Hello everybody! Champions of Theros is an EDH variant I've been working on for a little while. I'm hoping to have enough cards for it by Sunday to playtest it then, so I decided now was probably as good a time as any to get some feedback (And if it gives me ideas for more cards, that's awesome too).
Remember those special "Hero" cards that you got with the Theros Pre-Release stuff? Well, one of the major components of this variant is a Hero card:
The Champion
Hero T: Name a God that is not on the battlefield under an opponent's control and has no colors not in your Commander's color identity. The named God gives you an Ordeal. Activate this ability only if you control your Commander and there are no ordeals in your command zone, and only when you could cast a Sorcery.
Each player starts with one of these. How are you "Given an Ordeal?" Well it's fairly simple. You reveal cards from the top of the Ordeal deck until you reveal an Ordeal with that God's name as its type, and put it that ordeal into your Command Zone and the rest on the bottom of the Ordeal deck in any order.
The Ordeal deck consists of, well, Ordeals, a new card type similar to Conspiracies in that they go in the Command Zone. Unlike Conspiracies, each Ordeal card has Vanishing -- and when the last time counter is removed,it goes onto the bottom of the Ordeal deck. Each Ordeal has at least one God's name listed as its type, but many have two or even three. More importantly, each one either gives you a reward for fulfilling a certain condition before the last time counter is removed, or has a way to add time counters and provides a reward for reaching a certain number of counters. These rewards can be anything from land ramp to attaching an Aura to your Commander to putting a God onto the battlefield -- or even something more esoteric.
Beyond that, an additional rule is that players are not allowed to play with the Theros Gods in their decks or as their Commander (Mainly because allowing this would vastly complicate the rules text). There are also a few rules that are under provisional consideration:
If a player controls a God, they must pay X mana in that god's colors at the beginning of each of their Upkeep steps, where X is that God's devotion requirement minus the controlling player's devotion to that God's colors.
and
Players cannot play with a Commander of CMC 2 or less.
I'll be playing both with and without those rules when I playtest this weekend to see whether or not they're necessary.
Beyond that, I'm hoping to have a larger number of Ordeals by the time I playtest, with each God's name appearing a set number of times (My current thought is that each mono-colored God will show up on 7 cards while each multi-colored shows up on 5, but I may want to go larger than that). I've also considered the possibility of custom Commanders that interact with Ordeals, but I figure that something like that should wait until after I've seen how this variant plays.
I've been using Magic Multiverse to put together the cards, so rather than post them in the thread I will simply direct you to
the Cardlist found here. Wording is a bit sloppy due to being a draft, and some of them have... wordiness issues, but overall I feel they're presentable. Please feel free to tell me your thoughts, or even any ideas you might have!
The Sengir ability is has appeared on Predator Ooze and modified on Trophy Hunter. It flavorfully fits in green and there is nothing wrong mechanically. Giving the ability to other creatures should probably be worderd like Vampiric Sliver though.
Creatures you control have "Whenever a creature dealt damage by this creature this turn dies, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature."
Well, I did say that there was nothing wrong with it mechanically... it does go in green just fine.
Flavor-wise, it's just that it's usually flavored as them eating or taking trophies from what they hit, which might not fit Creedmor's intentions. Mechanics-wise, putting the counter on first is stronger than putting it on afterward. And text-wise, it just reads better.
But as you say, there's no actual need to change it. It was just something to consider.
Though, uh, the way you worded that ability kind of changes what the card does, since it would give them counters from more than just the fighting. Though it does smooth out the phrasing a good bit as well, I'll admit.
Hm, most people associate the kill--> place a counter ability with black.
While that's fine, I think it would be more green-seeming and more legendary-feeling if you placed the counter first -- i.e., "at the beginning of Combat on your turn, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control. Then, that creature fights target creature you don't control."
Just my opinion, however; how it is now is also fine. I don't think either version could be called "better" in any meaningful way, I just think that this version would feel a bit more Gruul.
Speaking of flavor, have you seen the (translated) flavor text? That's not something that would represent a U/x dragon at all. I would expect plenty of planning, scheming and cunning.
