take the poster child Dismember. (Assume that the Bant deck wants to run it because there's no better kill spell in their colors.) If Dismember is the best black kill spell, then a base-black deck will be able to cast it better than anyone else. On the other hand, if the best black kill spell is something else, then black still gets a leg up in the kill spell department, while Bant is forced to make do with what they can get. Likewise, Rise of the Eldrazi had the monster Eldrazi that could be played in any deck, but the decks best able to take advantage of that were the Eldrazi Spawn colors, which also happen to be the colors that have historically gotten mana acceleration.
Sure, Plumb the Depths is a worse Recollect, but that only matters if the environment contains a mono-green Recollect or better -- otherwise there's no advantage to playing green over playing any other snow deck. (Given that the mono-green card would probably want to be nonsnow unless you specifically don't want the Coalition to have access to this effect, if it's not substantially better, the green deck may want to play the snow card anyway because of avalanche!) A set can probably handle multiple conditional counters and multiple burn spells, but doubling up on something like Faith's Fetters seems more dubious.
2. Snow-colored does not have its own mechanical identity.
No colored card gets annihilator, and there are veryfew cards that reward colorlessness at the expense of colored cards, one of which is an Eldrazi themed card that plays well with green's land affinity, and one of which plays poorly against manifest because...reasons. Snow-colored, right now, gets you a Hill Giant, some effects that could easily fit into a Core Set, and the enchantment and sorcery hating card (Does the Coalition have a disproportionately high number of enchantments and sorceries? But I thought sorcery hole-filling was going to the Kaldarjar). Phyrexian mana gives the same awkward mishmash of effects, but the unifying mechanic is the 2 life payment (and, in a lesser sense, the fact of the color pie bleed itself "feeling violative"). In particular, I'm not seeing what differentiates snow-colored cards from snow cards that have a regular mana cost.
3. Snow-colored cards are answers rather than forming a proactive strategy.
I recognize this is your intention. Just wanted to differentiate them from Eldrazi. Eldrazi felt like they had a more coherent identity because their high mana costs forced you to build your deck around a very specific strategy, that of ramping a lot of mana with as many colorless sources as possible. In some colors (e.g. U/x Tron), you were forced to forgo a lot of good effects in your colors for cards that contributed more to your strategy. This is not the case with snow-colored. I'm not just going to jam any random Eldrazi cards into my EDH deck without consideration to how I'll make it easier for myself to cast them, but I can just jam in random goodstuffy snow cards and they'll work perfectly well if only I pretend all my basic lands are snow. So in a sense, snow is a cost, in that it requires you to run a deck with a lot of basic lands, but assuming decks with a lot of basic lands are viable in the format at all, all it does is punish you for playing nonsnow basic lands. (Especially given the 0 snow hosers.)
I'm definitely wrestling with the identity of these cards. It's a lot clearer than it was when I started the set. But I get what you're saying about the S not being as compelling a lynchpin as the Eldrazi enormous mana cost thing.
The set has five ability/keywords, and is maxed out as far as I'm concerned. So I can't toss another one onto the pile now. I'm not sure that I'd want to even if I could. I like the mechanical purity of S, and I don't think it necessarily needs an ability/keyword on top of that, to give it its ideal form. But I agree that there still needs to be a stronger mechanical identity to it.
Noxious Revival says Plumb the Depths is probably okay. Despite the disgust for the cards you proposed by other posters, including a hatred for blue getting these things, I believe they're fine. They're costed correctly and they fit fine with the flavor of the set. I don't see why blue couldn't get these when it can already do things like these effects with artifacts. I like the designs and wouldn't worry too much.
If monocolor snow decks are a thing, there should be a tradeoff for "splashing" additional numbers of snow-colored cards other than "play the snow basics I was going to run anyway."
Guesswork may have changed this since I last heard about his plans, but if I remember correctly - there are no snow basic lands for this set, and will in fact not be legal to use in constructed block/standard play for it, due to his plans to change basic land rules.
With this information, I think it alleviates some of the critisisms you gave - players won't have any amount of 'easy access' to snow in the form of snow covered basics, either in draft or constructed, and will have to make consious desicions when putting snow into their deck. Sure, it may end up being easier then splashing a color, but its not going to be as simple as running 24 snow-covered Islands.
