I'm right now a little apprehensive of making this too similar to "Theros 2.0" if we not only make the Kami enchantment creatures, but also play with a variant on bestow.
Other than that it makes mechanical sense and reminds me of the flip cards that left an "essence" behind.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
The name needs adjusting but I like the mechanic. How much design space does it have though if it's always going to be, "X, enchanted creature X"? That's a little narrow.
I've just now made a thread in the Custom Set forum as a home base for our discussions on this project as it continues. I've also setup two multiverse projects for a Samurai duel deck and a Spirit duel deck. We can brainstorm a few variants on the mechanics we've discussed here and see what sticks by playtesting the duel decks on Cockatrice or some other software. I'll echo the sentiment that we're already bordering dangerously close on Theros territory, and will have to be careful of that for the duration of the project. Let's see if we can stay away from Spirit-Auras for the time being, and circle back to it if we need to.
Ancestral Spirit (Rare) 5U
Enchantment Creature - Spirit
3/3
Flying
When Ancestral Spirit enters the battlefield, draw three cards.
Possess 5U(You may cast this card for its possess cost from your graveyard as an Aura with enchant creature.)
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3 and has flying.
Spirit of the Rushing River U
Creature - Spirit (C)
Vessel (When this dies, put a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token onto the battiefield.)
Exile Spirit of the Rushing River from your graveyard: Target Spirit gains flying until the end of turn.
1/1
I know what 5-7 mana nets me these days. But it doesn't do it infinitely. Pay 6, buff up a creature draw 3, creature dies, draw into another creature, rinse and repeat. Maybe I'm oversensitive, but that sounds incredibly strong.
Spirit of the Rushing River U
Creature - Spirit (C)
Vessel (When this dies, put a 1/1 colorless Spirit creature token onto the battiefield.)
Exile Spirit of the Rushing River from your graveyard: Target Spirit gains flying until the end of turn.
1/1
Nobody cares. This thread is not about discussing your card idea and the mechanic runs into the same "too similar to bestow" design space we probably should avoid.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Nobody cares. This thread is not about discussing your card idea and the mechanic runs into the same "too similar to bestow" design space we probably should avoid.
Truth's "infinite" observation applied to the mechanic in general, not the specific card.
Truth's "infinite" observation applied to the mechanic in general, not the specific card.
So? I already wrote that the mechanic is too similar to bestow to care about the further existence or non-existence of further flaws of the mechanic. It doesn't belong here. So unless you want to argue that the mechanic does not have the flaw we already identified in spook your only making noise right now.
AFAIK you already have a thread to talk about possess. If you want to discuss the mechanic, why not revive that one?
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Eh, I always appreciate people suggesting ideas, even if it turns out they won't work. Let's not get derailed about Possess, and let's focus in on Spirits for the moment. We've got Vessel and DFCs as primary contenders thusfar. If we think both are promising, let's build a 40 card duel deck that uses each of those mechanics (some commons, some uncommons, some rares, maybe a mythic) to see how they play. If any other mechanics are worth considering, we can still discuss them. Everyone should be able to post designs to the cardset on multiverse.
I didn't include it, because I think surviving combat with a creature an opponent willingly puts in front of it is a decent enough hurdle for players jump without requiring the creature dies too. "You just have to be a veteran, you don't have to have actually killed" kinda deal. Plus, we don't want our Samurai to be Vampires.
Wizards' initial implementation of Haunt certainly was, but a lot of custom designs using it have been more interesting. The ones that come to mind, unfortunately, are all still too similar to Auras in gameplay (though certainly distinct from Bestow). As far as other returning mechanics go.... Retrace on creatures hasn't been done before and could work, but sounds pretty oppressively recursive to me. I'd be open to considering Manifest somehow, but without Morph that's weird. I suppose Undying/Persist would be more fair options. Not many other returning mechanics seem worth mentioning.
The more I reflect on it, the more keen I am to trying Vessel as the primary Spirit mechanic. Spells can generate 1/1 colorless Spirits too, which is nice for theming.
I'm not sure what we are supposed to address in this thread and what goes in the set thread? Can we get some guidelines for that?
