Here are the White uncommons from the third and final set of my custom block.
These are the keywords and ability words you will see in White.
Astral [cost] You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. When this creature dies, if it was face down, you may exile it. You may cast it from exile for it's Astral cost. - this keyword is in WUB.
Titan — Whenever ~ attacks, if you control a creature with the greatest power or tied for the greatest power, [effect]. - this ability is in RGW.
Meditate [cost] ([cost] Return this creature from the battlefield to its owner’s hand. Meditate only as a sorcery.) - this ability is in GWU.
Landheart — As long as you control a [land type], [effect or ability] — this ability is in all colors.
Returning Keywords: Madness.
Balador’s BlessingW
Instant (U)
Until end of turn, players can’t lose life. “Just one day of no bloodshed. If I were ever to see a day, that would be the day.” — Balador, blind sage.
Beneditction Aid2W
Creature — Human Cleric (U)
When Beneditction Aid enters the battlefield, choose a color. Creatures you control gain protection from the chosen color until end of turn.
Meditate 3(3: Return this creature from the battlefield to its owner’s hand. Meditate only as a sorcery.)
2/2
Bolstered DefensesWW
Enchantment (U)
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control, creatures you control get +0/+1 until end of turn.
Duty3W
Creature — Knight Incarnation (U)
Vigilance
As long as Duty is in your graveyard and you control a Plains, creatures you control have vigilance.
2/2
Jadepyre Brigade Leader2WW
Creature — Human Knight (U)
Mountainheart — As long as you control a Mountain, creatures you control get +1/+0 and have first strike.
3/3
Pious Benefactors1WW
Creature — Spirit (U)
Flying
Astral 2WW(You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. When this creature dies, if it was face down, you may exile it. You may cast it from exile for it’s Astral cost.)
When Pious Benefactors dies, you gain 1 life for each creature you control.
2/1
Stonegrip Griffin2W
Creature — Griffin (U)
Flying
Madness 1W
When Stonegrip Griffin enters the battlefield, if it’s madness cost was paid, destroy target enchantment.
2/1
Thickpelt Gatox3W
Creature — Beast (U)
Whenever an opponent discards a card, target creature you control gains indestructible until end of turn. If G was spent to cast Thickpelt Gatox, it enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter.
2/4
Towering Oathkeeper4WW
Creature — Giant (U)
Vigilance
Titan — Whenever Towering Oathkeeper attacks, if you control a creature with the greatest power or tied for the greatest power, other creatures you control get +0/+2 and gain vigilance until end of turn.
4/5
Withstand Æther1W
Instant (U)
Prevent the next X damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn where X is equal to twice the number of attacking creatures. If U was spent to cast Withstand Æther, attacking creatures get -3/-0 until end of turn.
Balador’s Blessing - I don't like this. It's Holy day that lets you kill some attackers with good block. That's a problem.
Beneditction Aid - Protection from X is bad design. Sorcery speed granting it is pretty bad/lame/just evasion. So - please no.
Bolstered Defenses - Useless.
Duty - Funny, and just as broken as Anger. So, please no.
Jadepyre Brigade Leader - As long as you have a mountain, ALL OF YOUR CREATURES HAVE FIRST STRIKE? WHAT THE HECK!?! You're messing with us, right? This is ridiculous.
Pious Benefactors - Uh... this does a lot of nonsense.
Stonegrip Griffin - If you're committed to this mechanic, this is fair enough.
Thickpelt Gatox - two different effects on this card are odd. It's also not very good in constructed, and just a limited wall.
Towering Oathkeeper - I know you won't like this - but just imagine if Titan ONLY triggered if it was the biggest, or tied for the biggest, creature. Think about that. This is "meh."
Withstand Æther - Where X equals twice as much as Y? Come on man - you know this is confusing, bad design. And that's ignoring the incredibly irrelevant bleed ability.
Balador's Blessing -- I could see this being used in Turbo Fog. Yes, creatures can still deal damage to eachother. Do you think it needs a Festival effect as well?
Benedition Aid -- Protection from a color is not bad design, it's done quite often. Maybe it should be more like Brave the Elements? Give the creature Flash?
Bolstered Defenses -- That's such helpful feedback. It's not constructive in any way. You're not helping. Why would I even listen to anything you say after this? So, with a mechanic in Carrion that puts out a lot of creatures in a turn or any swarm deck that pumps out a bunch of creatures, your army getting stronger because of that is bad?
