Looking at the results of games, turn-three wins are frequent for Storm, contrary to the DCI's stated goals for the format. The DCI looked for a card that was very important to the turn-three wins but not one of the cards that make this deck unique. We decided Seething Song is the best choice. Even with no other mana acceleration, one can cast Seething Song on turn three and it gives a net acceleration of +2 mana. While there are other options for fast mana, none appear as efficient and reliable on turn three as Seething Song.
It sounds like they didn't want to nuke any of the real power cards like Past in Flames. Regardless, Ritual of Chaos specifically avoids the turn 3 kill, which is what they were worried about.
Mortimoeba 1B
Creature - Illusion (R)
Whenever ~ is put into a graveyard from anywhere, you may discard a card. If you don't, you lose 3 life. 1BB: Return ~ and another target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. Play this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
1/1
Lingering Lightning is insanely OP. Getting to choose between Lava Spike or unconditional Searing Blaze is already bonkers and this is even better. A huge part of what balances Searing Blaze (which on the surface is 6 damage for 2 mana) is that if your opponent has no creature and you just want to deal 3 to the face, your burn spell gets stuck in your hand. Getting to just convert it to a Lava Spike whenever this comes up is really good. Lava spike with kicker to deal 3 to a creature would be OP enough, but this is even better because you don't have to commit to lava spiking your opponent and possibly miss out on the creature kill later. Once you have an open red and play this, it just gets to sit in play and wait until you might need an uncountable lightning bolt to a creature that doesn't cost a card.
Lingering Sadness is very good, but might not be too good. It is pretty good to just be able to get a backup bounce effect that can net you a ton of mana advantage after you already played a card that is a fine counterspell on it's own.
-Make assemble have a mana cost as part of the activation.
Assemble (1, Return a non-token creature you control to its owner's hand: Create a token that is a copy of this artifact.)
-Force the creature you bounce to be a "Rigger" (and obviously don't print any 0 mana riggers):
Assemble (Return a Rigger creature you control to its owner's hand: Create a token that is a copy of this artifact.)
-Make assemble create blank tokens that have nothing but a name. This does mean you can still create infinite bounce and infinite assemble triggers, which limits other cards you could pair up with this.
Assemble (Return a non-token creature you control to its owner's hand: Create an artifact token with no abilities with the same name as this artifact.)
Also, this effect should be sorcery speed regardless, because otherwise your creatures can dodge all removal which is pretty insane.
EDIT: Just noticed my second idea also allows for infinite artifacts to sac for a Disciple combo or something which is also a problem.
Other idea is to add a tap to the cost.
IMO the way to do this is either with only riggers able to assemble contraptions, or with multiple costs/drawbacks. It seems like if you can use any creature that even 1 drawback still creates pretty insane abuse potential.
The closest comparison to Prisoner Swap is Condemn. It's pretty tough to say which is better, obviously because you can target blockers with Prisoner Swap.
Ceremonial Dagger seems really powerful, probably broken. It would really require the stars to align for a deck with evasion and demons to actually work (and to want an equipment) but if that ever happened this would be insanely broken.
Heretic 1BB
Creature - Human Cleric (U) T: Put 2 -1/-1 counters on target creature you control and 2 -1/-1 counters on target creature you don't control.
2/2
The number of cards that, without additional help, untap all of your lands is so small that it shouldn't be a deterrent for this effect. Even the combo you sited doesn't work because Early Harvest only untaps basics.
Oh yeah I guess I should actually read the cards I remember from 10 years ago. In my mind Heartbeat was the card with the basic restriction.
About lands that don't tap for mana:
You are allowed to occasionally break your rules. I actually thought about this when I was first trying to flesh out the mechanic and didn't think it was the right time to break this rule:
-If any lands can tap for mana, you still have to balance them as though a player will only use expanse for the mana. Therefore you still need the 1 ability per 2 turns effect.