Some unorganized thoughts:
The cool thing about the kami and what I think should separate them mechanically from the mortals and from factions like the Eldrazi or the Phyrexians is that they blur the line between creatures and spells with the Spirit/Arcane stuff. I would focus on finding a way to preserve this flavor. Tribal type is mechanically good for that, but no longer supported, which would conflict with Piar's stated parameters. Channel is a decent representation, but suffers that you can't get cast triggers off of it. Evoke would work better on that front, but risks being too similar to Lorwyn elementals.
I definitely think this should be the defining axis of the conflict, though, kami using spellcraft and being more mental, while the mortals have mostly combat-focused mechanics.
Personal opinion, "tenacious" for the bushido rename sounds too much like it would be something like persist, could we try something like "duelist," "skilled," "weaponmaster," or something along those lines?
I don't think I originally had a plan for how to separate the threads, but I think what makes the most sense is for this thread to be where we discuss the duel decks, while the set thread discusses the larger set the duel decks build into/are built out of.
I'd be happy to explore spirits using spellcraft and mortals being more combat rooted, but I worry about the gameplay implications. What do others think? Is that something we can/should design around?
Anything's possible after Devoid. WotC would use Tribal in a heartbeat if they had a good enough reason to do so. So the question is, do we want to use it, and if so, do we have a reason good enough to use it?
I'm thinking more enchantment Shrines that turn into Spirit creatures. There can be many variations, types of triggers, activations, cycles, etc.
new keyword action: Animate as(this becomes a creature in addition its other types.)
e.g.
Fire Shrine 2R
Tribal Enchantment - Spirit Shrine
At the beginning of your upkeep, ~ deals 1 damage to target creature or player. 1R, Tap a non-Spirit creature you control: Animate ~ as a 2/2 creature.
Blessed Shrine W
Tribal Enchantment - Spirit Shrine
When ~ enters the battlefield, you gain 3 life.
Whenever one or more creatures attack you, you may animate ~ as a 1/3 creature with lifelink. W, Tap a non-Spirit creature you control: Animate ~ as a 1/3 creature with lifelink.
Do we want a major transformation theme? The original Kamigawa had flip cards and we would nowadays use DFCs. I'm wondering whether we really want them. Though it can be said that the mythology has its fair share of shapeshifters, so DFCs could probably pull of more than just the "shrine" mechanic, so that would be nice. On the other hand DFCs come with a lot of baggage.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I've had a few ideas for reworking the Soulshift ability.
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand at random.)
I felt that Soulshift was clunky before because it had a weird number value thing going on, and playing spirits in Kamigawa felt a little clunky. Random Reincarnation is really fun, because you can get ANY spirit back, but its not as broken as being able to pick your spirit.
Here's two other variants:
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may pay 1. If you do, return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand.)
This one might be a little too good, but I'm unsure. It requires 1 to activate, which is supposed to represent the colorless spirit tokens from the original sets, and they can be drifted or reshaped into another spirit in your graveyard.
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand with converted mana cost less than this creature's converted mana cost.)
This is practically the same thing, but looks less clunky.
Finally, a card.
Iname, of Life and Death4BG
Legendary Creature - Spirit (Mythic)
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may pay 1. If you do, return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand.)
Whenever Iname, of Life and Death or another Spirit creature enters the battlefield under your control or dies, you may draw a card.
5/5
I like the idea of having a Duel Deck to start with as well. I might consider following suit and making my own to summarize the war with all new cards. Maybe a BG Spirit deck with aformentioned Iname, and then RW Samurai? I'd be happy to help with yours as well!
Reincarnate's pretty cool. But it makes you ask if we really want to parallel Soulshift, or try to come up with something different. It would play pretty well with Delve, just a random note.
Very true. I might give it a shot to play around with in my custom Duel Decks!
Personally I've renamed Boshido as "Combat Mastery N". The reason is that superior fighting skills is precisely what the abilities does so a simple straight forward name is good (like first strike, double strike, trample).
I think I'm not the first or the last to critique your take on tribal theme. If anything innistrad approach to tribes was one of the biggest weakness of the set as it did nothing for flavor or for limit gameplay. Tribes should naturally find it's colors and if you want tribes in certain colors you better find a tribe that makes sense there. Out of five tribes you got only the Orochi makes sense and you missed the coolest tribe: BR Ogre-Demons.
