After seeing Drake Haven spoiled I got inspired to make a Drake based commander deck. Unfortunately though there are no Legendary Drakes and I didn't want to make a Talrand deck. I did a search of all the Drakes available in the game to get an idea of what kind of card I would make and I came across my favorite Drake on my favorite plane, Horizon Drake. Below is my thought process on how I created this card and I'm looking for opinions and constructive criticism on how I should go about improving this card.
I came up with some lore to help me design this card. The setting is pre-ROE Zendikar and focuses on the mystery of the roil. [Insert Name] is an ancient creature born out of the roil, an elemental with the body of a Drake. Much like the roil, [] has the capability to alter the land in its wake. Comparatively though, []'s effect is much smaller and often goes unnoticed to those not looking for it and the few that have been lucky enough to find its trail are often left lost, as the [] is forgiving to no creature. Because of this [] remains as one of Zendikar's mysteries. [] tends to remain in Zendikar's vast seas, harsh swamps and lush forests but as it travels other Drakes are drawn to it. Drakes in the flock follow the will of [].
Card Ideas:
Soon into brainstorming ideas I shifted the primary focus from Drakes to lands to fit into the overall Zendikar theme while trying to keep true to the original Drake theme. With this in mind I have a few key points I wanna hit: interacts with lands, creates drakes, low cmc. Using the previous points and the "lore" I created the following base for the card:
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying.
2/2
Originally I wanted to make this a 3cmc commander but I felt that was really pushing it, especially in its current state it feels very bland and I knew I wanted to add another ability. So I came up with this:
-
Whenever a land you control leaves the battlefield, you may sacrifice X Drakes you control. If that land was an Island, untap up to X target permanents you control and tap up to X target permanents an opponent controls, those permanents do not untap during their controller's next untap step. If that land was a Swamp, target opponent discards X cards at random from their hand. If that land was a Forest, you may return up to X cards from your graveyard to your hand at random.
At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice a land. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card, put that card onto the battlefield and then shuffle the remaining cards back into your library.
-
Yes... It's a wall of text, I know. The second half is supposed to be [] using the roil to warp the land as it passes by, hence the end step trigger. I really like this ability but just that alone would be the same thing as just creating another Drake token and untapping a land at my end step so I felt it needed more. That's when I incorporated the Drakes into the equation to add the Zendikar theme of exploration. I decided to use the basic land types as a way to dictate where the group has traveled and what effects they have "gathered". So, rather than having another Landfall ability I decided to make it a LTB ability instead, as if these effects can only be used as the roil is warping the terrain, potentially losing a few Drakes along the way.
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying.
Whenever a land you control leaves the battlefield, you may sacrifice X Drakes you control. If that land was an Island, untap up to X target permanents you control and tap up to X target permanents an opponent controls, those permanents do not unwrap during their controller's next unwrap step. If that land was a Swamp, target opponent discards X cards at random from their hand. If that land was a Forest, you may return up to X cards from your graveyard to your hand at random.
At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice a land. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card, put that card onto the battlefield and then shuffle the remaining cards back into your library.
2/2
Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks for reading this. Sorry if this is the wrong place for this thread, just looking for commander specific feedback.
My only qualm would be that it feels very powerful. With just the landfall alone it would be pretty strong, since it's an untargetable token generator in what are arguably the strongest colors and especially with green for landfall. If you consider that zendikar's roil has that ability and is an enchantment that actually costs more, that should tell us something. Yes on a creature it is a little more fragile, but the creature has shroud and the enchantment's creatures didn't fly, so... If we stopped here we'd have a solid but not by any means overpowered commander.
But if you add on the second ability and third abilities things get a little crazy. I get that you want to mimic his land-warping ability, but if you are going to enable him to tap permanents, discard cards, and unconditionally recur things from the yard (not to mention trigger landfall on himself and any other landfall things), he will need a significant drawback. Perhaps if the last ability was just 'at the beginning of your end step, return a land you control to its owner's hand'. As it stands, just dropping him and an island or two would be enough to severely slow down your opponents, so it's only fair that he slow you down as well.
