While I appreciate the fact that that is how planeswalkers are judged powerwise I'm not sure if it'll apply to design (which is probably why development has a greater contribution to planeswalkers, or so I've heard).
Granted there is little there that is effective in terms of immediate impact. That, coupled with the low power abilities means it's probably undesirable to play regardless of deck type.
Should the "equal to the number of loyalty counters" and the life-payment design sides be split? I was attempting to develop flavourful sangromantic abilities.
I figured I might have been treading too lightly with the +X, because there's not much in between losing X life and losing 2X life in terms of a simple loss. The simplest answer is to lose X life; but that's probably stretching it unless we drop the loyalty down to 1 or 2 - six life I suppose is a significant fraction of 20.
Another option is to lose life equal to the loyalty counters; probably means the lower abilities will have to be readjusted.
Or it could be [+1] and be "pay life add counters". Faster in gaining, overall, but makes it significantly strong as you never have to pay life. Unless it's pay 2X life of course...
I suppose the question is - "how much life loss is a significant life loss"?
Loyalty is low and cost is high for it's first ability, which is from the + ability that I suspect will require a lot of developmental deliberation.
+X: You lose twice X life.
Bloodmage; fuels his own agenda by taking your blood. As it were the process is... rather inefficient, but it means it's harder to pump to dumb levels. Wording could be redone; also could be adding loyalty as an effect in addition to the life payment, with a "if you do" statement added as a bonus.
0: Creatures you control gain +1/+0 and lifelink until the end of turn.
Sorin links your creatures to you. Doesn't help him much, and in terms of power it's not as overwhelming (unlike Brainstorm, I hope). Could be made slightly less interesting. Power boost was arbitrary.
-2: Sorin deals X damage to target creature and you gain X life, where X is the number of loyalty counters on Sorin.
Links you and a creature in blood, but forces Sorin as a conduit; so he's not happy about that. Mechanically means that it'll be costly to use continually as removal. Loyalty cost could be lowered, ability could be removed completely because it'd be a damn wordy planeswalker.
-3: Put an X/X Vampire Avatar token onto the battlefield with Flying and "When this deals combat damage to an opponent, put that many loyalty counters on Sorin", where X is the number of loyalty counters on Sorin.
Creatures an avatar that becomes a life-drainer itself; effectively loyalty-lifelink. As an ultimate, it's cheaper (comparable to Garruk) because it's very difficult to build up - a 4/4 requires a payment of 8 life up front. Inset ability may require some editing.
Overall looks like...
Sorin, Bloodmage2BBB {M}
Planeswalker - Sorin
[+X] You lose twice X life.
[0] Creatures you control gain +1/+0 and lifelink until the end of turn.
[-2] Sorin deals X damage to target creature and you gain X life, where X is the number of loyalty counters on Sorin.
[-3] Put an X/X black Vampire Avatar token onto the battlefield with Flying and "When this deals combat damage to an opponent, put that many loyalty counters on Sorin, Bloodmage", where X is the number of loyalty counters on Sorin.
Loyalty: (3)
I came up with the idea of a planeswalker that used blood as a medium for loyalty, and considering the new Gideon's + ability refers to adding loyalty directly I thought such an ability could go for life payments as well - but obviously not cheaply. The others are rather thematic rather than innovative, save perhaps the last, which I suspect is rather clumsy.
Well the thing about Thirst is that Thirst lets me pitch stuff in my hand that's useless; against spellbased decks it could be a lifesaver because it's pretty certain I'm not going to Rend Flesh a Storm deck. Still I suppose it's a low probability considering there's only five hard removals, of which only two are really going to clog my hand/mana.
Any idea what I should look for? How much information is there for standard eight years back?
What I wanted to do with this is try to utilise the splicing ability of Glacial Ray and Horobi's Whisper (everything else admittedly kinda sucks) to gain advantage against creature matches. Reaches become removal, the other Arcane spells become forked kills, but the most powerful of these is Horobi's Whisper; the mana efficiency of killing a creature (with a blue spell, which is suprisingly useful) and cantripping for one mana puts a lot of standard mid-range and some aggressive ones on the back foot (or at least make them stumble). The fetchlands and artifactless Thirst are there for this reason. Unfortunately there are basically no other worthwhile arcanes in the colours.
