So extensive testing has convinced me that there's nothing inherently overpowered about the "stays in play" version of hoard. Individual hoard cards may need some tweaking, but the mechanic overall seems to be of a satisfactory power level.
That's actually a similar idea to another I had - keep the "sac for mana" version, but have other cards able to use them in different ways. I do still have other cards that use them for different things, but I could always bump up that amount.
Updated with blue - and with it, all the cards are up. This doesn't mean it's complete, as I'll be fine-tuning things as I continue testing, but the basic ideas are all up there.
Each was based around one of the five primeval dragons and they would bounce a non-lair land when they entered play or were other wise sacrificed. They did not enter tapped and could be tapped for one of three colors.
I was reading the thread and noticed someone mentioned lands as lairs and I thought you meant the originals.
Idk what you want Lair to do, but since it already does something in Magic, you might want to clarify.
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Mark my words, the Year of Eldrazi will not be the last we see of them.
I was fully aware of the original Lairs, yes. I considered them a bonus, actually.
Idk what you want Lair to do, but since it already does something in Magic, you might want to clarify.
"Lairs", like most other subtypes, don't actually do anything. They have no intrinsic rules meaning, and the word is just there as a marker for other effects to refer to. The originals just used them to refer to themselves for the bounce ability, but I use them in a wider variety of ways. I don't feel like I need to be shackled by one random, kinda weak cycle from fifteen years ago.
I was fully aware of the original Lairs, yes. I considered them a bonus, actually.
Idk what you want Lair to do, but since it already does something in Magic, you might want to clarify.
"Lairs", like most other subtypes, don't actually do anything. They have no intrinsic rules meaning, and the word is just there as a marker for other effects to refer to. The originals just used them to refer to themselves for the bounce ability, but I use them in a wider variety of ways. I don't feel like I need to be shackled by one random, kinda weak cycle from fifteen years ago.
Okaydokay!
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Mark my words, the Year of Eldrazi will not be the last we see of them.
agreed with the general feedback regarding hoard in this thread (although as always testing is king and none of us have done any of it). making the artifacts reusable really restricts what you can do with them, and if every spell with hoard on it is 4+ CMC then it's going to be hard to dial up the as-fan
the idea of making them gold tokens that creatures can do other stuff with seems like a good potential fix to me, although it makes hoard itself pretty marginal in terms of value. at the same time, something like
R
Creature - Human Warrior
Whenever CARDNAME attacks, hoard. R: +1/+0 UEOT
1/1
seems like a pretty sweet card. but tacking this version of hoard onto spells wouldn't really add much. depends what you want to do with it
also i say all this without really having looked at all of your cards so i could be way off-base here
Having the Treasure do nothing on their own is something I know for sure I don't want to do. If I up the amount of other cards that do things with Treasures, I'd rather change to the "sac for mana" version rather than having them do nothing.
I still think having them stick around is fine, but I'm not really sure it's better. I may yet go back to the original version, that sacrifice and have a number attached to the ability (hoard 3 and so on). A lot of people seem to be thinking that way, and it would certainly make development easier and allow for cards with it to look better, which is a definite bonus.
oh sure; i'm doing the same thing. but we're not the ones who are going to be playing with the cards a lot, so we're probably not as important as the people who are
Some rarities should be shifted. For example, Screeching Dragon and Griffineer General are some busted commons that should be at least uncommons.
I'm going to replace Screeching Dragon entirely. First to down the number of blue breath weapon cards to two, but also because I've found there isn't enough good cheap combat tricks to be satisfactory, so it will become a cheap instant rather than a Dragon. I'm not sure I agree on Griffineer General needing to go up, though. Common has granted mass flying in the past. In addition, stalls happen quite a bit (this is one reason I wanted to up the number of combat tricks), so I like it as a way to break through. I'd rather shift the stats around than bump up the rarity for that reason.