Guesswork may have changed this since I last heard about his plans, but if I remember correctly - there are no snow basic lands for this set, and will in fact not be legal to use in constructed block/standard play for it, due to his plans to change basic land rules.
It does sound like something crazy I'd do, doesn't it?
But not quite: the snow basics are in the set. (Why haven't I put them on the set homepage yet? I have no idea.) They're just not being doled out in draft in unlimited numbers like the regular basics; you have to pull all of your snow mana from packs. So the set design has needed to account for that scarcity in Limited. In Constructed it doesn't matter, you can pack your deck full of snow lands and rock out.
You're probably also thinking about the change to basic lands that's happening in Nexus. I am, indeed, changing how basic lands work there. But in any case, Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest are remaining legal in all formats going forward, even if they aren't actually in a given set.
Dahammer4
Artifact - Equipment (R)
Choose one - Equipped creature gets +4/+0; or Double Strike; or "When this creature deals combat damage to a creature, exile that creature"; or t, unattach ~ from this creature: ~ deals 5 damage to target creature." t: Equipped creature gains flying until end of turn.
Equip 3
Note:Anyone who is confused by my seemingly drastic change of opinion on snow cards should check the Fate Snare thread.
These seem pretty reasonable. Ice Lance is better than what red gets. I'd probably make it a sorcery, but I could also see 3S.
Plumb looks unplayabe. You could easily make it instant and/or lose a mana without getting near "comparable to monocolor" territory.
That card is horrible. Flame Slash is the baseline for just-creature red removal.
creature removal shifts up and down from power based on the standard environment. sometimes, its pushed up, sometimes down. in khans, its a pretty creature heavy environment, which is why it is the way that it is.
i think depending on where you want your spells/creature balance, you should shift it up and down accordingly.
i think depending on where you want your spells/creature balance, you should shift it up and down accordingly.
My read on the Dominaria draft environment right now is that it's very bomb-heavy. There are a bunch of biglunks — particularly on the Kaldarjar side — that are going to be able to survive 3 (or more) damage. So, I don't think that Ice Lance is going to be the format's lynchpin removal spell. It's quite effective at burning out most of the Coalition's spectrum / blue hurricane stuff, which is why I wanted it for the snow faction. (In general, most of the set's damage-based removal is falling with team snow.)
i think depending on where you want your spells/creature balance, you should shift it up and down accordingly.
My read on the Dominaria draft environment right now is that it's very bomb-heavy. There are a bunch of biglunks — particularly on the Kaldarjar side — that are going to be able to survive 3 (or more) damage. So, I don't think that Ice Lance is going to be the format's lynchpin removal spell. It's quite effective at burning out most of the Coalition's spectrum / blue hurricane stuff, which is why I wanted it for the snow faction. (In general, most of the set's damage-based removal is falling with team snow.)
i meant that as pointing out that even if targeted damage was overpriced, it could be for a good reason. if the creatures are leaning towards a few beefy dudes, removal should be neutered a bit to let the creatures have a chance. but you'd be hard pressed to balance it without testing it much
i meant that as pointing out that even if targeted damage was overpriced, it could be for a good reason. if the creatures are leaning towards a few beefy dudes, removal should be neutered a bit to let the creatures have a chance. but you'd be hard pressed to balance it without testing it much
Well, playtesting is quickly approaching on the horizon.
There are still a few dozen cards left to lock in, but Dominaria should be out of initial design by the end of the month.
My design policy for these "snow-colored" cards is that they don't reference other snow cards (except in the reminder text, of course). This is because I have a lot of other monocolor cards that do, and I don't want to oversaturate the set with those kinds of mechanics. I have nothing against those suggestions in a vacuum, but I'm out of room for them in this set.
So instead, I've turned Plumb the Depths into a sort of Macabre Waltz / Restock mashup. This was partly done because I have another "snow-colored" utility uncommon that moved into the CMC 3 slot. Also, because I want to make Plumb the Depths a little more distinctive.
Set 1 of 3 in Dominaria block
Ice Lance 3S
Snow Instant [C]
(S can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
Ice Lance deals 3 damage to target creature.
Plumb the Depths 2SS
Snow Sorcery [U]
(S can be paid with one mana from a snow source.)
Return up to two target cards from your graveyard to your hand, then exile a card from your hand. Exile Plumb the Depths.
