Hi everyone, I'm back with the initial ideas for the next four tricolor (Temur is missing) Legendary Constructs that I've been designing. If you want to see the first five and we got to this design you can check out the first thread here.
First up is two versions of the same Construct, let me know which one seems more interesting.
Naya Version 1 ?, ? of ? - 2WRG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
Creatures you control can't be countered.
As long as ~ is ensouled, at the beginning of combat on your turn, creatures you control gain first strike until end of turn if a creature you control has first strike. The same is true for deathtouch, double strike, haste, lifelink, reach, trample, and vigilance.
6/5
Note: Still thinking of a name. This is obviously a variation of Odric Lunarch Marshal, but I wanted to keep the keywords within the primary color pie keywords.
Naya Version 2 ?, ? of ? - 2WRG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
Creatures you control can't be countered.
As long as ~ is ensouled, at the beginning of combat, for each creature you control, create a token that's a copy of that creature. Those copies have haste and must attack this turn. Exile them at the beginning of your next end step.
6/5
Note: This version leans into the archetype of this shard on this world, which is Creatures N and must attack. This is obviously the most aggro color combination of all the Constructs.
The next one needs the most work out of these four. While Mirmornia, from the last thread, was also spellslinger focused, it was focused more on the chaotic side of magic. The idea behind Alplios is Jeskai with their anger turned up to 11. I like the idea of constantly dealing noncombat damage, but not sure the best way to show it.
Alplios, Cinder of Hope - 2WUR
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
NEEDS NONENSOUL ABILITY
As long as ~ is ensouled, whenever you cast a noncreature spell Alplios deals damage to any target equal to its converted mana cost.
5/5
The Jund Construct has a variant of the Nantoku Shaman ability, with slightly more risk/payoff. The mechanical theme of this color combination will be land cards in your graveyard. (I just really like that theme in MH1)
Driv, Tiller of Ruin - 2BRG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
As long as ~ is ensouled, when a creature enters the battlefield under your control you may sacrifice any number of lands. Put that many +1/+1 counters on it and draw that many cards.
5/5
And finally, we have the Abzan commander, I wanted to do something different from +1/+1 counters and a focus on reanimator. Well, ever since Amonkhet I've wanted an Abzan cycling commander and here is my take on it. The theme of this color combination is really change and the seasons but pushed towards the darker side. I think cycling is a fun way to represent constant change.
Fenis, Wraith of Change - 2WBG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
Cards in your hand have cycling {1}{w}
As long as ~ is ensouled, whenever you cycle a card, instead exile the top card of your library until you exile a card with the same type as the cycled card, you may put that card into your hand. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in any order.
6/7
And there we have the next 4 tricolor Legendary Constructs, let me know how to make them more balanced and more interesting. I fully admit P/T is hard for me, and I just looked at other legendaries in the same colors to try to match what is common.
EDIT:
As for the Temur Legendary, honestly, I have no idea. The only idea I have at the moment is making Temur very anti artifact heavy, possibly with a new ability, a variant on wither, I'm calling Rust(This creature deals damage to artifact creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters). This cube/set/megaset/whatever, should have a lot of artifact creatures, but I don't know if that is too specific, and too much of a hate archetype.
For Naya either verion. Its creature spells can't be countered.
Naya 1, since you only get the abilities on your turn you don't care about getting reach so it can be dropped.
Naya 2, this is in no way white and barely green. The concept is interesting for a mono red very expensive feature but doesn't really fit this color combination.
Alplios, if you change it so the spells deal damage rather than Alplios as a default you can give your instants and sorcerys lifelink.
Driv is really cool and I can't think of any reasonable changes.
Fenis, you have a triggered ability that's worded to be a replacement effect. This needs to be a trigger that creates a replacement effect but I'm not sure how to word it without allowing odd edge cases. I'll give it some thought later.
Thanks for the feedback on these. I'll definitely go with the first version for Naya.
Will make the change to Alplios, really dig that idea.