A few more observations from testing:
5/5 is too big for the standard Dragon token. I made it that because I wanted them to stand out a bit more than the usual 4/4 Dragon token we've seen more recently - well, mission accomplished on that part. I'm bumping the Dragon token down to 4/4, letting the quantity set it apart rather than the size. The affected cards are Illusion of Glory, Mating Call, Scourge of Dragons, Tasty Goblin, Ascendant of Dragons, Sacrificial Stone, and Udiil, Dragoncaller.
Mating Call looks really fun and cool - but waiting for eight mana to get a single token of it was always disappointing. The cost is dropping to 2RR, allowing you to curve into a timely 5-mana Dragon and bring along a mate (now 4/4, remember). This way a single Dragon off of it pays for it, and every subsequent one is gravy.
Scourge of Dragons was cool when it made X 5/5s, but with the tokens dropping to 4/4, it's thoroughly unexciting. Mythic Air Elemental isn't where I want it to be. That said, dropping the cost isn't a great solution, because it just makes it incredibly swingy. To that end, I'm slightly altering the card - same XXXRR cost, but now it makes X 4/4 Dragons, and puts X +1/+1 counters on all your Dragons.
Sworn Defenders was god damn obnoxious. That said, I like the basic design. I'm tearing off the damage redirection and instead giving it the ability to block any number of creatures. This still lets you punch through with evasive creatures - like big flying Dragons - while still capturing the main intent of the original design.
I'm going to shift around some power and toughness, mostly in lowering the latter. There are two reasons for this. The first is to make breath weapon more relevant more often, as a lot of the time it didn't do anything relevant. The second is because blocking was often too difficult, as too many attackers survived too often.
There wasn't enough flying defence to contend with all the attacking Dragons. I already upped it from a normal set, but I'm going to up it some more. As a part of this, the Knight tokens will now have reach, so that they can more often actually fight the Dragons like they're supposed to.
As I said earlier, I'm going to up the number of cheap combat tricks to make combat a little more difficult. Previously, it was too easy to attack without fear of what your opponent might be holding.
Chances are, hoard will return to its original incarnation of sacrificing for mana and usually coming in larger numbers than 1. This lets the hoard cards be costed to look sexier, and also helps make the archetype more relevant in limited.
This changes will be posted up soon.
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The point is that 2 + 1R is not the same as 3R.
Blue will be coming up shortly.
Each was based around one of the five primeval dragons and they would bounce a non-lair land when they entered play or were other wise sacrificed. They did not enter tapped and could be tapped for one of three colors.
I was reading the thread and noticed someone mentioned lands as lairs and I thought you meant the originals.
Idk what you want Lair to do, but since it already does something in Magic, you might want to clarify.
Mark my words, the Year of Eldrazi will not be the last we see of them.
RGUCascade Cascade -- When you want to put a Roil Elemental into play before a Boundless Realms is cast...RGU
"Lairs", like most other subtypes, don't actually do anything. They have no intrinsic rules meaning, and the word is just there as a marker for other effects to refer to. The originals just used them to refer to themselves for the bounce ability, but I use them in a wider variety of ways. I don't feel like I need to be shackled by one random, kinda weak cycle from fifteen years ago.
Okaydokay!
Mark my words, the Year of Eldrazi will not be the last we see of them.
RGUCascade Cascade -- When you want to put a Roil Elemental into play before a Boundless Realms is cast...RGU
the idea of making them gold tokens that creatures can do other stuff with seems like a good potential fix to me, although it makes hoard itself pretty marginal in terms of value. at the same time, something like
R
Creature - Human Warrior
Whenever CARDNAME attacks, hoard.
R: +1/+0 UEOT
1/1
seems like a pretty sweet card. but tacking this version of hoard onto spells wouldn't really add much. depends what you want to do with it
also i say all this without really having looked at all of your cards so i could be way off-base here
(your audience is presumably your playtesters? either way it certainly isn't a bunch of strangers on the internet)
Encase in Ice is taken name.
If you want to test this set via sealed or draft, hit me up at cocktrice
A few more observations from testing:
This changes will be posted up soon.