Back on topic - There is no reason to make her such an uninspiring card. Worst case scenario if they can't get a good fit ? Have us submit and publicly upvote 20 suggested cards for the title/cost/theme and use one of em. The whole process could take a day. There's no reason to lose a card design to development anymore.
I said it in the champs thread but I would love for us in Commanderland here to have a thread here for designing new versions of bad legends. Maybe call it the Commander Restoration Project or something? Who wouldn't dig forum-approved new generals? Fixed versions of the awful legends generals? I'd be so in that.
I don't really feel like the CCC forum has the right idea about what we're looking for. I don't want a bunch of 7+ costed guys that ETB target player chokes on his pretzels. I'd want input from big Commander players like you guys.
Back to Emmara, I still don't know why for 7 mana she doesn't just get docked some P/T that she doesn't need anyway and make the tokens indestructible. I guess they are worried that is too powerful for limited play and that's why they settled on preventing damage. Still don't like it though. You could make her pay an activation cost or something if you wanted to balance it that way. There are lots of ways to have made it work but instead they went with the lame damage prevention.
Sold my collection in Jan to buy a motorcycle, but had I kept my Wort, Boggart Auntie deck, Pyrewild Shaman would be a must include. Repeatable sac fodder, repeatable combat trick, repeatable skullclamp fodder, relevant creature type, etc.
Just needed to tell someone there was a card I was excited about. Hypothetically.
Good call! I recently took my Wort deck apart but Pyrewild makes me want to rebuild it! You could actually get Wort beatdown kills with him in addition to all the fodder uses.
I'm trying to think of a way to make Emmara appealing without altering the mana cost. How about:
5GW
Shroud
Creature tokens you control get +2/+2, are indestructible, and have lifelink.
1/2
In my opinion, this is at the very least elegant. A huge pet peeve of mine is her power/toughness. For a moment, let us forget that 2 squirrels can take down a knight. This is an unfortunate truth. But the fact that Emmara is legendary and therefore a defined figure who is a 5/7 means that she can take down an Ancient Silverback with her bare hands.
I don't know. I'm so bothered by this design that I've felt the need to post my own version of the card. I'm going crazy.
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
I'm trying to think of a way to make Emmara appealing without altering the mana cost. How about:
5GW
Shroud
Creature tokens you control get +2/+2, are indestructible, and have lifelink.
1/2
In my opinion, this is at the very least elegant. A huge pet peeve of mine is her power/toughness. For a moment, let us forget that 2 squirrels can take down a knight. This is an unfortunate truth. But the fact that Emmara is legendary and therefore a defined figure who is a 5/7 means that she can take down an Ancient Silverback with her bare hands.
I don't know. I'm so bothered by this design that I've felt the need to post my own version of the card. I'm going crazy.
See, and I would have been happy if the tokens had gained some kind of ability. There have been a whole slew of cards lately that give tokens special abilities or duplicate them, that would have been neat. As is, not entirely thrilled about her at all.
I still think she should have cranked out a token. Even just one centaur token for four mana, it sounds terrible, but it would have made her so much better than she is right now.
EDIT: She would not have shroud, she'd have hexproof.
See, and I would have been happy if the tokens had gained some kind of ability. There have been a whole slew of cards lately that give tokens special abilities or duplicate them, that would have been neat. As is, not entirely thrilled about her at all.
I still think she should have cranked out a token. Even just one centaur token for four mana, it sounds terrible, but it would have made her so much better than she is right now.
EDIT: She would not have shroud, she'd have hexproof.
Even with her insane p/t I would have been less bothered if she had some sort of ability, like producing tokens or temporary token buffs.
Or something like "creature tokens you control have :1mana::symtap: populate". Maybe make the cost more, just throwing stuff out there.
I'm trying to think of a way to make Emmara appealing without altering the mana cost. How about:
5GW
Shroud
Creature tokens you control get +2/+2, are indestructible, and have lifelink.
1/2
In my opinion, this is at the very least elegant. A huge pet peeve of mine is her power/toughness. For a moment, let us forget that 2 squirrels can take down a knight. This is an unfortunate truth. But the fact that Emmara is legendary and therefore a defined figure who is a 5/7 means that she can take down an Ancient Silverback with her bare hands.
I don't know. I'm so bothered by this design that I've felt the need to post my own version of the card. I'm going crazy.