I'd also suggest that his island-related ability be restricted to creatures only, and maybe his forest-related ability could be restricted to lands and not be random. The discard ability could also be made non-random, and the island ability could just tap or untap and not both.
Just some thoughts, I'm by no means a card-designing expert type.
The three colors does add way too mucb to him. His second ability is amazing, but it also benefits him even more.
Personally i would tone down his strength a lot.2/2 could be oosted to a 3/3 of you remove shroud, but the one you have too look at is his second ability.
Of course it may just be how use to playing a large board i am tbat i feel the ability is too powerful.
~ 1GBU (Still think it should be mono-blue)
Legendary Creature - Elemental Drake
3/3
Flying
Landfall - Create a 2/2 Blue drake.
When ~ enters the battlefield choose a basic land type. All lands are chosen type in addition to their other types. (Was going to go more on the route of Spreading seas, but i did not like the ability to lock a player out of the game for a mere 4 mana. I decided that this guy can be used for mor than just drake tribal. Land walkers ahoy. Plus it keeps the landwarping theme, sorta)
At the beginning of each player turn, That player sacrifices a land at random and then reveals cards form their library until they reveal a land. They put that land into play and then shuffle the revealed card into their library. (Effects everyone and not as controlled. You get your land warp and it is just an added gimmick. it helps you a great deal with your landfall, while your opponent may not be able to utilize it as much. Plus you probably will build around this not caring too much about losing lands where they will not want to lose Cabal coffers)
The continuation to "It's a wall of text" is not, well, anything. It's going back to the drawing board.
Objective-oriented card design is generally kind of difficult, because your judgment becomes clouded by what you want the card to achieve. You're inherently biased towards the design doing what it does, possibly against better judgment. Trying to represent flavor mechanically also requires some amount of thought, as the effect typically needs to be abstracted in some way to look natural, and not excessively complicated or weirdly specific.
I'll spitball with you, mostly because I'm bored. First of all, we need to consider the card we're making, and what guidelines come from it:
- What is the mechanical identity of drakes? (Really just that they fly, although there's some interesting bouncing going on. As tokens they are 2/2 fliers.)
- What colors do we need? (Blue is the only necessity. White has the most playable secondary-options, but they're really all equally unremarkable.)
- How do we make Drakes specifically rewarding to play with? (Using them as sacrifice fodder, I would argue, defeats the point.)
- Considering our deck is filled with garbage, how reliant is the deck on our commander, and how can we make the deck perform without it?
Going by point 1, our card pretty much has flying. It can either just be flavor text, or we can look to take advantage of the fact that it has evasion, and therefore and easier time attacking and hitting players.
Depending on mana cost, how it interacts with the deck differs. If it's cheap enough, it comes out early enough to where it can reward you for casting drakes, or synergize with drakes in play. If it's expensive, it will probably be used more as a finisher by itself, and would rather look for ways to reward you for having played drakes earlier in the game, or renew your drake supply in some fashion.
Since our deck is going to be pretty reliant on our commander, we have to consider how to alleviate it. One option is making it cheap to recast: Derevi, Karador and Tasigur provides some examples. Another option is making it exceptionally resilient: Theros Gods, Obzedat and Wydwen come to mind. A third option is making the card impactful enough that the limited opportunities you have to play it will be sufficient: Bladewing the Risen, Jhoira and Heartless Hidetsugu qualify, I suppose, but swingy design is generally not very appreciated (and especially not for jank-category cards.) Fourth is making the general relevant throughout the entire game: Prossh etc do a good job of this, but any mana outlet or other scaling effect can serve the purpose, such as Mina and Denn. Fifth is by having the general provide a permanent advantage that outweighs the demerits of your deck: It can be as jarring as making emblems, or a more simple alternative like ramping you or drawing you cards. Queen Marchesa is an interesting take, and Azami is an example of a tribal card.