-If a player wants to make an expanse deck where they have some mana producers and some expanse lands that do something different, they could get the exact same effects by just playing a regular land and a spell that does the non-mana effect they wanted anyway, and not have to deal with drawing the right cards and having their land only activate half of their turns. Mana manipulation and possibly combo cards like Seedborn Muse to get a degenerate mana engine I think is the main payoff to filling your deck with these strange lands.
-This effect is already stretching the definition of lands. I don't think the right time to break a rock solid mtg rule is to fix a mechanic that already bends the rules. If that's the only way to make it work (which I don't think it is) the mechanic just shouldn't be used either way.
I have been thinking a lot about sticking Trek on a creature, whether or not there are manaless expanses. I think I like it, and it's actually interesting if the creature still has the drawback that it skips an untap step when it attacks. I think you could really get some wackiness with creatures that accelerate your mana and area also statted fairly well. One issue is that the lands have to trigger on being played, so that means that the Trek ability on a creature is uncounterable. Another fairly minor issue is that if a creature has Trek, the best way to play it is as a blocker, which is the opposite of trekking.
A simple idea for a trek creature:
Aven Explorer 2U
Creature - Bird Wizard (U)
Trek (When you play this permanent, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this permanentbecomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
Flying
3/3
You could also avoid all the weirdness by unkeywording the creature effect:
Aven Journeyman 2U
Creature - Bird Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.
Flying
2/1
Based on all of your advice, I'd like the ability to be:
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
A possible problem with this is that it's ambiguous if the "doesn't untap" clause would apply to a land that comes into play tapped (my intent is that it would untap on your first untap step, but I don't think that's 100% clear). The slightly safer way to go is: "Whenever you activate an ability on ~, ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step," as user_938036 suggested. I also don't think I want to give these basic land types, because I still want to have cards that tap for colorless, and also I think functionally that makes a land more complicated because you suddenly start caring about weird interactions. I don't think tap for color is a barrier to understanding.
Something I'm still trying to figure out is if there's any way I can make a common one of these lands that still does something other than produce mana. Some attempts:
Remote Caldera
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add R to your mana pool. 1R, T, Sacrifice ~: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Remote Crag
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add R to your mana pool. R, T, Sacrifice ~: Target creature can't block this turn.
Remote Spring
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, scry 1. T: Add U to your mana pool.
Regarding the Seedborn Muse effect, I'm pretty torn. I think Seedborn Muse specifically would be extremely powerful, because it would essentially triple the effect of the lands. Early Harvest is probably even worse because you basically get the same effect as Early Harvest/Heartbeat of Spring. Although when that combo was in standard it wasn't too broken. I guess it's a question of if there's something to use all your mana on, and if it's clunkier to play Heartbeat or to dedicate a ton of deckslots to lands. I think this also encourages the sac effects idea, because it prevents getting degenerate combos just from your lands. I don't think it's necessary as long as you don't have the combination of mass untap and enough degenerate draw mechanics to fuel a combo.
I'm actually envisioning this mechanic in a land based set that will have a lot of 1 time untap land effects (such as 3U sorcery, draw 2 cards, untap a land). I think this has a pretty similar effect on an Expanse as it would on a normal land, as long as the tap effects are worth the same or less than a normal land's untap. One thing I worry about is that BlackTempleGaurdian's fix is pretty tough to understand - it sort of sounds like it can't untap until you get to your next untap step, but then it untaps immediately.
Another thing I was thinking about is making these lands that have abilities that cause them to get bounced. The main problem with this is that bouncing is almost less of a drawback than tapping for these lands. Not sure if these are a good addition or not
Remote Waterfall
Land - Expanse (R)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add U to your mana pool. 2U, T, Return ~ to it's owner's hand: Return target creature to it's owner's hand.
I'm trying to think of a land mechanic that encourages the player to play tons and tons of lands in their deck (and want to actually play them, not just use them for cascading or whatever). I think the best way to do this is to let the player play a certain type of land for "free" (i.e. get a second land drop) but have the land be much worse than a basic.
