Inherit(Then, if you cast this spell from your hand, you may teach a creature to cast it. Exile it as it resolves and that creature gains "T: You may cast the exiled card. {Activate only as a sorcery.}*) *Omitted on instants.
Wizardry is now "Whenever you tap a creature to activate an ability, {effect}."
Added an X-cost theme based on Legend's Limitless mechanic.
At this stage, I'm trying to come up with archetypes and themes for the different colors. The multicolor archetype will be Slivers:
Glacial Sliver1WU
Creature - Sliver (C)
Slivers you control have "2, T: Tap target creature." Slivers can evolve from thermophiles to cryophiles and back within one blink of the eye.
1/4
The Slivers are supposed to be playable on their own, either as filler cards or as creatures that support the archetypes in their respective color combinations. I'd like the Slivers to be a bit more complex than the ones in M14, with a lot of ETB or death triggers.
-------------------------------------
For mana fixing, there'll be a cycle of ten ETB tapped dual lands:
Jungle
Basic Land (C)
Jungle enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add B or G to your mana pool.
Mesa
Basic Land (C)
Mesa enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add R or W to your mana pool.
On the other end of the spectrum, are the monocolor decks based on the five major lands of Shandalar - Thune, Evos Isle, Xathrid, Valkas, and Kalonia. To reward you appropriately for sticking to a single color, there are cards like...
Single-Crystal Golem5
Artifact Creature - Golem (U)
Single-Crystal Golem enters the battlefield with three +1/+1 counters on it if exactly one color of mana was spent to cast it. "Whether it has a purpose beyond its artistic value still has to be undetermined."
—Xufeus, Valkas forgemaster
3/3
...as well as a cycle of very pushed triple-cost uncommons:
Crusader of ThuneWWW
Creature - Human Knight (U)
First strike, vigilance W, T, Sacrifice Crusader of Thune: Destroy target attacking or blocking creature. "We no longer wall ourselves from the evil of this world. We crush it wherever it lurks."
3/3
-------------------------------------
Mono White:
The mono white archetype is built upon synergy with vigilance. Many creatures have vigilance, and many cards, including spells with Inherit, grant a creature an activated ability with T in its cost.
Amidst the Battle1W
Instant (U)
Until end of turn, creatures you control gain "T: This creature gets +2/+2 and gains indestructible until end of turn."
Paladin Aspirant1W
Creature - Human Knight (C)
Vigilance
1/3
These spells naturally work very well on the defensive, and in a multicolored deck, where you won't pick up as many vigilance creatures, white can shift from being an aggressive color to a defensive one. White gets no Wizardry at common, so that there's a reason to pair it with other colors.
-------------------------------------
Mono Green:
Mono green is the ramp deck, where the majority of the cards with Retain are at.
Essence of Eloren2G
Creature - Elemental (C)
Retain GG(You may store up to GG in your mana pool as steps, phases, and turns end.) In Eloren, mana is so prevalent that it is woven into every living being, and they cannot exist without it.
1/4
Disciple of Freyalise1G
Creature - Elf Druid (C)
Retain G(You may store up to G in your mana pool as steps, phases, and turns end.) T: Add G to your mana pool. Although it's been centuries since Freyalise visited Shandalar, many elves still follow her teachings.
1/1
Storing mana can be very beneficial, as some cards require a lot of mana, but don't use it up.
Animate Mana1G
Sorcery (U)
Put an X/X green Elemental creature token onto the battlefield, where X is the amount of mana in your mana pool. "Mana is the most basic component of life."
—Delron, Eloren druid
Because the games are still supposed to be interactive and not just ramp players playing solitaire, green gets two fight spells at common. Just like white, green doesn't get Wizardry as it would be too powerful with the mana elves. However, blue/green looks like a viable color combination due to that interaction alone.
The other monocolor decks I still have to design. Mono black probably likes killing a lot of stuff, while mono red is a traditional aggro and/or burn deck.
-------------------------------------
To round things up, here's a sweet mythic:
Valkas Broodmother2RR
Creature - Dragon (M)
Flying, haste T: Put a 0/2 red Dragon creature token with defender and retain R onto the battlefield. 8RR, T: Sacrifice all Dragon creatures with defender you control, then put that many 5/5 red Dragon creature tokens with flying onto the battlefield.
2/4
Love the basics. Desert is already a card though. How about Barrens?
Do you have a comprehensive rule drafted for Retain? It's unclear as to what happens with the mana when the Retainer leaves the battlefield.