I strongly support your decision of covering the Kami War and making Spirits a big deal. That's among the core aspects of Kamigawa, without it wouldn't be a redesign.
A suggestion for the spirits/arcane: make it a five-color faction, dominion-converge style. The reason is that in the Kami War the factions were not divided by colors... It was the clash of two entirely five colored worlds. The thing is, the spirits works together despite the difference in their nature. You don't actually need any rainbow card in the set, just cards that cares about different kinds of mana being used. And maybe your Rainbow Mana could tie into this. Just a suggestion...
I also think all the spirits needs a ability to give then a distinct "not of this world" mechanic (like when enchantment creatures in Theros and Shadow in Tempest). This is going to be a challenge though.
I've had a few ideas for reworking the Soulshift ability.
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand at random.)
I felt that Soulshift was clunky before because it had a weird number value thing going on, and playing spirits in Kamigawa felt a little clunky. Random Reincarnation is really fun, because you can get ANY spirit back, but its not as broken as being able to pick your spirit.
Here's two other variants:
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may pay 1. If you do, return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand.)
This one might be a little too good, but I'm unsure. It requires 1 to activate, which is supposed to represent the colorless spirit tokens from the original sets, and they can be drifted or reshaped into another spirit in your graveyard.
I love the idea to make the return random. I assume you'd still have to associate with a small cost of to have that risk associated with tapping out.
I like the idea of having a Duel Deck to start with as well. I might consider following suit and making my own to summarize the war with all new cards. Maybe a BG Spirit deck with aformentioned Iname, and then RW Samurai? I'd be happy to help with yours as well!
I think having multiple pairs of Duel Decks is not a bad starting point to cover testing of so many mechanics.
Personally I've renamed Boshido as "Combat Mastery N". The reason is that superior fighting skills is precisely what the abilities does so a simple straight forward name is good (like first strike, double strike, trample).
Just stating why *I* didn't go with that particular name: length.
A suggestion for the spirits/arcane: make it a five-color faction, dominion-converge style. The reason is that in the Kami War the factions were not divided by colors... It was the clash of two entirely five colored worlds. The thing is, the spirits works together despite the difference in their nature. You don't actually need any rainbow card in the set, just cards that cares about different kinds of mana being used. And maybe your Rainbow Mana could tie into this. Just a suggestion...
It's true that this is another two-faction war, but flavorwise you still need to have some thematic differences within a faction to keep things interesting. Think about the Phyrexians and their five Praetors or the Eldrazi with their three broods (two of which have been explored... if anything a visible weakness in BfZ stems from this unfortunately).
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Other than that it makes mechanical sense and reminds me of the flip cards that left an "essence" behind.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
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5U
Enchantment Creature - Spirit
3/3
Flying
When Ancestral Spirit enters the battlefield, draw three cards.
Possess 5U (You may cast this card for its possess cost from your graveyard as an Aura with enchant creature.)
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3 and has flying.
Yes.
Have you seen Magic lately?
Things, they are a changin'.EDIT: They have changed. Have you seen what 5-7 mana nets you these days?This has potential.
"infinitely"...
That's a good point to start from.
Nobody cares. This thread is not about discussing your card idea and the mechanic runs into the same "too similar to bestow" design space we probably should avoid.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Truth's "infinite" observation applied to the mechanic in general, not the specific card.
So? I already wrote that the mechanic is too similar to bestow to care about the further existence or non-existence of further flaws of the mechanic. It doesn't belong here. So unless you want to argue that the mechanic does not have the flaw we already identified in spook your only making noise right now.
AFAIK you already have a thread to talk about possess. If you want to discuss the mechanic, why not revive that one?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
For Samurai, do we want to stick with Glory?
The more I reflect on it, the more keen I am to trying Vessel as the primary Spirit mechanic. Spells can generate 1/1 colorless Spirits too, which is nice for theming.
