A planeswalker that has not-so-broken abilities but at lower rarity, can add another dimension to Draft and Sealed, as well as let the more casual player play with 4x Planeswalker if they like.
Thought:
Garruk, the Beast Sculptor 2GG
Planeswalker - Garruk
Loyalty: 3
+2: Target creature become a color of your choice until end of turn.
0: Add G to your mana pool.
-1: You gain 1 life.
-12: For the rest of the game, creatures you control have +3/+3 and trample.
Technically there's no reason that they couldn't do that, but you have to realize that when you make legendary stuff (and planeswalkers are that, in a sense) commonplace, you cheapen it and it becomes less special (see: Kamigawa). When you open a pack with a planeswalker in it, that's a big deal. If planeswalkers were common or uncommon, though, you'd get more of a jaded response from players. That's not good for marketing purposes, especially since Planeswalkers are a big part of how Wizards markets modern sets.
AEther Research1U
Enchantment (R) U, Return a creature you control and ~ their owners’ hands: Draw a card.
At first glance this didn't appear to be rare, but now that I look again I can see a whole lot of neat synergies that make this a powerful, if somewhat niche, card. Well done, IMO.
Tanglevine GardenGG
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a 0/1 green Plant creature token onto the battlefield. Then, if you control four or more green creatures, you may transform ~. Tanglevine Behemoth
Creature - Elemental
Trample
When ~ dies, return it to the battlefield.
5/3
(Wasn't completely sure what I was doing here.)
Nor was I, but I see nothing wrong with this, save one thing. I'd change the return to the battlefield clause, since it would cause confusion as to which side of the card returns, and it also enables infinite sacrifice loops, which are bad.
Gong of Conflict5
Artifact (R)
T: ~ deals damage equal to the number of cards in your hand to target creature. That creature deals damage equal to its power to you.
T: ~ deals damage equal to the number of cards in your hand to target player. Then ~ deals damage equal to the number of cards in that player’s hand to you.
Color pie violation, I'm afraid, particularly where Blue is concerned.
"Totally Not Lorthos"5UUU
Legendary Creature - Octopus (M)
Hexproof
At the beginning of each end step, if you control less than eight Tentacle tokens, put a 1/1 blue Tentacle creature token onto the battlefield for each token less than eight you control.
When ~ leaves the battlefield, exile all Tentacle tokens you control.
0/8
Me likey! Very flavorful, neat ability. It may be a smidge overpowered with the Hexproof and all, but when somebody makes an 8-mana mythic rare octopus, I would expect no less.
Each player loses life equal to half the number of permanents he or she controls (rounded up).
"I once fought a man who thought he was safe behind his plethora of trinkets. He was wrong." -Liliana
If I wanted to add this clause to it (just for fun), what should X be to be reasonable?
"If Liliana's Curse caused players to lose X or more life, you win the game."
I think anywhere from 50-100 would be reasonable considering that this thing is going to be used in multiplayer anyway. Probably 100, considering that it's an add-on to an already pretty good effect.
I foresee a lot of "Oh, Crap" moments when this is used in conjunction with a couple of the Join Forces cards from Commander.
I think you're getting a little too aggro with blue weenies, as Cowed Stowaway and Soldier of Solace both seem a bit too good for what Blue typically gets. If I see those two cards, I really want to play a blue aggro weenie deck, the problem is that that's not a strategy that the color typically supports (with the obvious exception of Merfolk, but that doesn't seem to be the route you're taking here), so it feels like you (the set designer) are pulling the rug out from under me.
Currently, some of those partaking in the CCL are trying to come up with a way to "Kill Garruk without him planeswalking away." Many of the approaches so far have been...lackluster. So here's my take, if anyone is looking for ideas.
Obsidian SoulbrandBBR
Creature- Devil {M} 1BBR, sacrifice Obsidian Soulbrand: destroy target permanent or emblem in the command zone. (B/R),T: Remove a counter from all cards in the command zone.
3/2 The wounds heal quickly, and the pain fades; but something will always be missing.
I wanted it to work beyond the challenge (Kill Garruk), and be highly inventive. My take on it was to FINALLY interact with the command zone. I was just frustrated by seeing cards that dealt damage to lands, artifacts, and enchantments by just saying "permanent." The mana cost on it is kinda restrictive, which I hope keeps it from breaking the "Utility mythic," rule. I also wanted a usable Commander creature, so I figured I would go the reverse route of Proliferate with Tax counters.
Broken? Useless? Worded wrong?
I was also confused by how to word the abilities. Are there plural command zones?
I'm confused by the first part of the first ability and I don't think the second part should exist at all.