Duty -- The Incarnations from Judgement weren't broken. Goblin Bidding was the deck to beat when they were Standard. Wonder was probably the only one used in U/G madness. Vigilance is not as good as First Strike in Valor. It's a solid ability, it's not broken.
Jadepyre -- I think I left out the word 'Knight' creatures.
Pious Benefactors -- This could probably do something more, usually the Astral effect rewards you for casting the creature from exile. I'll think of something.
Towering Oathkeeper -- I've been considering changing up Titan to work more like the creatures from Alara where they care about creatures with power 5 or greater, also make it similar to Formidable. Something along the lines of "Whenever ~ attacks, creatures you control with power 5 or greater gain [effect or ability] until end of turn. or design it more like Triumph of Ferocity. At the beginning of your upkeep, ~ gets/gains [effect or ability] as long as you control the creature with the greatest power or tied for the greatest power.
Withstand AEther -- Maybe change it to just prevent damage equal to the number of attacking creatures? Your suggestions for how to make this better are incredibly irrelevant.
You need to provide better feedback. There's nothing constructive about the criticism you're giving. You're not providing a reason as to why you're saying no to these designs. Could you give suggestions? Make card comparisons? Learn about NWO design?
Balador's Blessing -- yes, it's too powerful. And Turbo Fog is one of those decks WOTC doesn't like. I've played it, it's fun - but it's annoying.
Benedition Aid -- Protection from a color IS bad design, and you'll note that WOTC refrains from using it, Landwalk, Landhome, Fear, and Intimidate because of it. It's a way to win by luck, rather than skill, and is why WOTC has tried to refrain from printing color-hosers in general of late.
Bolstered Defenses -- Useless (Your opponent plays creatures during 2nd main phase. Yeah, it's a haste hoser... but that's pretty much the worst keyword to hose in most situations. If it said "Creatures with Haste come onto the battlefield tapped", cost W or 1W, and was a 1/1 or 1/3 - SURE! But it's not, so it's useless. (PS - Creatures with Haste come onto the battlefield tapped is totally mine - feel free to borrow it. :P)
Duty -- The Incarnations from Judgement weren't broken. - - WOTC disagrees - they're super easy to get into the graveyard on turn 2, and few people run graveyard hate, so they're free, undisenchantable enchantments. Broken. Note: Whenever a card is "Free," you should be predisposed to think "It's broken." If not - that's a problem.
Jadepyre -- Knights usually have First Strike, so removing it from the knights in this block just to give them the bonus is weird and not flavorful.
Pious Benefactors -- Nonsense. Also, does it dying face down trigger? Also, does it dying face up when wrath trigger? It's things like this - and the fact it's useless in most formats and flavorfully vacant - that make me think you have better options.
Withstand AEther -- Preventing damage is quite possibly the simplest mechanic to do, and since there are instants at W that prevent all damage, the numbers on here don't really matter as long as you're not doing a one-sided wrath of God. If you want my advice, don't print damage reduction spells like this. Print cards people would be exciting to open; like a Harm's Way variant.
Re: My feedback. I could design cards for your set, but - if memory serves - I've argued your set has too many mechanics, several of the mechanics are contradictory, several of the returning mechanics (incarnation) are broken, and a number of designs are needlessly complex. Furthermore, many cards are not good in constructed (or even in limited) - and I've argued that every card should be constructed playable.
Thus when I say that a card is "needlessly complex" or "useless in constructed" or "broken," I mean just that.
Practical solutions:
1) If you want me to fix your incarnation cycle, I suggest you make them work from exile. It'll have the same "it's hard to stop them from working" effects (Pull from Eternity reprint, or spellshaper variant by the way!), and you won't have nearly as many 2-drops or blue discard spells that "trigger" them as they have to be exiled, not in the 'yard, to work.
2) If you're making a spell, find a core set "simple" spell and add a keyword or mechanic to it. Not Scry. Not Buyback/Meditate. Commonsense mechanics: Madness, something to one-shot exile cards from your hand or graveyard face up, maybe splice or split second or entwine.
3) Cut needlessly complex creatures. If the thing has 2 non-evergreen keyword effects, it's evidence of a problem. If a creature would grant some effect only if it's a "Titan" or "you built your deck with the right basic lands", cut that mechanic/text entirely and just give it the ability/keyword. And then check to see if it's constructed playable in SOME FORMAT (read: Multiplayer or highlander if you're trying for limited chaff).
