Welcome to the Creation Contest thread for the first Clan Contest of 2011!
2011 which is hereby known as The Year of The Planeswalker, From Jace, to Garruk, to Gideon, and those of us hoping we get a New and More playable Liliana!
So lets get down to business...
The Rules:
Each Clan will choose a Legendary Creature from our MTGS EDH Database which can be found below.
Then each clan will have two weeks(14 days) days to take the Legendary Creature and turn it into a Planeswalker. Then write a little blurb about said Legendary Planeswalker, using a minimum of 15 Sentences. Creative interpreation is left to the clans, whether its a new origin, or a twist on the story, as long as its creative thats what matters.
Each Planeswalker can have no more than 4 abilities.
Then choose, create, or alter, a piece of Art to represent your Planeswalker. If the Clans want to use MSE Renders thats fine, if a Clan does not have MSE Attaching the picture(And making sure credit to the artist is given!) is perfectly fine.
After everything is put together, each submission will go up for a vote, The Clans will have one week to pick their favorite Planeswalker, and submit their vote. There is no voting for yourself, and in the event of a tie, those that are tied will be resubmitted, and revoted on.
The Categories to Vote on:
Categories are voted on out of 25 Points, 10, 10, 5.
1.) Power level: (-/10) No Jace the Mind Sculptor's here. You want to keep a balance between Playability, and fun.
2.) Creative factor: (-/10) This is a combo between the creative writing piece and the design of the Planeswalker. The back story is always important for any hero/villain. But creating a boring Planeswalker is also not good. Be Innovative, try out new things, and maybe we'll create something awesome.
3.) Legendary Choice: (-/5) I gave a big list of cards in the hopes that we could get some real diversity between Planeswalkers, and not have the same Legendaries be chosen.
25 Points Total.
Votes need to be submitted by 5-4-2011 by 11:59 PM EST
Cheers and Good luck!
~W
Due to lack of adhering to the rules, the following clans are DQ'd:
Greek Alliance
Soundtrack
Ard
The Pack
Clan Bolas
Limited
The [Pack] is ready and willing for this contest. Sign us up ASAP.
Here is our card and short story:
Sensei Nine-Tails :1mana::symw::symw: Planeswalker- Nine-Tails
+1: Put a 1/1 white Fox Cleric creature token onto the battlefield.
-X: Exile Sensei Nine-Tails and target nonland permanent with converted mana cost X.
-6: You get an emblem with "White creatures you control have protection from all colors."
3
Sensei Nine-Tails
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails’ journey was not quite as long as most he had taken, but the trek from Eiganjo to the temple was still a time consuming one. The Kami war had been over for some time now, but even so with the plane wide threat over, many still sought to do the misdeeds of others. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails had heard rumors along his journey that a band of powerful ogres were terrorizing villages, with no survivors to make note of their motives. In the distance the cleric could see smoke rising from where his temple sat. He ran as quickly as his legs would carry him to the site of his home. There he gasped in horror, students were fighting ogres, and they had summoned a large and powerful Oni to their side as well.
The Oni spotted Eight-and-a-Half-Tails and lunged. With a silent word and a wave of his staff, the Kitsune wove his special nullification spell to ward off the Oni’s attack. To his surprise the spell didn’t hold and the Oni grabbed and hoisted him high off the ground. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails squeezed his eyes shut tight and wished that he could only help his students survive the day. Then everything changed, he was no longer on the battlefield, but in whirling nothingness. Below him he could sense the mana of Kamigawa, but he himself was not there, and this was not the spirit realm.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails felt power surging through him, whether it had been the Kami, or his own will, his wish had been granted. He reappeared on the battle next to a number of students, who were both shocked and inspired by his odd transformation. With a rallying cry they charged forward, injuring or out right killing the ogres. With all the power he could muster, Eight-and-a-Half-Tails weaved his spell, nullifying his targets and allowing his students to surprise and kill the attackers. With a great crash he saw the remains of his temple collapse into rubble and a great sorrow entered his soul. Mustering as much power as he could, be bestowed his nullification spell across all his students, and one by one they became unable to be felled by the ogres or the demon.
With his last bit of strength, Eight-and-a-Half-Tails charged the demon, plowing into it. After a loud snap and a flash of blinding white energy, the two were gone.
After the battle many students spoke of their sensei and how he had become a Kami in their darkest hours. Many more however, spoke of his ninth tail, fully formed and heralding their victory.
It has been ten years since the Scion was freed, and the Kami war ended. Peace fills Kamigawa.
Azusa, a deadly and beautiful monk, walks through a tranquil grove. It is early spring, and cherry blossoms are floating on the wind. Color is everywhere.
Azusa steps swiftly, taking in the wildflowers and new growth and the flittering of small animals across her path. She stops at an apple tree, plucks the largest, ripest apple she can find, and takes a bite.
A spark ignites.
Azusa, the Traveller2GG Planeswalker - Azusa
+2: You may play up to two additional lands this turn.
-2: Search your library for two basic land cards, reveal them and put them in your hand. Then shuffle your library.
-9: Draw a card for each land you control. Loyalty: 4
Zuo CI1GG
Planeswalker - Zuo
[+2]: Target creature can't be blocked except by creatures with horsemanship this turn.
[-X]: Search your library for a green creature card with converted mana cost X and put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
[-7]: All players gain an emblem with "the leyend rule doesn't apply", then, any number of target non-land permanents become copies of Zuo Ci.
[3]
Maybe this reality is actually an alternate reality of a reality in which New Phyrexia was the joke expansion and Mirrodin Pure was the obvious expansion, except our reality is the Time Shifted reality which is opposite of that other reality which is that actual reality.
-Excert taken from History of Dominaria, volume 7 third priting.
Ramirez DePietro was born in the year 2919AR on the small island of Zaerlin in the central Jamuraan Sea. His father, Arimel DePietro, was the owner of the lucrative Tefallin Shipping Company. His mother, Colette Tefallin, was the original heir to the shipping company, but lost it to her husband's family during marriage negotiations.
Arimel was as cruel and merciless a business man as he was a father. Although born with a natural flare for causing trouble, Ramirez was often met with torturous discipline from Arimel.
With each passing year, Arimel would leave more and more to preform hostile takeovers of smaller, and less violent shipping companies. During these, "expansion missions" as he sometimes called them, he fathered many children out of marital bonds with his wife, Colette. One of which being Tor Wauki, another legend in his own right.
When Ramirez was ten years old, Colette died of an unknown and suspicious death, and what was left of the Tefallin family fortune was bequeathed to Arimel. Arimel, on a further slide of neglectful parenting, at this point only made it to Zaerlin once a month at best.
As Ramirez blossomed into a young man, his need to do amoral things grew right along with him. He loved stealing, and felt the thrill matched no other. With only the guidance of a few family slaves, and the occasional beating from his father, noone seemed to be able to do much about the wild son of Arimel.
On Ramirez's sixteenth birthday, he and his friends thought it would be grand to steal his father's own ship, as he would be there for Ramirez's own birthday festivities. After a few innocent deaths, Ramirez and his friends sailed away as fast as they could on the ship. Before exiting the harbour, Ramirez and his friends fly a pirate flag. Leaving the rest of the island to believe the ship had been truly pirated, and Ramirez had been taken hostage.
Soon bored and growing hungry, they drifted back to port, only to be met with gunfire. Half the ship is destroyed in the conflict before Arimel and his fleet realize what had happened by seeing Ramirez waving a white flag in a paddle boat, floating to them laughing with his friends.
Furious, Arimel nearly sliced his owns son's throat before deciding something else much more sinister to put his little, spoiled boy through.
He told Ramirez if he ever wanted to inherit the family company, he must first learn the company. He then assigned his son to a long distance courier ship, as a lowly crewman. With no other feasible way to inherit his family fortune, Ramirez had to reluctantly take the position.
After months of violence and ridicule most likely incited by words of his father, the ship Ramirez was serving on was attacked by a band of pirates. While they were slaughtering every one of Ramirez's crewmates, he was pleading for his life. On Ramirez's lead, the pirates decide to ransom off the young man, in hopes of a large sum of gold from one of the wealthiest businessmen in all of Jamuraa.
Another three months passed as the pirate ship Albre traveled to Zaerlin, raping, beating and generally abusing Ramirez in every conceivable fashion along the way. When they finally arrived, Ramirez was happy for the first time in his life to see a recently rebuilt ship with his fathers flags in the port.
An envoy was sent from the ship to Arimels offices, returning far sooner than anyone had expected. The envoy told the captain of the ship that his father said he would pay for them to keep him. The ship's captain and crew all had a good laugh, and actually took some gold from Arimel's office and left.
Ramirez was enslaved on the pirate ship for some time. Finally, after being tortured in ways that can only be imagined by heartless pirates for what seemed like years, he struck back at a group of instigating crewmen. He killed three with his bare hands before more pirates joined in. He was thrown overboard in the bloody fight that ensued, and killed another four while they restrained him.
Bound and weighted, Ramirez floated to the bottom of a Dominian Sea, it's name and general location unknown to him.
Ramirez then woke from a dream. The visage of a giant monstrosity laughing at him still fresh in his mind as he floated to the surface of a giant, blueish ocean. He gathered his bearings, and realized he was on a makeshift raft floating towards the shore of a nearby island. He felt his face, and noticed it had been changed. In his mind, the nightmarish creature's laugh echoed loudly, followed by "Of course you can be Pirate King, for now!", then more laughter.
He then noticed his new, strange clothing-exquisite black and purple silk trousers, and a white silk shirt. He stood, and noticed that his pockets contained a small handful of gold coins. His raft floated slowly to shore.
From there, he quickly joined the first pirate crew he could, and started truly learning the ropes to piracy. Every few ports, he would leave his current crew to join another. Years passed by, and Ramirez's age never seemed to change. He learned how to be the greatest pirate he could, from all the greatest pirates of the time. He did this until the fateful day when he encountered a recruiter for the pirate ship Albre.
Ramirez joined the crew, being unrecoginzed by the other crew as a once beaten slaveboy under the name of Remme Tasheir.
Over the course of the next several years, Ramirez secretly killed all the original remaining crew except the captain himself. Through guile, manipulation, and some basic magic Ramirez picked up along his travels, he gained the complete trust of the captain.
While out on a long string of raids, the captain and "Remme" had an argument midship for all to see. The Captain ordered the crew to kill Remme, but the crew hesitated and Remme ran into the captain's cabin. The captain drew his sword and gave chase. Before anyone could follow the captain, there was a clamour and some loud shouting. The captain yelled that Remme was dead, and for everyone to get back to work.
Noone saw "Remme" until later that evening.
Historians believe whatever followed was quite horrifying, as the original captain's name and said event were never spoken again. The result being Ramirez took over as captain of the pirate ship Albre.
Ramirez then conquered the southern Jamuraan Sea with piracy and force tactics in the timeframe of about a month, and earned the title The Pirate King from an interested bandit warlord on Jamuraa's southwestern continent. He set port in an unnamed island, and began building a massive fleet under his flag of the most merciless, bloodthirsty pirates Dominaria had ever seen. Years passed, as Ramirez became somewhat of a celebrity within certain circles on Jamuraa.
