So big questions first: Whats the goal of the set (draft, constructed or both? power level? themes?) Is there a story or plane to tie these cards together like a regular set or is setting agnostic cards like a core set? Rares are cool, butt what kind of common cards are there that can show the meat and potatoes of the gameplay?
There are a few minor typos and grammar checks needed ("gain 2 lifes","At the begginning of you end step...") and maybe some templating tweaks, but nothing too major. Winterbloom is a reasonable mana dork, and probably doesn't even need defender. If you are planning on the "control 4 snow permanents" being a theme, you should give it an ability word a la Ferocious or Spell Mastery
The white cards are mostly good. The trigger cost on your ape lord may be too low. I know Mentor of the Meek is almost the same trigger at 1, but spreading those counters will make a bunch of weenies a whole lot scarier. The WWWW board wipe would probable be too strong for Standard, since those effects sit at 5-6 these days or otherwise push aggro decks out of the format.
Blue: The Kraken might be overcosted with the hoops to jump through for untapping. The Ooze is a neat combination of Oozes and clones; it captures the thematic combination well.
Black: The ooze is another creative take on Oozes (do you have an Ooze theme?) and the discard card is a reasonable uncommon.
Red: For the Phoenix, I don't think we've seen a permanent with a snow mana cost that isn't also snow itself. Also, you'll want to playtest to see if 4 snow permanents is the right threshold for this ability. The Kobold will likely get banned in any format where Storm is relevant, since its almost always going to be a Pyretic Ritual, or better.
Green: The creature token charm actually feels just slightly weak for a rare. Maybe give each kind of token a keyword? Haste for the Dino, Trample for the Beasts and vigilance for the Bears maybe?
Your snow duals are a good take on the idea, but you can go with 2 snow permanents instead of 3 since the Tango lands are balanced at 2 basics and two snow permanents is at least that hard or harder to get consistently.
Your Lairs are better than you think. If you play one with a mana untapped, you can respond to the bounce trigger by activating the Lair and sacrificing it before you have to choose a land to bounce. If it just said, "When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, return a non-lair card to your hand." there would always be a cost, except playing a lair on an empty board.
So big questions first: Whats the goal of the set (draft, constructed or both? power level? themes?) Is there a story or plane to tie these cards together like a regular set or is setting agnostic cards like a core set? Rares are cool, butt what kind of common cards are there that can show the meat and potatoes of the gameplay?
To answer that, yes there is intention of a bigger plan, but it fresh as of now. Thought there are some hints of what is happening in flavor texts and some cards. What we know so far:
- The plane "Unnamed" being partially frozen, has to do with the Main Plot.
- Saphium is the Main Character, he is a almost human, since this is a plane where humanity has recently appeared so they are primitive yet.
- Saphium as you can infere by his Spell, is a Planeswalker. (he just won't have a Planeswalker card, yet)
- He recently has ignited his spark, and that first walk is partially responsible for bringing "Winter" to the plane.
- There is among sentient beigns the acknowledge of a greater Beign known as the Fathermaker, which represents a force of Creation and Destruction to the inhabitants of the Plane, it should be protecting them from the Cold but it isn't.
- Themes are wedge colored, with a focus of the allied pair of each of those.
- Sultai colors Theme is Oozes, they deal with graveyard hate and counters.
- Jeskai colors Theme is Natural Phenomena
- Temur colors Theme is Wild life
- Abzan colors Theme is Family
- There will be a HUGE number of snow permanents, as snow is the onmitheme of the set.
There are a few minor typos and grammar checks needed ("gain 2 lifes","At the begginning of you end step...") and maybe some templating tweaks, but nothing too major. Winterbloom is a reasonable mana dork, and probably doesn't even need defender. If you are planning on the "control 4 snow permanents" being a theme, you should give it an ability word a la Ferocious or Spell Mastery
The white cards are mostly good. The trigger cost on your ape lord may be too low. I know Mentor of the Meek is almost the same trigger at 1, but spreading those counters will make a bunch of weenies a whole lot scarier. The WWWW board wipe would probable be too strong for Standard, since those effects sit at 5-6 these days or otherwise push aggro decks out of the format.
The thing is that the sorcery is heavily color intensive color in a block not meant to have great mana fixing but I'll see how to revise that cycle
Blue: The Kraken might be overcosted with the hoops to jump through for untapping. The Ooze is a neat combination of Oozes and clones; it captures the thematic combination well.
Kraken is a limited card, is not meant to be THAT good, so no biggies.
Black: The ooze is another creative take on Oozes (do you have an Ooze theme?) and the discard card is a reasonable uncommon.
Red: For the Phoenix, I don't think we've seen a permanent with a snow mana cost that isn't also snow itself. Also, you'll want to playtest to see if 4 snow permanents is the right threshold for this ability. The Kobold will likely get banned in any format where Storm is relevant, since its almost always going to be a Pyretic Ritual, or better.
You are indeed correct in both of these, so I corrected them.
