MTG Salvation

Around a year ago, I entered a story in one of the creative writing sub-forum's monthly contests. The theme was "Dueling Planeswalkers"; my entry was about a revenge-driven woman named S'hala, who had lost her home, family, and beliefs to a despotic planeswalker named Il-Amah. While I didn't win the contest, I really enjoyed designing and building a backstory for S'hala, mapping her progressive changes through custom card design and lore alike.


The important flavor to stress with designing S'hala was that the Order of Sahadeen is Koromir's equivalent of a national guard. Though the Order has established a name during the more hostile periods of Koromir's history, it has been inactive for some time during S'hala's time in enlistment.

We can collect several facts from this to help build her card.

-S'hala has military training.
-S'hala has not experienced a real conflict.
-S'hala and by extension the nation of Koromir both take ideologies of nationalism, patriotism, honor, and military into account. Because of these traits.

We can use these to extrapolate a couple of foundations.

S'hala feels very white! Unless there are arguments against this, we will start off with -


Right off the bat, S'hala already has one definitive feature that can be considered extremely relevant to specific players. She's a Knight! Knight tribal is a strong staple for many players. I feel it's important to consider this fact - although Knight tribal has seen Standard play (I think. Lorwyn? If someone can elaborate), it might otherwise be considered a casual constructed archetype. I feel it's important to take that into consideration, even if the deck has no official home, we must think about whether or not S'hala's abilities could turn Knights into something overpowered, or be too weak to even consider. If we delved further, we might ask whether nor not this is important to the set that S'hala is from. But that's irrelevant for now.

Perhaps starting us off on the wrong foot power-level wise, I wanted to focus on the second point I made above the first card. S'hala has not experienced actual combat. Years of peacetime means S'hala's experience is limited to her training. To me, this is a perfect use for "Defender".

To date - only one legendary creature card has had Defender, Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo. Based on this, (and a little bit of speculation), it would appear extremely unpopular to give a legendary creature Defender. The ability itself is, unless in very specific contexts, considered a negative one. This, I acknowledge. However, in addition to that, I consider Opal-Eye to be one of the finest flavor designs for a legend. His background as a body-guard is explained in his first ability, and his combat prowess is described in his second. He only fights reactively, but his skill allows him (mana provided) to evade/dodge/parry blows.

Defender has a strong stigma attached to it, in EDH/Commander, this means unless you have a very specific card, (and means of recurring it), you are not likely to be killing your opponent with commander damage. In other formats, you must have a relevant ability to compensate for having Defender. That's the challenge posed.


We will now consider that first bullet-point. S'hala can fight, she's trained. What does that mean? To me, that means that the Defender is contextual. The Defender exists because S'hala has pledged to the Order that she only fight if her home or her people are threatened. That means S'hala may not always have Defender. When a specific context has been provided, S'hala can go on the attack!

In-game, that context could potentially mean several things. I can see it interpreted as this - S'hala is your ally. She is the ally of her fellow creatures on the battlefield. If they or you should be subject to harm, she must fight back in order to protect you, thus losing Defender.


This is WRONG! Even the newest of players can recognize the flaw in this design. Aside from a few very specific contexts and cards, that ability basically turns Defender irrelevant. So what next? What about...


To be honest, I'm on the fence about this. In official formats, this will only be relevant for so long. Outside of milling and some very narrow contexts, you will likely be below 20 life. Lowering it bodes some issues. 15 feels like an irrelevant and unused number in Magic. Although some cards like Divinity of Pride have numbers like 25, 15 just seems irregular and random.

What about 10? Its connection to life-relevance was established by Zendikar's vampires, so why not? 10 feels too low. It means in order for this card to be useful, you must be in a dangerous and risky tactical position in order to maximize its effectiveness. To me, this is not what S'hala's flavor is about.

Now, there's one option I really like, but I find it somewhat convoluted, so I will let you decide whether or not it is feasible, and that's this one.


This wording was stitched together by our friends the DFCs, and the card Luminarch Ascension.

If you are bolted, attacked, or in any way harmed on your opponent's turn, S'hala is on the forefront of battle. However, she has a glaring weakness. If your opponent has other means of defeating you, or worse still, utilizes their damage on your turn, she still has defender.

Worse still, this can be considered unpopular design because it keeps the decision out of your hands. Cards you own that allow your opponent to dictate the field are not very endearing to players. A legend like Ruhan of the Fomori does not tend to attract much interest, despite having a simple yet flavorful design.

What can we do to put the choice back with the player? My first instinct was forcing attacks from your opponent, but this is not a strictly white ability. It shares itself with red, via Master Warcraft, or on a creature, with Fumiko the Lowblood Can't we simply make S'hala Boros? It would be nice, but for the sake of flavor, I wish to keep her monocoloured.

So what can S'hala be good for? Her weakness is apparent, she has no usefulness if the opponent has no creatures. But maybe that's where our answer lies. S'hala's goal is to stop whoever is harming you from continuing. This begins with your opponent, but we can narrow this down to his or her creatures. What if S'hala's purpose was to wipe the board so that her fellow allies could go on the offensive?


Now that seems pretty neat. Of course, that's another context added. S'hala's effectiveness is based on how strong your board position is. She seems to fit well into a WW shell, maybe.

The abilities are cluttered, or seem cluttered anyway. I want to take the card into divergent paths. There's the above example . . .


Ugh, that text box! So vicious and cluttered. Sure some cards have a fair amount of clutter, but the two abilities are hard to connect.

At this point, I'm annoyed with the Defender clause. It seems to overcomplicate any design attempts. I want it to work, but cannot find a way.


Huh. I kinda like that. Sure, the choice is still somewhat in your opponent's hands, but for each damage you take, you're able to return that damage at the very least plus 2. Some of the flavor has strained away. S'hala's capacity for fighting now comes AFTER you are attacked, meaning there is still a level of "defensiveness" attacked to her ability...

However, I am very much satisfied with this ability.

That being said, in addition to whatever criticisms you might arrive at, to consider

A. Is there a feasible way to keep the Defender design?
B. Does the last design reflect an ability white can have?

After that, feel free to judge the card's power. I lack the foresight to check for balance problems, whether over or underpowered. That's all you guys!

A lot of work for one card, but thanks for reading! :]
Final Versions:
Sylvia Plath's Skull
Ultimoron
Circeus
The Most Curious Thing
Fumar