Yeah, I really like Driv.
As for Fenis, I was having trouble wording it so thanks for any help you can give. I'll also probably change his nonensouled ability to just making cycling cost less. I just think giving every card cycling when it's already a theme of the set would make it too broken.
And because of lore reasons there probably won't be a Temur construct, but there will still be a mythic legendary (possibly an avatar or god.)
I've been trying to think of an elegant way of fixing Fenis so it works. To clarify I assume you want it to replace the normal draw from Cycling with a Possiblity Storm style tutor. The problem is that Cycling is defined as "When you discard [this card] to pay an activation cost of a cycling ability." Meaning that Fenis's ability is currently trying to replace the discard portion, not the draw. While I don't think it's an elegant solution I have found a solution.
Whenever you cycle a card, the next time you would draw a card instead reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card that shares a type with the cycled card. Put that card into your hand, then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
It accomplishes what you want and I don't think it's possible to abuse. Unless you can figure out how to write an ability to actually modify an activated ability without casing a rules implosion I think this is the best workaround.
Yeah, I wasn't positive how to get the distinction to be on the draw part of Cycling. This seems fine.
Thanks a lot.
EDIT:
I decided to go ahead and post my super initial idea for the Temur Mythic Legendary, I call it that because it won't be a construct. I want something that will be partially anti-artifact, as they are such a huge component of this whole set idea, but also something that felt like Temur.
As mentioned before I came up with a mechanic called Rust (basically wither for only artifact creatures). This mechanic seems pretty low impact except for high artifact environments. The flavor idea/justification for it being in these colors is: green and red have artifact destruction, Green is tertiary in wither, blue is water (I know that last part is loose).
With that in mind here is the Temur Avatar (decided not to go with God, too much baggage when the Constructs with Ensoul are pretty simple.)
Vinden, Water to Cleanse - 2URG
Legendary Creature - Avatar (M)
Flash I could take or leave this pretty easily.
Rust (This creature deals damage to artifact creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters.)
You may look at the top card of your library any time.
You may cast the top card of your library if it's a creature card and you may cast it as though it had flash.
When a nonartifact creature enters the battlefield under your control create a 2/2 blue Merfolk Creature with Rust.
5/4
I think it's pretty clear that Elsha the infinite was a big inspiration for this one. I could take out the casting the top card with flash, as I think making the token with rust is the more flavorful part.
First up is two versions of the same Construct, let me know which one seems more interesting.
Naya Version 1
?, ? of ? - 2WRG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
Creatures you control can't be countered.
As long as ~ is ensouled, at the beginning of combat on your turn, creatures you control gain first strike until end of turn if a creature you control has first strike. The same is true for deathtouch, double strike, haste, lifelink, reach, trample, and vigilance.
6/5
Note: Still thinking of a name. This is obviously a variation of Odric Lunarch Marshal, but I wanted to keep the keywords within the primary color pie keywords.
Naya Version 2
?, ? of ? - 2WRG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
Creatures you control can't be countered.
As long as ~ is ensouled, at the beginning of combat, for each creature you control, create a token that's a copy of that creature. Those copies have haste and must attack this turn. Exile them at the beginning of your next end step.
6/5
Note: This version leans into the archetype of this shard on this world, which is Creatures N and must attack. This is obviously the most aggro color combination of all the Constructs.
The next one needs the most work out of these four. While Mirmornia, from the last thread, was also spellslinger focused, it was focused more on the chaotic side of magic. The idea behind Alplios is Jeskai with their anger turned up to 11. I like the idea of constantly dealing noncombat damage, but not sure the best way to show it.
Alplios, Cinder of Hope - 2WUR
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
NEEDS NONENSOUL ABILITY
As long as ~ is ensouled, whenever you cast a noncreature spell Alplios deals damage to any target equal to its converted mana cost.
