Welcome to round 1 of the fourth CCC&G Pro Tour! This week your team will be responsible for designing a duel deck around a legendary creature I picked from among the pregame submissions. Not only should your deck be a cohesive whole, it should work well with the opposing team's deck. But for now let's focus on the first part. Let's see what you're working with this round:
Parsenus, Hythonia's Slayer2GW
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier (MR) Heroic - Whenever Parsenus, Hythonia's Slayer becomes the target of a spell you control, put a +1/+1 counter on it and it gains hexproof until end of turn.
Parsenus as flying as long as there is at least one +1/+1 counter on it, deathtouch as long as there is at least two +1/+1 counters on it, and first strike as long as there are at least three +1/+1 counters on it.
3/3
I picked this legend because I think that it's fairly straightforward and gives some direction for a deck without dictating your 60 cards. Plus, heroic is new and shiny!
The ultimate goal is for your team to design a great, reasonably-polished deck of 60 cards. For the first week, we're shooting a bit lower than that.
Submit to me, via PM, a 60-card outline for your deck. I want to get an idea of some themes and directions you're taking the deck in. I am NOT looking for anything super polished at this point. Don't even worry about the manabase right now. Just "24 lands" will do.
You can even submit proxies. If you know that the deck needs a two drop 0/4 creature that can block, just submit that! It's ok at this stage. You may also use reprints! Don't go overboard though, since the final product will have limitations on how many reprints it can have.
Take a look at existing decks for inspiration and guidance (scroll down to "Other Sets").
Remember: For round one focus on your deck only. Do not worry about the other team's deck yet. We'll work on that later.
Submit to me, via PM, a 60-card second draft of your deck. I want to see a fairly full-featured deck that incorporates the feedback from playtesting. We definitely want to see some polish by this point. I don't want to see any proxies (not that there were any the first time around). Keep reprints limited as before.
As before, please include:
1. A plain text decklist.
2. A list of the full text of every new card.
3. Attribution for each new card. Each player should have at least two cards attributed to them.
Deadline: 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, January 7th.
Submit to me, via PM, a 60 card revision of the other team's round 2 deck. This deck should be built with full knowledge of your own deck (and possibly collaboration with the other team to make sure they evolve in the same directon). The reprint numbers have been good, so keep it about there.
As before, please include:
1. A plain text decklist.
2. A list of the full text of every new card.
3. Attribution for each new card. Each player should have at least two cards attributed to them.
Deadline: 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, January 21st.
Finals
Submit to me, via PM, a 60-card final version of both decks, based on the lists from round 3. You have total control. I recommend playtesting with others, and collaboration is allowed, but it is your show and I should not have any trouble determining that.
As before, please include:
1. A plain text decklist.
2. A list of the full text of every new card.
Week one checkpoint: 11:59 PM EST on Friday, February 14th.
If more time is needed at this point we will look into that.
Logistics and Scoring
1. The designer of the legend is by default the team captain. You may, if you wish, select another team captain using any method you choose. Just let me know. The team captain is responsible for organizing the team and managing the deck. We will edit the second post of this thread to be one of yours so that you can keep things prominently placed.
2. This round, each player on your team is responsible for submitting at least two cards to the deck. A reprint submitted counts. A template/proxy does not.
3. After the deck is submitted to me, I will playtest your deck against the other team's deck with one or more willing volunteers over a two or three day period. We will write up our suggestions and return that to you before the next round starts.
4. While that is happening, you should secretly rank the three best members of your team other than yourself and submit that to me via PM. This will be how I eliminate people. Yes, unfortunately we will be doing elimination this time around. However, players who have been eliminated (and even non-contestants) are welcome to participate by playtesting the decks and submitting their feedback TO ME via PM, which I will relay to the appropriate teams.
Dang, I had wrote up a big post and lost it. Let's see if I can't redo all I needed to say.
Parsenus is obviously a take on Perseus, particularly the version played by Mark Hamill in Clash of the Titans (which is why he goes from being a promising-but-uninspiring soldier to a Pegasus-riding, Gorgon-slaying, Kraken-smashing badass). We are fortunate that G/W heroic lends itself to a deck theme pretty well.
There are a couple of ways we could go about it, but right now I think our best option is to throw a pretty decent number of card designs and reprint suggestions out there and see what potentially interesting synergies pop up. So I suggest we start by each designing 3-4 cards (mixing creatures, instants, and auras as the mainstays with a few other types) and suggest 1-2 reprints.
Some things to keep in mind:
1. We're definitely dealing with a Theros hero now, so design with that flavor in mind, and choose reprints that will fit into the Theros flavor when possible.
2. Parsenus deals with +1/+1 counters, and it is likely that any other heroes that make it into the deck will too, so that's a potential area to explore.
3. Since heroic creatures need to be targeted as soon as possible to be effective, we're going to want a mostly low mana curve, so I'd suggest you keep most of your designs in the 1-4 mana range (though we can obviously afford a few exeptions.)
I'm at the end of a night shift now, so I'll be later tonight getting back, probably 6-9PM EST. At that point, I'll post my initial designs and reprint recommendations.
Most awkward to say Duel Decks ever EDIT - The caption had it misspelled as "Parsneus," fixed that and the order of the mana symbols.