I like the idea, but it would be way too powerful. How about when she enters the battefield she put 2 3/3 centaur tokens into play. She'd keep the rest of her abilities and stats. It's too easy to make a selesnya champion op. I keep comparing what this champion could be to trostani. Trostani is supposed to be more "mythic" than Emmara, so Emmara can't be stronger than Trostani.
ghallberg asked: I would just like to say that I'm very happy that you are taking the time to look up Emmara's story and to write it down for us. This is the stuff that makes me like you! (And you make Magic awesome.)
MaRo: "So here’s what happened. Originally, some of the maze runners (aka guild champions) were rare and some were mythic rare. They couldn’t all be mythic rare because we only had nine mythic rare slots. Ral Zarek, a planeswalker, had already taken up the tenth slot. (Planeswalkers for complexity and specialness reasons need to be mythic rare.)
We talked about Ral just being the Izzet representative but decided that for numerous purposes (Commander being one of the biggest) we wanted a blue/red legendary creature and thus an Izzet maze runner.
It was decided well into development that the maze runners should all be the same rarity which meant they had to be rare as mythic rare wasn’t possible. This resulted in us making some changes to turn the mythic rare maze runners into rare maze runners.
One of those swaps was Voice of Resurgence with Emmara. As many have guessed, Emmara originally made the */* token (seen in the background of her art). It wasn’t a straight swap and there was lots of massaging of both cards. That is what happened"
ghallberg asked: I would just like to say that I'm very happy that you are taking the time to look up Emmara's story and to write it down for us. This is the stuff that makes me like you! (And you make Magic awesome.)
MaRo: "So here’s what happened. Originally, some of the maze runners (aka guild champions) were rare and some were mythic rare. They couldn’t all be mythic rare because we only had nine mythic rare slots. Ral Zarek, a planeswalker, had already taken up the tenth slot. (Planeswalkers for complexity and specialness reasons need to be mythic rare.)
We talked about Ral just being the Izzet representative but decided that for numerous purposes (Commander being one of the biggest) we wanted a blue/red legendary creature and thus an Izzet maze runner.
It was decided well into development that the maze runners should all be the same rarity which meant they had to be rare as mythic rare wasn’t possible. This resulted in us making some changes to turn the mythic rare maze runners into rare maze runners.
One of those swaps was Voice of Resurgence with Emmara. As many have guessed, Emmara originally made the */* token (seen in the background of her art). It wasn’t a straight swap and there was lots of massaging of both cards. That is what happened"
And that little Timmy and Johnny, is how disappointment is manufactured. We massage cards until one is awesome and the other is bad then print both.
[EDH] It's built to be a casual format and to a specific vision, and if you don't like the vision, there's nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to change to accommodate everyone. Big tent is not a goal.
And that little Timmy and Johnny, is how disappointment is manufactured. We massage cards until one is awesome and the other is bad then print both.
Seriously. It's all semantics. If the creative team thinks it's okay to merely transfer a non-legendary creature's ability onto another simply to satisfy the set's rarity numbers then I'm thoroughly disappointed at the decision.
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
you know, i was thinking that emmara can be good at something. you can ******** with her pic. oh wait... avacyn is better than her at this too.
Um.
Wow.
Just... Right. Moving on.
Speaking of Voice of Resurgence, now that is a pretty neat Selesnya card. I don't know if it is enough to stop people from casting something during your turn, but it would definitely make them pause when they consider doing something on your end-step.
EDIT: Thoughts on Dragonshift? I could see it being useful in certain situations, but in RU, I dunno. Most RU lists don't run enough creatures for this to really be a viable alpha strike type card. Maybe a way to create some blockers real quick?
Personally, I think Emmara should have been the ETB populator. It saves them from having to have that ugly "if cast from hand" text and opens her up to being flickered, while still stopping Cackling Counterpart from comboing with her.
Emmara Tandris, Re-Awesomed 5WG
Creature - Elf Cleric
When Emmara etb, put an elemental token onto the battlefield with "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control", then populate.
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to token creatures you control
2/4
Was that so hard?
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We talked about Ral just being the Izzet representative but decided that for numerous purposes (Commander being one of the biggest) we wanted a blue/red legendary creature and thus an Izzet maze runner.
If they had not made an Izzet general just to give Ral the spotlight I would have been extremely bummed.
The idea that they were going to have the champs split between different rarities in the first place is completely silly. Doesn't matter what the justification was. They really approached this wrong from the beginning and that's how we ended up with an awful Selesnya Commander. Seriously she makes Teysa look awesome.
As long as we're fixing Emmara:
Emmara 2.05GW
Legendary Creature- Elf Shaman [R]
Whenever you populate, put an X/X green and white Elemental token into play where X is the number of creatures you control. 1GW, :symtap:: Populate. Creature tokens you control are indestructible until end of turn.
ghallberg asked: I would just like to say that I'm very happy that you are taking the time to look up Emmara's story and to write it down for us. This is the stuff that makes me like you! (And you make Magic awesome.)