Okay, ramble over. I'm just going to throw some random designs now. You can feel free to not look at them if you're a dumb person like me and like to feel like you came up with your own idea.
Galewelder Seq'thel1GUR Legendary Creature — Drake Shaman
Flying
Flash
Whenever one or more Drake creatures you control deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card, then put a Drake creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. 2/2
Vaeldretch Abyss-Maw3UBG Legendary Creature — Drake Horror
Flying
Delve
At the beginning of your end step, you may put a Drake creature card exiled by ~ onto the battlefield under your control. 4/4
Brahval, Shivan RevenantURW Legendary Creature — Phoenix Drake
Flying, Haste
If ~ would be destroyed, exile it until a Drake creature enters the battlefield under your control instead.
At the beginning of your end step, destroy ~ and draw a card. 3/1
The Crimson TempestUBW Legendary Creature — Drake Vampire
Flying, Lifelink, Deathtouch
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life for each Drake you control. You gain that much life.
Pay 3 life: Return target Drake card from your graveyard to your hand. Activate this ability only once each turn and only during your turn. 2/2
Whefsis, the Sky-Matron2UGW Legendary Creature — Drake
Flying, Trample, Hexproof
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each Drake you control.
Remove two +1/+1 counters from ~: Create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token. 4/4
okay, I made some cards I guess.
Anyway, here's a suggestion on how I would actually re-design your card with the flavor given, make of it what you will.
cardname UBG
L. Creature — Elemental Drake
Flying, Hexproof
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield or attacks, you may sacrifice a land. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until your reveal a land card. Put that card onto the battlefield, all Drake cards revealed this way into your hand, and the rest into your graveyard.
3/3
The continuation to "It's a wall of text" is not, well, anything. It's going back to the drawing board.
Objective-oriented card design is generally kind of difficult, because your judgment becomes clouded by what you want the card to achieve. You're inherently biased towards the design doing what it does, possibly against better judgment. Trying to represent flavor mechanically also requires some amount of thought, as the effect typically needs to be abstracted in some way to look natural, and not excessively complicated or weirdly specific.
I'll spitball with you, mostly because I'm bored. First of all, we need to consider the card we're making, and what guidelines come from it:
- What is the mechanical identity of drakes? (Really just that they fly, although there's some interesting bouncing going on. As tokens they are 2/2 fliers.)
- What colors do we need? (Blue is the only necessity. White has the most playable secondary-options, but they're really all equally unremarkable.)
- How do we make Drakes specifically rewarding to play with? (Using them as sacrifice fodder, I would argue, defeats the point.)
- Considering our deck is filled with garbage, how reliant is the deck on our commander, and how can we make the deck perform without it?
Going by point 1, our card pretty much has flying. It can either just be flavor text, or we can look to take advantage of the fact that it has evasion, and therefore and easier time attacking and hitting players.
Depending on mana cost, how it interacts with the deck differs. If it's cheap enough, it comes out early enough to where it can reward you for casting drakes, or synergize with drakes in play. If it's expensive, it will probably be used more as a finisher by itself, and would rather look for ways to reward you for having played drakes earlier in the game, or renew your drake supply in some fashion.
Since our deck is going to be pretty reliant on our commander, we have to consider how to alleviate it. One option is making it cheap to recast: Derevi, Karador and Tasigur provides some examples. Another option is making it exceptionally resilient: Theros Gods, Obzedat and Wydwen come to mind. A third option is making the card impactful enough that the limited opportunities you have to play it will be sufficient: Bladewing the Risen, Jhoira and Heartless Hidetsugu qualify, I suppose, but swingy design is generally not very appreciated (and especially not for jank-category cards.) Fourth is making the general relevant throughout the entire game: Prossh etc do a good job of this, but any mana outlet or other scaling effect can serve the purpose, such as Mina and Denn. Fifth is by having the general provide a permanent advantage that outweighs the demerits of your deck: It can be as jarring as making emblems, or a more simple alternative like ramping you or drawing you cards. Queen Marchesa is an interesting take, and Azami is an example of a tribal card.