4) Pick 3 keywords and go with them. My suggestions: Madness, Entwine or Buyback, Evoke or Morph/Megamorph or Undying. Astral is a Morph/Undying/Evoke combination. Meditate is a clunky buyback. Fix Buyback and that's your spell ability. Landheart is text that will not matter about 98+% of the time past turn 2. And Titan? It's just a rehash of an ability WOTC did that was so unremarkable I don't remember it and that I found so unfun I'm not looking it up. If you enjoyed the mechanic - GREAT! Use that mechanic! Maybe even make cooler cards with it - cards I'll be so excited about, I'll have to find out by someone else that the mechanic already exists!
I hope this helps. By the way, Please take a look here - Charms and Commands and here HICS 2016. I could use some feedback - especially from someone who doesn't agree with me on everything!
Khans has these keywords / ability words:
Morph, all colors.
Outlast
Raid
Ferocious
Delve
Prowess
My set has these keywords / ability words:
Landheart, all colors
Astral
Instigate
Carrion
Titan
Meditate
Madness, all colors.
So, I have 1 more mechanic. I could probably cut the Landheart ability, if I need to cut one, since having one more than a modern legal set is too many.
Balador's Blessing -- Cost it more? Would that make it more 'fair'? 1WW?
Benediction Aid -- What would you suggest for an ability then? You have yet to make a good or reasonable suggestion to 'fix' the card.
Bolstered Defenses -- When ~ enters the battlefield, choose an opponent. Creatures you control get +0/+1 for each creature the chosen player controls??? What would you suggest?
Jadepyre -- there are 45 knights with First Strike or can gain it of the 187 Knights.
Landheart is a weird ability, as if you have land that satisfies the qualifications, the text is worth it. Cut it.
Instigate - good.
Carrion - Good. But not in red, but if in red then give the tokens haste for everyone.
Titan - worthlss.
Meditate. Just do Buyback.
Madness shouldn't be "all colors"
Cost it more? Would that make it more 'fair'? - one-sided wraths in limited are not fair below 9 mana.
Benediction Aid -- Harm's way effect; but not with buyback. Maybe lifegain.
Bolstered Defenses - Cut it. This effect is like a bad anthem effect, so cut it.
Jadepyre -- Name a knight card. Chances are it had first strike; the non-first strike knights are flavorvoids. I don't see why a knight lord is necessary, but if it is - pick a mechanic most knights don't have - Lifelink, for example.
Here are the White uncommons from the third and final set of my custom block.
These are the keywords and ability words you will see in White.
Astral [cost] You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. When this creature dies, if it was face down, you may exile it. You may cast it from exile for it's Astral cost. - this keyword is in WUB.
Titan — Whenever ~ attacks, if you control a creature with the greatest power or tied for the greatest power, [effect]. - this ability is in RGW.
Meditate [cost] ([cost] Return this creature from the battlefield to its owner’s hand. Meditate only as a sorcery.) - this ability is in GWU.
Landheart — As long as you control a [land type], [effect or ability] — this ability is in all colors.
Returning Keywords: Madness.
Balador’s Blessing W
Instant (U)
Until end of turn, players can’t lose life.
“Just one day of no bloodshed. If I were ever to see a day, that would be the day.” — Balador, blind sage.
Beneditction Aid 2W
Creature — Human Cleric (U)
When Beneditction Aid enters the battlefield, choose a color. Creatures you control gain protection from the chosen color until end of turn.
Meditate 3 (3: Return this creature from the battlefield to its owner’s hand. Meditate only as a sorcery.)
2/2
Bolstered Defenses WW
Enchantment (U)
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control, creatures you control get +0/+1 until end of turn.
Duty 3W
Creature — Knight Incarnation (U)
Vigilance
As long as Duty is in your graveyard and you control a Plains, creatures you control have vigilance.
2/2
Jadepyre Brigade Leader 2WW
Creature — Human Knight (U)
Mountainheart — As long as you control a Mountain, creatures you control get +1/+0 and have first strike.
3/3
Pious Benefactors 1WW
Creature — Spirit (U)
Flying
Astral 2WW (You may cast this card face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. When this creature dies, if it was face down, you may exile it. You may cast it from exile for it’s Astral cost.)
When Pious Benefactors dies, you gain 1 life for each creature you control.
2/1
Stonegrip Griffin 2W
Creature — Griffin (U)
Flying
Madness 1W
When Stonegrip Griffin enters the battlefield, if it’s madness cost was paid, destroy target enchantment.
2/1
Thickpelt Gatox 3W
Creature — Beast (U)
Whenever an opponent discards a card, target creature you control gains indestructible until end of turn. If G was spent to cast Thickpelt Gatox, it enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter.