Leaks and Cryptics are because Arcane has no counterspells, and Inquisition fulfils a similar purpose; gets rid of stuff I can't kill on the field like Liliana and Geists. Consume was because manlands are annoying and if necessary I can draw into it (not that it's ever happened) and I was once thinking about having Teachings, which has the annoying downside of being 9 lands high.
Sideboard is a mess. I'm gambling on not facing any black creature with toughness over 2 and CMC over 3. So far the only thing that's scared me is Ob Nixilis. Grasps are currently the faster answer against Tron and such even though it's not always guarenteed, because Slaughter is more reliable. Fallouts for aggro and can kill Geist fairly well. Evermind is for the almost-never-seen control mirror. Counterflux works on combo and noncreature based; Trinisphere slows storm and RDW (sort of?) and if I'm lucky affinity.
As much as I would like some advice if the only thing you are here to say is to drop the Arcane portion I'd perfer if you don't; there are enough Grixis decks in the thread up there that I can snatch without wasting my breath.
Snapcaster Mage: Used to be good. Needed stalling creatures (Auger) and Snapcaster was largely counterproductive when in tandem with Horobi's Whisper. Could be put in but I'm at the point where I don't know what to take out.
Serum Visions: Kinda wasn't helping me late game. Turned into Thrist for Knowledge.
Forbidden Alchemy: Standard familiar that I used before I remembered Thirst for Knowledge. Still, the flashback has been useful before.
Comparing it with Assassin's Strike shows that it should probably be 4 or 5; the tradeoff of hitting the bombiest of bombs with random discard already probably means it breaks basically even. Considering Assassin's Strike could be 5, but at 3? Probably a bit over the top.
Looking at RTR limited, 12 cards survive your Grasp. Five are nonrare. Only three of them are threats - I-don't-have-much-of-a-high-curve threats, might I add. Similarly, in M13 there are 9. Three nonrare, two are threats. Basically means you have to have a few more beefier commons or your Black becomes dangerous in limited.
Considering Innocent Blood into Barter In Blood quadruples the cost... five might not cut it. It gets around almost all forms of protection, except Sigarda and Tanjuru Preserver. The others that can do that are closest to Final Judgement, Terminus and Hallowed Burial. I suppose being recurrable is allowable, because indestructible isn't really a concern in 90% of card pools, and that, plus regeneration, are the only relevant clauses that Mass Edict gets around.
Deathtouch is basically a limited bomb that probably will cause a win. Your 1- and 2-drops are now all relevant for the rest of the game. What else does that... Conclave's Blessing, Death's Presence, Akroma's Memorial, Warstorm Surge... Even Fervor is rare, and that's a lot less impressive. Should be 5 or 6. And then people think it's overcosted... man, such an elegant-but-deadly design.
I think WotC was fine with a 5 color deck. What definitely was over the edge was the fact that the deck reliably cast spells that cost WW (Austere Command), UUU (Cryptic Command) and GGGG (Cloudthresher). The deck completely ignored the concept of colored mana symbols and simply played the best cards in the whole format, regardless of color. And I hope we will never have mana that good again.
I thought the ridiculousness was EOT Cloudthresher into Cruel Ultimatum for the kill; going from quad G into a 7-full-coloured-mana spell was absurd.
Was there any way to attack mana bases aside from Fulminator Mage back then?
I suspect it would be too powerful if the second ability leaves her alive; it's unprecedented in terms of card advantage on a 3-mana walker. Hits aggro pretty hard; a Mind Rot (yes, I know it's Gerrad's Verdict) that strips down their gas or extends their clock, and continues to slow them down unless they expend a phase on it. Plus it'll be repeatable. Liliana of the Veil is already a pretty tough beat for control and some forms of aggro, Rose would cause the same sort of problems.
Formatting for the third ability should reflect Tamiyo's; two emblems, one for the Sanguine Bond and one for the True Conviction-y ability.
Not that anyone does that with their decks, because it has the consistancy of cornflour, but the function is for that purpose. In fact it was in Shadowmoor because of the 3-drop and Demigod cycles.