This is my first reasonable attempt that doesn't just look like a mox:
Remote Desert
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.) T: Add C to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Remote Ridge
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add R to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step. 1R, T: ~ deals 1 damage to target creature. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Remote Eddy
Land - Expanse (U)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add U to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step. 4U, T: Draw a card. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Remote Citadel
Land - Expanse (R)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add C to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step. 1, T: Untap target land. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Could this work? Are there improvements you would make to this mechanic, or are there other mechanics that could achieve a similar effect?
The card should limit the effect to a certain number of cards. Your drawback of exiling everything isn't that relevant with a combo card this powerful - there won't be a next turn where it matters. Also, if you're going to use that drawback, you should state that the cards you cast with Reprisal also get exiled if they go to the grave.
I think this effect is fine in red even if it's non-random. I think it should probably limit the target to a non-creature, because black has reanimation as such a core part of it's identity. It might be more interesting to think of less crazy effects especially if you are just trying to prove that the effect could feel red in principle.
I think you can basically balance these on the assumption that the caster wants to discard. There are definitely decks that would rather play a Displacement than an Into the Void.
Out of curiosity, why is this only in blue? I could definitely see it in any grixis color.
The exile a card clause on Altar of Death doesn't work as intended. Because it isn't a cost, if you had an infinite damage combo, you could keep dealing damage even after you had no library and you would never play it so that you could accidentally draw a card before you kill your opponent. Even if you made it "Sac a creature, exile a card: Each opponent loses 1 life" you would still in most cases allow for a kill combo if you generate infinite creature sacrifice, because players usually will have less life than you have cards in library.
I think if you want to cost Lendara that aggressively, you should make it a tap ability to use one of the modes until end of turn. This gives your opponent a chance to respond in a fair way. The way it works now, there's way too much potential to generate a single combo turn where you play that and a bunch of other cards in a single turn, and even if you play it "fair" it's too easy to just make your opponent's best removal cost 1 more, making the response to this really inefficient and possibly always a turn slow (the turn you play it, you force your opponent's answer to be too expensive to play the next turn, and then you take a huge turn when you untap with it, and by the time your opponent has the answer online, there's multiple threats to use it on).
@Ruggley thanks for the kind and helpful response!
Rhys: Not sure if this is what you mean but it's a bit weird that the reinforce cost is more expensive than the actual planeswalker despite obviously being the less splashy and fun way to play it. I think if the planeswalker was just more expensive and spashier it would be OK.
Borborygmos: I was imagining it working the same way as Sunburst. Otherwise I could just not keyword it. I don't think it's too wordy.
Svogthos: Not sure if I indicated this clearly enough, but the ultimate is supposed to -3 and then count the remaining loyalty (so if it was at 4, you could -3 and return a 1 mana creature to play). I did this because I wanted a minus effect that felt like and ultimate, but wouldn't encourage you to intentionally destroy your own Svogthos as much as possible and then dredge it back. If it was just -X, you could play it, immediately kill it to return a guy, dredge this back, play it again and repeat.
I think a bigger problem with this card is that the +1 ability doesn't do much if you already have 5 mana, and especially doesn't do a lot if you've spent several turns dredging and whatnot, so I think I should change that one.
Esperia: Yeah looking at it again, I think it should cost -4.
I decided to come up with some planeswalkers that had keyworded abilities that allowed them to either supplement the normal loyalty abilities or provide a completely different option. I put only 2 loyalty abilities on them because there's already enough complexity with the keywords. For Borborygmos and Svogthos I tried to make the minus ability feel like it could either be an ultimate or a "second ability" on a typical planeswalker.
Rhys Purified 3GG
Planeswalker - Rhys
Reinforce 3 - 3G
+2: Create 2 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature tokens.
-7: Search your library for a Green creature card, reveal it and put it onto the battlefield.
3
Original:
Rhys Purified 1GG
Planeswalker - Rhys
Reinforce 3 - 3G
+1: Create a 1/1 green Elf Warrior token.
-5: You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.
3
Borborygmos Bezerking 1RG
Planeswalker - Borborygmos
Bloodthirst 2 (If an opponent was dealt damage this turn, this planeswalker enters the battlefield with 2 extra loyalty counters on it.)