Okay, ramble over. I'm just going to throw some random designs now. You can feel free to not look at them if you're a dumb person like me and like to feel like you came up with your own idea.
Galewelder Seq'thel1GUR Legendary Creature — Drake Shaman
Flying
Flash
Whenever one or more Drake creatures you control deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card, then put a Drake creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. 2/2
Vaeldretch Abyss-Maw3UBG Legendary Creature — Drake Horror
Flying
Delve
At the beginning of your end step, you may put a Drake creature card exiled by ~ onto the battlefield under your control. 4/4
Brahval, Shivan RevenantURW Legendary Creature — Phoenix Drake
Flying, Haste
If ~ would be destroyed, exile it until a Drake creature enters the battlefield under your control instead.
At the beginning of your end step, destroy ~ and draw a card. 3/1
The Crimson TempestUBW Legendary Creature — Drake Vampire
Flying, Lifelink, Deathtouch
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life for each Drake you control. You gain that much life.
Pay 3 life: Return target Drake card from your graveyard to your hand. Activate this ability only once each turn and only during your turn. 2/2
Whefsis, the Sky-Matron2UGW Legendary Creature — Drake
Flying, Trample, Hexproof
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each Drake you control.
Remove two +1/+1 counters from ~: Create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token. 4/4
okay, I made some cards I guess.
Anyway, here's a suggestion on how I would actually re-design your card with the flavor given, make of it what you will.
cardname UBG
L. Creature — Elemental Drake
Flying, Hexproof
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield or attacks, you may sacrifice a land. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until your reveal a land card. Put that card onto the battlefield, all Drake cards revealed this way into your hand, and the rest into your graveyard.
3/3
Muh more balanced, though I feel it should have some more interaction with lands rather than just saccing your own.
Also i really like Vaeldretch Abyss-Maw
Wonder if I can use that for a different tribe...
So I just wrote out an extremely long response, that took a couple hours to compose but unfortunately that is gone and to spare my sanity I'm going to try to respond briefly.
First, yes this card is obviously overpowered. I set out to make a card to my liking and in doing so I had to be bias as I am trying to achieve a specific set of goals with this card. This is a brief version of the flavor I wanted to build the card upon. A mysterious elemental Drake born out of Zendikar's roil that travels across parts of the plane attracting Drakes and reshaping the terrain much like the actual roil.
From this I assembled a list of goals:
-Lands Matter (Native to Zendikar so a strong influence)
-Create a terrain warping effect like the roil
-Drakes sub theme (not drake tribal)
-Low CMC
-Color Identity of atleast Blue-Green (would prefer to have black as well if it could work)
I appreciate you spending the time to make that card and wow was the amount of text worse than I thought so obviously the land-specific ability needs to be dropped or atleast significantly reworked. I would like to have a similar effect to this, because I'm still attached to the idea that this creature gains power from the lands it's warping based off its type.
The "warping" ability is certainly going to be the base I would like to design this card from going forward and I understand the concerns of how powerful it could be so I was thinking about moving the random land from your library from immediately after to at the beginning of your next upkeep. Doing this keeps you a land behind on your opponents' turns and it gives you another Drake on your upkeep instead of the turn before meaning it can't attack right away. After that landfall drake generator is something I'm looking to keep.
I do really like having the warp effect triggers for each player during their upkeeps but forcing everyone shuffle every turn seems very cumbersome, while forcing myself to shuffle every turn is something I don't mind. What I liked about your version of the ability though was that it added an aspect of control to the card and randomness which I was interested in achieving.
As for a potential deck theme I could see this card fitting in would be a land-based control deck that wins with tokens. Overlapping a bit with Titania strategies.
Thanks for all the responses. Hopefully I can flesh this card out to bit somewhat more balanced this time and update this with my progress.