2/4
Towering Oathkeeper 4WW
Creature — Giant (U)
Vigilance
Titan — Whenever Towering Oathkeeper attacks, if you control a creature with the greatest power or tied for the greatest power, other creatures you control get +0/+2 and gain vigilance until end of turn.
4/5
Withstand Æther 1W
Instant (U)
Prevent the next X damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn where X is equal to twice the number of attacking creatures. If U was spent to cast Withstand Æther, attacking creatures get -3/-0 until end of turn.
Questions, comments, concerns, constructive criticisms, conundrums?
Servien
Chaos' Realm
Escalation of Chaos
Tales of Cahdaria
Enigmatic Distrubance
Celestial Unveiling
Beneditction Aid - Protection from X is bad design. Sorcery speed granting it is pretty bad/lame/just evasion. So - please no.
Bolstered Defenses - Useless.
Duty - Funny, and just as broken as Anger. So, please no.
Jadepyre Brigade Leader - As long as you have a mountain, ALL OF YOUR CREATURES HAVE FIRST STRIKE? WHAT THE HECK!?! You're messing with us, right? This is ridiculous.
Pious Benefactors - Uh... this does a lot of nonsense.
Stonegrip Griffin - If you're committed to this mechanic, this is fair enough.
Thickpelt Gatox - two different effects on this card are odd. It's also not very good in constructed, and just a limited wall.
Towering Oathkeeper - I know you won't like this - but just imagine if Titan ONLY triggered if it was the biggest, or tied for the biggest, creature. Think about that. This is "meh."
Withstand Æther - Where X equals twice as much as Y? Come on man - you know this is confusing, bad design. And that's ignoring the incredibly irrelevant bleed ability.
Benedition Aid -- Protection from a color is not bad design, it's done quite often. Maybe it should be more like Brave the Elements? Give the creature Flash?
Bolstered Defenses -- That's such helpful feedback. It's not constructive in any way. You're not helping. Why would I even listen to anything you say after this? So, with a mechanic in Carrion that puts out a lot of creatures in a turn or any swarm deck that pumps out a bunch of creatures, your army getting stronger because of that is bad?
Duty -- The Incarnations from Judgement weren't broken. Goblin Bidding was the deck to beat when they were Standard. Wonder was probably the only one used in U/G madness. Vigilance is not as good as First Strike in Valor. It's a solid ability, it's not broken.
Jadepyre -- I think I left out the word 'Knight' creatures.
Pious Benefactors -- This could probably do something more, usually the Astral effect rewards you for casting the creature from exile. I'll think of something.
Towering Oathkeeper -- I've been considering changing up Titan to work more like the creatures from Alara where they care about creatures with power 5 or greater, also make it similar to Formidable. Something along the lines of "Whenever ~ attacks, creatures you control with power 5 or greater gain [effect or ability] until end of turn. or design it more like Triumph of Ferocity. At the beginning of your upkeep, ~ gets/gains [effect or ability] as long as you control the creature with the greatest power or tied for the greatest power.
Withstand AEther -- Maybe change it to just prevent damage equal to the number of attacking creatures? Your suggestions for how to make this better are incredibly irrelevant.
You need to provide better feedback. There's nothing constructive about the criticism you're giving. You're not providing a reason as to why you're saying no to these designs. Could you give suggestions? Make card comparisons? Learn about NWO design?
Servien
Chaos' Realm
Escalation of Chaos
Tales of Cahdaria
Enigmatic Distrubance
Celestial Unveiling
Benedition Aid -- Protection from a color IS bad design, and you'll note that WOTC refrains from using it, Landwalk, Landhome, Fear, and Intimidate because of it. It's a way to win by luck, rather than skill, and is why WOTC has tried to refrain from printing color-hosers in general of late.
Bolstered Defenses -- Useless (Your opponent plays creatures during 2nd main phase. Yeah, it's a haste hoser... but that's pretty much the worst keyword to hose in most situations. If it said "Creatures with Haste come onto the battlefield tapped", cost W or 1W, and was a 1/1 or 1/3 - SURE! But it's not, so it's useless. (PS - Creatures with Haste come onto the battlefield tapped is totally mine - feel free to borrow it. :P)
Duty -- The Incarnations from Judgement weren't broken. - - WOTC disagrees - they're super easy to get into the graveyard on turn 2, and few people run graveyard hate, so they're free, undisenchantable enchantments. Broken. Note: Whenever a card is "Free," you should be predisposed to think "It's broken." If not - that's a problem.
