Intro
Legends of Adrada is a set based on a 2 year D&D campaign I started and finished, and as such is meant to evoke that D&D adventure and Legendary Allies feel. You may have seen this on Reddit, but I wanted more feedback.
The set is basically finished after many months of limited play testing and almost a year of design.
There are a few typos here and there, but mostly looking for general design feedback.
Packs contain 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare and 1 Legend in the 15th card slot (ala Innistrad/Timespiral)
More detail on design aspirations and the set:
Our design goal was Dungeons and Dragons meets Innistrad draft and Legends. So expect Dungeons and Dragons tropes and spells (bless, feather fall, magic missile!) an expansive draft environment and sweet legends. We wanted the power level and complexity to be higher than a normal set, but below Modern Masters. NWO was observed and then deliberately overstepped, similar to Modern Masters. Though we know where to tone it back if we wanted to.
It contains:
101 commons printed thrice
76 uncommons printed twice
50 rares printed once
50 legends printed once
555 card cube (plus loads of tokens and full art lands)
We prepare each booster with 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare and 1 legend. The 1 legend per pack is meant to emulate an extra sheet, and helps emphasize the Legendary sub-theme of the set.
Mechanics
There are 3 mechanics in the set, one returning, one returning and tweaked, and one original:
Evoke: Evoke is here to represent all the fantastical creatures you can summon in Dungeons and Dragons, and is just one of our favourite mechanics of all time. We have a twist with evokable enchantments.
Allies: We had Allies in the set before Battle for Zendikar was announced (thanks for stealing our thunder Wizards!) They represent all the adventurers and heroes in the world. Many of which "Assist" each other on attack triggers.
Shadowcast: This is our original mechanic, it's a storm/delve/domain monstrosity that encourages multi color and crazy combo nonsense. It went through many iterations but we are very happy were ended up developmentally, in gameplay and deck construction.
Legends: Since there would a be a Legend in every pack, we couldn't have them all be powerful rares. Our aim was to give them all either unique/interesting/flavourful abilities that make them worthy of being legends but only make some of them first picks. We believe we have succeeded here as many of them are picked late in the draft either because they're abilities are powerful only in very narrow decks, aren't actually that strong in limited or because of their colour commitments.
Multicolour: Like Legends this is a Gold set, with the addition of hybrid to smooth things out as well as to help shadowcast.
Strongholds: In the rare PDF there are 5 mono colour "strongholds" that use the planeswalker rules. They aren't planeswalkers, they just borrow the same abilities. Planeswalker design began life as a design by Garfield during Ravnica to represent a building that gave you benefit but could be under siege, and was appropriated to make planeswalkers. This brings it back. You have a fortress and doing so gives you certain benefits so long as you can stop the other jerks from burning it down. Getting a city/structure/fort and keeping it protected is a pretty big part of mid-high levels in a lot of DnD campaigns. And they each represent a place my D&D players went to to Forge Alliances for their big end quest.
Draft strategies
Each 2 color pair has an archetype, each of which also have opportunities to branch out into a tri-colour wedge or arc, some have more than one archetype hiding, as well as many other quirky build around cards at all rarities.
Look out for the common creatures with hybrid activations that hint at those.
So far the environment seems pretty deep, as we haven't really finished exploring it to be honest. However here are some of the known draftable competitive decks with their likely splash colours:
UW(b/r) Value Control
UB(w/r) Evasive Beats
BR Suicide Aggro
RG(w/u) Big Monsters and Allies
GW(r/u) Tokens and Allies
WB(g/r) Tokens and Sacrifice
UR(b/w) Tempo
BG(u/r) Midrange Grind
RW(g) Aggro Allies
GU(r/w) Evoke Ramp
UB(g/r) Shadowcast Combo
UWr Artifact Value Town
UR(b/g) Bonfire Combo
Finally
The art is incredible, and all credited!
Enjoy! And let me hear your thoughts please
Known Errors in the PDFs, please check here before you post a grammar/rule typo!
Commons:
Aether Soul: Is now "Elemental Avatar", was "Beast Avatar"
Dazed: Dazed is a slight joke, I wanted to print a card called "Daze" because it is a "cantrip" in D&D, that was used a lot in our campaign. Of course I couldn't because "Daze" is already a magic card. I couldn't reprint Daze (card is ridiculous and it doesn't "cantrip"!). So I made a new card, called it Dazed, and gave it Daze's artwork to make fun of the fact. We are aware we wouldn't be able to do that in a real WotC set
Uncommons:
True Resurrection: Name spelling typo "Ressurrection"
Rares:
Draconify: Enchants non-Dragon then enchanted creature becomes a Dragon, so aura would fall off. Erased "becomes a Dragon" clause.
Legends:
Peepums: Typo in rules text "a 0/6 plants"
Intro
Legends of Adrada is a set based on a 2 year D&D campaign I started and finished, and as such is meant to evoke that D&D adventure and Legendary Allies feel. You may have seen this on Reddit, but I wanted more feedback.
The set is basically finished after many months of limited play testing and almost a year of design.
There are a few typos here and there, but mostly looking for general design feedback.