Do you like effects that could possibly backfire? What I'm thinking is:
Juko, the Land Spinner 1UGB
Legendary Creature - Elemental Drake
Flying
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player puts lands equal to the power of target drake you control on the bottom of their library. That player then reveals cards from the top of their library until they have revealed the same number of lands and puts those lands into play untapped and the rest of the cards on the bottom of their library in any order.
3/4
It hits the low CMC, three colours, and messes with everyone's lands without making people shuffle.
It could backfire due to the untapped clause which I think needs to be there so it doesn't completely ruin CIPT lands. You do run the risk of colour fixing your opponents and ruining your colours, but that's half the fun right?
Landfall - When a land enters the battlefield under your control, choose one -
All islands you control become 2/2 Blue Drake creatures with flying until end of turn, in addition to their other colors and types.
Up to X target creatures get +1/+1 and trample until end of turn, where X is the number of forests you control.
Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of swamps you control.
~~~
4/4
-------
Something like that would be fairly strong for CMC 4, especially in green. The idea of it having shroud should simply be scrapped, it makes it too difficult to interact with when it has one or more very significant abilit(y/ies) that apply to more than just itself. (Also Hexproof replaced shroud, and for a good reason).
Another suggestion, taking into account the other comments from the thread:
CardnameBUG
Legendary creature - Elemental Drake
Flying. Landfall - When a land enter the battlefield under your control, create a 2/2/ blue Drake creature token.
Players can't play lands. At the beginning of each players upkeep, that player puts one of his or her lands on the bottom of his or her library, chosen at random. Then that player reveals cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals two land cards and puts them onto the battlefield, then puts all other cards revealed this way into his or her graveyard.
2/2
I think it would be flavorful that this commander also has Drake stats, so keeping it at 2/2. This also allows the commander to decrease in casting cost. It will change the game it is in, essentially guaranteeing everyone his land drop for the turn but at random, so it kind of soft punishes multiple colors. I made the cards revealed go to the graveyard instead of the bottom of the library as this makes this commander more widely usable. You can use it as as a tribal drake commander, a reanimator/graveyard strategy commander and a mill commander. It already has a lot going for it this way, so I did not give it any inherent resilience, since cards that warp the game on this scale should be answerable by opponents that are really hindered by it imo.
My only concern of this design is wether it is really black colorpie wise. I made it so because you obiously wanted a bug commander, but I think it would also be ok at just 1UG.
I came up with some lore to help me design this card. The setting is pre-ROE Zendikar and focuses on the mystery of the roil. [Insert Name] is an ancient creature born out of the roil, an elemental with the body of a Drake. Much like the roil, [] has the capability to alter the land in its wake. Comparatively though, []'s effect is much smaller and often goes unnoticed to those not looking for it and the few that have been lucky enough to find its trail are often left lost, as the [] is forgiving to no creature. Because of this [] remains as one of Zendikar's mysteries. [] tends to remain in Zendikar's vast seas, harsh swamps and lush forests but as it travels other Drakes are drawn to it. Drakes in the flock follow the will of [].
Card Ideas:
Soon into brainstorming ideas I shifted the primary focus from Drakes to lands to fit into the overall Zendikar theme while trying to keep true to the original Drake theme. With this in mind I have a few key points I wanna hit: interacts with lands, creates drakes, low cmc. Using the previous points and the "lore" I created the following base for the card:
[]
Legendary Creature - Elemental Drake (M)
Flying, Shroud
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying.
2/2
Originally I wanted to make this a 3cmc commander but I felt that was really pushing it, especially in its current state it feels very bland and I knew I wanted to add another ability. So I came up with this:
-
Whenever a land you control leaves the battlefield, you may sacrifice X Drakes you control. If that land was an Island, untap up to X target permanents you control and tap up to X target permanents an opponent controls, those permanents do not untap during their controller's next untap step. If that land was a Swamp, target opponent discards X cards at random from their hand. If that land was a Forest, you may return up to X cards from your graveyard to your hand at random.