5/5
The Jund Construct has a variant of the Nantoku Shaman ability, with slightly more risk/payoff. The mechanical theme of this color combination will be land cards in your graveyard. (I just really like that theme in MH1)
Driv, Tiller of Ruin - 2BRG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
As long as ~ is ensouled, when a creature enters the battlefield under your control you may sacrifice any number of lands. Put that many +1/+1 counters on it and draw that many cards.
5/5
And finally, we have the Abzan commander, I wanted to do something different from +1/+1 counters and a focus on reanimator. Well, ever since Amonkhet I've wanted an Abzan cycling commander and here is my take on it. The theme of this color combination is really change and the seasons but pushed towards the darker side. I think cycling is a fun way to represent constant change.
Fenis, Wraith of Change - 2WBG
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Ensoul (When this enters the battlefield you may exile a nonartifact creature you control until this leaves the battlefield.)
Cards in your hand have cycling {1}{w}
As long as ~ is ensouled, whenever you cycle a card, instead exile the top card of your library until you exile a card with the same type as the cycled card, you may put that card into your hand. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in any order.
6/7
And there we have the next 4 tricolor Legendary Constructs, let me know how to make them more balanced and more interesting. I fully admit P/T is hard for me, and I just looked at other legendaries in the same colors to try to match what is common.
EDIT:
As for the Temur Legendary, honestly, I have no idea. The only idea I have at the moment is making Temur very anti artifact heavy, possibly with a new ability, a variant on wither, I'm calling Rust (This creature deals damage to artifact creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters). This cube/set/megaset/whatever, should have a lot of artifact creatures, but I don't know if that is too specific, and too much of a hate archetype.
Naya 1, since you only get the abilities on your turn you don't care about getting reach so it can be dropped.
Naya 2, this is in no way white and barely green. The concept is interesting for a mono red very expensive feature but doesn't really fit this color combination.
Alplios, if you change it so the spells deal damage rather than Alplios as a default you can give your instants and sorcerys lifelink.
Driv is really cool and I can't think of any reasonable changes.
Fenis, you have a triggered ability that's worded to be a replacement effect. This needs to be a trigger that creates a replacement effect but I'm not sure how to word it without allowing odd edge cases. I'll give it some thought later.
Will make the change to Alplios, really dig that idea.
Yeah, I really like Driv.
As for Fenis, I was having trouble wording it so thanks for any help you can give. I'll also probably change his nonensouled ability to just making cycling cost less. I just think giving every card cycling when it's already a theme of the set would make it too broken.
And because of lore reasons there probably won't be a Temur construct, but there will still be a mythic legendary (possibly an avatar or god.)
It accomplishes what you want and I don't think it's possible to abuse. Unless you can figure out how to write an ability to actually modify an activated ability without casing a rules implosion I think this is the best workaround.
Thanks a lot.
EDIT:
I decided to go ahead and post my super initial idea for the Temur Mythic Legendary, I call it that because it won't be a construct. I want something that will be partially anti-artifact, as they are such a huge component of this whole set idea, but also something that felt like Temur.
As mentioned before I came up with a mechanic called Rust (basically wither for only artifact creatures). This mechanic seems pretty low impact except for high artifact environments. The flavor idea/justification for it being in these colors is: green and red have artifact destruction, Green is tertiary in wither, blue is water (I know that last part is loose).
With that in mind here is the Temur Avatar (decided not to go with God, too much baggage when the Constructs with Ensoul are pretty simple.)
Vinden, Water to Cleanse - 2URG
Legendary Creature - Avatar (M)
Flash I could take or leave this pretty easily.
Rust (This creature deals damage to artifact creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters.)
You may look at the top card of your library any time.
You may cast the top card of your library if it's a creature card and you may cast it as though it had flash.
When a nonartifact creature enters the battlefield under your control create a 2/2 blue Merfolk Creature with Rust.
5/4
I think it's pretty clear that Elsha the infinite was a big inspiration for this one. I could take out the casting the top card with flash, as I think making the token with rust is the more flavorful part.