Can't speak for the rest, but as someone on a different forum told me, "It's showing that the dragons are beyond the backstabbing and plotting of the Sultai who venerate and fight them. He just knows better that to plot and connive. I choose to believe he would speak very high and haughty, but then point out how he doesn't need to be smarter than you if you're not a dragon, because he can eat you."
Not really sure if that works, but it's the best I've got.
Kaza, Lord of Eternal War 3RWB
Legendary Creature -- Human Warrior
Vigilance
At the start of your first postcombat main phase, each player returns all creatures in their graveyard that died this turn to the battlefield. Those creatures gain haste and frenzy 2 until end of turn. After this main phase, there's an additional combat phase followed by an additional main phase.
6/4
Note that it does not untap creatures before starting the next combat phase. As a result, the only creatures that can participate in the second combat are ones that either have vigilance or died that turn (Since they come back in untapped and with haste).
Udezi, Maw of Monsters 4RUG
Legendary Creature -- Mutant Horror
If a non-artifact creature dealt damage by Udezi, Maw of Monsters this turn would die, exile it instead. RUG: Put a token onto the battlefield that is a copy of a creature exiled by Udezi, except it has 1 toughness and "this creature attacks each turn if able."
6/6
Originally this one could also regenerate for 2G, but it made the card a bit crowded so I took it out. I think it feels a bit less green that way though.
Akuz, Sealer of Contracts 2GWB
Legendary Creature -- Snake Cleric
Whenever an enchanted creature you control dies, you lose 4 life and return that creature to the battlefield. If you do, return an aura card from your graveyard to the battlefield enchanting that creature at the beginning of the next end step. None shall escape their vows.
2/4
Yeah, GWB enchantments. The black comes in with making your own enchantments harder to get rid of, even when you want to get rid of them (Since black has trouble getting rid of its own enchantments). The original version also gave all enchantments you controlled Shroud, but I decided it was a bit much. I have considered adding "creatures that enter the battlefield this way don't cause abilities to trigger" to make it a bit harder to abuse, but I've decided against that for the moment as well.
Cruwzu, the Roiling Mire 2BUG
Legendary Creature -- Elemental Ooze
Whenever a card is returned to your hand from a graveyard, you may return target artifact or creature to its owner's hand.
Whenever Cruwzu, the Roiling Mire deals combat damage to a player, you may return an artifact, creature, or land card in a graveyard to its owner's hand.
4/6
I wonder if I made this too cheap...
Mutorius, Stoker of Anima 2RWU
Legendary Creature -- Human Wizard 1RWU: Put a fate counter on target artifact, creature, or enchantment.
Non-Land permanents with fate counters on them have "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 3 for each fate counter on this permanent. If you do not, exile this permanent then add RWU to your mana pool at the start of your next main phase.
4/3
This is probably the weakest of the five from a design perspective, in my opinion. While I like the effect, it's not as much of a "build around me" deal as the other 4, and I'm not really sure how blue it feels.
Anyway, that's my cycle of wedge legends. Fire away!
Common theory on some other places I've been And maybe here too? That stuff kinda blurs together) is that the other returning mechanic is Delve for the Sultai, which makes sense to me. Theorizing for a returning mechanic for Abzan is fine of course, it's by no means a set thing, but I personally find it more likely than a return for Undying (I seem to recall them saying something along the lines of having exhausted all of the design space there and they had no plans to use it again? I could be mistaken though, and it wouldn't mean that much considering that it was a few years ago).
Naming it "Ivorytusk Fortress" makes sense to me too -- Ivory is generally associated with elephants, so you can tell from the name alone that it's an Elephant, whereas if it was just "Tusk" people might think of boars or something. Doesn't make it a good name, but I get the reasoning.
It not having trample also makes sense to me. I mean, it's carrying fortifications on its back, that's got to be slowing it down enough that it has to stop to fight things instead of just blowing past them.
Also, D-Sphere requires blue. If white-black decks become a thing in Standard like some people are saying (I'm somewhat skeptical of this myself) then they'll have this option even with D-Sphere off the table.