I think you're going to find that retaining just one mana will be sufficient. Which would incidentally clean up the Retain textually if not mechanically. Omnath, Locus of Mana (which I'm sure you're familiar with) doesn't use a mana symbol and doesn't include "turns" so they probably aren't necessary.
Disciple of Freyalise (Rare) 1G
Creature - Elf Druid
2/1
Retain (Up to one additional mana of any color doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.) T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Although it's been centuries since Freyalise visited Shandalar, many elves still follow her teachings.
Love the basics. Desert is already a card though. How about Barrens?
Erm... eh... I knew that!
... Barrens sounds good .
I want to keep the colored retain to make it easier to track the stored mana. If every permanent you have retains green mana, maybe you have one other from time to time, you can track it very easily with a dice. When you have multiple of your retainers out, it becomes tedious. "Ok, so... end of turn, I'm going to store red, white, blue, and let me see... this costs double red, so... what did I say again?"
It just seems like there's alot of mana symbols on your sample cards. What are your thoughts on how much mana will each Retainer need to "store" for Retain to be effective? Do you think it needs to be more than one?
How about:
Retain (Up to one additional green mana doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.)
That will have to be tested. I'll probably keep it mostly to one mana except for the colors in which retain is primary (Green, then black, and red).
That there are a lot of mana symbols on the cards I actually like a lot. It's a set about mana abundance, and I think having a lot of mana symbols appear on the cards gets that across very well. With the first look at Eloren Archdruid, you see that she's all about mana. If you'd write it out as "three green mana" etc. that effect would be gone.
Your addition of "additional" might be a good idea. I'll have to ask some uninitiated people how they would interpret the rules of retain. I can do that on Tuesday.
It'll be interesting to see whether a Manaweft Sliver reprint will be a key sliver card or so sought after by other decks that it never serves in sliver ones.
Retain centered in Green is much more sensible and aesthetically pleasing.
Have you considered some un-keyworded Devotion/Chroma? The set looks like it could use it.
That Archdruit does some really... interesting things to late game 1-drops and Animate Mana tokens. An by "interesting" I mean timmy/spike-pleasing. a 10/10 for 2? Sign me the hell up!
Do you think Manaweft Sliver should be reprinted? I think a powered-down version might work better.
I have not considered Devotion/Chroma yet. If I wanted another monocolor mechanic, I thought of: Purity - If exactly one color of mana was spent to cast ~, {effect}.
That might shift the focus too much to monocolor though.
The Archdruid doesn't currently work with creature tokens. Maybe I should rephrase it so that it does.
Do you think Manaweft Sliver should be reprinted? I think a powered-down version might work better.
Why do you think a powered down version is required? I mean its an uncommon. If you want a commmon version then I agree a less powerful card may suit better.
I've made the following changes to the mechanics:
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
Glacial Sliver 1WU
Creature - Sliver (C)
Slivers you control have "2, T: Tap target creature."
Slivers can evolve from thermophiles to cryophiles and back within one blink of the eye.
1/4
The Slivers are supposed to be playable on their own, either as filler cards or as creatures that support the archetypes in their respective color combinations. I'd like the Slivers to be a bit more complex than the ones in M14, with a lot of ETB or death triggers.
-------------------------------------
For mana fixing, there'll be a cycle of ten ETB tapped dual lands:
Jungle
Basic Land (C)
Jungle enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add B or G to your mana pool.
Mesa
Basic Land (C)
Mesa enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add R or W to your mana pool.
You can read more on these here.
-------------------------------------
On the other end of the spectrum, are the monocolor decks based on the five major lands of Shandalar - Thune, Evos Isle, Xathrid, Valkas, and Kalonia. To reward you appropriately for sticking to a single color, there are cards like...
Single-Crystal Golem 5
Artifact Creature - Golem (U)
Single-Crystal Golem enters the battlefield with three +1/+1 counters on it if exactly one color of mana was spent to cast it.
"Whether it has a purpose beyond its artistic value still has to be undetermined."
—Xufeus, Valkas forgemaster
3/3
...as well as a cycle of very pushed triple-cost uncommons:
Crusader of Thune WWW
Creature - Human Knight (U)
First strike, vigilance
W, T, Sacrifice Crusader of Thune: Destroy target attacking or blocking creature.
"We no longer wall ourselves from the evil of this world. We crush it wherever it lurks."
3/3
-------------------------------------
Mono White:
The mono white archetype is built upon synergy with vigilance. Many creatures have vigilance, and many cards, including spells with Inherit, grant a creature an activated ability with T in its cost.