At nearing fifty years old, and not looking or feeling a day over seventeen, Ramirez started to question the "luck" fate had bestowed upon him. Ever curious, and growing increasingly paranoid, Ramirez began collecting books on magic. This became a morbid fascination, and he soon grew bored with piracy altogether, but not the riches it gave.
While scouring a country side village in hopes of finding some lost text, Ramirez and his personal crew were ambushed by Bandits who happened to be raiding the town. One by one, each of Ramirez's crew fell to the overwhelming numbers of the bandits, but Ramirez stayed fighting strong, dropping three times the bandits to each pirate he had lost. Standing on a pile of dead bandits, Ramirez shouted, "I am Ramirez DePietro, KING OF ALL PIRATES! I may die today, but you will all remember my name!" Then the advancement hears a loud, deep warcry followed by deep laughter. A tall, strangely familiar man in his late fifties walked towards Ramirez and the pile of bodies. "You're Ramirez DePietro? Your father was Arimel DePietro, of the Tefallin Shipping Company? That is not possible..."
Ramirez spat on the ground in front of the older looking man. "He was...", Ramirez replied.
"Then surly you know of Zaerlin's recent submersion." The man continued, adjusting a bow he had slung across he back while walking up. Ramirez looked startled for a brief second, then indifferent. The man continued. "You have not heard?" Ramirez replies.
"No." There had been recent flooding rampant thoughout the world because of a mostly unknown World Spell that put Dominaria back in it's true axis, elimating a long ice age. "What difference does this make?", Ramirez snarls.
The man shrugs and says, "It is impossible in any case that you are who you say you are. You are what, seventeen years of age? I know Ramirez DePietro is ten years my older, at least."
"And how would you know that?" Ramirez gritted back.
"Because Ramirez DePietro is my older brother. I am his father's bastard.", the man replied.
Ramirez lowered his sword, but did not stop the energy flow of a spell he had cast and been keeping at bay. The older man then looked around clearly impressed by the pirate's combat skills, and laughed again. "Then again, the only other person I've ever met who could do this...", he said, waving his hands around, showcasing the mountain of dead bodies and blood streams, "...is myself. Perhaps you are my brother under some sort of appearance altering enchantment. If that is the case, we should not be fighting..." The man then extended his hand. "I am Tor Wauki, Bandit Warlord, Scourge of The Southwestern continent and bastard son of Aremil DePietro."
Ramirez lowered his casting hand, causing the spell to disapitate, and his slowly offered a tired hand, laughing himself.
Tor Wauki laughed, and said, "Come, you must meet Johan."
Under the banner of Johan, Ramirez then joined Tor Wauki as he lent them his fleet for the naval branch in their quest for Jamuraan dominance. Ramirez also assumed the role of a diplomat, settling himself into the city-state of Bryce. There he met Adira Strongheart, the wife of Hazezon Tamar, the governor. They had a very public affair, and Ramirez conned her out of all of her fortune through various bunk enterprises. The result of this, caused the divorce of Adira and Hazezon. She returned to her homelands, and founded a religious mercenary sect, to help atone for her sins.
After Johan's defeat, Ramirez and Tor Wauki went on the run, eventually being cornered by none other than Adira and her band of mercenaries. Overwhelmed, Tor Wauki and Ramirez fought off the advancement, with what was left of their armies and navy. Seven days of brutal assault had completely wiped out their combined forces, and they surrendered. Tor Wauki was killed instantly, and Ramirez was taken to see Adira.
There, he begged the aging woman to spare his life, for "the love we once had". She agreed to let him go where the Jamuraan sea ends, if he vowed never to return to Jamuraa or her seas.
Ramirez floated on the small row boat he was set out upon for what felt like eons. Barely alive, he woke from a hunger induced black out surrounded by a thick haze. Rubbing his sunbleached face, he heard something he had never quite forgotten. A deep, rumbling laugh. That laugh.
His boat began to shake, and the grotesque monster that had haunted his dreams for ages emerged from the water.
Tentacles dripping, and smelling like vomit and plague, the beast said, "It is now time for your payment."
"Pay-payment? What the hell is this?"
The beast just laughed again, and everything became cold and black for Ramirez.
He came to at some point much later with a rush of knowlege and an immense pain.
The beast's life force had somehow merged with his own. During this, Ramirez had inherited some of the beast's genetic memory. After years of searching for answers about his sudden change of fortune, it was all too clear to him now. He remembered the deal the creature and himself had made. His life and some power, for millenia of pain.
He now knew the beast's name was Ixmoria. He knew the beast was born of a race that existed between realities. He now knew about the different realities or "planes" that existed. And he knew all about the interplanatary hoppers known as planeswalkers.
He knew the race that Ixmoria belonged had all but died out in a long forgotten battle between them and the magically planeshifting planeswalkers. The race Ixmoria belonged to, had a natural ability to shift from one plane to another. Ixmoria had been defeated by a planeswalker thousands of years before, and had been banished to the deepest part of the Dominaria.
But with all of these things he now knew, he also knew things he wish he didn't. He knew that Ixmoria was slowly filtering out his life essence to repower hers so she can leave the plane of Dominaria. He knows that he is trapped, and there is no way he can escape.
After two hundred years, something occurs that neither Ramirez or Ixmoria expected. The magic waste from Ixmoria digesting Ramirez's life essence, was taking form. At first they were just little specks, moving about. But soon the specks gave way to tadpoles. And the tadpoles gave way to something else, and so on. Over years, the little specks had evolved and looked similar to the Merfolk he had encountered in his travels, but their faces had been warped to resemble the shambling tentacled head of Ixmoria.
Ramirez would watch these creatures, unable to move for for years at a time. They would swim off, and come back with food and whatever else caught their eye. Between that, sleeping, mating, and eating, the merfolk did little else.
One day, the merfolk started looking towards and swimming right around the spot he was being magically tethered to the ocean floor. Excited for the first time in ages, he could feel them. He kept screaming, "Help me!" Help me!" and the more he did so, the more excited the merfolk got. Still, nothing changed.
Another five hundred years passed. Ramirez slept for decades at a time, only awakening for minutes before falling into another slumber. He saw one of the merfolk carrying something metalic, and he thought, "What could that be..." The merfolk swam to him, and presented a small, human made ring.
"Wow." He says to himself. "Now if only you could get me out of here."
The merfolk tilts it's head, and Ramirez hears. "How can we help you?"
Feeling another wave of sleep sweep over him, Ramirez managed to reply, "Kill Ixmoria..." before drifting back off.
Ramirez dozed in and out for centuries. Occasionally waking to find hundreds of these magical spawn gathered around him, kneeling. Sometimes he would wake up, just to fall back asleep. He had all but lost hope, until one day...
He woke up with even more searing pain then in th centuries before. Startled and looking around, still not being able to move, he realized he was bearing witness to a great battle of sheer force of numbers versus an awesome display of magic. Although happy to witness something he had dreamt about since he'd been held hostage by Ixmoria, the happiness was short lived. The immense pain being caused now was still the result of Ixmoria's merging and subsequent feeding of Ramirez's life force, but not because of the syphoning. With each little spear prick, and each claw and gash the merfolk could produce, Ramirez felt it right along with Ixmoria.
Inside his head he was screaming, but the merfolk or Ixmoria did not seem to notice.
As the final blows were dealt, Ramirez at least took solace with the knowlege that his pain would soon end.
After hours of unnumbing pain, the last blow is dealth as hundreds of Merfolk throw themselves in a literal frenzy of claw, fin and tentacle at the monster. A tidal wave of magical energy, Ixmoria's planetary form explodes, and Ramirez's heart along with it. And for Ramirez, everything went black.
What seemed like aeons passed for Ramirez. Then out of the endless void, Ramirez opened his eyes a mere second after the final blow if Ixmoria takes place. Feeling more alive and aware than ever.
He felt something tingle within. The remains of Ixmoria's life force were trying to unattach itself from Ramirez's. He felt as if his entire soul was ripping apart at the seams as a tangle of black eels spewed out of his mouth. Instinctively he then felt his essence spinter within himself again, and from his own putrescence came forth a etheral creature with the appearance of Ixmoria's former self.
"HA, HA, HA!", the sea rumbles as Ixmoria's essence began to speak. "You might have defeated me Ramirez DePietro, but you wi-"
With a simple thought from it's creator, the newly spawned entity swiftly devoured the remaining essence of Ixmoria.
Laughing putrid bubbles of ooze, the gravity of what just happened takes hold of the once feared Pirate King.
Drunken with power, he attempted to planesshift as the thought seized him. He was on another plane of existance. In a lush forrest of steel and brass, unlike he had ever seen. He wandered for mere minutes. Catching a glimpse of his once eternally youthful face, now changed and murated again by his former captor and the Dominarian depths. Disgusted, he tried to look away from all of the reflective surfaces. As the dominarian water started evaporating from his naked skin, he started to phase out of this plane, and back onto the ocean floor, still surrounded by now bowing merfolk.
After weeks of trying to planeshift, Ramirez realized the curse that bound Ixmoria to the fathoms of Dominaria's deep had been merged into his soul after the death and transfusion of Ixmoria's life essence to his own. Thus, dooming him to the same existence. This angered Ramirez like nothing had before, and the tides changed forever that day.
At present time, Ramirez secretly has a finger in every glass of water on Dominaria. Using his legions of spawned Merfolk, his knowlege, and easily corruptible Dominarian citizens, he has taken footholds in every aspect of sea life. Vastly influencing everything from fair trade, to his old staple of piracy. He continues to search for ways of breaking the ancient ties that bind him to the ocean floor, with no hopes of doing so in the near future.
While secretly manipulating everything around him through cunning, guile and subterfuge, he continues to build his wealth, power, and armies of merfolk and other fiendish abominations, while waiting out this fate.
Doran knew he would never acclimate to planeswalking since his initial escape from Shadowmoor. Every sensation he knew to expect before entering the Eternities came fresh, an unfamiliar pang against his being, as if his bark was cracking off but burgeoning with spring growth at the same time. He was disoriented, as if his boughs were firmly rooted in the ground alongside his roots. That thought had gotten a laugh out of the last planewalker he’d met, Gracielle. How strange it was to share such common ground with a fleshling, strange to share an awakening lost even on other treefolk.
Despite any kinship, she’d been of no help to him, just like the last two before her. Those who knew of the other realms of existence were few enough, and it seemed no one could help him find Lorwyn. The way others were all attuned to their homes was haunting, their journeys a lark, with short meditations barely taxing their physical and magical reserves. Returning home should be so damned easy! He and Gracielle had worked through every step of her return ritual with his thoughts guiding them. He had called forth his memories of Lorwyn, and used them to spin skeins between their minds so she could feel its beauty. He had woven the beacon of home and yearning, and she could feel the urgency he felt as though it were her own. Their magics built an image of paradise so real that he could almost feel Lorwyn’s ever-present sun on his leaves, and then the rot began to seep into their minds. Canker, Shadowmoor's putrescence pervading through body and spirit, was a paradise lost to pain and hate.