MaRo: "So here’s what happened. Originally, some of the maze runners (aka guild champions) were rare and some were mythic rare. They couldn’t all be mythic rare because we only had nine mythic rare slots. Ral Zarek, a planeswalker, had already taken up the tenth slot. (Planeswalkers for complexity and specialness reasons need to be mythic rare.)
We talked about Ral just being the Izzet representative but decided that for numerous purposes (Commander being one of the biggest) we wanted a blue/red legendary creature and thus an Izzet maze runner.
It was decided well into development that the maze runners should all be the same rarity which meant they had to be rare as mythic rare wasn’t possible. This resulted in us making some changes to turn the mythic rare maze runners into rare maze runners.
One of those swaps was Voice of Resurgence with Emmara. As many have guessed, Emmara originally made the */* token (seen in the background of her art). It wasn’t a straight swap and there was lots of massaging of both cards. That is what happened"
This resulted in them all being boring and weak. Better luck next time edh players. On the plus side I am going to get out of this set cheap and save up for summer releases.
Personally, I think Emmara should have been the ETB populator. It saves them from having to have that ugly "if cast from hand" text and opens her up to being flickered, while still stopping Cackling Counterpart from comboing with her.
Emmara Tandris, Re-Awesomed 5WG
Creature - Elf Cleric
When Emmara etb, put an elemental token onto the battlefield with "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control", then populate.
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to token creatures you control
2/4
Was that so hard?
You could even drop the whole "prevent all damage to tokens" bit and I'd still have been way happier with her than I am right now.
Grumble grumble. Yeah, I know she sucks. But, we got 10 new EDH generals in ONE set. Of those, a couple seem legitimately good, a couple are pretty bad, and the rest are playable with "build around me" designs.
EDIT: Thoughts on Dragonshift? I could see it being useful in certain situations, but in RU, I dunno. Most RU lists don't run enough creatures for this to really be a viable alpha strike type card. Maybe a way to create some blockers real quick?
Too bad it isn't mono-red. It could have been a really nice finisher for mono-red token decks. Oh well...
If someone showed up using an Emmara mockup as a commander with the Voice of Resurgence rules text, I wouldn't question it.
I am mostly in favor of people using custom generals as long as they pass a smell test of "Is it not broken?". I may have to start making some myself just to see if I can get the concept to catch on locally.
For the same cost and same creature type, I think I'd rather have Trostani's Summoner, from the same set.
Trostani's Summoner5GW
Creature - Elf Shaman (U)
When Trostani's Summoner enters the battlefield, put a 2/2 white Knight creature token with vigilance, a 3/3 green Centaur creature token, and a 4/4 green Rhino creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
1/1
She's better from a mechanical (active ability instead of passive) and flavor (not a 5/7 elf) standpoint, for the exact same cost, and at uncommon.
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I said it in the champs thread but I would love for us in Commanderland here to have a thread here for designing new versions of bad legends. Maybe call it the Commander Restoration Project or something? Who wouldn't dig forum-approved new generals? Fixed versions of the awful legends generals? I'd be so in that.
I don't really feel like the CCC forum has the right idea about what we're looking for. I don't want a bunch of 7+ costed guys that ETB target player chokes on his pretzels. I'd want input from big Commander players like you guys.
Back to Emmara, I still don't know why for 7 mana she doesn't just get docked some P/T that she doesn't need anyway and make the tokens indestructible. I guess they are worried that is too powerful for limited play and that's why they settled on preventing damage. Still don't like it though. You could make her pay an activation cost or something if you wanted to balance it that way. There are lots of ways to have made it work but instead they went with the lame damage prevention.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Ha, and Jasmine has that killer art as well. No contest. Jasmine's better.
Good call! I recently took my Wort deck apart but Pyrewild makes me want to rebuild it! You could actually get Wort beatdown kills with him in addition to all the fodder uses.
5GW
Shroud
Creature tokens you control get +2/+2, are indestructible, and have lifelink.
1/2
In my opinion, this is at the very least elegant. A huge pet peeve of mine is her power/toughness. For a moment, let us forget that 2 squirrels can take down a knight. This is an unfortunate truth. But the fact that Emmara is legendary and therefore a defined figure who is a 5/7 means that she can take down an Ancient Silverback with her bare hands.
I don't know. I'm so bothered by this design that I've felt the need to post my own version of the card. I'm going crazy.