Amidst the Battle 1W
Instant (U)
Until end of turn, creatures you control gain "T: This creature gets +2/+2 and gains indestructible until end of turn."
Paladin Aspirant 1W
Creature - Human Knight (C)
Vigilance
1/3
These spells naturally work very well on the defensive, and in a multicolored deck, where you won't pick up as many vigilance creatures, white can shift from being an aggressive color to a defensive one. White gets no Wizardry at common, so that there's a reason to pair it with other colors.
-------------------------------------
Mono Green:
Mono green is the ramp deck, where the majority of the cards with Retain are at.
Essence of Eloren 2G
Creature - Elemental (C)
Retain GG (You may store up to GG in your mana pool as steps, phases, and turns end.)
In Eloren, mana is so prevalent that it is woven into every living being, and they cannot exist without it.
1/4
Disciple of Freyalise 1G
Creature - Elf Druid (C)
Retain G (You may store up to G in your mana pool as steps, phases, and turns end.)
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Although it's been centuries since Freyalise visited Shandalar, many elves still follow her teachings.
1/1
Storing mana can be very beneficial, as some cards require a lot of mana, but don't use it up.
Animate Mana 1G
Sorcery (U)
Put an X/X green Elemental creature token onto the battlefield, where X is the amount of mana in your mana pool.
"Mana is the most basic component of life."
—Delron, Eloren druid
Because the games are still supposed to be interactive and not just ramp players playing solitaire, green gets two fight spells at common. Just like white, green doesn't get Wizardry as it would be too powerful with the mana elves. However, blue/green looks like a viable color combination due to that interaction alone.
The other monocolor decks I still have to design. Mono black probably likes killing a lot of stuff, while mono red is a traditional aggro and/or burn deck.
-------------------------------------
To round things up, here's a sweet mythic:
Valkas Broodmother 2RR
Creature - Dragon (M)
Flying, haste
T: Put a 0/2 red Dragon creature token with defender and retain R onto the battlefield.
8RR, T: Sacrifice all Dragon creatures with defender you control, then put that many 5/5 red Dragon creature tokens with flying onto the battlefield.
2/4
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
Do you have a comprehensive rule drafted for Retain? It's unclear as to what happens with the mana when the Retainer leaves the battlefield.
I think you're going to find that retaining just one mana will be sufficient. Which would incidentally clean up the Retain textually if not mechanically. Omnath, Locus of Mana (which I'm sure you're familiar with) doesn't use a mana symbol and doesn't include "turns" so they probably aren't necessary.
Disciple of Freyalise (Rare)
1G
Creature - Elf Druid
2/1
Retain (Up to one additional mana of any color doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.)
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
Although it's been centuries since Freyalise visited Shandalar, many elves still follow her teachings.
Erm... eh... I knew that!
... Barrens sounds good .
I want to keep the colored retain to make it easier to track the stored mana. If every permanent you have retains green mana, maybe you have one other from time to time, you can track it very easily with a dice. When you have multiple of your retainers out, it becomes tedious. "Ok, so... end of turn, I'm going to store red, white, blue, and let me see... this costs double red, so... what did I say again?"
The "turns" is added for clarity.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
How about:
Retain (Up to one additional green mana doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.)
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
That there are a lot of mana symbols on the cards I actually like a lot. It's a set about mana abundance, and I think having a lot of mana symbols appear on the cards gets that across very well. With the first look at Eloren Archdruid, you see that she's all about mana. If you'd write it out as "three green mana" etc. that effect would be gone.
Your addition of "additional" might be a good idea. I'll have to ask some uninitiated people how they would interpret the rules of retain. I can do that on Tuesday.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
Retain centered in Green is much more sensible and aesthetically pleasing.
Have you considered some un-keyworded Devotion/Chroma? The set looks like it could use it.
That Archdruit does some really... interesting things to late game 1-drops and Animate Mana tokens. An by "interesting" I mean timmy/spike-pleasing. a 10/10 for 2? Sign me the hell up!
I have not considered Devotion/Chroma yet. If I wanted another monocolor mechanic, I thought of: Purity - If exactly one color of mana was spent to cast ~, {effect}.
That might shift the focus too much to monocolor though.
The Archdruid doesn't currently work with creature tokens. Maybe I should rephrase it so that it does.
I'm surprised the basic lands are received so universally well.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
Why do you think a powered down version is required? I mean its an uncommon. If you want a commmon version then I agree a less powerful card may suit better.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
Here is the updated card list. It's updated because I just updated it.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!