Jadepyre -- Knights usually have First Strike, so removing it from the knights in this block just to give them the bonus is weird and not flavorful.
Pious Benefactors -- Nonsense. Also, does it dying face down trigger? Also, does it dying face up when wrath trigger? It's things like this - and the fact it's useless in most formats and flavorfully vacant - that make me think you have better options.
Withstand AEther -- Preventing damage is quite possibly the simplest mechanic to do, and since there are instants at W that prevent all damage, the numbers on here don't really matter as long as you're not doing a one-sided wrath of God. If you want my advice, don't print damage reduction spells like this. Print cards people would be exciting to open; like a Harm's Way variant.
Re: My feedback. I could design cards for your set, but - if memory serves - I've argued your set has too many mechanics, several of the mechanics are contradictory, several of the returning mechanics (incarnation) are broken, and a number of designs are needlessly complex. Furthermore, many cards are not good in constructed (or even in limited) - and I've argued that every card should be constructed playable.
Thus when I say that a card is "needlessly complex" or "useless in constructed" or "broken," I mean just that.
Practical solutions:
1) If you want me to fix your incarnation cycle, I suggest you make them work from exile. It'll have the same "it's hard to stop them from working" effects (Pull from Eternity reprint, or spellshaper variant by the way!), and you won't have nearly as many 2-drops or blue discard spells that "trigger" them as they have to be exiled, not in the 'yard, to work.
2) If you're making a spell, find a core set "simple" spell and add a keyword or mechanic to it. Not Scry. Not Buyback/Meditate. Commonsense mechanics: Madness, something to one-shot exile cards from your hand or graveyard face up, maybe splice or split second or entwine.
3) Cut needlessly complex creatures. If the thing has 2 non-evergreen keyword effects, it's evidence of a problem. If a creature would grant some effect only if it's a "Titan" or "you built your deck with the right basic lands", cut that mechanic/text entirely and just give it the ability/keyword. And then check to see if it's constructed playable in SOME FORMAT (read: Multiplayer or highlander if you're trying for limited chaff).
4) Pick 3 keywords and go with them. My suggestions: Madness, Entwine or Buyback, Evoke or Morph/Megamorph or Undying. Astral is a Morph/Undying/Evoke combination. Meditate is a clunky buyback. Fix Buyback and that's your spell ability. Landheart is text that will not matter about 98+% of the time past turn 2. And Titan? It's just a rehash of an ability WOTC did that was so unremarkable I don't remember it and that I found so unfun I'm not looking it up. If you enjoyed the mechanic - GREAT! Use that mechanic! Maybe even make cooler cards with it - cards I'll be so excited about, I'll have to find out by someone else that the mechanic already exists!
I hope this helps. By the way, Please take a look here - Charms and Commands and here HICS 2016. I could use some feedback - especially from someone who doesn't agree with me on everything!
Morph, all colors.
Outlast
Raid
Ferocious
Delve
Prowess
My set has these keywords / ability words:
Landheart, all colors
Astral
Instigate
Carrion
Titan
Meditate
Madness, all colors.
So, I have 1 more mechanic. I could probably cut the Landheart ability, if I need to cut one, since having one more than a modern legal set is too many.
Balador's Blessing -- Cost it more? Would that make it more 'fair'? 1WW?
Benediction Aid -- What would you suggest for an ability then? You have yet to make a good or reasonable suggestion to 'fix' the card.
Bolstered Defenses -- When ~ enters the battlefield, choose an opponent. Creatures you control get +0/+1 for each creature the chosen player controls??? What would you suggest?
Jadepyre -- there are 45 knights with First Strike or can gain it of the 187 Knights.
Servien
Chaos' Realm
Escalation of Chaos
Tales of Cahdaria
Enigmatic Distrubance
Celestial Unveiling
Landheart is a weird ability, as if you have land that satisfies the qualifications, the text is worth it. Cut it.
Instigate - good.
Carrion - Good. But not in red, but if in red then give the tokens haste for everyone.
Titan - worthlss.
Meditate. Just do Buyback.
Madness shouldn't be "all colors"
Cost it more? Would that make it more 'fair'? - one-sided wraths in limited are not fair below 9 mana.
Benediction Aid -- Harm's way effect; but not with buyback. Maybe lifegain.
Bolstered Defenses - Cut it. This effect is like a bad anthem effect, so cut it.
Jadepyre -- Name a knight card. Chances are it had first strike; the non-first strike knights are flavorvoids. I don't see why a knight lord is necessary, but if it is - pick a mechanic most knights don't have - Lifelink, for example.