So do we even have anything to post in this thread this week?
Bear in mind we may have to cut this from the deck for power level reasons. If you target Parsenus with Seeds of Strength three times, it will trigger his Heroic ability three times. Yes, it was the first enabler I thought of as well, but unless the other side has edict effects to deal with this guy, it's kinda gg. Off a mana dork, that can be as soon as turn 4.
If we're going to be playing a ton of Heroic creatures, what about Thrive? It's scalable and fits a counter theme as well.
If I was going to change the legend at all, I would cut hexproof from the heroic trigger and replace deathtouch in the static ability with hexproof, maybe switching the order to 1-hexproof, 2-first strike 3-flying. I think it's a bit awkward that he gets keywords two different ways. I assume the deathtouch is supposed to have something to do with cutting off the gorgon's head, which is cool, but it seems kind of odd until you figure that out.
If you target Parsenus with Seeds of Strength three times, it will trigger his Heroic ability three times.
Actually, it'll just trigger heroic once per creature. You can trigger up to three heroes at once, though, which is pretty cool. I'm not sure about the power level, though.
Nice legend you gave us to work with, JG! (I agree on the change GM proposes, but more because of gamming purposes than for it's flavor oddity).
Some brainstorming:
I would suggest to rework Thrive, perhaps to turn it into a storm version (I think what perhaps what we want to go with here is a storm reinsert)
About reprints, what about a small version of Doubling Season, wich could work with a particullar kind of creature tokens (restricted to color, p/t, etc) and/or +1/+1 counters instead of any kind of them. It could actually just work with +1/+1 counters and perhaps also be a dude with heroic.
NAME COST
Creature - TYPES (?)
Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets NAME, put a +1/+1 counter on /another?/ target creature.
COST: Until end of turn, if an effect would place one or more +1/+1 counters on a creature you control, it places twice that many of those +1/+1 counters on that creature instead.
We could even make the activated ability to be a trigger, but I would preffer it to be act. to allow the creature to have more board presence.
Also:
NAMEGW
Instant C
Put a +1/+1 counter on target /attacking or blocking?/ creature.
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn.)
We could even replace storm with that cute ability I can't remember who brought up, called battlestorm (interesting to create theroid flavor as well). This would make the card more constructed appealing
Alright, let's do things in three sections. Keeping it organized like this will make it a lot easier for us to bring all the data together later. Make a single "business" post with your cards in it and modify it as needed (you can either edit you previous posts here or make another.)
Card Tweak Suggestions - Make a section for this if you want to suggest an alternation to a card someone else has submitted. In the first round, we'll make all tweaks entirely consensual: either the person you suggest it to changes it or not. Also, it would be helpful if you posted the full tweaked card with any changes you'd make.
New Card Submissions - Make one of these sections to put all the new cards you want to make for the deck. Put up to a sentence explaining the general role in the deck if you feel it'd be useful.
Reprint Suggestions - Make one of these to suggest reprints. Suggest no more than maybe two or three ones that haven't already been suggested, and then also state approval or disapproval of previous suggestions (but keep the reasons fairly short, since we have to parse over all of this before the week is over.)
General Comments - Make one of these for general ideas that don't really fit into other categories.
_________________________________
Card Tweak -
I'm considering switching Parsenus up like this, weakening his initial stats a bit to clean him up and allow the trigger to be a bit more powerful. Regeneration helps it survive early combats in addition to avoiding most removal (and thus helps to make up for the lowered power and toughness) and also feels cleaner than just adding a keyword for a turn.
Parsenus, Hythonia's Slayer2GW
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier (MR) Heroic - Whenever Parsenus, Hythonia's Slayer becomes the target of a spell you control, put a +1/+1 counter on it and regenerate it.
Parsenus has flying as long as there is at least one +1/+1 counter on it, first strike as long as there is at least two +1/+1 counters on it, and deathtouch as long as there is at least three +1/+1 counters on it.
2/2
Edit: Screwed up the heroic trigger, fixed it as Zoomba pointed out.
New Cards
Guardian Alseid1W
Enchantment Creature - Nymph (C)
Bestow 3W
Enchanted creature gets +0/+2
Guardian Alseid and enchanted creature has "T: Prevent the next 1 damage to target creature or player."
0/2
Samite Healer variants are pretty standard issue, and this is one that provides a little early defense and isn't terribly powerful when bestowed, which lets it be cheap and stay on curve.
Storm of Swords2GW
Instant (U) Warstorm - Any number of target attacking or blocking creatures get +1/+1 and gain first strike until end of turn.
A full-on storm variant might be a bit more complexity than we need to just get extra targeting in there. This might be a bit more elegant. We can change the ability word to get rid of the "storm" if you think it is confusing.
Enduring Resolve1G
Instant (C)
Target creature you control gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Rebound
Prey's Vengeance is a bit on the strong side in a heroic deck, being only slightly smaller than a Giant Growth and targeting twice. Raising the mana cost by one makes it slightly harder to fire off on the same turn you drop a creature, which makes it a more reasonable play.