Also, a lot of people have been complaining on other boards about how this is so much worse then O-Ring because you can't futz with the triggers to exile a card permanently. How often does that even come up, anyway?
Yep. There's also Curse of the Swine, if we're staying inside the Theros Block.
Keep in mind it works with Mono-target spells too, so it turns Lightning Strike into a bolt if you're hitting a creature instead of a player. And the effect stacks, so if you have 4 out and cast Fireball with multiple creature targets...
Lightning Seal R
Enchantment (C)
When ~ enters a graveyard from play, it deals 3 damage to target creature or player. 1R: Sacrifice ~.
Evoke 1R
Growth Seal G
Enchantment (C)
When ~ enters a graveyard from play, put two +1/+1 Counters on target creature. 1G: Sacrifice ~.
Evoke 1G
Malediction Seal B
Enchantment (C)
When ~ enters a graveyard from play, target player sacrifices a creature. 1B: Sacrifice ~.
Evoke 1B
Morphic Seal U
Enchantment (C)
When ~ enters a graveyard from play, target creature loses all abilities and becomes a 1/1 Blue Frog until end of turn. 1U: Sacrifice ~.
Evoke 1U
Champion Seal W
Enchantment (C)
When ~ enters a graveyard from play, target creature gains double strike until end of turn. 1W: Sacrifice ~.
Evoke 1W
One of the decisions I made when I started work on my "Asdrilane" set was to include Evoke, but only on Enchantments (As it is, of course, an Enchantment set). Above is a cycle of Evoke enchantments from that set, the cycle being the only cards with Evoke at Common. The idea behind this cycle is that you can either pay 2 mana to get the effect at sorcery speed with evoke, or you can pay a single colored mana now to play it for that cost at instant speed later, at the cost of your opponent seeing it coming. Of course, if you use one of the cards in the set that can sac enchantments...
Ah, okay! And I was unsure if I'd be able to use hybrid mana symbols in that context -- I'm glad to know that I can, it makes it a lot simpler. As for Kicker, I may end up using it in the set anyway but I'd prefer not to. Regarding the last bit, I wasn't sure if getting the boost went on the stack at the right time for it to work that way.
Anyway, thank you very much! You've been immensely helpful!
@Rhadamanthus: Yeah, I figured that I was getting something like the "trigger" part wrong. As for having 0 toughness, well... the basic concept this card started from was "Bestow Creature with zero toughness," so...
@Thought Criminal: The problem with your phrasing for the first card is that it doesn't account for the cost or the scaling. So with it as intended, it would come out to "When ~ comes into play, you may pay any amount of mana. For every RG, RR, or GG paid this way, if it's an Aura, enchanted creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Otherwise, if ~ is a creature, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn for each RG, RR, or GG paid this way." Or something. And the latter part may need to say "enters play with +2/+2" to prevent it from dying when cast as a creature.
Your phrasing for the second card is perfect though. Thanks again!
I'm asking about two cards here, which are unrelated except for both being hybrid-cost enchantment creatures, so I guess my first question is whether that's actually allowed...
Anyway, here's the first problem card.
Thundrous Savagery
Enchantment Creature -- Elemental
Haste, Bestow 1
When ~ comes into play, you may pay any amount of mana. For every RG, RR, or GG paid this way, ~ enters play with +2/+2 until end of turn or enchanted creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0 and Haste.
2/0
I get the feeling that Multikicker doesn't play well with bestow, so I ruled that out as an option (And Kicker doesn't really work well with the custom set I'm trying to put together with these cards). I'm also uncertain of the validity of a creature entering play with something until end of turn rather than getting an effect until end of turn upon entering play, but I wasn't sure how else to make sure that it got the toughness boost before it died from 0 toughness. And of course, there's the clunky wording of the ability...
Anyway, my second question is about this card's keyword:
Melj Slime
Enchantment Creature -- Ooze
Reshape 3 (When you cast an enchantment or creature spell, you may exile this permanent to reduce its cost by UUU or GGG. You may only activate one Reshape trigger in response to a spell being cast) "It is not one thing or another, but may become both or either... What was once defined is now a roiling mass of potential."