+1: ~ deals 1 damage to each opponent.
-X: Creatures you control get +X/+X until end of turn.
1
Svogthos Arisen 1BBG
Planeswalker - Svogthos
Dredge 3
+1: You may exile target creature card from your graveyard. If you do, put a 1/1 Green and Black plant zombie creature token onto the battlefield.
-3: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield if it's converted mana cost is less than or equal to the number of loyalty counters on ~.
3
Original:
Svogthos Arisen 3BG
Planeswalker - Svogthos
Dredge 3
+1: You may return target land card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
-3: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield if it's converted mana cost is less than or equal to the number of loyalty counters on ~.
3
Isperia Ambivalent 2WW
Planeswalker - Isperia
Forecast — 4U, Reveal ~ from your hand: Return target creature to it's owner's hand.
+1: Creature spells your opponent casts cost 1 more to cast next turn.
-4: Exile target creature.
2
Original:
Isperia Ambivalent 2WW
Planeswalker - Isperia
Forecast — 4U, Reveal ~ from your hand: Return target creature to it's owner's hand.
+1: Creature spells your opponent casts cost 1 more to cast next turn.
-3: Exile target creature.
2
Looking at the results of games, turn-three wins are frequent for Storm, contrary to the DCI's stated goals for the format. The DCI looked for a card that was very important to the turn-three wins but not one of the cards that make this deck unique. We decided Seething Song is the best choice. Even with no other mana acceleration, one can cast Seething Song on turn three and it gives a net acceleration of +2 mana. While there are other options for fast mana, none appear as efficient and reliable on turn three as Seething Song.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/january-28-2013-dci-banned-restricted-list-announcement-2013-01-28
It sounds like they didn't want to nuke any of the real power cards like Past in Flames. Regardless, Ritual of Chaos specifically avoids the turn 3 kill, which is what they were worried about.
Creature - Illusion (R)
Whenever ~ is put into a graveyard from anywhere, you may discard a card. If you don't, you lose 3 life.
1BB: Return ~ and another target creature card from your graveyard to your hand. Play this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
1/1
Lingering Sadness is very good, but might not be too good. It is pretty good to just be able to get a backup bounce effect that can net you a ton of mana advantage after you already played a card that is a fine counterspell on it's own.
Concept is really cool though.
-Make assemble have a mana cost as part of the activation.
Assemble (1, Return a non-token creature you control to its owner's hand: Create a token that is a copy of this artifact.)
-Force the creature you bounce to be a "Rigger" (and obviously don't print any 0 mana riggers):
Assemble (Return a Rigger creature you control to its owner's hand: Create a token that is a copy of this artifact.)
-Make assemble create blank tokens that have nothing but a name. This does mean you can still create infinite bounce and infinite assemble triggers, which limits other cards you could pair up with this.
Assemble (Return a non-token creature you control to its owner's hand: Create an artifact token with no abilities with the same name as this artifact.)
Also, this effect should be sorcery speed regardless, because otherwise your creatures can dodge all removal which is pretty insane.
EDIT: Just noticed my second idea also allows for infinite artifacts to sac for a Disciple combo or something which is also a problem.
Other idea is to add a tap to the cost.
IMO the way to do this is either with only riggers able to assemble contraptions, or with multiple costs/drawbacks. It seems like if you can use any creature that even 1 drawback still creates pretty insane abuse potential.
Heretic 1BB
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
T: Put 2 -1/-1 counters on target creature you control and 2 -1/-1 counters on target creature you don't control.
2/2
About lands that don't tap for mana:
You are allowed to occasionally break your rules. I actually thought about this when I was first trying to flesh out the mechanic and didn't think it was the right time to break this rule:
-If any lands can tap for mana, you still have to balance them as though a player will only use expanse for the mana. Therefore you still need the 1 ability per 2 turns effect.