See, and I would have been happy if the tokens had gained some kind of ability. There have been a whole slew of cards lately that give tokens special abilities or duplicate them, that would have been neat. As is, not entirely thrilled about her at all.
I still think she should have cranked out a token. Even just one centaur token for four mana, it sounds terrible, but it would have made her so much better than she is right now.
EDIT: She would not have shroud, she'd have hexproof.
Even with her insane p/t I would have been less bothered if she had some sort of ability, like producing tokens or temporary token buffs.
Or something like "creature tokens you control have :1mana::symtap: populate". Maybe make the cost more, just throwing stuff out there.
I like the idea, but it would be way too powerful. How about when she enters the battefield she put 2 3/3 centaur tokens into play. She'd keep the rest of her abilities and stats. It's too easy to make a selesnya champion op. I keep comparing what this champion could be to trostani. Trostani is supposed to be more "mythic" than Emmara, so Emmara can't be stronger than Trostani.
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StaffMaRo: "So here’s what happened. Originally, some of the maze runners (aka guild champions) were rare and some were mythic rare. They couldn’t all be mythic rare because we only had nine mythic rare slots. Ral Zarek, a planeswalker, had already taken up the tenth slot. (Planeswalkers for complexity and specialness reasons need to be mythic rare.)
We talked about Ral just being the Izzet representative but decided that for numerous purposes (Commander being one of the biggest) we wanted a blue/red legendary creature and thus an Izzet maze runner.
It was decided well into development that the maze runners should all be the same rarity which meant they had to be rare as mythic rare wasn’t possible. This resulted in us making some changes to turn the mythic rare maze runners into rare maze runners.
One of those swaps was Voice of Resurgence with Emmara. As many have guessed, Emmara originally made the */* token (seen in the background of her art). It wasn’t a straight swap and there was lots of massaging of both cards. That is what happened"
BUT - She should be like Stangg but puts 3 copies of herself into play. That would be awesome.
And that little Timmy and Johnny, is how disappointment is manufactured. We massage cards until one is awesome and the other is bad then print both.
Seriously. It's all semantics. If the creative team thinks it's okay to merely transfer a non-legendary creature's ability onto another simply to satisfy the set's rarity numbers then I'm thoroughly disappointed at the decision.
And instead we got this.
Wow, Development hates fun.
Thanks to Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures!
We could frankenstein them into one card, just saying.
I hope she dies in Dragon Maze. I'd hate to see her again in Return to RtR.
Um.
Wow.
Just... Right. Moving on.
Speaking of Voice of Resurgence, now that is a pretty neat Selesnya card. I don't know if it is enough to stop people from casting something during your turn, but it would definitely make them pause when they consider doing something on your end-step.
EDIT: Thoughts on Dragonshift? I could see it being useful in certain situations, but in RU, I dunno. Most RU lists don't run enough creatures for this to really be a viable alpha strike type card. Maybe a way to create some blockers real quick?
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StaffEmmara Tandris, Re-Awesomed 5WG
Creature - Elf Cleric
When Emmara etb, put an elemental token onto the battlefield with "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control", then populate.
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to token creatures you control
2/4
Was that so hard?
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
EDH Cube
Hypercube! A New EDH Deck Every Week(ish)!
If they had not made an Izzet general just to give Ral the spotlight I would have been extremely bummed.
The idea that they were going to have the champs split between different rarities in the first place is completely silly. Doesn't matter what the justification was. They really approached this wrong from the beginning and that's how we ended up with an awful Selesnya Commander. Seriously she makes Teysa look awesome.
As long as we're fixing Emmara:
Emmara 2.0 5GW
Legendary Creature- Elf Shaman [R]
Whenever you populate, put an X/X green and white Elemental token into play where X is the number of creatures you control.
1GW, :symtap:: Populate. Creature tokens you control are indestructible until end of turn.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
This resulted in them all being boring and weak. Better luck next time edh players. On the plus side I am going to get out of this set cheap and save up for summer releases.
You could even drop the whole "prevent all damage to tokens" bit and I'd still have been way happier with her than I am right now.
I think the net gain was just fine.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Too bad it isn't mono-red. It could have been a really nice finisher for mono-red token decks. Oh well...
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Clan RepresentativeI am mostly in favor of people using custom generals as long as they pass a smell test of "Is it not broken?". I may have to start making some myself just to see if I can get the concept to catch on locally.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Yeah. I could see my brother running that in his mono R gobby deck as an aggressive finisher, would have been awesome. As is... I dunno.
She's better from a mechanical (active ability instead of passive) and flavor (not a 5/7 elf) standpoint, for the exact same cost, and at uncommon.