2/3
The idea here is that the keyword appears on something shapeless that may be used as base material for something more defined. It shows up on either non-aura enchantments or on Oozes and Elementals, and it allows you to exile the keyworded card to reduce the cost of a spell of the same type by a color of mana in the keyworded card's cost. Having it work this way makes a hybrid mana cost and being an enchantment creature relevant (As it allows it to be reshaped into either of two colors and two different card types).
I'm fairly certain the phrasing's wrong, and I'm not entirely sure it's workable as written (or at all).
Remember those special "Hero" cards that you got with the Theros Pre-Release stuff? Well, one of the major components of this variant is a Hero card:
Each player starts with one of these. How are you "Given an Ordeal?" Well it's fairly simple. You reveal cards from the top of the Ordeal deck until you reveal an Ordeal with that God's name as its type, and put it that ordeal into your Command Zone and the rest on the bottom of the Ordeal deck in any order.
The Ordeal deck consists of, well, Ordeals, a new card type similar to Conspiracies in that they go in the Command Zone. Unlike Conspiracies, each Ordeal card has Vanishing -- and when the last time counter is removed,it goes onto the bottom of the Ordeal deck. Each Ordeal has at least one God's name listed as its type, but many have two or even three. More importantly, each one either gives you a reward for fulfilling a certain condition before the last time counter is removed, or has a way to add time counters and provides a reward for reaching a certain number of counters. These rewards can be anything from land ramp to attaching an Aura to your Commander to putting a God onto the battlefield -- or even something more esoteric.
Beyond that, an additional rule is that players are not allowed to play with the Theros Gods in their decks or as their Commander (Mainly because allowing this would vastly complicate the rules text). There are also a few rules that are under provisional consideration:
- If a player controls a God, they must pay X mana in that god's colors at the beginning of each of their Upkeep steps, where X is that God's devotion requirement minus the controlling player's devotion to that God's colors.
andI'll be playing both with and without those rules when I playtest this weekend to see whether or not they're necessary.
Beyond that, I'm hoping to have a larger number of Ordeals by the time I playtest, with each God's name appearing a set number of times (My current thought is that each mono-colored God will show up on 7 cards while each multi-colored shows up on 5, but I may want to go larger than that). I've also considered the possibility of custom Commanders that interact with Ordeals, but I figure that something like that should wait until after I've seen how this variant plays.
I've been using Magic Multiverse to put together the cards, so rather than post them in the thread I will simply direct you to
the Cardlist found here. Wording is a bit sloppy due to being a draft, and some of them have... wordiness issues, but overall I feel they're presentable. Please feel free to tell me your thoughts, or even any ideas you might have!
...Huh. Somehow I missed that.
In that case... yeah, my version would probably be worse. Whoops.
Uh, carry on, then.
Well, I did say that there was nothing wrong with it mechanically... it does go in green just fine.
Flavor-wise, it's just that it's usually flavored as them eating or taking trophies from what they hit, which might not fit Creedmor's intentions. Mechanics-wise, putting the counter on first is stronger than putting it on afterward. And text-wise, it just reads better.
But as you say, there's no actual need to change it. It was just something to consider.
Though, uh, the way you worded that ability kind of changes what the card does, since it would give them counters from more than just the fighting. Though it does smooth out the phrasing a good bit as well, I'll admit.
While that's fine, I think it would be more green-seeming and more legendary-feeling if you placed the counter first -- i.e., "at the beginning of Combat on your turn, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control. Then, that creature fights target creature you don't control."
Just my opinion, however; how it is now is also fine. I don't think either version could be called "better" in any meaningful way, I just think that this version would feel a bit more Gruul.
Can't speak for the rest, but as someone on a different forum told me, "It's showing that the dragons are beyond the backstabbing and plotting of the Sultai who venerate and fight them. He just knows better that to plot and connive. I choose to believe he would speak very high and haughty, but then point out how he doesn't need to be smarter than you if you're not a dragon, because he can eat you."
Not really sure if that works, but it's the best I've got.