Sage of the Wilds1GG
Creature - Human Shaman (R)
Trample Heroic - Whenever Sage of the Wilds becomes the target of a spell or ability, it gets +1/+1 and gains "Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, draw a card." until end of turn. (If it gains this ability multiple times, draw a card for each instance of it.)
2/3
We could use some card draw to make sure we keep gas in the engine, and this gives us an option.
More to come.
Reprints
New suggestions: None right now. I'l bring some soon.
Anoint is an excellent choice for a buyback spell, as it is useful but not so powerful that it would be overwhelming, and the flavor works great in Theros.
Change of Heart might be an interesting choice as it does two different things, but neither too well. It can be used to lock down a big ground attacker while the flyers seal the game, or it can just trigger heroics at the end of the opponent's turn for 4.
Thrive is a nice choice for a mass targeting effect that seems well-priced.
Disagreements: Seeds of Strength is both potentially abusive and really, really confusing. We're all pretty decently familiar with the rules of Magic, so if a lot of us are misreading whether it would trigger a hero multiple times then it would definitely be confusing for the average player.
RE: Warstorm. A spell is only countered upon resolution if all of its targets are illegal when the spell would resolve. Also, how many new cards are we featuring in this deck? Are we doing six plus the legend, as is precedent from official DD products?
I feel this will test our ability to design uncommons--I believe we are only allowed six rares per side.
Also, midrange vs. voltron: I think that given Heroes as a duel deck, we should go for a midrange strategy. It would vastly differentiate the two decks from each other. Remember that the opposing side is UB, which does not have a ton of ways to interact with enchantments. These two decks are supposed to be able to interact with each other as much as possible.
Re: the Storm mechanic. Don't bring this mechanic back, period. Every single card with storm has been played and abused in some kind of tournament deck (yes, even Ground Rift is played in the Nivmagus Elemental decks.)
Also, how many new cards are we featuring in this deck? Are we doing six plus the legend, as is precedent from official DD products?
No. I don't want to draw a firm line but the idea is that these decks are either primarily made of or have a large number of new cards with strategic reprints that fill roles when needed. Maybe 25% reprints? I dunno! We'll see how the decks shape up.
Quote from Raikou Rider »
I feel this will test our ability to design uncommons--I believe we are only allowed six rares per side.
This is correct. 5-6 rares or so.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
People who read the OP and didn't understand at all how this was supposed to work: me
I got it now
Tweaks
Not sure what I want to do with Parsenus, still feel that just a counter for heroic is the cleanest, but I can see either way.
Reprints Travel Preparations seems ridiculously good in this theme (oh Zoomba already mentioned it :hifive:) Juniper Order Ranger is a somewhat sought-after uncommon that might fit pretty well.
I like Forgotten Ancient as a rare even though Mossy is not on our team Thrive sounds good, a couple other G and W Heroic guys sounds fine too. Vote for Wingsteed Rider and Staunch-Hearted Warrior.
I'm cool with Anoint and/or Emerge Unscathed. I feel like arbitrarily we should limit it to three returning mechanics. Heroic, flashback, and rebound maybe?
Also, Rancor?
General Comments
Thinking ahead to interplay with the other deck, blue/black is good at shooting down individual targets, so I think it should be like "Voltron, but not all the eggs in one basket." Multiple targeting-spells are a great way to do that, build up a couple guys at once. We can do a couple tokens like Elephant Guide, but we don't want to shoot for Saproling armies or anything.
New Card
Reactive Grower or something 1G
Creature - Plant (R) 1: The next time counters would be placed on another target creature you control this turn, put that many counters of that type on Reactive Grower as well.
1/1
"Voltron, but not all the eggs in one basket." sounds like a great design philosophy to mean. Which would basically mean something between Voltron and midrange.
For the time being, assume that Parsenus will work as per the last tweak post and design along those lines. We might change it later, but for now better to have the focus.
Keep that whole 5-6 rares thing in mind with your designs, and don't be afraid to submit a fair number of designs; better for us to have too many than too view. Since we want to be mostly new cards, we want to have a lot of options to choose from. At this point, the most important area to design for seems to be small-to-medium sized creatures, especially heroic ones.
Zoomba: At the cost of Acid-Quill Baloth's effect, it could probably be "target non-creature, non-land permanent" and still be reasonable enough. And that would be a great card to have in the deck.
I'm not big with mythology but I do remember Perseus having a sword and a shield. I don't recall what the sword but I remember the shield was used to kill a gorgon (the reflection of it). Maybe we can create a shield equipment that "reflects" damage?
Also, what do you guys think of bringing back Radiance as a mechanic? Target out legendary guy and help his army with it.
I believe the way to go with this (since its a DD series) is to create simple cards that allow interaction. It's a good "learner" deck but we can also add an "eternal gem".
As for that eternal gem, we can also develop a hate bear? We are already in colors for a hate bear.
I like Jimmy's tweaked card, but I have to agree with Zoomba that the Heroic ability should just add counters. Let the second ability determine what the bonuses are. That reads cleaner and gives the card less fiddly bits to remember. If we're going with three keywords (which I think is a good number), then we ought to decide on what abilities best capture a Perseus-type character. It looks like we're getting deathtouch from the Gorgon's head, flying from the Pegasus or the winged sandals, but I'm not sure about first strike. It does play well with deathtouch. Personally, I'd prefer to see hexproof over first strike, as that will help protect our legend and reflects both the mirrored shield and the helm of invisibility Perseus obtains.