Flagship cycles would very likely be here; Kamigawan Dragons, Invasion Dragons, the Pit Fighter cycle in Onslaught, the Shadowmoor/Eventide Gods, Elemental Incarnations (and unfortunately the planeswalkers- already down to five) would fit.
Eventide is harder. Five monocolour and five hybrid, of which two of the hybrids are cycles (one is mythic already) and one monocolour is a cycle. Could be Doomgape/Sapling of Colfenor, Ashling the Extinguisher, Figure of Destiny (that'd have made boros expensive) and another red or white and a blue one.
There's absolutely no reason why it would require it to be your turn; see Scepter of Fugue for an exception to prove the rule. Both the animating and the mana ability are free of use.
I do wonder why you concluded that you can't by reading "until end of turn"; your opponent has an end step as well.
Would having more efficient LD result in a critical mass in their new eternal format Modern? I'm trying personally to make an LD deck that can stand up in Modern; currently I haven't had enough patience to try yet. But if that deck currently is sufficient to win, then would any more just tip it to the point of domination? I'd admit I'm terrible from lack of dedication or practice but even then.
Also would it possible that Craterize, like Cancel, is used as a "design basis" rather than a "power level basis"? Consider Counterspell, the first/second/third/all of the nerfing arguments. All spells that are not as efficient as counterspell are dismissed as limited fodder. Now, if we started with Cancel; we can make counterspells better than cancel, and they'd be used, and make some worse, but people would be content with the fact that Cancel can and always will be improved on. Counterspell basically can't; it makes designing any counter spell pointless because they'd be used effectively never. Reasonable or no?
According to the latest oracle changes it matters who mills what from where; your opponent moving cards from your library to the graveyard is different to you moving your cards from the library to the graveyard; "target player puts" and "put cards from target player's library" have different trigger effects.
Just another thing that would make things complicated. Yes, standardising would help but there's enough to make this sort of stuff relevant.
Wandering around the random card link in Gatherer, I stumbled across a curious precedant that may make Auras quite useful; taking from Multani's Presence and the twoGuide cards along with the Embrace cycle, here's what I prospectively call "Essence" (I will ignore the legendary enchantments):
Dragon's Essence 2RR
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3, flying, and trample.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 4/4 red Dragon creature token with flying and trample onto the battlefield.
Rhino's Essence 1GG
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and trample.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 3/3 green Rhino creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
Vampiric Essence BB
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +2/+1 and lifelink.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 3/2 black Vampire creature token with lifelink onto the battlefield.
Sphinx's Essence 2UU
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +2/+3, flying, and shroud.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 3/4 blue Sphinx creature token with flying and shroud onto the battlefield.
Angelic Essence 3WW
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3, flying, and vigilance
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying and vigilance onto the battlefield.
And for kicks...
Storm Crow Essence 1U
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +1/+2 and flying.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 1/2 blue Bird creature token with flying and "Whenever this card does anything, you win the game".
The leftover token size/mana cost will need some adjustments, but it would make for a more reliable way to make auras usable. Oh, and there is the issue that the "when blah is countered" text allows target-fizzling to trigger it.
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Granted there is little there that is effective in terms of immediate impact. That, coupled with the low power abilities means it's probably undesirable to play regardless of deck type.
Should the "equal to the number of loyalty counters" and the life-payment design sides be split? I was attempting to develop flavourful sangromantic abilities.
Another option is to lose life equal to the loyalty counters; probably means the lower abilities will have to be readjusted.
Or it could be [+1] and be "pay life add counters". Faster in gaining, overall, but makes it significantly strong as you never have to pay life. Unless it's pay 2X life of course...
I suppose the question is - "how much life loss is a significant life loss"?
Loyalty is low and cost is high for it's first ability, which is from the + ability that I suspect will require a lot of developmental deliberation.
Bloodmage; fuels his own agenda by taking your blood. As it were the process is... rather inefficient, but it means it's harder to pump to dumb levels. Wording could be redone; also could be adding loyalty as an effect in addition to the life payment, with a "if you do" statement added as a bonus.