Permanents don't exist in the Command Zone (AFAIK), cards do. What would destroying a card in the Command Zone DO, anyway? Are you proposing a card that would make people unable to ever play their commander? Because that sort of goes against the spirit of the format.
Likewise, part of the appeal of Emblems is that they can NEVER be touched by anything. Once they're active they can never be undone.
I like the second ability, though it doesn't feel particularly red or black, and it's very insular in that it's useless outside of Commander. Maybe you could have it remove a counter from every card in every zone, but that could be broken, I'm not sure.
Unfortunate Mutation 1UU
Instant
Target creature gets -4/-0 until end of turn.
Switch target creature's power and toughness until end of turn.
Purge from History 4U
Instant
Put target creature on top of its owner's library.
Target player puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
and a boardwipe:
Temporal Undoing 3UUU
Sorcery
Each player shuffles his or her hand, graveyard, and nonland permanents they own into his or her library, then draws seven cards.
I don't care for the first two, largely because there isn't an appreciable difference between what they do and traditional black removal. The first is at least a more clever attempt, but it still just reads "target creature gets -0/-4" to me most of the time, as that's clearly its optimal use most of the time.
The last card seems very undercosted to me, and it should most definitely exile itself on resolution, I think.
I don't have a good name for this yet, or a good cost, but here's some anyway:
Archmage of Expenses1UU
Creature - Human Wizard
All spells cost 6 to cast.
2/2
Is there another number that would make it more interesting?
I'm not sure if it's broken or not, but that would probably never see the light of day after seeing how Trinisphere screwed up Vintage. Slowing the game to a crawl is likely not the kind of effect that Wizards wants to show up in Standard.
I'm honestly not sure if there's a "fair" way to cost the ability- if you go too low, this will be used to fuel ridiculous combo decks. Cost it too high, and you enable prison to surface its ugly head from Eternal formats.
It doesn't destroy at all. The main issue with it is Pandemonium.
But creatures with protection, damage prevention, or enough toughness (a rarity, I know) avoid it all together, unlike wrath.
That's my point, though. It doesn't destroy all creatures in theory, but it very nearly does just that in practice.
There are 11 creatures that either have protection from green as a static ability or can easily gain protection from green.
Forget about indestructibles because they wouldn't be destroyed with a true wrath either.
There are 13 creatures with base toughness 11 or higher (excluding indestructible stuff and Death's Shadow)
Triple the number of protection creatures since I'm sure I'm not accounting for stuff that can gain protection from any color, or stuff that gains protection from the color of your choice. That gives us 56 creatures that can survive your green Wrath. 56 out of 6344 creatures printed thusfar. Admittedly my math is a bit fudged but I really don't want to invest that much time into this.
That's roughly .88%
Less than 1% of all creatures ever printed will survive this spell without any modifications, and I promise you, less than 50% OF that less-than-one-percent is actually playable. That's a wrath.
What your spell wants to read is this:
"~ deals 10 damage to each creature."
But it CAN'T read that, since green doesn't do direct damage, so you have to find a green way to say that. The problem is that that's somewhat missing the point. The flavor of the fight mechanic is to pit one of your creatures against your opponents', simulating how combat would work in the wild. It requires you to have at least one creature invested to the board to make it work. That's essential.
What you're proposing is to have a bunch of creatures flash onto the battlefield, deal damage with no real risk to themselves (they're just going to die anyway), then flash back out. Literally the only point of the creatures is to deal the fight damage. That's not a good use of the fight mechanic from a flavor standpoint because it's just a workaround designed to give green direct damage that it shouldn't have.
That said, I actually like that it interacts with Pandemonium and stuff like that. It's probably my favorite aspect of the card.
Gaea's Vengeance5GGG
Sorcery - {R}
For each creature on the battlefield, put a 10/10 green Elemental creature token with defender onto the battlefield, then those two creatures fight. At the beginning of the next end step exile all tokens created by Gaea's Vengeance.
// closest that I could ever see that happening.
That actually shares a problem I noticed in the OP's version. It destroys all creatures in play then jumps through hoops to convince you that no, in fact, all creatures have NOT been destroyed, they're just going to the graveyard/are no longer relevant as creatures for completely unrelated reasons.
It reminds me of that kid in fifth grade who got warned by the teacher to stop poking people, so he'd stick his finger a centimeter from your face and say "I'm not touching you!"
Kitchen Finks and Ashnod's Altar get you infinite life and infinite mana in this way.
I like the first one, the second one is overpowered IMO, and Black Lotus already has a land remake in the form of Lotus Vale
Technically there's no reason that they couldn't do that, but you have to realize that when you make legendary stuff (and planeswalkers are that, in a sense) commonplace, you cheapen it and it becomes less special (see: Kamigawa). When you open a pack with a planeswalker in it, that's a big deal. If planeswalkers were common or uncommon, though, you'd get more of a jaded response from players. That's not good for marketing purposes, especially since Planeswalkers are a big part of how Wizards markets modern sets.