Also, let's not forget the proper Heroic wording: "Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets ..."
New Card Submissions
Heroic Bear1G
Creature- Bear Warrior (C) Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets Heroic Bear, put a +1/+1 counter on Heroic Bear.
2/2 "I know this concept is silly, but the mechanics are probably useful, so just bear with me. Ha! Get it? "Bear" with me?"
—Bucky, flavor text writer
Net Champion2W
Creature- Human Soldier (C) Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets Net Champion, put a +1/+1 counter on Net Champion, then tap target creature.
1/1
Triumphant Strike1W
Instant (C)
Target creature gains first strike until end of turn. Put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Victor's Insight2G
Sorcery (U)
Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. Until end of turn, that creature gains ""Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card."
Reprint Suggestions
Mutant's Prey or Hunt the Weak- It fits a +1/+1 counter theme and the heroic theme, which I think is a good direction for us. Test of Faith- See above. Wild Defiance- I know we only get a few rares, but this sort of makes all your creatures heroes. We don't have to worry as much about it saving them from removal vs. the other deck, either, since they're removal will mostly be bounce and straight-up destruction. Livewire Lash- See above. I'm not suggesting we include both, but either could be interesting.
Given what others have suggested, I really like Thrive. It's kind of perfect. GM's recommendation of Travel Preparations is also very good. Obviously a few of the +1/+1 counter heroes would be ideal. For a midrange-type deck, Favored Hoplite might not be as needed. I second the inclusion of Wingsteed Rider, Staunch-Hearted Warrior, and possibly Centaur Battlemaster. Phalanx Leader would also be useful, since it works like Thrive and boosts the whole team.
General Comments
I agree with many others on this being a heroic midrange-style deck. I'd like to move away from an Aura subtheme, as the Heroes vs. Monsters deck had a bit of that (Freewind Equenaut, Sun Titan, Etc.). Instead, I think a lot of our designs are pushing us towards a +1/+1 counter subtheme. Perhaps we could have some cards that care about the counters, or move counters around, or Corpsejack Menace-type shenanigans. Heck, maybe even proliferate?
Regarding number of non-evergreen keywords, it looks like the Monsters deck had four: Bloodthrist, Cycling, Echo, and Proliferate. It relied heavily on Bloodthirst and Echo/Proliferate were each just one-ofs, though. I'm not sure if that helps us or not, but it might be good to know our wiggle room. Personally, I like heroic and buyback/rebound here. A one-of flashback or something shouldn't give us too much trouble.
Are we designing new rares? Cause I have a flashy one if we're going for the counter theme. Obviously we need a new name for it, but I would like to port over one of my CCL submissions.
Predatory Pinnacle1GG
Enchantment {R}
Each creature you control gets +1/+1 for each +1/+1 counter on it.
Also if we're going for some green midrange, I feel we need some kind of green card draw. Harmonize is kind of a copout though--we should try something else. Maybe some kind of Soul's Majesty variant?
If we're going for a +1/+1 counter theme, a 2-of Llanowar Reborn seems like a no-brainer.
How midrange-y are we talking here? Midrange-y enough to add X spells?
We could hit the heroic harder but then it sort of stops feeling like a Duel Deck and more like an old style precon or an event deck. Open to opinions.
In the theme of "guys or make guys larger," here is a reworked and slightly reduced Hunting Triad:
Hunter's Choice2G
Sorcery (C)
Choose one — Put a 2/2 green Wolf creature token onto the battlefield; or put two +1/+1 counters on target creature. Tarfid was faced with a choice between a new hunting companion and a new fur coat.
If N=2 for this card in cost, token, and counters, I think this would work for any value between 2 and 4, depending on where we need it for the curve. Might make more sense if the token is something you can eat, that is often the flavor of getting counters. Or we could expand it to a big mono-colored charm and add "or destroy target artifact with converted mana cost 2 or less" or something like that.
Megiddo foolishly told us not to worry about the other deck right now, but it's pretty clear that we will want a couple of random hosers that break artifacts and/or exile cards in graveyards, filling a role like the Decompose in the Sorin deck. Sounds like they are building towards self/mill and graveyard artifact recursion. We don't want anything that shuts off their strategy, but a couple of silver bullets that can keep it in check are necessary.
Based off of Gerrards Estimated Skeleton, I have taken the liberty into starting a deck skeleton with cards that have been suggested I feel deserve a place:
Also, aside from Basic Lands, are we allowed to have multiples of cards in our decks?
Also, using 25% of the nonlands as reprints, that leaves us with 9 reprints, which have all been linked above.
I am a big fan of Rebound in this deck. It trigger Heroic without being abusive like Buyback and it allows us to keep the recurring spells cheap because they only recur once. I think we want to focus on Heroic as our main mechanic, with Rebound following close behind with a few Flashback and/or Proliferate cards behind that.
I also like the idea of not having Auras or at least keeping the Aura count low to prevent us from bleeding in with the Heroes DD.
The cards above that aren't linked are cards I created or cards that others have created that I loved.