At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice a land. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card, put that card onto the battlefield and then shuffle the remaining cards back into your library.
-
Yes... It's a wall of text, I know. The second half is supposed to be [] using the roil to warp the land as it passes by, hence the end step trigger. I really like this ability but just that alone would be the same thing as just creating another Drake token and untapping a land at my end step so I felt it needed more. That's when I incorporated the Drakes into the equation to add the Zendikar theme of exploration. I decided to use the basic land types as a way to dictate where the group has traveled and what effects they have "gathered". So, rather than having another Landfall ability I decided to make it a LTB ability instead, as if these effects can only be used as the roil is warping the terrain, potentially losing a few Drakes along the way.
Final Product:
[]
Legendary Creature - Elemental Drake (M)
Flying, Shroud
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token with flying.
Whenever a land you control leaves the battlefield, you may sacrifice X Drakes you control. If that land was an Island, untap up to X target permanents you control and tap up to X target permanents an opponent controls, those permanents do not unwrap during their controller's next unwrap step. If that land was a Swamp, target opponent discards X cards at random from their hand. If that land was a Forest, you may return up to X cards from your graveyard to your hand at random.
At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice a land. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card, put that card onto the battlefield and then shuffle the remaining cards back into your library.
2/2
Any thoughts would be appreciated! Thanks for reading this. Sorry if this is the wrong place for this thread, just looking for commander specific feedback.
My only qualm would be that it feels very powerful. With just the landfall alone it would be pretty strong, since it's an untargetable token generator in what are arguably the strongest colors and especially with green for landfall. If you consider that zendikar's roil has that ability and is an enchantment that actually costs more, that should tell us something. Yes on a creature it is a little more fragile, but the creature has shroud and the enchantment's creatures didn't fly, so... If we stopped here we'd have a solid but not by any means overpowered commander.
But if you add on the second ability and third abilities things get a little crazy. I get that you want to mimic his land-warping ability, but if you are going to enable him to tap permanents, discard cards, and unconditionally recur things from the yard (not to mention trigger landfall on himself and any other landfall things), he will need a significant drawback. Perhaps if the last ability was just 'at the beginning of your end step, return a land you control to its owner's hand'. As it stands, just dropping him and an island or two would be enough to severely slow down your opponents, so it's only fair that he slow you down as well.
I'd also suggest that his island-related ability be restricted to creatures only, and maybe his forest-related ability could be restricted to lands and not be random. The discard ability could also be made non-random, and the island ability could just tap or untap and not both.
Just some thoughts, I'm by no means a card-designing expert type.
Tymna & Ishai, ie Esper Edric
Crosis Turbotrash
Personally i would tone down his strength a lot.2/2 could be oosted to a 3/3 of you remove shroud, but the one you have too look at is his second ability.
Of course it may just be how use to playing a large board i am tbat i feel the ability is too powerful.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
~
1GBU (Still think it should be mono-blue)
Legendary Creature - Elemental Drake
3/3
Flying
Landfall - Create a 2/2 Blue drake.
When ~ enters the battlefield choose a basic land type. All lands are chosen type in addition to their other types. (Was going to go more on the route of Spreading seas, but i did not like the ability to lock a player out of the game for a mere 4 mana. I decided that this guy can be used for mor than just drake tribal. Land walkers ahoy. Plus it keeps the landwarping theme, sorta)
At the beginning of each player turn, That player sacrifices a land at random and then reveals cards form their library until they reveal a land. They put that land into play and then shuffle the revealed card into their library. (Effects everyone and not as controlled. You get your land warp and it is just an added gimmick. it helps you a great deal with your landfall, while your opponent may not be able to utilize it as much. Plus you probably will build around this not caring too much about losing lands where they will not want to lose Cabal coffers )
I feel Shroud can be added at this point
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Objective-oriented card design is generally kind of difficult, because your judgment becomes clouded by what you want the card to achieve. You're inherently biased towards the design doing what it does, possibly against better judgment. Trying to represent flavor mechanically also requires some amount of thought, as the effect typically needs to be abstracted in some way to look natural, and not excessively complicated or weirdly specific.