Green: The creature token charm actually feels just slightly weak for a rare. Maybe give each kind of token a keyword? Haste for the Dino, Trample for the Beasts and vigilance for the Bears maybe?
Your snow duals are a good take on the idea, but you can go with 2 snow permanents instead of 3 since the Tango lands are balanced at 2 basics and two snow permanents is at least that hard or harder to get consistently.
Your Lairs are better than you think. If you play one with a mana untapped, you can respond to the bounce trigger by activating the Lair and sacrificing it before you have to choose a land to bounce. If it just said, "When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, return a non-lair card to your hand." there would always be a cost, except playing a lair on an empty board.
The casting cost question for the WWWW sorceries is really more of a thought exercise. If your intention for the set is that it would only ever be used for limited, its completely reasonable as is. If you are trying to design the set like something that would be in a standard or other constructed environment, that's when its power level would be more of an issue, because getting to WWWW a two color deck would be quite easy.
The thing is that the sorcery is heavily color intensive color in a block not meant to have great mana fixing but I'll see how to revise that cycle
If your goal is a wedge set you will need good fixing built in. Shards of Alara was 3-color focused and the fixing was too low, where Khans got it pretty much on the nose (morph helped too). You'll want to balance your fixing around how heavily you push the 3 color archetypes: push them hard and you'll want Khans level fixing, push them only a little and you can run at Shards level.
The casting cost question for the WWWW sorceries is really more of a thought exercise. If your intention for the set is that it would only ever be used for limited, its completely reasonable as is. If you are trying to design the set like something that would be in a standard or other constructed environment, that's when its power level would be more of an issue, because getting to WWWW a two color deck would be quite easy.
The thing is that the sorcery is heavily color intensive color in a block not meant to have great mana fixing but I'll see how to revise that cycle
If your goal is a wedge set you will need good fixing built in. Shards of Alara was 3-color focused and the fixing was too low, where Khans got it pretty much on the nose (morph helped too). You'll want to balance your fixing around how heavily you push the 3 color archetypes: push them hard and you'll want Khans level fixing, push them only a little and you can run at Shards level.
I kinda leaning towards alara style but we'll see.
Updates:
NEW CARDS adding a few commons and uncommons to start shaping up the things
White: Windrider Lammasu
Blue: Northen Winds
Black: Carrion Strianyx
Red: Shatterrock Runner, Shatterrock Taskmaster and Freeze Burn
And the first multicolor card, a niche and heartwarming top-down design:
With this many cards using it, you definitely want to template your "4 snow permanents" threshold with some sort of ability word so that people will know what they are looking for. Blizzard, Whiteout, Flurry are all candidates.
Freezer Burn R
Sorcery
Freezer Burn deals 3 damage to target creature. Blizzard - If you control 4 or more snow permanents with different names, this spell has flash and Freezer Burn deals 5 damage instead.
Your Kobold lord is undercosted, and should be templated as a 2/2 with "Other Kobolds you control get +2/+1." At uncommon, this should cost 4-5 mana, and 3 would be still be pushing it for a rare.
I think the Grandmother can afford to be a 1/2 instead of an 0/2 at uncommon. Loxodon Hierarch is only one more mana, but has A LOT more going for it. However, her sac ability should cost 1 to activate, so that there are the "shields down" moment for opponents to react to when you're tapped out.
You've done a lot with your snow ability, so I'm interested to see how you want to play up your wedge themes, as you've only really shown the Sultai Oozes a little and the Abzan "family" with the grandmother. Especially ideas of how you want to show those at lower rarities. You also haven't said what your Mardu theme is yet.
Lifegain abilities should read "gain 2 life" not "2 lifes".
As you add cards, filling up the original post makes it harder and harder to find and comment. Add the text of the card to your comment, even if you add the graphic to the main post.
Now, Excavate has two main issues.
First, tracking graveyard order is not a thing anymore. Except for legacy/vintage (where old cards that cared about it exist) keeping graveyards in order is not required and is a pain.
Second, having a permanent on the battlefield that you will have to later remember was cast with excavate in order to exile it will be a memory issue. You'll notice that Unearth (Flashback for creatures) only lasted for a turn before exiling, while Escape doesn't have the exile clause at all because it is paid for with another limited resource.
The ability really needs to be reworked. Funnily enough, Escape feels like it could have been named Excavate very easily.
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Blue:
Black:
Red:
Green:
Multicolor:
Artifact:
There are a few minor typos and grammar checks needed ("gain 2 life
s","At the begginning of you end step...") and maybe some templating tweaks, but nothing too major. Winterbloom is a reasonable mana dork, and probably doesn't even need defender. If you are planning on the "control 4 snow permanents" being a theme, you should give it an ability word a la Ferocious or Spell MasteryThe white cards are mostly good. The trigger cost on your ape lord may be too low. I know Mentor of the Meek is almost the same trigger at 1, but spreading those counters will make a bunch of weenies a whole lot scarier. The WWWW board wipe would probable be too strong for Standard, since those effects sit at 5-6 these days or otherwise push aggro decks out of the format.