Hunter's Choice2G
Sorcery (C)
Choose one — Put a 2/2 green Wolf creature token onto the battlefield; or put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.
Rebound Growth1G
Instant (C)
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Rebound
I will try to add to this as we see more cards that we like or agree should be reprinted.
Duel Decks: Parsenus vs Vizcon
Welcome to round 1 of the fourth CCC&G Pro Tour! This week your team will be responsible for designing a duel deck around a legendary creature I picked from among the pregame submissions. Not only should your deck be a cohesive whole, it should work well with the opposing team's deck. But for now let's focus on the first part. Let's see what you're working with this round: I picked this legend because I think that it's fairly straightforward and gives some direction for a deck without dictating your 60 cards. Plus, heroic is new and shiny!
The ultimate goal is for your team to design a great, reasonably-polished deck of 60 cards. For the first week, we're shooting a bit lower than that.
You can even submit proxies. If you know that the deck needs a two drop 0/4 creature that can block, just submit that! It's ok at this stage. You may also use reprints! Don't go overboard though, since the final product will have limitations on how many reprints it can have.
Take a look at existing decks for inspiration and guidance (scroll down to "Other Sets").
Remember: For round one focus on your deck only. Do not worry about the other team's deck yet. We'll work on that later.
Submit to me, via PM, a 60-card second draft of your deck. I want to see a fairly full-featured deck that incorporates the feedback from playtesting. We definitely want to see some polish by this point. I don't want to see any proxies (not that there were any the first time around). Keep reprints limited as before.
As before, please include:
1. A plain text decklist.
2. A list of the full text of every new card.
3. Attribution for each new card. Each player should have at least two cards attributed to them.
Deadline: 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, January 7th.
Submit to me, via PM, a 60 card revision of the other team's round 2 deck. This deck should be built with full knowledge of your own deck (and possibly collaboration with the other team to make sure they evolve in the same directon). The reprint numbers have been good, so keep it about there.
As before, please include:
1. A plain text decklist.
2. A list of the full text of every new card.
3. Attribution for each new card. Each player should have at least two cards attributed to them.
Deadline: 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, January 21st.
Submit to me, via PM, a 60-card final version of both decks, based on the lists from round 3. You have total control. I recommend playtesting with others, and collaboration is allowed, but it is your show and I should not have any trouble determining that.
As before, please include:
1. A plain text decklist.
2. A list of the full text of every new card.
Week one checkpoint: 11:59 PM EST on Friday, February 14th.
If more time is needed at this point we will look into that.
Logistics and Scoring
1. The designer of the legend is by default the team captain. You may, if you wish, select another team captain using any method you choose. Just let me know. The team captain is responsible for organizing the team and managing the deck. We will edit the second post of this thread to be one of yours so that you can keep things prominently placed.
2. This round, each player on your team is responsible for submitting at least two cards to the deck. A reprint submitted counts. A template/proxy does not.
3. After the deck is submitted to me, I will playtest your deck against the other team's deck with one or more willing volunteers over a two or three day period. We will write up our suggestions and return that to you before the next round starts.
4. While that is happening, you should secretly rank the three best members of your team other than yourself and submit that to me via PM. This will be how I eliminate people. Yes, unfortunately we will be doing elimination this time around. However, players who have been eliminated (and even non-contestants) are welcome to participate by playtesting the decks and submitting their feedback TO ME via PM, which I will relay to the appropriate teams.
5. I hope you're as excited as I am!
Zoomba
Dropped
(nameless one)
BaconCatBug
BlackBull
FreshMeat
Gerrard's Mom
Jimmy Groove
Koopa
Raikou Rider
Snow Creature - Penguin
yewlas
void_nothing
Waypoints
Round Two Start
Round Three Start
Finals
Parsenus is obviously a take on Perseus, particularly the version played by Mark Hamill in Clash of the Titans (which is why he goes from being a promising-but-uninspiring soldier to a Pegasus-riding, Gorgon-slaying, Kraken-smashing badass). We are fortunate that G/W heroic lends itself to a deck theme pretty well.
There are a couple of ways we could go about it, but right now I think our best option is to throw a pretty decent number of card designs and reprint suggestions out there and see what potentially interesting synergies pop up. So I suggest we start by each designing 3-4 cards (mixing creatures, instants, and auras as the mainstays with a few other types) and suggest 1-2 reprints.
Some things to keep in mind:
1. We're definitely dealing with a Theros hero now, so design with that flavor in mind, and choose reprints that will fit into the Theros flavor when possible.
2. Parsenus deals with +1/+1 counters, and it is likely that any other heroes that make it into the deck will too, so that's a potential area to explore.
3. Since heroic creatures need to be targeted as soon as possible to be effective, we're going to want a mostly low mana curve, so I'd suggest you keep most of your designs in the 1-4 mana range (though we can obviously afford a few exeptions.)
I'm at the end of a night shift now, so I'll be later tonight getting back, probably 6-9PM EST. At that point, I'll post my initial designs and reprint recommendations.