I'll spitball with you, mostly because I'm bored. First of all, we need to consider the card we're making, and what guidelines come from it:
- What is the mechanical identity of drakes? (Really just that they fly, although there's some interesting bouncing going on. As tokens they are 2/2 fliers.)
- What colors do we need? (Blue is the only necessity. White has the most playable secondary-options, but they're really all equally unremarkable.)
- How do we make Drakes specifically rewarding to play with? (Using them as sacrifice fodder, I would argue, defeats the point.)
- Considering our deck is filled with garbage, how reliant is the deck on our commander, and how can we make the deck perform without it?
Going by point 1, our card pretty much has flying. It can either just be flavor text, or we can look to take advantage of the fact that it has evasion, and therefore and easier time attacking and hitting players.
Depending on mana cost, how it interacts with the deck differs. If it's cheap enough, it comes out early enough to where it can reward you for casting drakes, or synergize with drakes in play. If it's expensive, it will probably be used more as a finisher by itself, and would rather look for ways to reward you for having played drakes earlier in the game, or renew your drake supply in some fashion.
Since our deck is going to be pretty reliant on our commander, we have to consider how to alleviate it. One option is making it cheap to recast: Derevi, Karador and Tasigur provides some examples. Another option is making it exceptionally resilient: Theros Gods, Obzedat and Wydwen come to mind. A third option is making the card impactful enough that the limited opportunities you have to play it will be sufficient: Bladewing the Risen, Jhoira and Heartless Hidetsugu qualify, I suppose, but swingy design is generally not very appreciated (and especially not for jank-category cards.) Fourth is making the general relevant throughout the entire game: Prossh etc do a good job of this, but any mana outlet or other scaling effect can serve the purpose, such as Mina and Denn. Fifth is by having the general provide a permanent advantage that outweighs the demerits of your deck: It can be as jarring as making emblems, or a more simple alternative like ramping you or drawing you cards. Queen Marchesa is an interesting take, and Azami is an example of a tribal card.
Okay, ramble over. I'm just going to throw some random designs now. You can feel free to not look at them if you're a dumb person like me and like to feel like you came up with your own idea.
Legendary Creature — Drake Shaman
Flying
Flash
Whenever one or more Drake creatures you control deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card, then put a Drake creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.
2/2
Vaeldretch Abyss-Maw 3UBG
Legendary Creature — Drake Horror
Flying
Delve
At the beginning of your end step, you may put a Drake creature card exiled by ~ onto the battlefield under your control.
4/4
Brahval, Shivan Revenant URW
Legendary Creature — Phoenix Drake
Flying, Haste
If ~ would be destroyed, exile it until a Drake creature enters the battlefield under your control instead.
At the beginning of your end step, destroy ~ and draw a card.
3/1
The Crimson Tempest UBW
Legendary Creature — Drake Vampire
Flying, Lifelink, Deathtouch
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life for each Drake you control. You gain that much life.
Pay 3 life: Return target Drake card from your graveyard to your hand. Activate this ability only once each turn and only during your turn.
2/2
Whefsis, the Sky-Matron 2UGW
Legendary Creature — Drake
Flying, Trample, Hexproof
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each Drake you control.
Remove two +1/+1 counters from ~: Create a 2/2 blue Drake creature token.
4/4
Anyway, here's a suggestion on how I would actually re-design your card with the flavor given, make of it what you will.
cardname UBG
L. Creature — Elemental Drake
Flying, Hexproof
Whenever ~ enters the battlefield or attacks, you may sacrifice a land. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until your reveal a land card. Put that card onto the battlefield, all Drake cards revealed this way into your hand, and the rest into your graveyard.
3/3
Muh more balanced, though I feel it should have some more interaction with lands rather than just saccing your own.