EDIT: Changed Ice Lance from 2S.
EDIT: Changed Plumb the Depths from 3S.
EDIT: Changed Plumb the Depths from a 1SS Regrowth.
Sigpic by Rivenor
Artifact - Equipment (R)
Choose one - Equipped creature gets +4/+0; or Double Strike; or "When this creature deals combat damage to a creature, exile that creature"; or t, unattach ~ from this creature: ~ deals 5 damage to target creature."
t: Equipped creature gains flying until end of turn.
Equip 3
Courtesy of Crepes
[OMC] Omerium's Collapse
The very short version: I'm trying to cost these effects much as you would an off-color effect that an artifact can get. They're being promoted for the block's monocolor + snow faction as a way to shore up weaknesses that monocolor inherently faces by not being able to splash.
I chose these two particular effects due to the belief that they'd be Limited-relevant outside of the colors that normally get such effects. For the most part I am leaning towards control + utility for these cards.
The only comparable artifact I see to Plumb the Depths is Codex Shredder, which is also 1 + 5 mana.
Or it could be "Ice Lance deals 2 damage to target creature or player and 1 damage to you." So it's at least old-school blue.
Or better yet cost only one S and only deal 1 damage like Gut Shot.
Plumb the Depths should be random like Fossil Find and be named "Ice Fishing"
I don't think anybody would touch Plumb the Depths in any format if it goes higher than its current cost.
Some of these are going to be common, and some of them (including some commons) are going to be costed attractively. I'd like to find the "fair" cost for each, first (which I imagine is going to be 1 - 2 more expensive than "attractive").
Compare Ice Lance to Flamecast Wheel. Flamecast Wheel is terrible, but it says something about the power level WotC thinks colorless removal can safely be at these days, and your card is a common.
ETA: Or, to put it another way: The tradeoff for splashing additional colors in a nonsnow deck is that you have to adjust your manabase to produce more colors of mana, which generally means slowing your deck down with ETBT lands and getting clunkier opening hands. If monocolor snow decks are a thing, there should be a tradeoff for "splashing" additional numbers of snow-colored cards other than "play the snow basics I was going to run anyway."
Here's generally the issues I have with the current state of the "snow-colored" mechanic, compared to Eldrazi and Phyrexian mana:
1. Snow-colored does not reward being in the correct color for the effect any more than being in an off-color "splashing" the effect.
Take the poster child Dismember. (Assume that the Bant deck wants to run it because there's no better kill spell in their colors.) If Dismember is the best black kill spell, then a base-black deck will be able to cast it better than anyone else. On the other hand, if the best black kill spell is something else, then black still gets a leg up in the kill spell department, while Bant is forced to make do with what they can get. Likewise, Rise of the Eldrazi had the monster Eldrazi that could be played in any deck, but the decks best able to take advantage of that were the Eldrazi Spawn colors, which also happen to be the colors that have historically gotten mana acceleration.
Sure, Plumb the Depths is a worse Recollect, but that only matters if the environment contains a mono-green Recollect or better -- otherwise there's no advantage to playing green over playing any other snow deck. (Given that the mono-green card would probably want to be nonsnow unless you specifically don't want the Coalition to have access to this effect, if it's not substantially better, the green deck may want to play the snow card anyway because of avalanche!) A set can probably handle multiple conditional counters and multiple burn spells, but doubling up on something like Faith's Fetters seems more dubious.
2. Snow-colored does not have its own mechanical identity.
No colored card gets annihilator, and there are very few cards that reward colorlessness at the expense of colored cards, one of which is an Eldrazi themed card that plays well with green's land affinity, and one of which plays poorly against manifest because...reasons. Snow-colored, right now, gets you a Hill Giant, some effects that could easily fit into a Core Set, and the enchantment and sorcery hating card (Does the Coalition have a disproportionately high number of enchantments and sorceries? But I thought sorcery hole-filling was going to the Kaldarjar). Phyrexian mana gives the same awkward mishmash of effects, but the unifying mechanic is the 2 life payment (and, in a lesser sense, the fact of the color pie bleed itself "feeling violative"). In particular, I'm not seeing what differentiates snow-colored cards from snow cards that have a regular mana cost.