- Seeds of Strength
- Wingsteed Rider
- Staunch-Hearted Warrior
- Setessan Battle Priest
- Phalanx Leader
- Favored Hoplite
I am a big fan of this guy. He should 100% be a reprint.Centaur Battlemaster
Cards that we shouldn't reprint:
Fabled Hero While a great card, he takes away from our Legendary being the "Hero"
Anthousa, Setessan Hero See above.
Also, we want to, IMO, make sure we aren't just building the RW Heroic deck that was in the Heroes Vs Monster Duel Deck.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
So do we even have anything to post in this thread this week?
Bear in mind we may have to cut this from the deck for power level reasons. If you target Parsenus with Seeds of Strength three times, it will trigger his Heroic ability three times. Yes, it was the first enabler I thought of as well, but unless the other side has edict effects to deal with this guy, it's kinda gg. Off a mana dork, that can be as soon as turn 4.
If we're going to be playing a ton of Heroic creatures, what about Thrive? It's scalable and fits a counter theme as well.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Actually, it'll just trigger heroic once per creature. You can trigger up to three heroes at once, though, which is pretty cool. I'm not sure about the power level, though.
This could be a cool reprint, also.
Mechanic Creator's Contest III- Winner
[Clan Flamingo]
Nice legend you gave us to work with, JG! (I agree on the change GM proposes, but more because of gamming purposes than for it's flavor oddity).
Some brainstorming:
I would suggest to rework Thrive, perhaps to turn it into a storm version (I think what perhaps what we want to go with here is a storm reinsert)
About reprints, what about a small version of Doubling Season, wich could work with a particullar kind of creature tokens (restricted to color, p/t, etc) and/or +1/+1 counters instead of any kind of them. It could actually just work with +1/+1 counters and perhaps also be a dude with heroic.
NAME COST
Creature - TYPES (?)
Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets NAME, put a +1/+1 counter on /another?/ target creature.
COST: Until end of turn, if an effect would place one or more +1/+1 counters on a creature you control, it places twice that many of those +1/+1 counters on that creature instead.
We could even make the activated ability to be a trigger, but I would preffer it to be act. to allow the creature to have more board presence.
Also:
NAME GW
Instant C
Put a +1/+1 counter on target /attacking or blocking?/ creature.
Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn.)
We could even replace storm with that cute ability I can't remember who brought up, called battlestorm (interesting to create theroid flavor as well). This would make the card more constructed appealing
Card Tweak Suggestions - Make a section for this if you want to suggest an alternation to a card someone else has submitted. In the first round, we'll make all tweaks entirely consensual: either the person you suggest it to changes it or not. Also, it would be helpful if you posted the full tweaked card with any changes you'd make.
New Card Submissions - Make one of these sections to put all the new cards you want to make for the deck. Put up to a sentence explaining the general role in the deck if you feel it'd be useful.
Reprint Suggestions - Make one of these to suggest reprints. Suggest no more than maybe two or three ones that haven't already been suggested, and then also state approval or disapproval of previous suggestions (but keep the reasons fairly short, since we have to parse over all of this before the week is over.)
General Comments - Make one of these for general ideas that don't really fit into other categories.
_________________________________
Card Tweak -
I'm considering switching Parsenus up like this, weakening his initial stats a bit to clean him up and allow the trigger to be a bit more powerful. Regeneration helps it survive early combats in addition to avoiding most removal (and thus helps to make up for the lowered power and toughness) and also feels cleaner than just adding a keyword for a turn.
Parsenus, Hythonia's Slayer 2GW
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier (MR)
Heroic - Whenever Parsenus, Hythonia's Slayer becomes the target of a spell you control, put a +1/+1 counter on it and regenerate it.
Parsenus has flying as long as there is at least one +1/+1 counter on it, first strike as long as there is at least two +1/+1 counters on it, and deathtouch as long as there is at least three +1/+1 counters on it.
2/2
Edit: Screwed up the heroic trigger, fixed it as Zoomba pointed out.
New Cards
Guardian Alseid 1W
Enchantment Creature - Nymph (C)
Bestow 3W
Enchanted creature gets +0/+2
Guardian Alseid and enchanted creature has "T: Prevent the next 1 damage to target creature or player."
0/2
Samite Healer variants are pretty standard issue, and this is one that provides a little early defense and isn't terribly powerful when bestowed, which lets it be cheap and stay on curve.
Storm of Swords 2GW
Instant (U)
Warstorm - Any number of target attacking or blocking creatures get +1/+1 and gain first strike until end of turn.
A full-on storm variant might be a bit more complexity than we need to just get extra targeting in there. This might be a bit more elegant. We can change the ability word to get rid of the "storm" if you think it is confusing.
Enduring Resolve 1G
Instant (C)
Target creature you control gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Rebound
Prey's Vengeance is a bit on the strong side in a heroic deck, being only slightly smaller than a Giant Growth and targeting twice. Raising the mana cost by one makes it slightly harder to fire off on the same turn you drop a creature, which makes it a more reasonable play.
Sage of the Wilds 1GG
Creature - Human Shaman (R)
Trample
Heroic - Whenever Sage of the Wilds becomes the target of a spell or ability, it gets +1/+1 and gains "Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, draw a card." until end of turn. (If it gains this ability multiple times, draw a card for each instance of it.)
2/3
We could use some card draw to make sure we keep gas in the engine, and this gives us an option.