PDFs:
Commmons
Uncommmons
Rares
Legends
Full art basics & Tokens
Packs contain 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare and 1 Legend in the 15th card slot (ala Innistrad/Timespiral)
More detail on design aspirations and the set:
It contains:
101 commons printed thrice
76 uncommons printed twice
50 rares printed once
50 legends printed once
555 card cube (plus loads of tokens and full art lands)
We prepare each booster with 10 commons, 3 uncommons, 1 rare and 1 legend. The 1 legend per pack is meant to emulate an extra sheet, and helps emphasize the Legendary sub-theme of the set.
Evoke: Evoke is here to represent all the fantastical creatures you can summon in Dungeons and Dragons, and is just one of our favourite mechanics of all time. We have a twist with evokable enchantments.
Allies: We had Allies in the set before Battle for Zendikar was announced (thanks for stealing our thunder Wizards!) They represent all the adventurers and heroes in the world. Many of which "Assist" each other on attack triggers.
Shadowcast: This is our original mechanic, it's a storm/delve/domain monstrosity that encourages multi color and crazy combo nonsense. It went through many iterations but we are very happy were ended up developmentally, in gameplay and deck construction.
Legends: Since there would a be a Legend in every pack, we couldn't have them all be powerful rares. Our aim was to give them all either unique/interesting/flavourful abilities that make them worthy of being legends but only make some of them first picks. We believe we have succeeded here as many of them are picked late in the draft either because they're abilities are powerful only in very narrow decks, aren't actually that strong in limited or because of their colour commitments.
Multicolour: Like Legends this is a Gold set, with the addition of hybrid to smooth things out as well as to help shadowcast.
Strongholds: In the rare PDF there are 5 mono colour "strongholds" that use the planeswalker rules. They aren't planeswalkers, they just borrow the same abilities. Planeswalker design began life as a design by Garfield during Ravnica to represent a building that gave you benefit but could be under siege, and was appropriated to make planeswalkers. This brings it back. You have a fortress and doing so gives you certain benefits so long as you can stop the other jerks from burning it down. Getting a city/structure/fort and keeping it protected is a pretty big part of mid-high levels in a lot of DnD campaigns. And they each represent a place my D&D players went to to Forge Alliances for their big end quest.
Look out for the common creatures with hybrid activations that hint at those.
So far the environment seems pretty deep, as we haven't really finished exploring it to be honest. However here are some of the known draftable competitive decks with their likely splash colours:
UW(b/r) Value Control
UB(w/r) Evasive Beats
BR Suicide Aggro
RG(w/u) Big Monsters and Allies
GW(r/u) Tokens and Allies
WB(g/r) Tokens and Sacrifice
UR(b/w) Tempo
BG(u/r) Midrange Grind
RW(g) Aggro Allies
GU(r/w) Evoke Ramp
UB(g/r) Shadowcast Combo
UWr Artifact Value Town
UR(b/g) Bonfire Combo
The art is incredible, and all credited!
Enjoy! And let me hear your thoughts please
Known Errors in the PDFs, please check here before you post a grammar/rule typo!
Commons:
Aether Soul: Is now "Elemental Avatar", was "Beast Avatar"
Dazed: Dazed is a slight joke, I wanted to print a card called "Daze" because it is a "cantrip" in D&D, that was used a lot in our campaign. Of course I couldn't because "Daze" is already a magic card. I couldn't reprint Daze (card is ridiculous and it doesn't "cantrip"!). So I made a new card, called it Dazed, and gave it Daze's artwork to make fun of the fact. We are aware we wouldn't be able to do that in a real WotC set
Uncommons:
True Resurrection: Name spelling typo "Ressurrection"
Rares:
Draconify: Enchants non-Dragon then enchanted creature becomes a Dragon, so aura would fall off. Erased "becomes a Dragon" clause.
Legends:
Peepums: Typo in rules text "a 0/6 plants"
Modern:
WBG
Legacy:
WBG
Modern:
WBG
Legacy:
WBG
Just looked at the legendary cards. Some cool ideas. Here’s my crits.
Musa – I guess he enters tapped for flavor? Kinda feel bad for a hero card. Should just cost 1 more.
Gadianton – the first ability is Prowess. To small for a whale.
Lo, Aledan Archmage – Too swingy. Needs to cost considerably more.
Djabah – interesting but not particularly “legendary”
Duke – again, not particularly “legendary”
Endo – again, nothing “legendary” about this
Johann – would be nice to see more Ally effects like this. but what’s with the rest of the card? Really bad.
Duke Feyerlun – not “legendary” whatsoever. Looks like a common.
Pam – Assist is nice.
Taivaa – not “legendary”. It’s like a good uncommon
Wyvern Alpha – Another uncommon non “legendary” creature.
Nila – not “legendary”. Another uncommon. Also, two double strike legends? Seems kinda lazy.
Peepums – love this!
Kaato – this is a green card through and through. And it should be worded “Whenever ~ becomes blocked by a creature, draw a card.”
Michelin Firestone – funny name. probably unprintable due to abusability.
Tarrasque – why does the most infamous monster in D&D have hydra art? Also, the colors aren’t right for -8/-8
Saera’s Tools – not legendary
Veru’s Firestone – not legendary
Llorien Lost – completely busted. Unprintable.
That's it for now. I'll crit more when I have a minute.