3. Snow-colored cards are answers rather than forming a proactive strategy.
I recognize this is your intention. Just wanted to differentiate them from Eldrazi. Eldrazi felt like they had a more coherent identity because their high mana costs forced you to build your deck around a very specific strategy, that of ramping a lot of mana with as many colorless sources as possible. In some colors (e.g. U/x Tron), you were forced to forgo a lot of good effects in your colors for cards that contributed more to your strategy. This is not the case with snow-colored. I'm not just going to jam any random Eldrazi cards into my EDH deck without consideration to how I'll make it easier for myself to cast them, but I can just jam in random goodstuffy snow cards and they'll work perfectly well if only I pretend all my basic lands are snow. So in a sense, snow is a cost, in that it requires you to run a deck with a lot of basic lands, but assuming decks with a lot of basic lands are viable in the format at all, all it does is punish you for playing nonsnow basic lands. (Especially given the 0 snow hosers.)
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The set has five ability/keywords, and is maxed out as far as I'm concerned. So I can't toss another one onto the pile now. I'm not sure that I'd want to even if I could. I like the mechanical purity of S, and I don't think it necessarily needs an ability/keyword on top of that, to give it its ideal form. But I agree that there still needs to be a stronger mechanical identity to it.
I'm considering a few different approaches.
Dunes of Zairo
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Innistrad - The Darkest Night
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A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Guesswork may have changed this since I last heard about his plans, but if I remember correctly - there are no snow basic lands for this set, and will in fact not be legal to use in constructed block/standard play for it, due to his plans to change basic land rules.
With this information, I think it alleviates some of the critisisms you gave - players won't have any amount of 'easy access' to snow in the form of snow covered basics, either in draft or constructed, and will have to make consious desicions when putting snow into their deck. Sure, it may end up being easier then splashing a color, but its not going to be as simple as running 24 snow-covered Islands.
Avant Block: Avant -- Stormfront
But not quite: the snow basics are in the set. (Why haven't I put them on the set homepage yet? I have no idea.) They're just not being doled out in draft in unlimited numbers like the regular basics; you have to pull all of your snow mana from packs. So the set design has needed to account for that scarcity in Limited. In Constructed it doesn't matter, you can pack your deck full of snow lands and rock out.
You're probably also thinking about the change to basic lands that's happening in Nexus. I am, indeed, changing how basic lands work there. But in any case, Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest are remaining legal in all formats going forward, even if they aren't actually in a given set.
These seem pretty reasonable. Ice Lance is better than what red gets. I'd probably make it a sorcery, but I could also see 3S.
Plumb looks unplayabe. You could easily make it instant and/or lose a mana without getting near "comparable to monocolor" territory.
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Sigpic by Rivenor
Artifact - Equipment (R)
Choose one - Equipped creature gets +4/+0; or Double Strike; or "When this creature deals combat damage to a creature, exile that creature"; or t, unattach ~ from this creature: ~ deals 5 damage to target creature."
t: Equipped creature gains flying until end of turn.
Equip 3
Courtesy of Crepes
[OMC] Omerium's Collapse
creature removal shifts up and down from power based on the standard environment. sometimes, its pushed up, sometimes down. in khans, its a pretty creature heavy environment, which is why it is the way that it is.
i think depending on where you want your spells/creature balance, you should shift it up and down accordingly.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
I'm expecting Shivan Basilisk and Gathan Eradicator to be the more important removal cards in Limited.
i meant that as pointing out that even if targeted damage was overpriced, it could be for a good reason. if the creatures are leaning towards a few beefy dudes, removal should be neutered a bit to let the creatures have a chance. but you'd be hard pressed to balance it without testing it much
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
There are still a few dozen cards left to lock in, but Dominaria should be out of initial design by the end of the month.
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
Ice Lance 2S
Snow Instant (C)
CARDNAME deals 3 damage to target attacking creature.
Plumb the Depths SS
Snow Sorcery (U)
Return target snow card from your graveyard to your hand.
GWU Bant Manifest - The Future Is Here. Or it will be at the end of turn. GWU
So instead, I've turned Plumb the Depths into a sort of Macabre Waltz / Restock mashup. This was partly done because I have another "snow-colored" utility uncommon that moved into the CMC 3 slot. Also, because I want to make Plumb the Depths a little more distinctive.