So this is very much a work in progress and I will be re-doing the cards at least once or twice more. That said I wanted to get some feedback on the commanders before I start working on the 'new' cards that go in each of their decks. Expansion concept: Each commander comes from a world that is completely defined by the one color of mana it lacks. This is a play on the idea of how if a color is not part of a commanders identity, you cant use it.They come from entire worlds that lack that color in it's identity.
Burum exists in a plane without natural sunlight, where the world is enveloped in a fungal canopy and a thick ocean of murky dense clouds. This world is entirely plunged into darkness except for the occasional bioluminescent creature or vein of magma emerging from the earth. Worms, Spiders, Saprolings and other lowly creatures are constantly birthed and culled, creating a fertile but deadly ecosystem where mercy, honor and law are alien concepts.
Deck style: Lots of untargeted pain in the form of everyone sacrificing creatures or other permanents. Also the deck makes people often draw and discard, and hurts them for performing both actions.
Terebros comes from a cloudless desert where all nourishment comes from predation, and all life springs from blood spilled on the sand. While this world values warriors over wise men, their lack of knowledge is made up for in fierce instinct and battle tested technique. That said even the fiercest warlords and most adventurous Blood Caravans still fear the giant sand worms that lurk beneath the surface of this hostile world.
Deck style: You use creatures with abilities like Lifelink and Trample to aggressively attack your opponents. Most of your removal comes in the form of burn and fighting
In Allu’s realm nothing ages and nothing changes for long. The people of this world live for adventure and war, and for celebrating great victories. Despite many heroic efforts, the kingdoms never seem to win any wars and the beasts that are slain return to assault the castles again the next day. That is because in this world the armies never run out of soldiers, the rulers never learn from their mistakes and nobody questions orders or authority.
Deck style: You use a lot of knights, soldiers and fantasy creatures. This deck frequently shuffles your graveyard into your library and gives you chances to search and play the perfect warrior or monster for the occasion. It is designed to ‘outlast’ conventional mill decks and other slow playing decks.
Cryton is from a land in hibernation where everything moves at a glacial pace. Over time the lands very dreams and nightmares coalesce into impossible creatures that lurk just beneath the worlds icy surface. With all things being perfectly predictable and ordered, the mysterious creatures continue to rule uncontested accumulating knowledge over their millennial lifespans.
Deck style: You use a lot of suspend, sorceries and cards with upkeep that reward your patience with guaranteed big creatures and spells. The deck is also full of serpents, octopus, krakens and other big scary things
Freva comes from a world without life, inhabited only by the ghosts of a once great civilization wiped out by a plague and the strange and wonderful machines they left behind. These arcane engines not only keep their spirits tethered to the material plane, but they also allow control over gravity, time and other metaphysical threads that hold their word together.
Deck style: This deck utilizes spirits and artifacts, and looks to accumulate a large hand to gain several advantages. It also has several large artifacts which are especially useful once animated.
EDIT: artists credited. Might edit again once I get a bit more advice on the cards.
Firstly, etiquette stipulates artist credit(TOS as well) and text cards(some may have issues viewing images).
As for the cards, themselves, general wording issues:
1. "Onto the battlefield" not "into play"
2. "until end of turn" not "until the end of turn"
individual issues:
1. Keyword bilities must be on-color for at least three colors for these to work; Burum(hexproof), Cryton(deathtouch), and Freva(vigilance) violate this.
2. "Gorgon Kraken" not "Octopus Gorgon"; neither makes sense, though
3. "Angel Beast" not "Beast Angel"; neither make sense because Angels are manifestations of mana
4. "Spirit Golem" makes no sense
Udated the files... as for the Keyword thing do you care to elaborate? I'm doing Hexproof on Burum since I see it a lot on Blue and Green, Deathtouch on Cryton (green and Black). Freva is the only one that is a little bit of a stretch, but he does have White and blue, although blue is like Vigilance color #3 (white and green come before it).
As for the weird combos you will have to indulge me, they are part of the concept. I wanted the creatures to kinda overlap types from several colors, and also just seem a little alien. Burum actually is the most normal by far, but I was married to the concept so he got in.
Now on abilities, is there any that stands out as especially OP for the costs and ability costs?
This isn't a critique on the cards as much as it is on the theme:
It feels like you painted yourself into a corner by forcing this much symmetry onto your legendary creatures, especially in terms of "must have two activated abilities that cost 2." It might sound like a decent idea on paper, but it makes them kinda lifeless and not very unique, especially with this many keyword abilities being thrown around. The first three suffer from this most; Freva and Cryton make more sense but are still kinda forced.
TL;DR don't cling to the absolute symmetry idea, then you'll find yourself getting much more unique designs out of the cycle.
I'll use Freva as the example for the problem with keyword abilities. As it stands, one may cast her for BBUU, BBRR, or BBUR and have a creature with vigilance. As demonstrated by the search and disregarding Serra Sphinx and Synchronous Sliver-Time Spiral block isn't a good example, mono-blue, -black, and -red don't, and mustn't, get unconditional vigilance any more. I excluded mono-red because I believe it's never had the ability.