More to come.
Reprints
New suggestions: None right now. I'l bring some soon.
Agreements: Wingsteed Rider, Staunch-Hearted Warrior, Favored Hoplite, and Centaur Battlemaster are all straightfoward and obvious includes. We might not want to do all of them, but I can' imagine we don't end up with at least a couple in there.
Anoint is an excellent choice for a buyback spell, as it is useful but not so powerful that it would be overwhelming, and the flavor works great in Theros.
Change of Heart might be an interesting choice as it does two different things, but neither too well. It can be used to lock down a big ground attacker while the flyers seal the game, or it can just trigger heroics at the end of the opponent's turn for 4.
Thrive is a nice choice for a mass targeting effect that seems well-priced.
Disagreements: Seeds of Strength is both potentially abusive and really, really confusing. We're all pretty decently familiar with the rules of Magic, so if a lot of us are misreading whether it would trigger a hero multiple times then it would definitely be confusing for the average player.
I feel this will test our ability to design uncommons--I believe we are only allowed six rares per side.
Also, midrange vs. voltron: I think that given Heroes as a duel deck, we should go for a midrange strategy. It would vastly differentiate the two decks from each other. Remember that the opposing side is UB, which does not have a ton of ways to interact with enchantments. These two decks are supposed to be able to interact with each other as much as possible.
Re: the Storm mechanic. Don't bring this mechanic back, period. Every single card with storm has been played and abused in some kind of tournament deck (yes, even Ground Rift is played in the Nivmagus Elemental decks.)
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
This is correct. 5-6 rares or so.
I got it now
Tweaks
Not sure what I want to do with Parsenus, still feel that just a counter for heroic is the cleanest, but I can see either way.
Reprints
Travel Preparations seems ridiculously good in this theme (oh Zoomba already mentioned it :hifive:)
Juniper Order Ranger is a somewhat sought-after uncommon that might fit pretty well.
I like Forgotten Ancient as a rare even though Mossy is not on our team
Thrive sounds good, a couple other G and W Heroic guys sounds fine too. Vote for Wingsteed Rider and Staunch-Hearted Warrior.
I'm cool with Anoint and/or Emerge Unscathed. I feel like arbitrarily we should limit it to three returning mechanics. Heroic, flashback, and rebound maybe?
Also, Rancor?
General Comments
Thinking ahead to interplay with the other deck, blue/black is good at shooting down individual targets, so I think it should be like "Voltron, but not all the eggs in one basket." Multiple targeting-spells are a great way to do that, build up a couple guys at once. We can do a couple tokens like Elephant Guide, but we don't want to shoot for Saproling armies or anything.
New Card
Reactive Grower or something 1G
Creature - Plant (R)
1: The next time counters would be placed on another target creature you control this turn, put that many counters of that type on Reactive Grower as well.
1/1
For the time being, assume that Parsenus will work as per the last tweak post and design along those lines. We might change it later, but for now better to have the focus.
Keep that whole 5-6 rares thing in mind with your designs, and don't be afraid to submit a fair number of designs; better for us to have too many than too view. Since we want to be mostly new cards, we want to have a lot of options to choose from. At this point, the most important area to design for seems to be small-to-medium sized creatures, especially heroic ones.
Zoomba: At the cost of Acid-Quill Baloth's effect, it could probably be "target non-creature, non-land permanent" and still be reasonable enough. And that would be a great card to have in the deck.
I'm one of you so.
Anyways, I just want to add, should our hero have a trusted "steed" and a weapon of choice (equipment)
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
I second this so hard. We should let Jimmy submit designs for these first, since they're for his character.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Also, what do you guys think of bringing back Radiance as a mechanic? Target out legendary guy and help his army with it.
I believe the way to go with this (since its a DD series) is to create simple cards that allow interaction. It's a good "learner" deck but we can also add an "eternal gem".
As for that eternal gem, we can also develop a hate bear? We are already in colors for a hate bear.
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
I like Jimmy's tweaked card, but I have to agree with Zoomba that the Heroic ability should just add counters. Let the second ability determine what the bonuses are. That reads cleaner and gives the card less fiddly bits to remember. If we're going with three keywords (which I think is a good number), then we ought to decide on what abilities best capture a Perseus-type character. It looks like we're getting deathtouch from the Gorgon's head, flying from the Pegasus or the winged sandals, but I'm not sure about first strike. It does play well with deathtouch. Personally, I'd prefer to see hexproof over first strike, as that will help protect our legend and reflects both the mirrored shield and the helm of invisibility Perseus obtains.
Also, let's not forget the proper Heroic wording: "Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets ..."
New Card Submissions
Heroic Bear 1G
Creature- Bear Warrior (C)
Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets Heroic Bear, put a +1/+1 counter on Heroic Bear.
2/2
"I know this concept is silly, but the mechanics are probably useful, so just bear with me. Ha! Get it? "Bear" with me?"
—Bucky, flavor text writer
Net Champion 2W
Creature- Human Soldier (C)
Heroic — Whenever you cast a spell that targets Net Champion, put a +1/+1 counter on Net Champion, then tap target creature.