Tears had fallen from Gracielle’s panicked eyes as she severed the mana skeins between them. She openly wept as she collapsed on the ground and desperately scrabbled away from him. Doran’s body could not cry or bend as hers did, and he had felt this failure too many times to be stirred as she was. She was lucky, she only felt the canker for an instant and it became just a vile memory to her. He could feel it coursing through him now, even with the failed ritual long past and his suppressive magic strong. Every time he tried to return home, Shadowmoor's taint surfaced and cut the tether to Lorwyn’s rolling sunlit hills. He called to Lorwyn and the canker came running, beckoning him to return to Shadowmoor's endless night.
He stopped himself from thinking of Shadowmoor, at least not while walking, lest he revisit it yet again. The other walkers traveled with destinations in mind, or at least with instinct guiding them closer to whatever mysteries they sought. Doran had to ignore his instincts, spending long instances in the rift between worlds. Thankfully, his body stood amidst the chaos more firmly than one of flesh. He never knew how long he remained lost between realities, gleaning glimpses of every world but Lorwyn, never Lorwyn. He only stopped when his trunk ached and his roots seemed dry, and then only to regain his strength. He often spent days or weeks recovering, or what seemed like seconds between the worlds. He was tired now.
Dirt. Steep into it and rest. Its dark here, it was noon when he left. Doran shook his boughs, which meant nothing. But darkness, darkness means another failure. At least there is life here; he could feel the grass at his roots and insects already abuzz in his leaves. Roots and boughs extended, Doran began to meditate. Extending himself into the forest around him, he could feel the strength of the trees. They were not awakened, but conscious, welcoming. This land is vast, lush; there is power here. There are answers here. He cast himself out searching the soul of the forest, the days and nights cycling at the edge of perception. The entire forest is content to cycle between light and dark, a warm glow redolent of Lorwyn and the cold veil whispering of Shadowmoor. This world could almost be home, if not for the spread of cankerous thoughts surging each time his leaves felt the heat of the sun fade away. The world existed as a balance of home and hate, not disparate realities as Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, a balance, a cycle. The trees began receding. He grasped for their mind—not yet! There is more to learn. But then he felt the other presence rise. Not from his search, it had found him.
“Child”
Doran was young by no standards and would have laughed had that word came from anything else. But he felt young now. No, not young, but insignificant, ephemeral. He was lost now, why would it bother with him? His spirit felt as nothing along side this being.
“I see you Child”
All his memories of Lorwyn burst forth, even more than that, all his life. He saw his seed dropping from a tree that never awakened, watched as it was gathered and forgotten by a squirrel. He saw his sapling grow, he felt the sun and he felt himself awaken again, roots and branches finding a will against wind and earth. The animals living on him while he rested away short years in the sun. A festival the tiny Kithkin held around him as he rested after hurling the Boldwyr giants from his forest. His parent tree still stood when he visited, so tall and silent and loving—everything all at once. This is what he was searching for. How could he get it back?
“I see you Child”
Canker. It spread from him, into the animals of his swamp. He didn't care, they were wicked creatures anyway. He picked at his wounds to fling the sickness onto passing caravans that would have burned him had they realized he was awake. The other trees were foul, stunted with no light to reach for, uprooting saplings to preserve water for themselves. Foul water, blood and algal slicks and root severing merrows. No sun, only wilt. How long had he rooted in the dark, killing and cowering, before he remembered Lorwyn? Until he created the ritual to purge the canker? He guided the magical light inward until it scorched his heartwood, it had nearly killed him. Through that havoc he awakened again, but even freedom from Shadowmoor had only dulled the canker.
“You see the sickness! How do I get home?” There was no answer to his pleas, only a silence between himself and the lush growth of this world. He tried to reach further, and the screams began—chaotic, primal, bellows of despair and pain. Canker. Doran shook out of his meditation in time to see a rabbit writhe as the pustule grew on it's flank, wailing as it kicked its remaining legs in an attempt to escape. The wailing suddenly ceased as a man crushed the creature's head under his boot. People?
He saw them now. They had hewn the trees around him and built a berm, within which they burned his fallen brethren. “Fools!” he bellowed “You'll not fell me!” He wrenched at his trunk but could not move, they had staked and tethered him to the ground. “False roots cannot hold me!” Again he wrenched his body, snapping some of the vines that held him. The man who had killed the rabbit then spoke. “If you pull free, they will burn us.” Doran glowered down at him, what foolish bravado to threaten him so... burn us? Doran stopped rending the vines and looked again. The grass around him was dying and the man before him was growing pustules, one of his arms a stump with fresh bandages. This had never happened outside of Shadowmoor. It could only mean…
“I've brought it with me.”, Doran realized aloud. The man nodded, then began speaking calmly despite the pain he must have felt with each breath. “The mother felt it when you arrived, but your tainted body came with a pure mind. The forest has not had a true sentient since before my time. I offered myself as your caretaker so that your voice may wake one of our own. But we cannot let you leave this spot.” The burning trees were a sacrifice, not a threat. The thick smoke prevented anything flying to or from his branches, and this man killed anything within his diseased circle. The canker had returned and Doran would have to return to Shadowmoor to purge himself again. He grimaced inwardly; he would need to return regularly or risk bringing his darkness to others. The man spoke again, “We've held our vigil for days. Did we buy you enough time for the mother to answer your questions?” Doran was already concentrating on his journey. He could leave immediately, finding Shadowmoor was easy with its hateful canker so deeply infused in his grain. Doran did not bother to answer the dying man. He need not know his death is meaningless. There are no answers here.
It was once said that Azusa revered the Kami. Indeed her days as a
wandering druid were peaceful and contemplative before the Great Kami
War, but afterwards, her faith in the spiritual realm was shattered
forever. Having seen humans callously torn apart by mystic energies
and otherworldly torments, her once devout resolve in the harmonious
nature of the Kami was utterly destroyed.
And so Azusa travelled on. She did not know where she travelled, or
whom she sought, but some great inner strength propelled her onward,
day after day. After many months of arduous travel through dense
Kamigawa forests reminiscent of her once beloved Jukai, Azusa was set
upon by a band of mercenaries. Instantly she recognized their
barbarian garb as belonging to the ranks of the fearsome warlord Godo,
and she realized that these men were deserters from his forces. They
were gaunt men with craven, hungry looks in their eyes. While Azusa
acknowledged that her life was likely nearing its end, her ascetic
nature kept her from prostrating herself and begging for mercy.
And so the men came closer, and closer, and closer. Azusa felt a
warmth swell within her chest, and she wondered momentarily if she had
been stabbed. Yet as she looked down to inspect herself she saw that
her body was intact, and that time itself seemed to have stopped. The
bandits were frozen in their tracks, with their swords drawn and
hollow eyes still focused on her. Then there was light and warmth and
Azusa saw the men no more.
Where am I? Azusa wondered to herself. She was in a city marketplace,
filled with humans, lizard people covered in scales, and little red
creatures reminiscent of the goblins on Kamigawa. As she traversed the
epic sprawl of the bazaar, she stopped by a small store which appeared
to be a potion shop. Knowing that her mysterious journey was likely
the cause of strange magics, Azusa decided to ask the shopkeeper where
she was and how she got there. As she entered the dusty, cobweb filled
store, Azusa felt a sense of apprehension. Never in her years of
travel had she encountered such a strange city, and the entire scene
felt foreign and unique to her.
"Come in, come in,” a voice from within the shop beckoned. Asuza
squinted to make out the figure behind the shop counter in the dim
light.
“Where am I?” Azusa asked, her voice betraying her confusion.
“You, my dear, are at the finest potion and specialty shop on all of
Ravnica.”
“Ravnica? What corner of Kamigawa is this?” she wondered aloud.
“Kami what? I’ve never heard of such a district,” the voice responded
quizzically.
“My name is Azusa, and just minutes ago I was being accosted by a gang
of raiders on a deserted road in the middle of a forest,” Azusa
explained.
“A forest you say? Perhaps you were in Golgari turf, or Simic
perhaps?”
“I know not what Kami you speak of,” Azusa replied politely.
“Indeed you are quite lost, my dear,” the voice continued, “My name is
Circu. I was once a, shall we say, information extractor for the
Dimir.”
“Well Circu, can you tell me where I am?”
“Ravnica, in the Izzet district. As you can glean from looking
outside, the once xenophobic guilds have all dissolved. The Golgari
and Simic are just two of those former guilds, and while officially
the guilds no longer exist, unofficially they still maintain their
territories and private customs.”
“Are you saying that I’m in a whole new world?” Azusa asked, shocked.
“Heh. Well I don’t know where you started,” Circu replied.
“Kamigawa. My home was Kamigawa,” Azusa said defiantly.
“Well you’re a long way from home if that’s the case,” Circu answered,
“I heard rumblings of other worlds from the mouth of
Sza..err..rumblings of other worlds during my tenure as an information
extractor. If indeed you can travel between these planes that would
make you a planeswalker, and a valuable friend to have.”
“Planes…walker?” Azusa could barely fathom what the term meant.
“Stay for a bit, and we’ll talk. It appears there is much for us to
teach each other.”
Azusa ultimately ended up spending several weeks learning about
Ravnica with help from Circu. Azusa was a keen judge of character and
could tell that he had a dark past, however in her presence he was
always a gentleman and a source of great knowledge. As time
progressed, she began to hone her planeswalking skills and eventually
ended up moving from plane to plane with ease, constantly searching
for answers to questions she had yet to ask.
On some planes Azusa encountered fierce and violent creatures, though
her time spent with Circu had allowed her to hone her defensive magics
so she could turn the very ground the beasts walked upon against them.
As she continued to travel the multiverse, Azusa strengthened her
insights and inner resolve, never once forgetting the Kamigawa plane
that she used to call home.
"I am a catalyst, a guardian of the land. Ever since I was a child, I've felt a connection to Zendikar. I was discovered by the elves of Mul Daya in the early stages of my youth. They say I was found embraced by the earth and that the land that had formed a shelter around me. They took me in and taught me their magics. At an early age, I showed an aptitude for the land. Soon, I had surpassed even the Elves' greatest druids. I left them and journeyed throughout Zendikar for many years. Along my travels, I gained a connection with the land that was fathoms deep. I began to feel that I was meant to protect Zendikar, to become a focus for the power of Zendikar itself. My powers continued to grow until the spirit of the land and my very being became one. I learned that the essence of magic, mana, is not a mage's to take, it is merely a loan from the world around us. Recently, I have begun to feel a disturbance, not a mere uneasy feeling; a disturbance in the fabric of Zendikar. I can feel my leased powers draining. I am losing my powers, and I can feel myself becoming corrupted."
-A page taken from the journal of Ob Nixilis, found in the ruins of the Kazandu Refuge
Note - The context of the entry is that it takes place before the awakening of the Eldrazi.
True to the stories as fitting to "Storyline Clan", the Greek Alliance chooses Jeska, Warrior Adept. as one of the true old planeswalkers who appeared in pre-walker form as legends.
Niv-Mizzet had done the calculations. He was almost certain that he was entering a fight he couldn't win, but the sole alternative was to hide away in Nivix, which would only serve to delay his demise. He reasoned that it would be better to take the nephilim by surprise, placing his hopes on the slim chance that he could defeat the titans before they mounted a successful counter-attack.
Even though Niv-Mizzet was able to destroy two of the behemoths, the other three only seemed to intensify their assault, beating him to within an inch of his life. But before they could land a killing blow, the ancient dragon suddenly experienced a fiery flash of enlightenment as the vast potential of the Multiverse unlocked itself within his mind: He had ascended.
Despite his newly discovered powers, Niv-Mizzet realized that he was no match for the brute force and numeric advantage held by the nephilim while in his current battered state. Invigorated by quickened logic and a moderate dose of self-preservation, he decided to leave the plane of Ravnica, painfully aware that it would be at the mercy of the rampaging monsters.
In a weakened daze, Niv-Mizzet half-flew, half-fell through the Blind Eternities and eventually found himself drawn to a nearby plane with intense mana spikes. But in the process of materializing on Dominaria, he was caught in a time rift, hurtling him four thousand years into the past. Somewhere between the rush of nothingness and empty roars issuing from his throat, he lost consciousness.
Niv-Mizzet awoke to find himself surrounded by a group of refuge wizards from the ruins of the College of Lat-Nam, which had been destroyed in the wake of the Brothers' War. These pitiful-looking mages were kneeling or bowing in awe at the spectacle of a dragon Planeswalker, simultaneously trembling in fear and in greedy anticipation of the magic potential such a being could grant. Amused by their subservience, he obtained information regarding his temporal displacement under threat of dragonfire, then resolved to make the best of his new situation by founding a new school for magical study called the Institute of Arcane Study.
Niv-Mizzet would teach these Prodigal Sorcerers the way of the Firemind, and in turn they would spread their influence throughout the plane, with the ultimate goal of returning to their master with arcana and artifacts from afar. Constantly researching and devising a way to return home through Ravnica's planar seal, which had dissipated in his original timeline only because of the time rifts, he devoted the rest of his energy on a plan to defeat the foul nephilim that had so unceremoniously driven him away from his home plane.
Then again, four thousand years is not such a long time to wait for a fifteen thousand year old dragon Planeswalker...
Niv-Mizzet the Prodigal :2mana::symu::symu::symr::symr:
Planeswalker - Niv-Mizzet [M]
[+2]: Niv-Mizzet, the Prodigal deals 2 damage divided as you choose among one or two target creatures and/or players. Draw a card.
[-2]: Target permanent's owner shuffles it into his or her library.
[-7]: You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your upkeep, search target player's library for a card and play it without paying its mana cost. If it's a creature, it has haste. Then that player shuffles his or her library." {4}
@Moderators: Note that Paolo Parente currently goes by his last name in illustration credits.
For fear of the deadline, I submit to you Volrath.
Volrath's death was not a pleasant one. Injected with flowstone, he wasn't merely killed but disassembled, inch by excruciating inch, to the shouts of spectators. It wasn't even by Crovax, who at least had some talent, but by that petulant Ertai! The useless fiend! The pain should be unbearable, mind-shattering, but not to Volrath! He had come so far! To go down this way? Inexcusable! Even as his body fell to pieces his mind was held together by hate and rage. As the flowstone dispersed into Rath, Rath was merging with Dominaria, and both worlds were irrevocably changed.
The location of Volrath's death was forgotten, lost in the chaos of the Rathi Overlay. But there he remained, aware of naught but pain and anger, senseless to the passing of time. Years gone by, Yawgmoth's death had made a festering wound in the plane. A font of black mana like none before, it's power crept over the land until it found something of note. Volrath, still there, held between the earth and the Æther. Grabbing hold of the power that had found him so long ago he pulled himself through it. Again, he was whole, in a body made of mind and magic. His gaze warped the world around him, his mind filled with the power he'd lost and more. And he heard a sound, the unmistakable song. The Phyrexians were at work again.
He would be Evincar once more.
Art by deligaris.deviantart.com
Volrath, Returned 2BBB
Planeswalker - Volrath
[+1]: Target player discards two cards, then draws 2 cards, then loses 2 life.
[-1]: Each player sacrifices a permanent.
[-8]: You gain an emblem with "You can't cast more than one spell each turn. You may play cards from your graveyard. If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead."
{5}
Nobody complained about my design that couldn't be dealt with quietly behind locked doors, so here it is! Good luck everyone!
First Impression: She is just... useless. Especially surprising considering, ya know, Braids.
1) Power Level: 4/10
Her +1 and -1 both only exist to manipulate the loyalty counters on Braids. For those to be at all useful, her 3rd ability must do something devastating and, ideally, be useful to activate multiple times. Her 3rd ability can certainly hurt, but it does next to nothing if used a second time. Overall, she's exceptionally weak. I can't see her making the cut for any deck.
2) Creative Factor: 8/10
A -1 to increase loyalty (listed first), a +1 to remove loyalty (each player, so usable as a discard outlet), and a cool story about a planeswalker whose mind is completely broken. All the style points. From the design side of things, her ult is a dealbreaker.
3) Legendary choice: 4/5
Everybody loves Braids! Maybe too obvious a choice though.
First impression: Scary, and a bit oppressive.
1) Power Level: 7/10
To be considered fair I think his +1 needs some restriction (nonblack?) and his -3 should be a -4, though this would make it feel like he has 2 ults. Either way, I think his +1 is too hard to fight through.
2) Creative Factor: 9/10
Killing, taking, summoning abominations from the ocean depths, and an epic story. A well-written short story, truly, and one I didn't mind reading. I like the reference to his flavor text. I do think the core of his design is fine, though he is a bit too powerful.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
Ramirez! Who would have expected it?
First impression: Looks pretty broken.
1) Power Level: 7/10
His +1 is really good, his other +1 is also really good, his -3 great, and his -8 is liable to end the game that turn. The only limiting factor is his color restriction, which isn't a very safe way to keep a card balanced (especially when it's the 'good stuff' colors).
2) Creative Factor: 6/10
Cool story, but the card does nothing to reflect that he's been contaminated. Both his +1s are rather contrary to that, actually. From the design side, he does too many things and he does them too well.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
Solid choice. Cool to see a planeswalker that's not a dragon or humanoid.
First impression: Oh damn.
1) Power Level: 6/10
That is an absurd +1! Really powerful -2, game-ending -5. Super low cost is scary, barely justified by how low her starting loyalty is. Really though, I'm looking at this on turn 2 following a Birds and that being game over for people not playing Lightning Bolt. Should cost at least one more, and then take some number tweaking.
2) Creative Factor: 6/10
A rather uneventful story. All 3 of her abilities being land manipulation fits the flavor of the original card but her abilities directly mimic other cards more than I appreciate. Putting a really powerful ramp ability as a +1 with an Uproot and an amped Rude Awakening on the same card, she does everything entirely too well for a card that costs 1GG.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
A fairly unassuming card originally. Nice to see it get some attention.
First impression: Sweet spot!
1) Power Level: 10/10
His +1 is simply bad but it is still useful. This makes the absolutely game-ending -7 something to work towards and also pretty fair. His -2 is powerful but not dissimilar to Garruk's +1. Being a -2 instead of a +1 makes that entirely justifiable. He's not oppressive, he's not format warping, and he still looks like he could make the cut.
2) Creative Factor: 7/10
Curious to see something this significant as a 'before'/'what might have been' snapshot. There's not a lot to the story, but it works as a journal entry. His abilities are all very green so, from a design perspective, I really don't see why he's got R. His -7 granting vigilance is out of place and unnecessary.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
Did not expect this one!
First impression: Fun!
1) Power Level: 9/10
Sturdy, but costly. I worry how quickly you could get to his -7 though. To play any planeswalker that costs 6 requires a decent payoff, but his ultimate still seems too abusable. His -2 is reasonable as it leaves him very vulnerable.
2) Creative Factor: 8/10
Decent story. His abilities are nicely in-color, though I've a complaint about his -7. Historically, blue effects like that are very clearly limited to pilfering an opponent's library and for an ability this 'cheaty' I think it needs to remain so. Also, the haste granting seems gratuitous considering you've already got an emblem that's better than the blue Epic spell.
3) Legendary Choice: 4/5
Obvious, but I know he likely didn't give you a choice.
The Family: Braids, Exiled in Insanity (16/25)
House Dimir: Ramirez of the Deep (21/25)
The Crafters: Doran, the Surveryor (18/25)
The Called: Azusa, Seeking the Planes (17/25)
Mono-Blue Clan: Ob Nixilis, the Rekindled (22/25)
The Izzet: Niv-Mizzet the Prodigal (21/25)
1.) Power Level:(7/10) First ability is a little too powerful for a 3-drop. Second ability is balanced, but removing itself permanently (and not via an 'ultimate') seems clunky. Third ability looks like it won't be used very often.
2.) Creative Factor:(8/10) Love the idea of a fully formed ninth tail, very creative. The first ability does not fit his persona very well. Again, not a fan of him popping himself with his own ability so easily, though on the other hand I have no problem with Oblivion Ring, so that's a tough call.
3.) Legendary Choice:(4/5) Excellent choice, excellent scenario for how he attained his spark, though I would have liked more reasoning for why he simply failed to harm the dude he was attacking initially.
[The Family]: (13/25)
1.) Power Level:(4/10) She basically tries hard to get to 6+ loyalty, then launches a very sub-par ultimate. I would much rather it read something like 2 or 3 life lost per card exiled that way.
2.) Creative Factor:(7/10) The first two abilities are very creative, and I am impressed with the design of the second ability especially. The third ability seems tacked on and doesn't really relate to Braids at all. Why no sacrifice effects?
3.) Legendary Choice:(2/5) Her abilities are only moderately fitting of what her original card does. I was hoping to gather some insight from your write-up as to why she has the abilities given to her planeswalker card, and saw no logical explanation there either.
[Limited]: (11/25)
1.) Power Level:(8/10) The first two abilities are especially nice on a planeswalker, and the third ability is alright, but doesn't seem particularly fitting, and -9 seems a bit steep.
2.) Creative Factor:(2/10) Very cookie-cutter approach- the first ability is the ability of the legendary card. The backstory reads like a joke.
3.) Legendary Choice:(1/5) She's been picked by another clan as well, and I don't see much of a reason for [The Family] picking her. The abilities show almost no intuition, the background story shows that this contest was not taken seriously.
[ARD]: (14/25)
1.) Power Level:(8/10) First power is great. Second power is a bit too powerful. The ultimate is very clunky and silly.
2.) Creative Factor:(2/10) The first ability actually directly contradicts Zuo's Legendary card's first ability. No reference is made to the card's second ability of troll shroud. No backstory. The third ability seems to have merely been chosen to
3.) Legendary Choice:(4/5) Good card choice, but it doesn't seem like much effort was put into making him into a planeswalker.
[House Dimir]: (21/25)
1.) Power Level:(7/10) First ability is way too powerful. Second ability is almost balanced, but being able to use him the turn you play him to steal your opponent's planeswalker seems a little too good. The ultimate feels balanced and well-designed. "RELEASE THE KRAKEN!"
2.) Creative Factor:(9/10) Very creative, excellent backstory. Going from the Legendary card to the planeswalker tells a story itself.
3.) Legendary Choice:(5/5) No question here, excellent choice and execution.
[The Crafters]: (16/25)
1.) Power Level:(4/10) Far too powerful abilities, especially for three converted mana. On top of that, he has four of them. On top of that, he starts with a surprisingly high number of loyalty counters for a three-mana planeswalker.
2.) Creative Factor:(8/10) Certainly creativity was put into the abilities, and they seem at least somewhat fitting, though make no homage to the Legendary version of Doran other than making treefolk. Well designed backstory.
3.) Legendary Choice:(4/5) Doran seems like a logical powergamer choice. I've deducted one point for no relation to Doran's original abilities.
[The Called]: (20/25)
1.) Power Level:(7/10) First ability would be more balanced at just finding a basic land rather than a dual land. Second ability can create a pretty severe lock with just Contagion Engine proliferating each turn (and you get to use the first ability to accelerate into it). Ultimate feels balanced.
2.) Creative Factor:(9/10) Well designed, and well backed by the backstory. Excellent job with the card render.
3.) Legendary Choice:(4/5) Minus one for Azusa having been chosen twice.
[Izzet]: (19/25)
1.) Power Level:(7/10) First ability seems too good. Second ability can be even more powerful. Third ability is very wordy.
2.) Creative Factor:(7/10) First ability is Electrolyze. The other two abilities don't have much at all to do with Niv Mizzet's Legendary card. Good job with the backstory though.
3.) Legendary Choice:(5/5) No issues here.
[Clan Mono Black]: (22/25)
1.) Power Level:(9/10) Very well-balanced. I especially like the versatility of the first ability while it does not appear outright powerful.
2.) Creative Factor:(8/10) Very creative. Excellent backstory. Abilities match well, though I would have liked to see something to do with flowstone manipulation (+1/-1 & -1/+1).
3.) Legendary Choice:(5/5) I approve of this choice.
Braids, Exiled in Insanity [12.5]
Power [4] : The first ability can potentially lead to infinite loyality - would be dangerous if she actualy could use that in a threatening way.
Design [1+5] : For the card's design I want to give it 0, 'cuz the wording isn't correct and thus it does nothing. The abilities don't add up to something. The plus and minus being reversed (sort of) is clever, so that gets a point. The story is conceptually awesome and fitting for our all favourite dementia mage, 5 points.
Legend [3.5] : Braids only stands out as broken EDH general - but apart from that? I don't mean she's a bad choice, just medicore.
Ramirez of the Deep [16]
Power [5] : The second that it's allmost a lock on creature based decks. The two other abilities are reasonable given the cmc and starting loyality.
Design [3.5+3.5] : A plus ability that targets a creature is a no-go for me. That story is too long and too much yada-yada.
Legend [4] : An old-school Legends legend, but apart from that a boring card to start with.
Doran [18]
Power [7] : Potentially quite strong, because he does so many things and that at 3cmc.
Design [3+4] : If the standard text box is not enough, you did something wrong. The third ability feels tacked on. Story isn't bad, but feels ripped off Karn/Garruk etc.
Legend [4] : Doran is a nice card to start from, but his ability is hard to translate to a PW and you didn't.
Azusa [17.5]
Power [7] : The first ability in itself is woth three mana for one use, see Untamed Wilds. Adding a mini Plow Under, Early Harvest and Rude Awekening on a 3cmc Walker gives a potent card.
Design [3.5+3] : Too cheap, and the second ability doesn't tie into the card. Circu being a nice guy? Sure. apart from that random stuff that makes me yawn.
Legend [4] : Medicore card, but it somehow makes sense that she becomes a PW.
Niv [18.5]
Power [6]: Two damage plus a card for [+2]? Ok, he costs six, but still. The middle ability means he can get rid of any other walker and the ultimate is bonkers.
Design [4+3.5] : I actualy like the card and can't find obvious faults, but the extra point for innovation he doesn't get. The story's medicore.
Legend [5] : What else was to be expected from the Izzet? and he indeed makes for a good candidate.
Volrath [16]
Power [6] : I don't see him being that powerfull. The plus is balanced no matter who you point it at. The Minus isn't gamebreaking either and Yawg Will loses oomph as emblem.
Design [3+4] : Medicore untied abilities, the plus really shines as balanced. the story has a Dr.Manhatten (gone evil) vibe. I approve.
Legend [3] : He's dead. Sadly. and your card failed to express that he was a shapeshifter.
Niv-Mizzet: Balance: 8/10-I really like it. I think I’d make the abilities +1/-2/-6, but otherwise he seems great.
Creative: 7/10-Fits niv-mizzet, doesn’t fit the card itself per se.
Choice: 3/5-Sorry, but I’m not going to give you the points like everyone else for choosing niv-mizzet. He’s a good choice, don’t get me wrong-but he’s also super-obvious from you guys.
Doran: Balance: 7/10-seems a tad-bit overpowered, to me. I think he’d be perfect at 3 loyalty-its of note that at that point he’d be a mortify and a putrefy stuck together as one option. As is, the fact that he can come down, wipe an opponents threat, and then either start ramping or make a defender for any more threats seems a little too much.
Creative:7/10-I liked to story, but the abilities reflect neither Doran nor the story super-well. There is a sort of dissonance between the card and everything else.
Choice: 4/5-Nothing super-crazy, but definitely not an obvious choice by any means.
Volrath: Balance: 8/10-oddly enough, taking points of for being, imo, slightly underpowered. His ultimate, especially-I don’t think I’d limit it to one spell per turn, but rather one spell *this way* each turn. Keep in mind it still keeps you from recasting spells from hand.
Creative: 7/10-references the ending of his previous storyline well, but does nothing for the card. A little on the short side, as well, thouh beyond the 14 minimum.
Choice: 4/5-Volrath is a pretty good choice for a walker, and not too obvious of one.
Or, more concisely:
CMB:19/25
Izzet: 18/25
Crafters: 18/25
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
EDH: UUUJin-Gitaxias, Core AugurUUU
Modern WWWHatebearsWWW
Ramirez of the Deep (24) Ob Nixilis, the Rekindled (20) Doran, The Surveyor (22) Niv Mizzet the Prodigal 21 Braids, Exiled in Insanity (20) Volrath, Returned (18)
Volrath, Returned (18)
Power level: Too High (6). The first ability alone is a game breaker with huge card advantage. Sure there’s the drawback of discarding, but black thrives in that. I would actually rather see the first and second ability reversed. The ultimate is powerful but fair, especially considering that you probably had to draw six cards and take six damage for that.
Planeswalker Design (3): Very different from the original legend, but the story explains this well. I feel the first ability is too strong, but other than that the card is well made.
Story Design: Good story (4). I like volrath and a revival into a new envincar is pretty cool.
Legend Choice: Good choice (5).
Niv Mizzet the Prodigal 21
Power level: High (9). I’m thinking that overall this planeswalker might be a bit too powerful. Still, if you untapped with niv mizzet the legend you had a serious advantage, so I suppose you’d expect the planeswalker to be more powerful.
Planeswalker Design (4): The first ability is classic Izzet and fits Niv Mizzet decently. Not sure the second and third abilities are as closely in sync with that theme, but it’s not far off.
Story Design: Good story(4). I liked the idea of Niv Mizzet going against the Nephilim in battle.
Legend Choice: (4) Well for an Izzet style choice I suppose this one basically picks itself.
Ob Nixilis, the Rekindled (20)
Power level: Medium (8). First ability is a bit weak, but not horrible. The second ability gives some good acceleration, but is still underpowered as a -2. The ultimate is game breaking, but since it normally takes 4 turns to go off I don’t see it as broken.
Planeswalker Design: (3) The story is needed to understand how a Black Legend Demon was a Druidish planeswalker. The only real connection to your legend is the first ability, but the story ties things in decently.
I took into consideration that they didn’t have the loyalty number on the render, no set symbol, and no rarity color.
Story Design: (4) Oh thank the gods that this was a short story. *cough* I mean… Interesting story. Since it hints at a feeling of corruption I suppose this takes place before he becomes Ob Nixilis, the fallen.
Legend Choice: (5) Odd choice and perhaps symbolic acknowledgement that Mono-blue isn’t the way to go? Choosing a Black legend and making it into a loosely connected Red/Green planeswalker. Quite telling.
Doran, The Surveyor (22)
Power level: High, Perhaps too High (9). Overall this card is restricted to a specific type of deck. However in that deck it is an overwhelming and can break opponents down.
Planeswalker Design (4): My biggest criticism of this card is that I don’t know what any of the abilities have to do with Doran the Legend. Each ability is color relative and good in its own right, but Doran was a 0/5 that made everything deal damage with toughness instead of power, a card that worked very well with other treefolk. How the design concept went from that to search for forest, make a treefolk, kill any non-land, and a change life total ultimatum is difficult for me to understand.
Story Design (4): Good story, Interesting take on Doran’s personality and struggles with the blight.
Legend Choice (4): Good pick.
Ramirez of the Deep (24)
Power level: High, but not broken (9). Terminate on a stick is a bit much, but only cause it doesn’t strike me as a black/blue ability. Still, black does kill creatures and at 2UBB it is not over the top. I can see this as being a very fun card that many people would play casually.
Planeswalker Design: (5) Very well designed. The first and second abilities complement each other to deal with most threats while the third ability brings in a monstrosity of its own to fight. Perhaps the best part of this design is that it fits perfectly with the story. A skilled fighter killing opponents, a pirate hording riches, and a tortures soul creating abominations for nefarious purposes.
Story Design: (5) A very very detailed account of the creation of this pirate king. For the most part well written and informative.
Legend Choice: (5) Risky choice since it depended a lot on creative ability to make work. Good work.
Braids, Exiled in Insanity (20)
First I’m not sure this submission is legal. Black Braids isn’t on the EDH list. Blue Braids is, but this planeswalker has nothing to do with the blue braids.
Power level: low (7). She’s simply not playable in most situations. First ability is really dependant on other people’s actions and how well you’ve designed the deck around her. Second ability is meh, opponents will only discard when it suits them. The third ability can be dangerous, but very dependant. In the right situation she can be a game breaker, but I’m not sure how often that would happen. Overall restrictive game play, useless early game, mid-late game limited potential.
Planeswalker Design (4): Fun. The card fits the name. She’s a very counter intuitive card that can build up loyalty fast for repeatable damage. She’s also less likely to be targeted since she seems useless until fatal…like your average insane person. I don’t like the design of the second ability. It fits the insanity, but is overall useless.
Story Design (5): Chaotic. I’ve no idea what the story has to do with braids getting a spark. But, perhaps, that was the intention. The insanity involved in the story is well written and entertaining. Good read.
Legend Choice: (4) If Black Braids is legal then good choice. If not and this is designed after Blue Braids, well I don’t see the resemblance.
Power: 7/10 - He's fine, not broken, but the +1 ability is marginally too strong.
Creative: 5/10 Holy Wall of Text! I couldn't make my way through all of it, but it seemed very meh. Not cliched, but not exactly original. Also not fantastically written. The card is very pirate-y, especially the second ability. As noted, the third ability should make a leviathan or something.
Legendary Choice: 4/5 - Certainly an original choice.
Total: 16/25
Power: 7/10 - Very strong indeed - +1 to colour fix, kills guys, ultimate either does nothing or wins the game. The numbers are reasonably well chosen
Creative: 8/10 - Story was well written and pretty good (although I'm not exactly sure what the "Canker" is, I imagine it's a concept from Shadowmoor). His abilities are flavourful, although it feels like he only has 4 because he could have 4.
Legendary Choice - 3/5 - Doran's cool, but I couldn't ever imagine him as a planeswalker. Sadly, the story doesn't shed any light on the matter.
Total: 18/25
Power: 6/10 - If Doran was strong, Asuza is awesome. Fixes better, puts opponent back a turn and has a usually auto-kill ultimate. Probably over-powered. I just read that the land comes into play untapped - definitely overpowered.
Creative: 5/10 - The way Asuza gains her spark is totally uninspiring. It's supposed to be an earth-shattering event, and her she's about to maybe get attacked and *plop* she's in ravnica. Lame. Her abilities are also not really linked to her card - a +1 of "play an extra land" seems really obvious. The card comes across as very generic green.
Choice: 4/5 - Asuza's a cool legend.
Total: 15/25
Power: 7/10 - seems ok without being broken. Probably more for causal play.
Creative: 8/10 - A really cool idea of having a BBB guy start out life as RG. Story isn't great, but is very to the point and clear. Using the name of Ob Nixilis is a bit awkward, since that feels heavy black to me. The card is also very generic RG (although the +1/+1 counter link is nice.) The lack of starting loyalty being on the card is lame
Choice:5/5 Very original choice.
Total: 20/25
Power: 7/10 - strong, but costs a billion mana. Very, very strong on EDH-like formats - draws cards, removes stuff RB has issue with and the ultimate is pretty crazy.
Creative: 6/10 Picture is all fuzzy, and doesn't look sleek enough for Niv. Story is fine, although I would have preferred more emphasis on the spark-getting. Card is pretty Izzet-y, although the second ability is not really part of RU colour pie.
Choice: 4/5 - Pretty obvious choice for the Izzet clan.
Total: 17/20
Power: 8/10 - Not broken, although the +1 is pretty awesome to use on yourself - especially if you have 1 or 0 CiH. At 5, at probably costs too much for this to be too powerful in constructed. Pretty good in EDH.
Creative: 8/10 - story is pretty cool and mercifully short. Card is very black, and the ultimate is classic.
Choice: 4/5 - iconic dude who isn't Yawgmoth.
Total: 20/25
however, when tallying all the votes from members, the clans ranked as below:
Clan Mono Black
House Dimir
ImageCrafters/Izzet/Called
Mono Blue Clan
Sorry if this isn't right, but I did the best I could.
2011 which is hereby known as The Year of The Planeswalker, From Jace, to Garruk, to Gideon, and those of us hoping we get a New and More playable Liliana!
So lets get down to business...
The Rules:
The Legendaries in Question
Then each clan will have two weeks(14 days) days to take the Legendary Creature and turn it into a Planeswalker. Then write a little blurb about said Legendary Planeswalker, using a minimum of 15 Sentences. Creative interpreation is left to the clans, whether its a new origin, or a twist on the story, as long as its creative thats what matters.
Each Planeswalker can have no more than 4 abilities.
Then choose, create, or alter, a piece of Art to represent your Planeswalker. If the Clans want to use MSE Renders thats fine, if a Clan does not have MSE Attaching the picture(And making sure credit to the artist is given!) is perfectly fine.
After everything is put together, each submission will go up for a vote, The Clans will have one week to pick their favorite Planeswalker, and submit their vote. There is no voting for yourself, and in the event of a tie, those that are tied will be resubmitted, and revoted on.
The Categories to Vote on:
Categories are voted on out of 25 Points, 10, 10, 5.
1.) Power level: (-/10) No Jace the Mind Sculptor's here. You want to keep a balance between Playability, and fun.
2.) Creative factor: (-/10) This is a combo between the creative writing piece and the design of the Planeswalker. The back story is always important for any hero/villain. But creating a boring Planeswalker is also not good. Be Innovative, try out new things, and maybe we'll create something awesome.
3.) Legendary Choice: (-/5) I gave a big list of cards in the hopes that we could get some real diversity between Planeswalkers, and not have the same Legendaries be chosen.
25 Points Total.
Votes need to be submitted by 5-4-2011 by 11:59 PM EST
Cheers and Good luck!
~W
Due to lack of adhering to the rules, the following clans are DQ'd:
Greek Alliance
Soundtrack
Ard
The Pack
Clan Bolas
Limited
Regards
~W
Here is our card and short story:
Planeswalker- Nine-Tails
+1: Put a 1/1 white Fox Cleric creature token onto the battlefield.
-X: Exile Sensei Nine-Tails and target nonland permanent with converted mana cost X.
-6: You get an emblem with "White creatures you control have protection from all colors."
3
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails’ journey was not quite as long as most he had taken, but the trek from Eiganjo to the temple was still a time consuming one. The Kami war had been over for some time now, but even so with the plane wide threat over, many still sought to do the misdeeds of others. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails had heard rumors along his journey that a band of powerful ogres were terrorizing villages, with no survivors to make note of their motives. In the distance the cleric could see smoke rising from where his temple sat. He ran as quickly as his legs would carry him to the site of his home. There he gasped in horror, students were fighting ogres, and they had summoned a large and powerful Oni to their side as well.
The Oni spotted Eight-and-a-Half-Tails and lunged. With a silent word and a wave of his staff, the Kitsune wove his special nullification spell to ward off the Oni’s attack. To his surprise the spell didn’t hold and the Oni grabbed and hoisted him high off the ground. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails squeezed his eyes shut tight and wished that he could only help his students survive the day. Then everything changed, he was no longer on the battlefield, but in whirling nothingness. Below him he could sense the mana of Kamigawa, but he himself was not there, and this was not the spirit realm.
Eight-and-a-Half-Tails felt power surging through him, whether it had been the Kami, or his own will, his wish had been granted. He reappeared on the battle next to a number of students, who were both shocked and inspired by his odd transformation. With a rallying cry they charged forward, injuring or out right killing the ogres. With all the power he could muster, Eight-and-a-Half-Tails weaved his spell, nullifying his targets and allowing his students to surprise and kill the attackers. With a great crash he saw the remains of his temple collapse into rubble and a great sorrow entered his soul. Mustering as much power as he could, be bestowed his nullification spell across all his students, and one by one they became unable to be felled by the ogres or the demon.
With his last bit of strength, Eight-and-a-Half-Tails charged the demon, plowing into it. After a loud snap and a flash of blinding white energy, the two were gone.
After the battle many students spoke of their sensei and how he had become a Kami in their darkest hours. Many more however, spoke of his ninth tail, fully formed and heralding their victory.
There was once [The Pack], but no more.
--
Render
Backstory
Azusa, a deadly and beautiful monk, walks through a tranquil grove. It is early spring, and cherry blossoms are floating on the wind. Color is everywhere.
Azusa steps swiftly, taking in the wildflowers and new growth and the flittering of small animals across her path. She stops at an apple tree, plucks the largest, ripest apple she can find, and takes a bite.
A spark ignites.
Azusa, the Traveller 2GG
Planeswalker - Azusa
+2: You may play up to two additional lands this turn.
-2: Search your library for two basic land cards, reveal them and put them in your hand. Then shuffle your library.
-9: Draw a card for each land you control.
Loyalty: 4
Zuo CI 1GG
Planeswalker - Zuo
[+2]: Target creature can't be blocked except by creatures with horsemanship this turn.
[-X]: Search your library for a green creature card with converted mana cost X and put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
[-7]: All players gain an emblem with "the leyend rule doesn't apply", then, any number of target non-land permanents become copies of Zuo Ci.
[3]
(Zuo Ci, the mocking sage)
[Bolas] is in!
*Snip*
Please include credit for the artist.
will edit in backstory when we get it!
Or Izzet?
[trollface]
Spam + Failure to follow forum specific rules Infraction.
~W
Level 1 Judge. I tweet. Member of clan <Limited>. The Dunning-Kruger effect.
-Excert taken from History of Dominaria, volume 7 third priting.
Ramirez DePietro was born in the year 2919AR on the small island of Zaerlin in the central Jamuraan Sea. His father, Arimel DePietro, was the owner of the lucrative Tefallin Shipping Company. His mother, Colette Tefallin, was the original heir to the shipping company, but lost it to her husband's family during marriage negotiations.
Arimel was as cruel and merciless a business man as he was a father. Although born with a natural flare for causing trouble, Ramirez was often met with torturous discipline from Arimel.
With each passing year, Arimel would leave more and more to preform hostile takeovers of smaller, and less violent shipping companies. During these, "expansion missions" as he sometimes called them, he fathered many children out of marital bonds with his wife, Colette. One of which being Tor Wauki, another legend in his own right.
When Ramirez was ten years old, Colette died of an unknown and suspicious death, and what was left of the Tefallin family fortune was bequeathed to Arimel. Arimel, on a further slide of neglectful parenting, at this point only made it to Zaerlin once a month at best.
As Ramirez blossomed into a young man, his need to do amoral things grew right along with him. He loved stealing, and felt the thrill matched no other. With only the guidance of a few family slaves, and the occasional beating from his father, noone seemed to be able to do much about the wild son of Arimel.
On Ramirez's sixteenth birthday, he and his friends thought it would be grand to steal his father's own ship, as he would be there for Ramirez's own birthday festivities. After a few innocent deaths, Ramirez and his friends sailed away as fast as they could on the ship. Before exiting the harbour, Ramirez and his friends fly a pirate flag. Leaving the rest of the island to believe the ship had been truly pirated, and Ramirez had been taken hostage.
Soon bored and growing hungry, they drifted back to port, only to be met with gunfire. Half the ship is destroyed in the conflict before Arimel and his fleet realize what had happened by seeing Ramirez waving a white flag in a paddle boat, floating to them laughing with his friends.
Furious, Arimel nearly sliced his owns son's throat before deciding something else much more sinister to put his little, spoiled boy through.
He told Ramirez if he ever wanted to inherit the family company, he must first learn the company. He then assigned his son to a long distance courier ship, as a lowly crewman. With no other feasible way to inherit his family fortune, Ramirez had to reluctantly take the position.
After months of violence and ridicule most likely incited by words of his father, the ship Ramirez was serving on was attacked by a band of pirates. While they were slaughtering every one of Ramirez's crewmates, he was pleading for his life. On Ramirez's lead, the pirates decide to ransom off the young man, in hopes of a large sum of gold from one of the wealthiest businessmen in all of Jamuraa.
Another three months passed as the pirate ship Albre traveled to Zaerlin, raping, beating and generally abusing Ramirez in every conceivable fashion along the way. When they finally arrived, Ramirez was happy for the first time in his life to see a recently rebuilt ship with his fathers flags in the port.
An envoy was sent from the ship to Arimels offices, returning far sooner than anyone had expected. The envoy told the captain of the ship that his father said he would pay for them to keep him. The ship's captain and crew all had a good laugh, and actually took some gold from Arimel's office and left.
Ramirez was enslaved on the pirate ship for some time. Finally, after being tortured in ways that can only be imagined by heartless pirates for what seemed like years, he struck back at a group of instigating crewmen. He killed three with his bare hands before more pirates joined in. He was thrown overboard in the bloody fight that ensued, and killed another four while they restrained him.
Bound and weighted, Ramirez floated to the bottom of a Dominian Sea, it's name and general location unknown to him.
Ramirez then woke from a dream. The visage of a giant monstrosity laughing at him still fresh in his mind as he floated to the surface of a giant, blueish ocean. He gathered his bearings, and realized he was on a makeshift raft floating towards the shore of a nearby island. He felt his face, and noticed it had been changed. In his mind, the nightmarish creature's laugh echoed loudly, followed by "Of course you can be Pirate King, for now!", then more laughter.
He then noticed his new, strange clothing-exquisite black and purple silk trousers, and a white silk shirt. He stood, and noticed that his pockets contained a small handful of gold coins. His raft floated slowly to shore.
From there, he quickly joined the first pirate crew he could, and started truly learning the ropes to piracy. Every few ports, he would leave his current crew to join another. Years passed by, and Ramirez's age never seemed to change. He learned how to be the greatest pirate he could, from all the greatest pirates of the time. He did this until the fateful day when he encountered a recruiter for the pirate ship Albre.
Ramirez joined the crew, being unrecoginzed by the other crew as a once beaten slaveboy under the name of Remme Tasheir.
Over the course of the next several years, Ramirez secretly killed all the original remaining crew except the captain himself. Through guile, manipulation, and some basic magic Ramirez picked up along his travels, he gained the complete trust of the captain.
While out on a long string of raids, the captain and "Remme" had an argument midship for all to see. The Captain ordered the crew to kill Remme, but the crew hesitated and Remme ran into the captain's cabin. The captain drew his sword and gave chase. Before anyone could follow the captain, there was a clamour and some loud shouting. The captain yelled that Remme was dead, and for everyone to get back to work.
Noone saw "Remme" until later that evening.
Historians believe whatever followed was quite horrifying, as the original captain's name and said event were never spoken again. The result being Ramirez took over as captain of the pirate ship Albre.
Ramirez then conquered the southern Jamuraan Sea with piracy and force tactics in the timeframe of about a month, and earned the title The Pirate King from an interested bandit warlord on Jamuraa's southwestern continent. He set port in an unnamed island, and began building a massive fleet under his flag of the most merciless, bloodthirsty pirates Dominaria had ever seen. Years passed, as Ramirez became somewhat of a celebrity within certain circles on Jamuraa.
At nearing fifty years old, and not looking or feeling a day over seventeen, Ramirez started to question the "luck" fate had bestowed upon him. Ever curious, and growing increasingly paranoid, Ramirez began collecting books on magic. This became a morbid fascination, and he soon grew bored with piracy altogether, but not the riches it gave.
While scouring a country side village in hopes of finding some lost text, Ramirez and his personal crew were ambushed by Bandits who happened to be raiding the town. One by one, each of Ramirez's crew fell to the overwhelming numbers of the bandits, but Ramirez stayed fighting strong, dropping three times the bandits to each pirate he had lost. Standing on a pile of dead bandits, Ramirez shouted, "I am Ramirez DePietro, KING OF ALL PIRATES! I may die today, but you will all remember my name!" Then the advancement hears a loud, deep warcry followed by deep laughter. A tall, strangely familiar man in his late fifties walked towards Ramirez and the pile of bodies. "You're Ramirez DePietro? Your father was Arimel DePietro, of the Tefallin Shipping Company? That is not possible..."
Ramirez spat on the ground in front of the older looking man. "He was...", Ramirez replied.
"Then surly you know of Zaerlin's recent submersion." The man continued, adjusting a bow he had slung across he back while walking up. Ramirez looked startled for a brief second, then indifferent. The man continued. "You have not heard?" Ramirez replies.
"No." There had been recent flooding rampant thoughout the world because of a mostly unknown World Spell that put Dominaria back in it's true axis, elimating a long ice age. "What difference does this make?", Ramirez snarls.
The man shrugs and says, "It is impossible in any case that you are who you say you are. You are what, seventeen years of age? I know Ramirez DePietro is ten years my older, at least."
"And how would you know that?" Ramirez gritted back.
"Because Ramirez DePietro is my older brother. I am his father's bastard.", the man replied.
Ramirez lowered his sword, but did not stop the energy flow of a spell he had cast and been keeping at bay. The older man then looked around clearly impressed by the pirate's combat skills, and laughed again. "Then again, the only other person I've ever met who could do this...", he said, waving his hands around, showcasing the mountain of dead bodies and blood streams, "...is myself. Perhaps you are my brother under some sort of appearance altering enchantment. If that is the case, we should not be fighting..." The man then extended his hand. "I am Tor Wauki, Bandit Warlord, Scourge of The Southwestern continent and bastard son of Aremil DePietro."
Ramirez lowered his casting hand, causing the spell to disapitate, and his slowly offered a tired hand, laughing himself.
Tor Wauki laughed, and said, "Come, you must meet Johan."
Under the banner of Johan, Ramirez then joined Tor Wauki as he lent them his fleet for the naval branch in their quest for Jamuraan dominance. Ramirez also assumed the role of a diplomat, settling himself into the city-state of Bryce. There he met Adira Strongheart, the wife of Hazezon Tamar, the governor. They had a very public affair, and Ramirez conned her out of all of her fortune through various bunk enterprises. The result of this, caused the divorce of Adira and Hazezon. She returned to her homelands, and founded a religious mercenary sect, to help atone for her sins.
After Johan's defeat, Ramirez and Tor Wauki went on the run, eventually being cornered by none other than Adira and her band of mercenaries. Overwhelmed, Tor Wauki and Ramirez fought off the advancement, with what was left of their armies and navy. Seven days of brutal assault had completely wiped out their combined forces, and they surrendered. Tor Wauki was killed instantly, and Ramirez was taken to see Adira.
There, he begged the aging woman to spare his life, for "the love we once had". She agreed to let him go where the Jamuraan sea ends, if he vowed never to return to Jamuraa or her seas.
Ramirez floated on the small row boat he was set out upon for what felt like eons. Barely alive, he woke from a hunger induced black out surrounded by a thick haze. Rubbing his sunbleached face, he heard something he had never quite forgotten. A deep, rumbling laugh. That laugh.
His boat began to shake, and the grotesque monster that had haunted his dreams for ages emerged from the water.
Tentacles dripping, and smelling like vomit and plague, the beast said, "It is now time for your payment."
"Pay-payment? What the hell is this?"
The beast just laughed again, and everything became cold and black for Ramirez.
He came to at some point much later with a rush of knowlege and an immense pain.
The beast's life force had somehow merged with his own. During this, Ramirez had inherited some of the beast's genetic memory. After years of searching for answers about his sudden change of fortune, it was all too clear to him now. He remembered the deal the creature and himself had made. His life and some power, for millenia of pain.
He now knew the beast's name was Ixmoria. He knew the beast was born of a race that existed between realities. He now knew about the different realities or "planes" that existed. And he knew all about the interplanatary hoppers known as planeswalkers.
He knew the race that Ixmoria belonged had all but died out in a long forgotten battle between them and the magically planeshifting planeswalkers. The race Ixmoria belonged to, had a natural ability to shift from one plane to another. Ixmoria had been defeated by a planeswalker thousands of years before, and had been banished to the deepest part of the Dominaria.
But with all of these things he now knew, he also knew things he wish he didn't. He knew that Ixmoria was slowly filtering out his life essence to repower hers so she can leave the plane of Dominaria. He knows that he is trapped, and there is no way he can escape.
After two hundred years, something occurs that neither Ramirez or Ixmoria expected. The magic waste from Ixmoria digesting Ramirez's life essence, was taking form. At first they were just little specks, moving about. But soon the specks gave way to tadpoles. And the tadpoles gave way to something else, and so on. Over years, the little specks had evolved and looked similar to the Merfolk he had encountered in his travels, but their faces had been warped to resemble the shambling tentacled head of Ixmoria.
Ramirez would watch these creatures, unable to move for for years at a time. They would swim off, and come back with food and whatever else caught their eye. Between that, sleeping, mating, and eating, the merfolk did little else.
One day, the merfolk started looking towards and swimming right around the spot he was being magically tethered to the ocean floor. Excited for the first time in ages, he could feel them. He kept screaming, "Help me!" Help me!" and the more he did so, the more excited the merfolk got. Still, nothing changed.
Another five hundred years passed. Ramirez slept for decades at a time, only awakening for minutes before falling into another slumber. He saw one of the merfolk carrying something metalic, and he thought, "What could that be..." The merfolk swam to him, and presented a small, human made ring.
"Wow." He says to himself. "Now if only you could get me out of here."
The merfolk tilts it's head, and Ramirez hears. "How can we help you?"
Feeling another wave of sleep sweep over him, Ramirez managed to reply, "Kill Ixmoria..." before drifting back off.
Ramirez dozed in and out for centuries. Occasionally waking to find hundreds of these magical spawn gathered around him, kneeling. Sometimes he would wake up, just to fall back asleep. He had all but lost hope, until one day...
He woke up with even more searing pain then in th centuries before. Startled and looking around, still not being able to move, he realized he was bearing witness to a great battle of sheer force of numbers versus an awesome display of magic. Although happy to witness something he had dreamt about since he'd been held hostage by Ixmoria, the happiness was short lived. The immense pain being caused now was still the result of Ixmoria's merging and subsequent feeding of Ramirez's life force, but not because of the syphoning. With each little spear prick, and each claw and gash the merfolk could produce, Ramirez felt it right along with Ixmoria.
Inside his head he was screaming, but the merfolk or Ixmoria did not seem to notice.
As the final blows were dealt, Ramirez at least took solace with the knowlege that his pain would soon end.
After hours of unnumbing pain, the last blow is dealth as hundreds of Merfolk throw themselves in a literal frenzy of claw, fin and tentacle at the monster. A tidal wave of magical energy, Ixmoria's planetary form explodes, and Ramirez's heart along with it. And for Ramirez, everything went black.
What seemed like aeons passed for Ramirez. Then out of the endless void, Ramirez opened his eyes a mere second after the final blow if Ixmoria takes place. Feeling more alive and aware than ever.
He felt something tingle within. The remains of Ixmoria's life force were trying to unattach itself from Ramirez's. He felt as if his entire soul was ripping apart at the seams as a tangle of black eels spewed out of his mouth. Instinctively he then felt his essence spinter within himself again, and from his own putrescence came forth a etheral creature with the appearance of Ixmoria's former self.
"HA, HA, HA!", the sea rumbles as Ixmoria's essence began to speak. "You might have defeated me Ramirez DePietro, but you wi-"
With a simple thought from it's creator, the newly spawned entity swiftly devoured the remaining essence of Ixmoria.
Laughing putrid bubbles of ooze, the gravity of what just happened takes hold of the once feared Pirate King.
Drunken with power, he attempted to planesshift as the thought seized him. He was on another plane of existance. In a lush forrest of steel and brass, unlike he had ever seen. He wandered for mere minutes. Catching a glimpse of his once eternally youthful face, now changed and murated again by his former captor and the Dominarian depths. Disgusted, he tried to look away from all of the reflective surfaces. As the dominarian water started evaporating from his naked skin, he started to phase out of this plane, and back onto the ocean floor, still surrounded by now bowing merfolk.