-If a player wants to make an expanse deck where they have some mana producers and some expanse lands that do something different, they could get the exact same effects by just playing a regular land and a spell that does the non-mana effect they wanted anyway, and not have to deal with drawing the right cards and having their land only activate half of their turns. Mana manipulation and possibly combo cards like Seedborn Muse to get a degenerate mana engine I think is the main payoff to filling your deck with these strange lands.
-This effect is already stretching the definition of lands. I don't think the right time to break a rock solid mtg rule is to fix a mechanic that already bends the rules. If that's the only way to make it work (which I don't think it is) the mechanic just shouldn't be used either way.
I have been thinking a lot about sticking Trek on a creature, whether or not there are manaless expanses. I think I like it, and it's actually interesting if the creature still has the drawback that it skips an untap step when it attacks. I think you could really get some wackiness with creatures that accelerate your mana and area also statted fairly well. One issue is that the lands have to trigger on being played, so that means that the Trek ability on a creature is uncounterable. Another fairly minor issue is that if a creature has Trek, the best way to play it is as a blocker, which is the opposite of trekking.
A simple idea for a trek creature:
Aven Explorer 2U
Creature - Bird Wizard (U)
Trek (When you play this permanent, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this permanentbecomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
Flying
3/3
You could also avoid all the weirdness by unkeywording the creature effect:
Aven Journeyman 2U
Creature - Bird Wizard (U)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.
Flying
2/1
Based on all of your advice, I'd like the ability to be:
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
A possible problem with this is that it's ambiguous if the "doesn't untap" clause would apply to a land that comes into play tapped (my intent is that it would untap on your first untap step, but I don't think that's 100% clear). The slightly safer way to go is: "Whenever you activate an ability on ~, ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step," as user_938036 suggested. I also don't think I want to give these basic land types, because I still want to have cards that tap for colorless, and also I think functionally that makes a land more complicated because you suddenly start caring about weird interactions. I don't think tap for color is a barrier to understanding.
Something I'm still trying to figure out is if there's any way I can make a common one of these lands that still does something other than produce mana. Some attempts:
Remote Caldera
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add R to your mana pool.
1R, T, Sacrifice ~: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Remote Crag
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add R to your mana pool.
R, T, Sacrifice ~: Target creature can't block this turn.
Remote Spring
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, scry 1.
T: Add U to your mana pool.
Regarding the Seedborn Muse effect, I'm pretty torn. I think Seedborn Muse specifically would be extremely powerful, because it would essentially triple the effect of the lands. Early Harvest is probably even worse because you basically get the same effect as Early Harvest/Heartbeat of Spring. Although when that combo was in standard it wasn't too broken. I guess it's a question of if there's something to use all your mana on, and if it's clunkier to play Heartbeat or to dedicate a ton of deckslots to lands. I think this also encourages the sac effects idea, because it prevents getting degenerate combos just from your lands. I don't think it's necessary as long as you don't have the combination of mass untap and enough degenerate draw mechanics to fuel a combo.
I'm actually envisioning this mechanic in a land based set that will have a lot of 1 time untap land effects (such as 3U sorcery, draw 2 cards, untap a land). I think this has a pretty similar effect on an Expanse as it would on a normal land, as long as the tap effects are worth the same or less than a normal land's untap. One thing I worry about is that BlackTempleGaurdian's fix is pretty tough to understand - it sort of sounds like it can't untap until you get to your next untap step, but then it untaps immediately.
Another thing I was thinking about is making these lands that have abilities that cause them to get bounced. The main problem with this is that bouncing is almost less of a drawback than tapping for these lands. Not sure if these are a good addition or not
Remote Waterfall
Land - Expanse (R)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield. Whenever this land becomes tapped, it doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add U to your mana pool.
2U, T, Return ~ to it's owner's hand: Return target creature to it's owner's hand.
This is my first reasonable attempt that doesn't just look like a mox:
Remote Desert
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.)
T: Add C to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Remote Ridge
Land - Expanse (C)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add R to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
1R, T: ~ deals 1 damage to target creature. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Remote Eddy
Land - Expanse (U)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add U to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
4U, T: Draw a card. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Remote Citadel
Land - Expanse (R)
Trek (When you play this land, you may put an Expanse land card from your hand onto the battlefield.)