Blue: The Kraken might be overcosted with the hoops to jump through for untapping. The Ooze is a neat combination of Oozes and clones; it captures the thematic combination well.
Black: The ooze is another creative take on Oozes (do you have an Ooze theme?) and the discard card is a reasonable uncommon.
Red: For the Phoenix, I don't think we've seen a permanent with a snow mana cost that isn't also snow itself. Also, you'll want to playtest to see if 4 snow permanents is the right threshold for this ability. The Kobold will likely get banned in any format where Storm is relevant, since its almost always going to be a Pyretic Ritual, or better.
Green: The creature token charm actually feels just slightly weak for a rare. Maybe give each kind of token a keyword? Haste for the Dino, Trample for the Beasts and vigilance for the Bears maybe?
Your snow duals are a good take on the idea, but you can go with 2 snow permanents instead of 3 since the Tango lands are balanced at 2 basics and two snow permanents is at least that hard or harder to get consistently.
Your Lairs are better than you think. If you play one with a mana untapped, you can respond to the bounce trigger by activating the Lair and sacrificing it before you have to choose a land to bounce. If it just said, "When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, return a non-lair card to your hand." there would always be a cost, except playing a lair on an empty board.
To answer that, yes there is intention of a bigger plan, but it fresh as of now. Thought there are some hints of what is happening in flavor texts and some cards. What we know so far:
- The plane "Unnamed" being partially frozen, has to do with the Main Plot.
- Saphium is the Main Character, he is a almost human, since this is a plane where humanity has recently appeared so they are primitive yet.
- Saphium as you can infere by his Spell, is a Planeswalker. (he just won't have a Planeswalker card, yet)
- He recently has ignited his spark, and that first walk is partially responsible for bringing "Winter" to the plane.
- There is among sentient beigns the acknowledge of a greater Beign known as the Fathermaker, which represents a force of Creation and Destruction to the inhabitants of the Plane, it should be protecting them from the Cold but it isn't.
- Themes are wedge colored, with a focus of the allied pair of each of those.
- Sultai colors Theme is Oozes, they deal with graveyard hate and counters.
- Jeskai colors Theme is Natural Phenomena
- Temur colors Theme is Wild life
- Abzan colors Theme is Family
- There will be a HUGE number of snow permanents, as snow is the onmitheme of the set.
Will correct the typos and grammar stuff thanks.
If your goal is a wedge set you will need good fixing built in. Shards of Alara was 3-color focused and the fixing was too low, where Khans got it pretty much on the nose (morph helped too). You'll want to balance your fixing around how heavily you push the 3 color archetypes: push them hard and you'll want Khans level fixing, push them only a little and you can run at Shards level.
I kinda leaning towards alara style but we'll see.
Updates:
NEW CARDS adding a few commons and uncommons to start shaping up the things
White: Windrider Lammasu
Blue: Northen Winds
Black: Carrion Strianyx
Red: Shatterrock Runner, Shatterrock Taskmaster and Freeze Burn
And the first multicolor card, a niche and heartwarming top-down design:
Kin-Pride's Grandmother
Freezer Burn R
Sorcery
Freezer Burn deals 3 damage to target creature.
Blizzard - If you control 4 or more snow permanents with different names, this spell has flash and Freezer Burn deals 5 damage instead.
Your Kobold lord is undercosted, and should be templated as a 2/2 with "Other Kobolds you control get +2/+1." At uncommon, this should cost 4-5 mana, and 3 would be still be pushing it for a rare.
I think the Grandmother can afford to be a 1/2 instead of an 0/2 at uncommon. Loxodon Hierarch is only one more mana, but has A LOT more going for it. However, her sac ability should cost 1 to activate, so that there are the "shields down" moment for opponents to react to when you're tapped out.
You've done a lot with your snow ability, so I'm interested to see how you want to play up your wedge themes, as you've only really shown the Sultai Oozes a little and the Abzan "family" with the grandmother. Especially ideas of how you want to show those at lower rarities. You also haven't said what your Mardu theme is yet.
White: Plowhorn Ox
Black: Stir the Ground
Red: Frantic Excavation and Minn, Frenetic Tunneler
Multicolored: Sudden Implosion
Lifegain abilities should read "gain 2 life" not "2 lifes".
As you add cards, filling up the original post makes it harder and harder to find and comment. Add the text of the card to your comment, even if you add the graphic to the main post.
Now, Excavate has two main issues.
First, tracking graveyard order is not a thing anymore. Except for legacy/vintage (where old cards that cared about it exist) keeping graveyards in order is not required and is a pain.
Second, having a permanent on the battlefield that you will have to later remember was cast with excavate in order to exile it will be a memory issue. You'll notice that Unearth (Flashback for creatures) only lasted for a turn before exiling, while Escape doesn't have the exile clause at all because it is paid for with another limited resource.
The ability really needs to be reworked. Funnily enough, Escape feels like it could have been named Excavate very easily.