Note that it does not untap creatures before starting the next combat phase. As a result, the only creatures that can participate in the second combat are ones that either have vigilance or died that turn (Since they come back in untapped and with haste).
Originally this one could also regenerate for 2G, but it made the card a bit crowded so I took it out. I think it feels a bit less green that way though.
Yeah, GWB enchantments. The black comes in with making your own enchantments harder to get rid of, even when you want to get rid of them (Since black has trouble getting rid of its own enchantments). The original version also gave all enchantments you controlled Shroud, but I decided it was a bit much. I have considered adding "creatures that enter the battlefield this way don't cause abilities to trigger" to make it a bit harder to abuse, but I've decided against that for the moment as well.
I wonder if I made this too cheap...
This is probably the weakest of the five from a design perspective, in my opinion. While I like the effect, it's not as much of a "build around me" deal as the other 4, and I'm not really sure how blue it feels.
Anyway, that's my cycle of wedge legends. Fire away!
Naming it "Ivorytusk Fortress" makes sense to me too -- Ivory is generally associated with elephants, so you can tell from the name alone that it's an Elephant, whereas if it was just "Tusk" people might think of boars or something. Doesn't make it a good name, but I get the reasoning.
It not having trample also makes sense to me. I mean, it's carrying fortifications on its back, that's got to be slowing it down enough that it has to stop to fight things instead of just blowing past them.
Also, a lot of people have been complaining on other boards about how this is so much worse then O-Ring because you can't futz with the triggers to exile a card permanently. How often does that even come up, anyway?
Keep in mind it works with Mono-target spells too, so it turns Lightning Strike into a bolt if you're hitting a creature instead of a player. And the effect stacks, so if you have 4 out and cast Fireball with multiple creature targets...
Combos hilariously with Gridlock, among other spells. Seems like a pretty amazing card all around.
One of the decisions I made when I started work on my "Asdrilane" set was to include Evoke, but only on Enchantments (As it is, of course, an Enchantment set). Above is a cycle of Evoke enchantments from that set, the cycle being the only cards with Evoke at Common. The idea behind this cycle is that you can either pay 2 mana to get the effect at sorcery speed with evoke, or you can pay a single colored mana now to play it for that cost at instant speed later, at the cost of your opponent seeing it coming. Of course, if you use one of the cards in the set that can sac enchantments...
Anyway, please let me know what you think!
Anyway, thank you very much! You've been immensely helpful!
@Rhadamanthus: Yeah, I figured that I was getting something like the "trigger" part wrong. As for having 0 toughness, well... the basic concept this card started from was "Bestow Creature with zero toughness," so...
@Thought Criminal: The problem with your phrasing for the first card is that it doesn't account for the cost or the scaling. So with it as intended, it would come out to "When ~ comes into play, you may pay any amount of mana. For every RG, RR, or GG paid this way, if it's an Aura, enchanted creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Otherwise, if ~ is a creature, it gets +2/+2 until end of turn for each RG, RR, or GG paid this way." Or something. And the latter part may need to say "enters play with +2/+2" to prevent it from dying when cast as a creature.
Your phrasing for the second card is perfect though. Thanks again!
Anyway, here's the first problem card.
I get the feeling that Multikicker doesn't play well with bestow, so I ruled that out as an option (And Kicker doesn't really work well with the custom set I'm trying to put together with these cards). I'm also uncertain of the validity of a creature entering play with something until end of turn rather than getting an effect until end of turn upon entering play, but I wasn't sure how else to make sure that it got the toughness boost before it died from 0 toughness. And of course, there's the clunky wording of the ability...
Anyway, my second question is about this card's keyword:
The idea here is that the keyword appears on something shapeless that may be used as base material for something more defined. It shows up on either non-aura enchantments or on Oozes and Elementals, and it allows you to exile the keyworded card to reduce the cost of a spell of the same type by a color of mana in the keyworded card's cost. Having it work this way makes a hybrid mana cost and being an enchantment creature relevant (As it allows it to be reshaped into either of two colors and two different card types).
I'm fairly certain the phrasing's wrong, and I'm not entirely sure it's workable as written (or at all).