Also i really like Vaeldretch Abyss-Maw
Wonder if I can use that for a different tribe...
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
First, yes this card is obviously overpowered. I set out to make a card to my liking and in doing so I had to be bias as I am trying to achieve a specific set of goals with this card. This is a brief version of the flavor I wanted to build the card upon. A mysterious elemental Drake born out of Zendikar's roil that travels across parts of the plane attracting Drakes and reshaping the terrain much like the actual roil.
From this I assembled a list of goals:
-Lands Matter (Native to Zendikar so a strong influence)
-Create a terrain warping effect like the roil
-Drakes sub theme (not drake tribal)
-Low CMC
-Color Identity of atleast Blue-Green (would prefer to have black as well if it could work)
I appreciate you spending the time to make that card and wow was the amount of text worse than I thought so obviously the land-specific ability needs to be dropped or atleast significantly reworked. I would like to have a similar effect to this, because I'm still attached to the idea that this creature gains power from the lands it's warping based off its type.
The "warping" ability is certainly going to be the base I would like to design this card from going forward and I understand the concerns of how powerful it could be so I was thinking about moving the random land from your library from immediately after to at the beginning of your next upkeep. Doing this keeps you a land behind on your opponents' turns and it gives you another Drake on your upkeep instead of the turn before meaning it can't attack right away. After that landfall drake generator is something I'm looking to keep.
I do really like having the warp effect triggers for each player during their upkeeps but forcing everyone shuffle every turn seems very cumbersome, while forcing myself to shuffle every turn is something I don't mind. What I liked about your version of the ability though was that it added an aspect of control to the card and randomness which I was interested in achieving.
As for a potential deck theme I could see this card fitting in would be a land-based control deck that wins with tokens. Overlapping a bit with Titania strategies.
Thanks for all the responses. Hopefully I can flesh this card out to bit somewhat more balanced this time and update this with my progress.
Juko, the Land Spinner 1UGB
Legendary Creature - Elemental Drake
Flying
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player puts lands equal to the power of target drake you control on the bottom of their library. That player then reveals cards from the top of their library until they have revealed the same number of lands and puts those lands into play untapped and the rest of the cards on the bottom of their library in any order.
3/4
It hits the low CMC, three colours, and messes with everyone's lands without making people shuffle.
It could backfire due to the untapped clause which I think needs to be there so it doesn't completely ruin CIPT lands. You do run the risk of colour fixing your opponents and ruining your colours, but that's half the fun right?
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Flying
Landfall - When a land enters the battlefield under your control, choose one -
4/4
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Something like that would be fairly strong for CMC 4, especially in green. The idea of it having shroud should simply be scrapped, it makes it too difficult to interact with when it has one or more very significant abilit(y/ies) that apply to more than just itself. (Also Hexproof replaced shroud, and for a good reason).
- Rabid Wombat
Cardname BUG
Legendary creature - Elemental Drake
Flying.
Landfall - When a land enter the battlefield under your control, create a 2/2/ blue Drake creature token.
Players can't play lands. At the beginning of each players upkeep, that player puts one of his or her lands on the bottom of his or her library, chosen at random. Then that player reveals cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals two land cards and puts them onto the battlefield, then puts all other cards revealed this way into his or her graveyard.
2/2
I think it would be flavorful that this commander also has Drake stats, so keeping it at 2/2. This also allows the commander to decrease in casting cost. It will change the game it is in, essentially guaranteeing everyone his land drop for the turn but at random, so it kind of soft punishes multiple colors. I made the cards revealed go to the graveyard instead of the bottom of the library as this makes this commander more widely usable. You can use it as as a tribal drake commander, a reanimator/graveyard strategy commander and a mill commander. It already has a lot going for it this way, so I did not give it any inherent resilience, since cards that warp the game on this scale should be answerable by opponents that are really hindered by it imo.
My only concern of this design is wether it is really black colorpie wise. I made it so because you obiously wanted a bug commander, but I think it would also be ok at just 1UG.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.