Sorin links your creatures to you. Doesn't help him much, and in terms of power it's not as overwhelming (unlike Brainstorm, I hope). Could be made slightly less interesting. Power boost was arbitrary.
Links you and a creature in blood, but forces Sorin as a conduit; so he's not happy about that. Mechanically means that it'll be costly to use continually as removal. Loyalty cost could be lowered, ability could be removed completely because it'd be a damn wordy planeswalker.
Creatures an avatar that becomes a life-drainer itself; effectively loyalty-lifelink. As an ultimate, it's cheaper (comparable to Garruk) because it's very difficult to build up - a 4/4 requires a payment of 8 life up front. Inset ability may require some editing.
Overall looks like...
I came up with the idea of a planeswalker that used blood as a medium for loyalty, and considering the new Gideon's + ability refers to adding loyalty directly I thought such an ability could go for life payments as well - but obviously not cheaply. The others are rather thematic rather than innovative, save perhaps the last, which I suspect is rather clumsy.
Any idea what I should look for? How much information is there for standard eight years back?
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Watery Grave
3 Steam Vents
1 Blood Crypt
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Marsh Flats
1 Sulfur Falls
2 Drowned Catacombs
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Sunken Ruins
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Desolate Lighthouse
3 Augur of Bolas
Spells (32):
4 Mana Leak
2 Cryptic Command
1 Izzet Charm
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thirst For Knowledge
4 Reach Through Mists
3 Glacial Ray
3 Horobi's Whisper
2 Rend Flesh
2 Consume the Meek
3 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Evermind
2 Volcanic Fallout
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Slaughter Games
2 Counterflux
3 Trinisphere
2 Praetor's Grasp
What I wanted to do with this is try to utilise the splicing ability of Glacial Ray and Horobi's Whisper (everything else admittedly kinda sucks) to gain advantage against creature matches. Reaches become removal, the other Arcane spells become forked kills, but the most powerful of these is Horobi's Whisper; the mana efficiency of killing a creature (with a blue spell, which is suprisingly useful) and cantripping for one mana puts a lot of standard mid-range and some aggressive ones on the back foot (or at least make them stumble). The fetchlands and artifactless Thirst are there for this reason. Unfortunately there are basically no other worthwhile arcanes in the colours.
Leaks and Cryptics are because Arcane has no counterspells, and Inquisition fulfils a similar purpose; gets rid of stuff I can't kill on the field like Liliana and Geists. Consume was because manlands are annoying and if necessary I can draw into it (not that it's ever happened) and I was once thinking about having Teachings, which has the annoying downside of being 9 lands high.
Sideboard is a mess. I'm gambling on not facing any black creature with toughness over 2 and CMC over 3. So far the only thing that's scared me is Ob Nixilis. Grasps are currently the faster answer against Tron and such even though it's not always guarenteed, because Slaughter is more reliable. Fallouts for aggro and can kill Geist fairly well. Evermind is for the almost-never-seen control mirror. Counterflux works on combo and noncreature based; Trinisphere slows storm and RDW (sort of?) and if I'm lucky affinity.
As much as I would like some advice if the only thing you are here to say is to drop the Arcane portion I'd perfer if you don't; there are enough Grixis decks in the thread up there that I can snatch without wasting my breath.
Snapcaster Mage: Used to be good. Needed stalling creatures (Auger) and Snapcaster was largely counterproductive when in tandem with Horobi's Whisper. Could be put in but I'm at the point where I don't know what to take out.
Serum Visions: Kinda wasn't helping me late game. Turned into Thrist for Knowledge.
Forbidden Alchemy: Standard familiar that I used before I remembered Thirst for Knowledge. Still, the flashback has been useful before.
Psychic Puppetry, Dreadbore, Murmurs from Beyond, Peer Through Depths: Random spells that weren't as useful as I had imagined; I've managed to whiff on a Peer before despite having a 30-spell deck...
Chandra, the Firebrand, Sorin Markov: Planeswalkers are fun. Except not when they're overcosted removal spells.