Yeah, after years of game design I've recently realized that a strict need for symetry is one of my main design flaws... like 'every skill tree gets the same number of skills' in my rpg or whatever. I might do some work to make these guys less strictly symetrical, especially where it detracts from the card having a strong identity.
As for what you guys are saying about keywords, I'll see what I can do. I'm a firm believer that 'wizards did it once' is not a good excuse, so I'll make sure it is stuff that you HAVE to spend at least one mana on. Originally these guys where 1 of each mana but they kind of suffered as commanders, being really hard to get onto the battlefield in some test games.
Burum exists in a plane without natural sunlight, where the world is enveloped in a fungal canopy and a thick ocean of murky dense clouds. This world is entirely plunged into darkness except for the occasional bioluminescent creature or vein of magma emerging from the earth. Worms, Spiders, Saprolings and other lowly creatures are constantly birthed and culled, creating a fertile but deadly ecosystem where mercy, honor and law are alien concepts.
Deck style: Lots of untargeted pain in the form of everyone sacrificing creatures or other permanents. Also the deck makes people often draw and discard, and hurts them for performing both actions.
Terebros comes from a cloudless desert where all nourishment comes from predation, and all life springs from blood spilled on the sand. While this world values warriors over wise men, their lack of knowledge is made up for in fierce instinct and battle tested technique. That said even the fiercest warlords and most adventurous Blood Caravans still fear the giant sand worms that lurk beneath the surface of this hostile world.
Deck style: You use creatures with abilities like Lifelink and Trample to aggressively attack your opponents. Most of your removal comes in the form of burn and fighting
In Allu’s realm nothing ages and nothing changes for long. The people of this world live for adventure and war, and for celebrating great victories. Despite many heroic efforts, the kingdoms never seem to win any wars and the beasts that are slain return to assault the castles again the next day. That is because in this world the armies never run out of soldiers, the rulers never learn from their mistakes and nobody questions orders or authority.
Deck style: You use a lot of knights, soldiers and fantasy creatures. This deck frequently shuffles your graveyard into your library and gives you chances to search and play the perfect warrior or monster for the occasion. It is designed to ‘outlast’ conventional mill decks and other slow playing decks.
Cryton is from a land in hibernation where everything moves at a glacial pace. Over time the lands very dreams and nightmares coalesce into impossible creatures that lurk just beneath the worlds icy surface. With all things being perfectly predictable and ordered, the mysterious creatures continue to rule uncontested accumulating knowledge over their millennial lifespans.
Deck style: You use a lot of suspend, sorceries and cards with upkeep that reward your patience with guaranteed big creatures and spells. The deck is also full of serpents, octopus, krakens and other big scary things
Freva comes from a world without life, inhabited only by the ghosts of a once great civilization wiped out by a plague and the strange and wonderful machines they left behind. These arcane engines not only keep their spirits tethered to the material plane, but they also allow control over gravity, time and other metaphysical threads that hold their word together.
Deck style: This deck utilizes spirits and artifacts, and looks to accumulate a large hand to gain several advantages. It also has several large artifacts which are especially useful once animated.
EDIT: artists credited. Might edit again once I get a bit more advice on the cards.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
New art on Xenic and errata to Spirit (per Oracle) for Frevas spirit and artifact deck.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
As for the cards, themselves, general wording issues:
1. "Onto the battlefield" not "into play"
2. "until end of turn" not "until the end of turn"
individual issues:
1. Keyword bilities must be on-color for at least three colors for these to work; Burum(hexproof), Cryton(deathtouch), and Freva(vigilance) violate this.
2. "Gorgon Kraken" not "Octopus Gorgon"; neither makes sense, though
3. "Angel Beast" not "Beast Angel"; neither make sense because Angels are manifestations of mana
4. "Spirit Golem" makes no sense
As for the weird combos you will have to indulge me, they are part of the concept. I wanted the creatures to kinda overlap types from several colors, and also just seem a little alien. Burum actually is the most normal by far, but I was married to the concept so he got in.
Now on abilities, is there any that stands out as especially OP for the costs and ability costs?
www.theconnoisseurs.com
It feels like you painted yourself into a corner by forcing this much symmetry onto your legendary creatures, especially in terms of "must have two activated abilities that cost 2." It might sound like a decent idea on paper, but it makes them kinda lifeless and not very unique, especially with this many keyword abilities being thrown around. The first three suffer from this most; Freva and Cryton make more sense but are still kinda forced.
TL;DR don't cling to the absolute symmetry idea, then you'll find yourself getting much more unique designs out of the cycle.
I excluded mono-red because I believe it's never had the ability.As for what you guys are saying about keywords, I'll see what I can do. I'm a firm believer that 'wizards did it once' is not a good excuse, so I'll make sure it is stuff that you HAVE to spend at least one mana on. Originally these guys where 1 of each mana but they kind of suffered as commanders, being really hard to get onto the battlefield in some test games.
www.theconnoisseurs.com