Ramatsuji, With No Recollection1GU
Legendary Creature - Human Monk (M)
Trample
When Ramatsugi, With No Recollection attacks or blocks, put the top 3 cards of you library into your graveyard. Then if the total power of creature cards in your graveyard is greater than target opponents life total, you may have Ramatsugi's power and toughness become X/X until end of turn, where X is that opponents life total. "I was told I am Ramatsugi. Do you come to test me?"
3/3
Ramatsuji's AttendantGU
Creature - Moonfolk Monk (R)
Flying
At the beginning of your endstep, you may return any number of cards from your graveyard to the bottom of your library in a random order. If you do, put that many cards from the top of your library into your graveyard. "I watch him fight each day, exceeding each opponent with an art he himself has forgotten. I record these steps and strikes. For this honor, I gift him at dawn his true name."
2/2
Ramatsuji's Kasa2
Legendary Artifact - Equipment (R)
Equip 1
Equipped creature has vigilance and "Whenever this creature loses power, put X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is the power lost." "What a simple headdress to hide such an elaborate scar. Do you not remember who inflicted it?"
—Hajimei, Ramatsuji's Attendant
Ramatsugi was a monk of the budoka who was extremely sensitive to the life from living creatures. His ability to nurture was profound, as was his ability to fight. Sensing the flow within living beings was an asset to his healing abilities as well, but when the kami wars erupted turned into a weapon. While kami didn't have the same flow that other creatures did, Ramatsugi was not always forced to fight kami. The other races of kamigawa, including other humans, would be his opponents at times. This is where he developed his technique: By sensing the nature and flow of his opponents life force, Ramatsugi would channel his own energies into a disharmony that directly opposed theirs. A single blow is all it took, and their flow would stop.
By the end of the kami war, Ramatsugi was tired. He had taken many lives in the name of the lives of the future, and made a vow to never do so again. His reputation had spread in-spite of this and many challengers and would-be students approached him. He rebuffed them all, as he was retired. He would only accept those who wish to study the nurturing/healing arts. Anyone who showed interest elsewhere was peacefully asked to leave. Even when provoked, Ramatsugi would not fight. Only evade. He left it to his adherents to lead them away.
One day, a prospective student named Hajimei appeared. A youthful moonfolk woman, she was an unusual candidate. Hajimei demonstrated a great skill and had obviously been taught well by some others. Still, learning his martial prowess was something he refused the teach. He had sensed her flow, and there was something ominous there. When she offered to stay as a student of his healing arts instead, Ramatsugi declined that as well telling her he found her sincerity lacking.
To this she responded with sorcery. Not only was she a martial master, but invoked dark arts as well. Catching Ramatsugi off guard, her spell put him in a momentary daze, and that was all she needed. She struck with a technique that he swear he had seen elsewhere before. He bled profusely from his skull. As he crumpled, Hajimei pull from her garb a strange tome and whispered "Now, my master, you'll teach me all I wish to know."
Ramatsugi remembers none of this. Each day, he wakes, greeted by his sole attendant Hajimei. "Good morning, master." She would say. "Do you remember your name?"
He did not. What he did remember was there was an opponent out there, someone he still had to fight. He needed to train.
As I mentioned with my recent entry in the CCL, I had also expanded into designing several other cards related to the story or Ramatsugi. I wanted to share those designs as well as open up my CCL entry to open critique. Below are cards related to Hajimei, the treacherous Student/Planeswalker who steals the secrets from the greatest masters of magic and martial arts, combining the two disciplines into a fury not even their original creators could match. In addition is Tasaro, a ninja master whose technique Hajimei stole and used to damage Ramatsugi's memories:
Tome of the Limitless Eye6
Legendary Artifact (M)
Tome of the Limitless Eye has all activated abilities of each creature and planeswalker on the battlefield.
You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to activate the abilities of Tome of the Limitless Eye. Once seen, in a moment written, eternally learned.
Tasaro, Whoses Life Taken3UB
Legendary Creature - Ninja Spirit (R)
First strike UB, T: Target creatures controller puts the top X cards from his or her library into his or her graveyard, where X is that creature's converted mana cost. Then if that creature is tapped, destroy it. Otherwise, tap it.
3/2
Hajimei, Master of Stolen Arts3GUB
Planes walker - Hajimei (M)
+2: Tap up to one target creature or destroy target tapped creature.
-3: Return up to 3 target cards from your graveyard to the bottom of your library in a random order. Then draw 3 cards.
-8: Create a X/X black Warrior creature token, where X is target opponents life total. That opponent exiles X cards from the top of his or her library.
4
Tome of the Limitless Eye is unbelievably cool, Tamaro is a good Chinese-menu-style multicolor design and looks like it would be a fun commander (and I love the Stalking Assassin and Ramirez DePietro callbacks!), and Hajimei is also very cool.