Then I would probably explicitly state that, just to be sure there can be no confusion.
At first glance this didn't appear to be rare, but now that I look again I can see a whole lot of neat synergies that make this a powerful, if somewhat niche, card. Well done, IMO.
Nor was I, but I see nothing wrong with this, save one thing. I'd change the return to the battlefield clause, since it would cause confusion as to which side of the card returns, and it also enables infinite sacrifice loops, which are bad.
Color pie violation, I'm afraid, particularly where Blue is concerned.
Me likey! Very flavorful, neat ability. It may be a smidge overpowered with the Hexproof and all, but when somebody makes an 8-mana mythic rare octopus, I would expect no less.
I think anywhere from 50-100 would be reasonable considering that this thing is going to be used in multiplayer anyway. Probably 100, considering that it's an add-on to an already pretty good effect.
I foresee a lot of "Oh, Crap" moments when this is used in conjunction with a couple of the Join Forces cards from Commander.
I'm confused by the first part of the first ability and I don't think the second part should exist at all.
Permanents don't exist in the Command Zone (AFAIK), cards do. What would destroying a card in the Command Zone DO, anyway? Are you proposing a card that would make people unable to ever play their commander? Because that sort of goes against the spirit of the format.
Likewise, part of the appeal of Emblems is that they can NEVER be touched by anything. Once they're active they can never be undone.
I like the second ability, though it doesn't feel particularly red or black, and it's very insular in that it's useless outside of Commander. Maybe you could have it remove a counter from every card in every zone, but that could be broken, I'm not sure.
I don't care for the first two, largely because there isn't an appreciable difference between what they do and traditional black removal. The first is at least a more clever attempt, but it still just reads "target creature gets -0/-4" to me most of the time, as that's clearly its optimal use most of the time.
The last card seems very undercosted to me, and it should most definitely exile itself on resolution, I think.
I'm not sure if it's broken or not, but that would probably never see the light of day after seeing how Trinisphere screwed up Vintage. Slowing the game to a crawl is likely not the kind of effect that Wizards wants to show up in Standard.
I'm honestly not sure if there's a "fair" way to cost the ability- if you go too low, this will be used to fuel ridiculous combo decks. Cost it too high, and you enable prison to surface its ugly head from Eternal formats.
That honestly sounds like it's a bit too good considering what the OP had in mind.
That's my point, though. It doesn't destroy all creatures in theory, but it very nearly does just that in practice.
There are 11 creatures that either have protection from green as a static ability or can easily gain protection from green.
Forget about indestructibles because they wouldn't be destroyed with a true wrath either.
There are 13 creatures with base toughness 11 or higher (excluding indestructible stuff and Death's Shadow)
Triple the number of protection creatures since I'm sure I'm not accounting for stuff that can gain protection from any color, or stuff that gains protection from the color of your choice. That gives us 56 creatures that can survive your green Wrath. 56 out of 6344 creatures printed thusfar. Admittedly my math is a bit fudged but I really don't want to invest that much time into this.
That's roughly .88%
Less than 1% of all creatures ever printed will survive this spell without any modifications, and I promise you, less than 50% OF that less-than-one-percent is actually playable. That's a wrath.
What your spell wants to read is this:
"~ deals 10 damage to each creature."
But it CAN'T read that, since green doesn't do direct damage, so you have to find a green way to say that. The problem is that that's somewhat missing the point. The flavor of the fight mechanic is to pit one of your creatures against your opponents', simulating how combat would work in the wild. It requires you to have at least one creature invested to the board to make it work. That's essential.
What you're proposing is to have a bunch of creatures flash onto the battlefield, deal damage with no real risk to themselves (they're just going to die anyway), then flash back out. Literally the only point of the creatures is to deal the fight damage. That's not a good use of the fight mechanic from a flavor standpoint because it's just a workaround designed to give green direct damage that it shouldn't have.
That said, I actually like that it interacts with Pandemonium and stuff like that. It's probably my favorite aspect of the card.
Make that "Target any number of target permanents" and it's a narrow hoser for Illusion creatures.
That actually shares a problem I noticed in the OP's version. It destroys all creatures in play then jumps through hoops to convince you that no, in fact, all creatures have NOT been destroyed, they're just going to the graveyard/are no longer relevant as creatures for completely unrelated reasons.
It reminds me of that kid in fifth grade who got warned by the teacher to stop poking people, so he'd stick his finger a centimeter from your face and say "I'm not touching you!"