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add C to your mana pool. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
1, T: Untap target land. ~ doesn't untap during your next untap step.
Could this work? Are there improvements you would make to this mechanic, or are there other mechanics that could achieve a similar effect?
I think this effect is fine in red even if it's non-random. I think it should probably limit the target to a non-creature, because black has reanimation as such a core part of it's identity. It might be more interesting to think of less crazy effects especially if you are just trying to prove that the effect could feel red in principle.
Out of curiosity, why is this only in blue? I could definitely see it in any grixis color.
I think if you want to cost Lendara that aggressively, you should make it a tap ability to use one of the modes until end of turn. This gives your opponent a chance to respond in a fair way. The way it works now, there's way too much potential to generate a single combo turn where you play that and a bunch of other cards in a single turn, and even if you play it "fair" it's too easy to just make your opponent's best removal cost 1 more, making the response to this really inefficient and possibly always a turn slow (the turn you play it, you force your opponent's answer to be too expensive to play the next turn, and then you take a huge turn when you untap with it, and by the time your opponent has the answer online, there's multiple threats to use it on).
Rhys: Not sure if this is what you mean but it's a bit weird that the reinforce cost is more expensive than the actual planeswalker despite obviously being the less splashy and fun way to play it. I think if the planeswalker was just more expensive and spashier it would be OK.
Borborygmos: I was imagining it working the same way as Sunburst. Otherwise I could just not keyword it. I don't think it's too wordy.
Svogthos: Not sure if I indicated this clearly enough, but the ultimate is supposed to -3 and then count the remaining loyalty (so if it was at 4, you could -3 and return a 1 mana creature to play). I did this because I wanted a minus effect that felt like and ultimate, but wouldn't encourage you to intentionally destroy your own Svogthos as much as possible and then dredge it back. If it was just -X, you could play it, immediately kill it to return a guy, dredge this back, play it again and repeat.
I think a bigger problem with this card is that the +1 ability doesn't do much if you already have 5 mana, and especially doesn't do a lot if you've spent several turns dredging and whatnot, so I think I should change that one.
Esperia: Yeah looking at it again, I think it should cost -4.
Rhys Purified 3GG
Planeswalker - Rhys
Reinforce 3 - 3G
+2: Create 2 1/1 green Elf Warrior creature tokens.
-7: Search your library for a Green creature card, reveal it and put it onto the battlefield.
3
Original:
Planeswalker - Rhys
Reinforce 3 - 3G
+1: Create a 1/1 green Elf Warrior token.
-5: You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield.
3
Borborygmos Bezerking 1RG
Planeswalker - Borborygmos
Bloodthirst 2 (If an opponent was dealt damage this turn, this planeswalker enters the battlefield with 2 extra loyalty counters on it.)
+1: ~ deals 1 damage to each opponent.
-X: Creatures you control get +X/+X until end of turn.
1
Svogthos Arisen 1BBG
Planeswalker - Svogthos
Dredge 3
+1: You may exile target creature card from your graveyard. If you do, put a 1/1 Green and Black plant zombie creature token onto the battlefield.
-3: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield if it's converted mana cost is less than or equal to the number of loyalty counters on ~.
3
Original:
Planeswalker - Svogthos
Dredge 3
+1: You may return target land card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
-3: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield if it's converted mana cost is less than or equal to the number of loyalty counters on ~.
3
Isperia Ambivalent 2WW
Planeswalker - Isperia
Forecast — 4U, Reveal ~ from your hand: Return target creature to it's owner's hand.
+1: Creature spells your opponent casts cost 1 more to cast next turn.
-4: Exile target creature.
2
Original:
Planeswalker - Isperia
Forecast — 4U, Reveal ~ from your hand: Return target creature to it's owner's hand.
+1: Creature spells your opponent casts cost 1 more to cast next turn.
-3: Exile target creature.
2