1/1
Triumphant Strike 1W
Instant (C)
Target creature gains first strike until end of turn. Put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Victor's Insight 2G
Sorcery (U)
Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. Until end of turn, that creature gains ""Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card."
Reprint Suggestions
Mutant's Prey or Hunt the Weak- It fits a +1/+1 counter theme and the heroic theme, which I think is a good direction for us.
Test of Faith- See above.
Wild Defiance- I know we only get a few rares, but this sort of makes all your creatures heroes. We don't have to worry as much about it saving them from removal vs. the other deck, either, since they're removal will mostly be bounce and straight-up destruction.
Livewire Lash- See above. I'm not suggesting we include both, but either could be interesting.
Given what others have suggested, I really like Thrive. It's kind of perfect. GM's recommendation of Travel Preparations is also very good. Obviously a few of the +1/+1 counter heroes would be ideal. For a midrange-type deck, Favored Hoplite might not be as needed. I second the inclusion of Wingsteed Rider, Staunch-Hearted Warrior, and possibly Centaur Battlemaster. Phalanx Leader would also be useful, since it works like Thrive and boosts the whole team.
General Comments
I agree with many others on this being a heroic midrange-style deck. I'd like to move away from an Aura subtheme, as the Heroes vs. Monsters deck had a bit of that (Freewind Equenaut, Sun Titan, Etc.). Instead, I think a lot of our designs are pushing us towards a +1/+1 counter subtheme. Perhaps we could have some cards that care about the counters, or move counters around, or Corpsejack Menace-type shenanigans. Heck, maybe even proliferate?
Regarding number of non-evergreen keywords, it looks like the Monsters deck had four: Bloodthrist, Cycling, Echo, and Proliferate. It relied heavily on Bloodthirst and Echo/Proliferate were each just one-ofs, though. I'm not sure if that helps us or not, but it might be good to know our wiggle room. Personally, I like heroic and buyback/rebound here. A one-of flashback or something shouldn't give us too much trouble.
Mechanic Creator's Contest III- Winner
[Clan Flamingo]
Predatory Pinnacle 1GG
Enchantment {R}
Each creature you control gets +1/+1 for each +1/+1 counter on it.
Also if we're going for some green midrange, I feel we need some kind of green card draw. Harmonize is kind of a copout though--we should try something else. Maybe some kind of Soul's Majesty variant?
If we're going for a +1/+1 counter theme, a 2-of Llanowar Reborn seems like a no-brainer.
How midrange-y are we talking here? Midrange-y enough to add X spells?
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
24 Lands
6 Heroic creatures
16 Other creatures
8 Heroic enablers
6 Other spells
We could hit the heroic harder but then it sort of stops feeling like a Duel Deck and more like an old style precon or an event deck. Open to opinions.
In the theme of "guys or make guys larger," here is a reworked and slightly reduced Hunting Triad:
Hunter's Choice 2G
Sorcery (C)
Choose one — Put a 2/2 green Wolf creature token onto the battlefield; or put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.
Tarfid was faced with a choice between a new hunting companion and a new fur coat.
If N=2 for this card in cost, token, and counters, I think this would work for any value between 2 and 4, depending on where we need it for the curve. Might make more sense if the token is something you can eat, that is often the flavor of getting counters. Or we could expand it to a big mono-colored charm and add "or destroy target artifact with converted mana cost 2 or less" or something like that.
Megiddo foolishly told us not to worry about the other deck right now, but it's pretty clear that we will want a couple of random hosers that break artifacts and/or exile cards in graveyards, filling a role like the Decompose in the Sorin deck. Sounds like they are building towards self/mill and graveyard artifact recursion. We don't want anything that shuts off their strategy, but a couple of silver bullets that can keep it in check are necessary.
also, it'd be cool if our two decks had at least one mirrored pair, like,
Parsenus's Pet 3G
Creature - Beast (U)
Haste
Protection from black and from blue
2/2
vs.
Viscon's Viceroy 3B
Artifact Creature - Zombie (U)
Haste
Protection from green and from white
2/2
Creatures(20)
1x Parsenus, Hythonia's Slayer
1x Staunch-Hearted Warrior
1x Wingsteed Rider
Spells(16)
1x Emerge Unscathed (C)
1x Hunter's Choice (C)
1x Rebound Growth (C)
1x Thrive (C)
1x Travel Preparations (C)
Lands(24)
24x Land
Also, aside from Basic Lands, are we allowed to have multiples of cards in our decks?
Also, using 25% of the nonlands as reprints, that leaves us with 9 reprints, which have all been linked above.
I am a big fan of Rebound in this deck. It trigger Heroic without being abusive like Buyback and it allows us to keep the recurring spells cheap because they only recur once. I think we want to focus on Heroic as our main mechanic, with Rebound following close behind with a few Flashback and/or Proliferate cards behind that.
I also like the idea of not having Auras or at least keeping the Aura count low to prevent us from bleeding in with the Heroes DD.
The cards above that aren't linked are cards I created or cards that others have created that I loved.
Hunter's Choice 2G
Sorcery (C)
Choose one — Put a 2/2 green Wolf creature token onto the battlefield; or put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.
Rebound Growth 1G
Instant (C)
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Rebound
I will try to add to this as we see more cards that we like or agree should be reprinted.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
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