Looking at RTR limited, 12 cards survive your Grasp. Five are nonrare. Only three of them are threats - I-don't-have-much-of-a-high-curve threats, might I add. Similarly, in M13 there are 9. Three nonrare, two are threats. Basically means you have to have a few more beefier commons or your Black becomes dangerous in limited.
Considering Innocent Blood into Barter In Blood quadruples the cost... five might not cut it. It gets around almost all forms of protection, except Sigarda and Tanjuru Preserver. The others that can do that are closest to Final Judgement, Terminus and Hallowed Burial. I suppose being recurrable is allowable, because indestructible isn't really a concern in 90% of card pools, and that, plus regeneration, are the only relevant clauses that Mass Edict gets around.
Deathtouch is basically a limited bomb that probably will cause a win. Your 1- and 2-drops are now all relevant for the rest of the game. What else does that... Conclave's Blessing, Death's Presence, Akroma's Memorial, Warstorm Surge... Even Fervor is rare, and that's a lot less impressive. Should be 5 or 6. And then people think it's overcosted... man, such an elegant-but-deadly design.
I thought the ridiculousness was EOT Cloudthresher into Cruel Ultimatum for the kill; going from quad G into a 7-full-coloured-mana spell was absurd.
Was there any way to attack mana bases aside from Fulminator Mage back then?
Formatting for the third ability should reflect Tamiyo's; two emblems, one for the Sanguine Bond and one for the True Conviction-y ability.
Not that anyone does that with their decks, because it has the consistancy of cornflour, but the function is for that purpose. In fact it was in Shadowmoor because of the 3-drop and Demigod cycles.
Supreme has fewer countermeasures.
For shadowmoor, I would say Reaper King, Worldpurge, Din of the Fireherd, Oona, Queen of the Fae, maybe Wort, the Raidmother; looks like GW doesn't have much for the mythics. Then we'd probably add the Hideaway-land creatures... or the persist cycle, but the latter is a bit boring.
Eventide is harder. Five monocolour and five hybrid, of which two of the hybrids are cycles (one is mythic already) and one monocolour is a cycle. Could be Doomgape/Sapling of Colfenor, Ashling the Extinguisher, Figure of Destiny (that'd have made boros expensive) and another red or white and a blue one.
I do wonder why you concluded that you can't by reading "until end of turn"; your opponent has an end step as well.
Would having more efficient LD result in a critical mass in their new eternal format Modern? I'm trying personally to make an LD deck that can stand up in Modern; currently I haven't had enough patience to try yet. But if that deck currently is sufficient to win, then would any more just tip it to the point of domination? I'd admit I'm terrible from lack of dedication or practice but even then.
Also would it possible that Craterize, like Cancel, is used as a "design basis" rather than a "power level basis"? Consider Counterspell, the first/second/third/all of the nerfing arguments. All spells that are not as efficient as counterspell are dismissed as limited fodder. Now, if we started with Cancel; we can make counterspells better than cancel, and they'd be used, and make some worse, but people would be content with the fact that Cancel can and always will be improved on. Counterspell basically can't; it makes designing any counter spell pointless because they'd be used effectively never. Reasonable or no?
Just another thing that would make things complicated. Yes, standardising would help but there's enough to make this sort of stuff relevant.
Dragon's Essence 2RR
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3, flying, and trample.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 4/4 red Dragon creature token with flying and trample onto the battlefield.
Rhino's Essence 1GG
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and trample.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 3/3 green Rhino creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
Vampiric Essence BB
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +2/+1 and lifelink.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 3/2 black Vampire creature token with lifelink onto the battlefield.
Sphinx's Essence 2UU
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +2/+3, flying, and shroud.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 3/4 blue Sphinx creature token with flying and shroud onto the battlefield.
Angelic Essence 3WW
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3, flying, and vigilance
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying and vigilance onto the battlefield.
And for kicks...
Storm Crow Essence 1U
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature gets +1/+2 and flying.
Essence - When this spell is countered, put a 1/2 blue Bird creature token with flying and "Whenever this card does anything, you win the game".
The leftover token size/mana cost will need some adjustments, but it would make for a more reliable way to make auras usable. Oh, and there is the issue that the "when blah is countered" text allows target-fizzling to trigger it.