Not much to say by way of real criticism - these are even better than your finals entries! Too bad they didn't fit the challenge.
Ok, there is an issue with Tome of the Limitless Eye. Loyalty abilities are intrinsic to the planeswalker card type, if a non planeswalker permanent gains a loyalty ability somehow, it cannot be activated. This behavior was specifically added after the initial design of planeswalkers to prevent Experiment Kraj from gaining and abusing loyalty abilities; it's a deliberate decision to keep planeswalkers separate and special from other card types, and to prevent absurd combos that Kraj was able to pull off when he had loyalty abilities.
Other than that, I like the concept of book of abilities, it's sooo combo-y it hurts to look at.
I also really like Ramatsuji's Attendant, that's a very creative intersection of blue and green, and a mighty useful effect.
Ok, there is an issue with Tome of the Limitless Eye. Loyalty abilities are intrinsic to the planeswalker card type, if a non planeswalker permanent gains a loyalty ability somehow, it cannot be activated. This behavior was specifically added after the initial design of planeswalkers to prevent Experiment Kraj from gaining and abusing loyalty abilities; it's a deliberate decision to keep planeswalkers separate and special from other card types, and to prevent absurd combos that Kraj was able to pull off when he had loyalty abilities.
Yeah I remember when that happened, just wasn't sure/didn't look up exactly how they changed the rules there. I figured the card was taboo. If I just made it creature abilities, I would probably start its cost at 5 instead for further development.
These are okay, though I feel these contain a little more trim than I'm comfortable with.
Hajimei's plus-ability is probably worded in a way not in line with your intentions. I suspect you want: "Choose up to one target creature. Destroy it if it is tapped, otherwise tap it." or something similar. Right now it has two targets - one optional and one mandatory; and it doesn't even always do something with the mandatory target.
Ok, there is an issue with Tome of the Limitless Eye. Loyalty abilities are intrinsic to the planeswalker card type, if a non planeswalker permanent gains a loyalty ability somehow, it cannot be activated. This behavior was specifically added after the initial design of planeswalkers to prevent Experiment Kraj from gaining and abusing loyalty abilities; it's a deliberate decision to keep planeswalkers separate and special from other card types, and to prevent absurd combos that Kraj was able to pull off when he had loyalty abilities.
I was surprised to hear they changed the rules of loyalty abilities again the way you described (after all they already had a rule in place that only one loyalty ability can be activated per permanent and turn after a first rule change and it would seem preventing Kraj from going infinite is enough of a fix). And after researching the rules it turns out that you are not describing the rules as described in the Comprehensive Rules rule 606. "Loyalty Abilities", so I suspect you might be mistaken about the actual rules unless that section of the rules is somehow incomplete.
Do you know of any other section of the rules concerning loyalty abilities?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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]
These feel clearly like they want to tell a story and sacrifice simplicity to put in almost decorative words into their abilities that IMO are not justified strongly enough to be kept on that particular card in that particular effect. The best example is the recursion of up to three cards in the simple minus-ability of the planeswalker. Not usually what I would go for.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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]
Hm.
Well, I didn't review the comprehensive rules regarding loyalty abilities prior to posting, I was working from memory. I do distinctly remember there being a rule change to the effect that I described back in 2007, specifically because Experiment Kraj was acquiring and going infinite with loyalty abilities.
There is nothing like this in the rules now that I can see, rather the loyalty abilities themselves are carrying the once-per-turn clause rather than it being an attribute of planeswalkers, which is how it was when they started out.
I guess that based on the current rules, I am wrong and there is nothing stopping Tome of the Infinite Eye from gaining and using loyalty abilities.
These feel clearly like they want to tell a story and sacrifice simplicity to put in almost decorative words into their abilities that IMO are not justified strongly enough to be kept on that particular card in that particular effect. The best example is the recursion of up to three cards in the simple minus-ability of the planeswalker. Not usually what I would go for.
Fair enough. I think it's import on legendary cards in particular that they tell stories and/or share ties with other cards that would be in there respective sets. While it's not always needed to make longer/more complicated effects, sometimes that is the right call based on the designs and gameplay. So long as they are easily grokable and still have meaningful abilities, I often find it worth it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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By the end of the kami war, Ramatsugi was tired. He had taken many lives in the name of the lives of the future, and made a vow to never do so again. His reputation had spread in-spite of this and many challengers and would-be students approached him. He rebuffed them all, as he was retired. He would only accept those who wish to study the nurturing/healing arts. Anyone who showed interest elsewhere was peacefully asked to leave. Even when provoked, Ramatsugi would not fight. Only evade. He left it to his adherents to lead them away.
One day, a prospective student named Hajimei appeared. A youthful moonfolk woman, she was an unusual candidate. Hajimei demonstrated a great skill and had obviously been taught well by some others. Still, learning his martial prowess was something he refused the teach. He had sensed her flow, and there was something ominous there. When she offered to stay as a student of his healing arts instead, Ramatsugi declined that as well telling her he found her sincerity lacking.
To this she responded with sorcery. Not only was she a martial master, but invoked dark arts as well. Catching Ramatsugi off guard, her spell put him in a momentary daze, and that was all she needed. She struck with a technique that he swear he had seen elsewhere before. He bled profusely from his skull. As he crumpled, Hajimei pull from her garb a strange tome and whispered "Now, my master, you'll teach me all I wish to know."
Ramatsugi remembers none of this. Each day, he wakes, greeted by his sole attendant Hajimei. "Good morning, master." She would say. "Do you remember your name?"
He did not. What he did remember was there was an opponent out there, someone he still had to fight. He needed to train.
As I mentioned with my recent entry in the CCL, I had also expanded into designing several other cards related to the story or Ramatsugi. I wanted to share those designs as well as open up my CCL entry to open critique. Below are cards related to Hajimei, the treacherous Student/Planeswalker who steals the secrets from the greatest masters of magic and martial arts, combining the two disciplines into a fury not even their original creators could match. In addition is Tasaro, a ninja master whose technique Hajimei stole and used to damage Ramatsugi's memories:
Tome of the Limitless Eye 6
Legendary Artifact (M)
Tome of the Limitless Eye has all activated abilities of each creature and planeswalker on the battlefield.
You may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to activate the abilities of Tome of the Limitless Eye.
Once seen, in a moment written, eternally learned.
Tasaro, Whoses Life Taken 3UB
Legendary Creature - Ninja Spirit (R)
First strike
UB, T: Target creatures controller puts the top X cards from his or her library into his or her graveyard, where X is that creature's converted mana cost. Then if that creature is tapped, destroy it. Otherwise, tap it.
3/2
Hajimei, Master of Stolen Arts 3GUB
Planes walker - Hajimei (M)
+2: Tap up to one target creature or destroy target tapped creature.
-3: Return up to 3 target cards from your graveyard to the bottom of your library in a random order. Then draw 3 cards.
-8: Create a X/X black Warrior creature token, where X is target opponents life total. That opponent exiles X cards from the top of his or her library.
4
Not much to say by way of real criticism - these are even better than your finals entries! Too bad they didn't fit the challenge.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
Other than that, I like the concept of book of abilities, it's sooo combo-y it hurts to look at.
I also really like Ramatsuji's Attendant, that's a very creative intersection of blue and green, and a mighty useful effect.
Your designs are fun and inventive
Yeah I remember when that happened, just wasn't sure/didn't look up exactly how they changed the rules there. I figured the card was taboo. If I just made it creature abilities, I would probably start its cost at 5 instead for further development.
Thanks for the compliments.
Hajimei's plus-ability is probably worded in a way not in line with your intentions. I suspect you want: "Choose up to one target creature. Destroy it if it is tapped, otherwise tap it." or something similar. Right now it has two targets - one optional and one mandatory; and it doesn't even always do something with the mandatory target.
I was surprised to hear they changed the rules of loyalty abilities again the way you described (after all they already had a rule in place that only one loyalty ability can be activated per permanent and turn after a first rule change and it would seem preventing Kraj from going infinite is enough of a fix). And after researching the rules it turns out that you are not describing the rules as described in the Comprehensive Rules rule 606. "Loyalty Abilities", so I suspect you might be mistaken about the actual rules unless that section of the rules is somehow incomplete.
Do you know of any other section of the rules concerning loyalty abilities?
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
I'm not sure what you mean.
These feel clearly like they want to tell a story and sacrifice simplicity to put in almost decorative words into their abilities that IMO are not justified strongly enough to be kept on that particular card in that particular effect. The best example is the recursion of up to three cards in the simple minus-ability of the planeswalker. Not usually what I would go for.
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
Well, I didn't review the comprehensive rules regarding loyalty abilities prior to posting, I was working from memory. I do distinctly remember there being a rule change to the effect that I described back in 2007, specifically because Experiment Kraj was acquiring and going infinite with loyalty abilities.
There is nothing like this in the rules now that I can see, rather the loyalty abilities themselves are carrying the once-per-turn clause rather than it being an attribute of planeswalkers, which is how it was when they started out.
I guess that based on the current rules, I am wrong and there is nothing stopping Tome of the Infinite Eye from gaining and using loyalty abilities.
Fair enough. I think it's import on legendary cards in particular that they tell stories and/or share ties with other cards that would be in there respective sets. While it's not always needed to make longer/more complicated effects, sometimes that is the right call based on the designs and gameplay. So long as they are easily grokable and still have meaningful abilities, I often find it worth it.