Some unorganized thoughts:
The cool thing about the kami and what I think should separate them mechanically from the mortals and from factions like the Eldrazi or the Phyrexians is that they blur the line between creatures and spells with the Spirit/Arcane stuff. I would focus on finding a way to preserve this flavor. Tribal type is mechanically good for that, but no longer supported, which would conflict with Piar's stated parameters. Channel is a decent representation, but suffers that you can't get cast triggers off of it. Evoke would work better on that front, but risks being too similar to Lorwyn elementals.
I definitely think this should be the defining axis of the conflict, though, kami using spellcraft and being more mental, while the mortals have mostly combat-focused mechanics.
Personal opinion, "tenacious" for the bushido rename sounds too much like it would be something like persist, could we try something like "duelist," "skilled," "weaponmaster," or something along those lines?
I'd be happy to explore spirits using spellcraft and mortals being more combat rooted, but I worry about the gameplay implications. What do others think? Is that something we can/should design around?
new keyword action:
Animate as (this becomes a creature in addition its other types.)
e.g.
Fire Shrine 2R
Tribal Enchantment - Spirit Shrine
At the beginning of your upkeep, ~ deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
1R, Tap a non-Spirit creature you control: Animate ~ as a 2/2 creature.
Blessed Shrine W
Tribal Enchantment - Spirit Shrine
When ~ enters the battlefield, you gain 3 life.
Whenever one or more creatures attack you, you may animate ~ as a 1/3 creature with lifelink.
W, Tap a non-Spirit creature you control: Animate ~ as a 1/3 creature with lifelink.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand at random.)
I felt that Soulshift was clunky before because it had a weird number value thing going on, and playing spirits in Kamigawa felt a little clunky. Random Reincarnation is really fun, because you can get ANY spirit back, but its not as broken as being able to pick your spirit.
Here's two other variants:
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may pay 1. If you do, return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand.)
This one might be a little too good, but I'm unsure. It requires 1 to activate, which is supposed to represent the colorless spirit tokens from the original sets, and they can be drifted or reshaped into another spirit in your graveyard.
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand with converted mana cost less than this creature's converted mana cost.)
This is practically the same thing, but looks less clunky.
Finally, a card.
Iname, of Life and Death 4BG
Legendary Creature - Spirit (Mythic)
Reincarnate (When this creature dies, you may pay 1. If you do, return another target Spirit card from your graveyard to your hand.)
Whenever Iname, of Life and Death or another Spirit creature enters the battlefield under your control or dies, you may draw a card.
5/5
I like the idea of having a Duel Deck to start with as well. I might consider following suit and making my own to summarize the war with all new cards. Maybe a BG Spirit deck with aformentioned Iname, and then RW Samurai? I'd be happy to help with yours as well!
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Very true. I might give it a shot to play around with in my custom Duel Decks!
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
I think I'm not the first or the last to critique your take on tribal theme. If anything innistrad approach to tribes was one of the biggest weakness of the set as it did nothing for flavor or for limit gameplay. Tribes should naturally find it's colors and if you want tribes in certain colors you better find a tribe that makes sense there. Out of five tribes you got only the Orochi makes sense and you missed the coolest tribe: BR Ogre-Demons.
I strongly support your decision of covering the Kami War and making Spirits a big deal. That's among the core aspects of Kamigawa, without it wouldn't be a redesign.
A suggestion for the spirits/arcane: make it a five-color faction, dominion-converge style. The reason is that in the Kami War the factions were not divided by colors... It was the clash of two entirely five colored worlds. The thing is, the spirits works together despite the difference in their nature. You don't actually need any rainbow card in the set, just cards that cares about different kinds of mana being used. And maybe your Rainbow Mana could tie into this. Just a suggestion...
I also think all the spirits needs a ability to give then a distinct "not of this world" mechanic (like when enchantment creatures in Theros and Shadow in Tempest). This is going to be a challenge though.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
I love the idea to make the return random. I assume you'd still have to associate with a small cost of
I think having multiple pairs of Duel Decks is not a bad starting point to cover testing of so many mechanics.
Just stating why *I* didn't go with that particular name: length.
It's true that this is another two-faction war, but flavorwise you still need to have some thematic differences within a faction to keep things interesting. Think about the Phyrexians and their five Praetors or the Eldrazi with their three broods (two of which have been explored... if anything a visible weakness in BfZ stems from this unfortunately).
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO