In the vein of Martial Coup, Apocalypse Hydra, and Banefire, I want to make these cards that "upgrade" when X=5. But I also want them to be playable at X=0, and still desirable at X values below 5, just not quite as powerful.
In the order I designed them:
Starfall DragonX1RRR
Creature - Dragon [M]
Flying, Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals X damage to each other creature and each planeswalker. Then, if X is 5 or more, each player sacrifices X lands.
4/4
Soliloquy SphinxX2UUU
Creature - Sphinx [M]
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, you draw X cards. If X is 5 or more, you may cast spells from your hand without paying their mana costs this turn.
5/5
Seraph of LegionsXWWW
Creature - Angel [M]
Flying, Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, prevent the next X damage that would be dealt to each creature you control. If X is 5 or more, create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token for each damage prevented this way.
3/3
Sporecloud HydraX1GGG
Creature - Hydra Fungus [M]
Vigilance, Reach
~ enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it. When ~ enters the battlefield, if X is 5 or more, put X +1/+1 counters on each other creature you control.
5/5
Souldrinker DemonXBBB
Creature - Demon [M]
Menace, Lifelink
When ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent loses X life and you gain that much life. If X is 5 or more, put X +1/+1 counters on ~.
3/3
Let me know if any of them seem too overpowerful, or a bit lacking at any of the three levels of X (0, 1-4, 5+). And also what you think! I like the idea of these huge, powerful etb effects that you can't get if you use tricks to get the creature out, but without that clunky "If you cast it from your hand" tacked onto everything.
The Dragon and the Sphinx came together very easily, and are what kicked off the concept of the cycle. The other three went through several phases and rewrites. I'm quite pleased with where the Angel ended up. I had wanted the Hydra to do something with tokens too, but it felt repetitive alongside the Angel's tokens. The Demon is what I'm least thrilled by, I ran out of ideas for what black could do that wasn't stepping on one of the other four.
Considering that you have to pay 8, 9, or 10 mana with no way to cheat the x=5 condition outside of infinite mana, the extra conditions seem perfectly balanced considering the cost. The dragon is probably the strongest due to being a scaling Thundermaw Hellkite. Your demonvampire probably comes in second due to being the most reasonable at X=0.
I like the Angel the least, since it scales rather awkwardly. It's rather boring at X=0 and underwhelming at X=5. I'd rather not pay 8 mana for a glorified combat trick.
Am I the only person who thinks that X and colorless costs look awful together? Compare blue sun's zenith and Stroke of Genius. In all honesty, I would prefer it if these cards had "ETB, pay X, effect X" abilities instead of X costs purely for aesthetic reasons.
On the subject of the designs themselves, I don't really grock them all. Mechanically, they all kind of make sense, but flavorfully, the only card I really connect with is the Dragon. In terms of flavor, its a dragon that hits the board and burns everything. If it burns hot enough, it will even burn away lands. The whole design makes sense to me in a way that the others just don't. What is the flavor connect between damage prevention and token generation? Growing only oneself, and growing everything feel very different to me. Omniscience and Card draw plays great mechanically, but omniscience doesn't at all feel like an extension of card draw flavorfully. The abilities of the demon kind of fit as a cohesive deisgn, but they don't fit into the typical conception of what a demon is. Where is the drawback? The sacrifice to summon the demon? I don't have good fixes for all of these. For the hydra, what about something like....
Sporecloud Hydra 1GGG
Creature - Hydra Fungus [M]
Vigilance, Reach
When Sporecloud Hydra enters the battlefield, you may pay X. If you do, put X +1/+1 counters on target creature. If X is 5 or more, put X +1/+1 counters on each creature you control instead.
5/5
...My change to the design was small but significant. Because the ability can now be used to grow any creature, the disconnect I felt is no longer present. Flavorfully, both the minor ability and the scaled ability are about the same thing now, growing creatures. If you pay enough mana, you will just get to do much much more creature growing.
EDIT: My attempt at the demon...
Soulblight Demon BBB
Creature - Demon [M]
Flying, Lifelink
When ~ enters the battlefield you may pay X and X life. If you do, target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. If X is 5 or more, each creature your opponent controls gets -X/-X until end of turn instead.
3/3
...This is a much more of a redesign than my green suggestion but I couldn't think of any simple change to your demon that makes it satisfying to me. My first change was to switch menace for flying simply because demons in general have flying. Its very common to the creature type and feels left out to me. Instead of going for a drain theme which feels much more appropriate on vampire, I went for a removal effect. And as with most demons, you Soulblight is going to impose the cost for its services on you by making you pay life in order to get it to do your bidding. The "and X life" feels a bit awkward, but its a lot cleaner than righting it in as part of the effect as if it were part of the effect, it would need to be duplicated to be part of the minor and scaled effect.
Also, upon further thought, I like the blue design a bit more. Once you accept that the scaled ability is omniscience it makes sense. Once you gain enough knowledge through card draw, becoming all knowing does feel like a flavor full extension of the ability. I guess my real issue is that I never really like the flavor of omniscience and don't think that card was ever particularly flavorful. If it were up to me, I would have swapped the names for enter the infinite and omniscience. Playing omniscience feels alot more like going infinite than becoming all knowing, while drawing everything in your deck feels alot more like becoming all knowing than going infinite.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Well, the Dragon was the first one designed, and at that point I had no plans for a cycle. So that design is totally standalone and flavorful, he lands in an explosion, and if he lands hard enough, he leaves a crater. The Sphinx was the second one, roughly based on the concept from the Dragon. The way I envision it, the Sphinx is giving a grand soliloquy (speaking to oneself for the benefit of an audience in a play), and listening to it gives you knowledge. If you listen to it all the way through (X=5), you can put your knowledge into action.
The other three were approximately designed together once I realized that I had a cycle starting. They went through a variety of possibilities, but the goal overall was to not duplicate the effect of another member of the cycle.
The Hydra's flavor in my mind is that it is a fungus. So, it grows larger until it is large enough to release its spores, which land on your other creatures and grow more fungal hydra heads.
Here are some of the discarded versions:
Soul SwallowerX1BBB
Creature - Demon
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, destroy X target creatures. Then, if X is 5 or more, return each creature card with converted mana cost X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
4/3
Swarmwake ColossusX3GGG
Creature - Spider
Reach
When ~ enters the battlefield, create X 1/1 green Insect creature tokens. If X is 5 or more, create a token that's a copy of ~.
Sacrifice an insect: Regenerate ~.
8/8
Seraph of LegionsXWWW
Creature - Angel
Flying, vigilance
When ~ enters the battlefield, create X 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens. If X is 5 or more, create X 3/3 white Angel creature tokens with flying instead.
3/3
Sanctifying AngelX1WWW
Creature - Angel
Flying, lifelink
When ~ enters the battlefield, you gain two times X life. Then, if X is 5 or more, create a number of 1/1 white soldier creature tokens equal to your life total.
4/4
I shifted the green version to +1/+1 counters theme once I realized that I had painted white into a corner by taking tokens and destruction for other colors, and by necessity had to turn the spider into a hydra.
The Demon was tweaked many times, I eventually took away the flying and switched to menace to add some variety to the cycle, and ultimately shied away from a destroy X ability due to how strongly it scales, the "upgrade" effect shouldn't be as strong as the others' to account for it. At that point I was considering the downside as "If your opponent doesn't have enough creatures, you destroy some of your own trying to get to the upgrade" but the best effects that meshed with the destroy ability were reanimation, which effectively negated that downside. The final version was a total abandonment of concept and I just riffed on Maga, Traitor to Mortals to fill in the cycle.
The Angel took a few turns along the way. I disliked the pure token-maker since the "upgrade" level was a replacement rather than an addition, and 18 power for 8 mana seemed excessive. I disliked the lifegain version because the lifegain itself feels very piddly compared to the others until you reach the "upgrade" level.
Moving the X to the etb effect breaks the concept, it would let you get the X benefit even casting off of the Omniscience effect, or by tricking the creature in with a Sneak Attack or Reanimate, I don't like that, and I don't want to put a "If you cast it from your hand" clause into the text, I hate those. Having X0 in the mana cost is a bit ugly, but it's a much cleaner option than the alternatives.
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In the order I designed them:
Starfall Dragon X1RRR
Creature - Dragon [M]
Flying, Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals X damage to each other creature and each planeswalker. Then, if X is 5 or more, each player sacrifices X lands.
4/4
Soliloquy Sphinx X2UUU
Creature - Sphinx [M]
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, you draw X cards. If X is 5 or more, you may cast spells from your hand without paying their mana costs this turn.
5/5
Seraph of Legions XWWW
Creature - Angel [M]
Flying, Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, prevent the next X damage that would be dealt to each creature you control. If X is 5 or more, create a 1/1 white Soldier creature token for each damage prevented this way.
3/3
Sporecloud Hydra X1GGG
Creature - Hydra Fungus [M]
Vigilance, Reach
~ enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it. When ~ enters the battlefield, if X is 5 or more, put X +1/+1 counters on each other creature you control.
5/5
Souldrinker Demon XBBB
Creature - Demon [M]
Menace, Lifelink
When ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent loses X life and you gain that much life. If X is 5 or more, put X +1/+1 counters on ~.
3/3
Let me know if any of them seem too overpowerful, or a bit lacking at any of the three levels of X (0, 1-4, 5+). And also what you think! I like the idea of these huge, powerful etb effects that you can't get if you use tricks to get the creature out, but without that clunky "If you cast it from your hand" tacked onto everything.
The Dragon and the Sphinx came together very easily, and are what kicked off the concept of the cycle. The other three went through several phases and rewrites. I'm quite pleased with where the Angel ended up. I had wanted the Hydra to do something with tokens too, but it felt repetitive alongside the Angel's tokens. The Demon is what I'm least thrilled by, I ran out of ideas for what black could do that wasn't stepping on one of the other four.
demonvampire probably comes in second due to being the most reasonable at X=0.I like the Angel the least, since it scales rather awkwardly. It's rather boring at X=0 and underwhelming at X=5. I'd rather not pay 8 mana for a glorified combat trick.
On the subject of the designs themselves, I don't really grock them all. Mechanically, they all kind of make sense, but flavorfully, the only card I really connect with is the Dragon. In terms of flavor, its a dragon that hits the board and burns everything. If it burns hot enough, it will even burn away lands. The whole design makes sense to me in a way that the others just don't. What is the flavor connect between damage prevention and token generation? Growing only oneself, and growing everything feel very different to me. Omniscience and Card draw plays great mechanically, but omniscience doesn't at all feel like an extension of card draw flavorfully. The abilities of the demon kind of fit as a cohesive deisgn, but they don't fit into the typical conception of what a demon is. Where is the drawback? The sacrifice to summon the demon? I don't have good fixes for all of these. For the hydra, what about something like....
Sporecloud Hydra 1GGG
Creature - Hydra Fungus [M]
Vigilance, Reach
When Sporecloud Hydra enters the battlefield, you may pay X. If you do, put X +1/+1 counters on target creature. If X is 5 or more, put X +1/+1 counters on each creature you control instead.
5/5
...My change to the design was small but significant. Because the ability can now be used to grow any creature, the disconnect I felt is no longer present. Flavorfully, both the minor ability and the scaled ability are about the same thing now, growing creatures. If you pay enough mana, you will just get to do much much more creature growing.
EDIT: My attempt at the demon...
Soulblight Demon BBB
Creature - Demon [M]
Flying, Lifelink
When ~ enters the battlefield you may pay X and X life. If you do, target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn. If X is 5 or more, each creature your opponent controls gets -X/-X until end of turn instead.
3/3
...This is a much more of a redesign than my green suggestion but I couldn't think of any simple change to your demon that makes it satisfying to me. My first change was to switch menace for flying simply because demons in general have flying. Its very common to the creature type and feels left out to me. Instead of going for a drain theme which feels much more appropriate on vampire, I went for a removal effect. And as with most demons, you Soulblight is going to impose the cost for its services on you by making you pay life in order to get it to do your bidding. The "and X life" feels a bit awkward, but its a lot cleaner than righting it in as part of the effect as if it were part of the effect, it would need to be duplicated to be part of the minor and scaled effect.
Also, upon further thought, I like the blue design a bit more. Once you accept that the scaled ability is omniscience it makes sense. Once you gain enough knowledge through card draw, becoming all knowing does feel like a flavor full extension of the ability. I guess my real issue is that I never really like the flavor of omniscience and don't think that card was ever particularly flavorful. If it were up to me, I would have swapped the names for enter the infinite and omniscience. Playing omniscience feels alot more like going infinite than becoming all knowing, while drawing everything in your deck feels alot more like becoming all knowing than going infinite.
- Manite
The other three were approximately designed together once I realized that I had a cycle starting. They went through a variety of possibilities, but the goal overall was to not duplicate the effect of another member of the cycle.
The Hydra's flavor in my mind is that it is a fungus. So, it grows larger until it is large enough to release its spores, which land on your other creatures and grow more fungal hydra heads.
Here are some of the discarded versions:
Soul Swallower X1BBB
Creature - Demon
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, destroy X target creatures. Then, if X is 5 or more, return each creature card with converted mana cost X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
4/3
Swarmwake Colossus X3GGG
Creature - Spider
Reach
When ~ enters the battlefield, create X 1/1 green Insect creature tokens. If X is 5 or more, create a token that's a copy of ~.
Sacrifice an insect: Regenerate ~.
8/8
Seraph of Legions XWWW
Creature - Angel
Flying, vigilance
When ~ enters the battlefield, create X 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens. If X is 5 or more, create X 3/3 white Angel creature tokens with flying instead.
3/3
Sanctifying Angel X1WWW
Creature - Angel
Flying, lifelink
When ~ enters the battlefield, you gain two times X life. Then, if X is 5 or more, create a number of 1/1 white soldier creature tokens equal to your life total.
4/4
I shifted the green version to +1/+1 counters theme once I realized that I had painted white into a corner by taking tokens and destruction for other colors, and by necessity had to turn the spider into a hydra.
The Demon was tweaked many times, I eventually took away the flying and switched to menace to add some variety to the cycle, and ultimately shied away from a destroy X ability due to how strongly it scales, the "upgrade" effect shouldn't be as strong as the others' to account for it. At that point I was considering the downside as "If your opponent doesn't have enough creatures, you destroy some of your own trying to get to the upgrade" but the best effects that meshed with the destroy ability were reanimation, which effectively negated that downside. The final version was a total abandonment of concept and I just riffed on Maga, Traitor to Mortals to fill in the cycle.
The Angel took a few turns along the way. I disliked the pure token-maker since the "upgrade" level was a replacement rather than an addition, and 18 power for 8 mana seemed excessive. I disliked the lifegain version because the lifegain itself feels very piddly compared to the others until you reach the "upgrade" level.
Underpinning most of the "upgrade" stages was the desire to emulate a huge spell of that color. Destructive Force, Omniscience, Decree of Savagery, Storm Herd, Rise of the Dark Realms, Entreat the Angels, an early version of the dragon was blowing itself up with Obliterate.
Moving the X to the etb effect breaks the concept, it would let you get the X benefit even casting off of the Omniscience effect, or by tricking the creature in with a Sneak Attack or Reanimate, I don't like that, and I don't want to put a "If you cast it from your hand" clause into the text, I hate those. Having X0 in the mana cost is a bit ugly, but it's a much cleaner option than the alternatives.