After weeks of trying to planeshift, Ramirez realized the curse that bound Ixmoria to the fathoms of Dominaria's deep had been merged into his soul after the death and transfusion of Ixmoria's life essence to his own. Thus, dooming him to the same existence. This angered Ramirez like nothing had before, and the tides changed forever that day.
At present time, Ramirez secretly has a finger in every glass of water on Dominaria. Using his legions of spawned Merfolk, his knowlege, and easily corruptible Dominarian citizens, he has taken footholds in every aspect of sea life. Vastly influencing everything from fair trade, to his old staple of piracy. He continues to search for ways of breaking the ancient ties that bind him to the ocean floor, with no hopes of doing so in the near future.
While secretly manipulating everything around him through cunning, guile and subterfuge, he continues to build his wealth, power, and armies of merfolk and other fiendish abominations, while waiting out this fate.
UUUJin-Gitaxias, Core AugurUUU
Modern
WWWHatebearsWWW
Doran, the Surveyor
Doran knew he would never acclimate to planeswalking since his initial escape from Shadowmoor. Every sensation he knew to expect before entering the Eternities came fresh, an unfamiliar pang against his being, as if his bark was cracking off but burgeoning with spring growth at the same time. He was disoriented, as if his boughs were firmly rooted in the ground alongside his roots. That thought had gotten a laugh out of the last planewalker he’d met, Gracielle. How strange it was to share such common ground with a fleshling, strange to share an awakening lost even on other treefolk.
Despite any kinship, she’d been of no help to him, just like the last two before her. Those who knew of the other realms of existence were few enough, and it seemed no one could help him find Lorwyn. The way others were all attuned to their homes was haunting, their journeys a lark, with short meditations barely taxing their physical and magical reserves. Returning home should be so damned easy! He and Gracielle had worked through every step of her return ritual with his thoughts guiding them. He had called forth his memories of Lorwyn, and used them to spin skeins between their minds so she could feel its beauty. He had woven the beacon of home and yearning, and she could feel the urgency he felt as though it were her own. Their magics built an image of paradise so real that he could almost feel Lorwyn’s ever-present sun on his leaves, and then the rot began to seep into their minds. Canker, Shadowmoor's putrescence pervading through body and spirit, was a paradise lost to pain and hate.
Tears had fallen from Gracielle’s panicked eyes as she severed the mana skeins between them. She openly wept as she collapsed on the ground and desperately scrabbled away from him. Doran’s body could not cry or bend as hers did, and he had felt this failure too many times to be stirred as she was. She was lucky, she only felt the canker for an instant and it became just a vile memory to her. He could feel it coursing through him now, even with the failed ritual long past and his suppressive magic strong. Every time he tried to return home, Shadowmoor's taint surfaced and cut the tether to Lorwyn’s rolling sunlit hills. He called to Lorwyn and the canker came running, beckoning him to return to Shadowmoor's endless night.
He stopped himself from thinking of Shadowmoor, at least not while walking, lest he revisit it yet again. The other walkers traveled with destinations in mind, or at least with instinct guiding them closer to whatever mysteries they sought. Doran had to ignore his instincts, spending long instances in the rift between worlds. Thankfully, his body stood amidst the chaos more firmly than one of flesh. He never knew how long he remained lost between realities, gleaning glimpses of every world but Lorwyn, never Lorwyn. He only stopped when his trunk ached and his roots seemed dry, and then only to regain his strength. He often spent days or weeks recovering, or what seemed like seconds between the worlds. He was tired now.
Dirt. Steep into it and rest. Its dark here, it was noon when he left. Doran shook his boughs, which meant nothing. But darkness, darkness means another failure. At least there is life here; he could feel the grass at his roots and insects already abuzz in his leaves. Roots and boughs extended, Doran began to meditate. Extending himself into the forest around him, he could feel the strength of the trees. They were not awakened, but conscious, welcoming. This land is vast, lush; there is power here. There are answers here. He cast himself out searching the soul of the forest, the days and nights cycling at the edge of perception. The entire forest is content to cycle between light and dark, a warm glow redolent of Lorwyn and the cold veil whispering of Shadowmoor. This world could almost be home, if not for the spread of cankerous thoughts surging each time his leaves felt the heat of the sun fade away. The world existed as a balance of home and hate, not disparate realities as Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, a balance, a cycle. The trees began receding. He grasped for their mind—not yet! There is more to learn. But then he felt the other presence rise. Not from his search, it had found him.
“Child”
Doran was young by no standards and would have laughed had that word came from anything else. But he felt young now. No, not young, but insignificant, ephemeral. He was lost now, why would it bother with him? His spirit felt as nothing along side this being.
“I see you Child”
All his memories of Lorwyn burst forth, even more than that, all his life. He saw his seed dropping from a tree that never awakened, watched as it was gathered and forgotten by a squirrel. He saw his sapling grow, he felt the sun and he felt himself awaken again, roots and branches finding a will against wind and earth. The animals living on him while he rested away short years in the sun. A festival the tiny Kithkin held around him as he rested after hurling the Boldwyr giants from his forest. His parent tree still stood when he visited, so tall and silent and loving—everything all at once. This is what he was searching for. How could he get it back?
“I see you Child”
Canker. It spread from him, into the animals of his swamp. He didn't care, they were wicked creatures anyway. He picked at his wounds to fling the sickness onto passing caravans that would have burned him had they realized he was awake. The other trees were foul, stunted with no light to reach for, uprooting saplings to preserve water for themselves. Foul water, blood and algal slicks and root severing merrows. No sun, only wilt. How long had he rooted in the dark, killing and cowering, before he remembered Lorwyn? Until he created the ritual to purge the canker? He guided the magical light inward until it scorched his heartwood, it had nearly killed him. Through that havoc he awakened again, but even freedom from Shadowmoor had only dulled the canker.
“You see the sickness! How do I get home?” There was no answer to his pleas, only a silence between himself and the lush growth of this world. He tried to reach further, and the screams began—chaotic, primal, bellows of despair and pain. Canker. Doran shook out of his meditation in time to see a rabbit writhe as the pustule grew on it's flank, wailing as it kicked its remaining legs in an attempt to escape. The wailing suddenly ceased as a man crushed the creature's head under his boot. People?
He saw them now. They had hewn the trees around him and built a berm, within which they burned his fallen brethren. “Fools!” he bellowed “You'll not fell me!” He wrenched at his trunk but could not move, they had staked and tethered him to the ground. “False roots cannot hold me!” Again he wrenched his body, snapping some of the vines that held him. The man who had killed the rabbit then spoke. “If you pull free, they will burn us.” Doran glowered down at him, what foolish bravado to threaten him so... burn us? Doran stopped rending the vines and looked again. The grass around him was dying and the man before him was growing pustules, one of his arms a stump with fresh bandages. This had never happened outside of Shadowmoor. It could only mean…
“I've brought it with me.”, Doran realized aloud. The man nodded, then began speaking calmly despite the pain he must have felt with each breath. “The mother felt it when you arrived, but your tainted body came with a pure mind. The forest has not had a true sentient since before my time. I offered myself as your caretaker so that your voice may wake one of our own. But we cannot let you leave this spot.” The burning trees were a sacrifice, not a threat. The thick smoke prevented anything flying to or from his branches, and this man killed anything within his diseased circle. The canker had returned and Doran would have to return to Shadowmoor to purge himself again. He grimaced inwardly; he would need to return regularly or risk bringing his darkness to others. The man spoke again, “We've held our vigil for days. Did we buy you enough time for the mother to answer your questions?” Doran was already concentrating on his journey. He could leave immediately, finding Shadowmoor was easy with its hateful canker so deeply infused in his grain. Doran did not bother to answer the dying man. He need not know his death is meaningless. There are no answers here.
wandering druid were peaceful and contemplative before the Great Kami
War, but afterwards, her faith in the spiritual realm was shattered
forever. Having seen humans callously torn apart by mystic energies
and otherworldly torments, her once devout resolve in the harmonious
nature of the Kami was utterly destroyed.
And so Azusa travelled on. She did not know where she travelled, or
whom she sought, but some great inner strength propelled her onward,
day after day. After many months of arduous travel through dense
Kamigawa forests reminiscent of her once beloved Jukai, Azusa was set
upon by a band of mercenaries. Instantly she recognized their
barbarian garb as belonging to the ranks of the fearsome warlord Godo,
and she realized that these men were deserters from his forces. They
were gaunt men with craven, hungry looks in their eyes. While Azusa
acknowledged that her life was likely nearing its end, her ascetic
nature kept her from prostrating herself and begging for mercy.
And so the men came closer, and closer, and closer. Azusa felt a
warmth swell within her chest, and she wondered momentarily if she had
been stabbed. Yet as she looked down to inspect herself she saw that
her body was intact, and that time itself seemed to have stopped. The
bandits were frozen in their tracks, with their swords drawn and
hollow eyes still focused on her. Then there was light and warmth and
Azusa saw the men no more.
Where am I? Azusa wondered to herself. She was in a city marketplace,
filled with humans, lizard people covered in scales, and little red
creatures reminiscent of the goblins on Kamigawa. As she traversed the
epic sprawl of the bazaar, she stopped by a small store which appeared
to be a potion shop. Knowing that her mysterious journey was likely
the cause of strange magics, Azusa decided to ask the shopkeeper where
she was and how she got there. As she entered the dusty, cobweb filled
store, Azusa felt a sense of apprehension. Never in her years of
travel had she encountered such a strange city, and the entire scene
felt foreign and unique to her.
"Come in, come in,” a voice from within the shop beckoned. Asuza
squinted to make out the figure behind the shop counter in the dim
light.
“Where am I?” Azusa asked, her voice betraying her confusion.
“You, my dear, are at the finest potion and specialty shop on all of
Ravnica.”
“Ravnica? What corner of Kamigawa is this?” she wondered aloud.
“Kami what? I’ve never heard of such a district,” the voice responded
quizzically.
“My name is Azusa, and just minutes ago I was being accosted by a gang
of raiders on a deserted road in the middle of a forest,” Azusa
explained.
“A forest you say? Perhaps you were in Golgari turf, or Simic
perhaps?”
“I know not what Kami you speak of,” Azusa replied politely.
“Indeed you are quite lost, my dear,” the voice continued, “My name is
Circu. I was once a, shall we say, information extractor for the
Dimir.”
“Well Circu, can you tell me where I am?”
“Ravnica, in the Izzet district. As you can glean from looking
outside, the once xenophobic guilds have all dissolved. The Golgari
and Simic are just two of those former guilds, and while officially
the guilds no longer exist, unofficially they still maintain their
territories and private customs.”
“Are you saying that I’m in a whole new world?” Azusa asked, shocked.
“Heh. Well I don’t know where you started,” Circu replied.
“Kamigawa. My home was Kamigawa,” Azusa said defiantly.
“Well you’re a long way from home if that’s the case,” Circu answered,
“I heard rumblings of other worlds from the mouth of
Sza..err..rumblings of other worlds during my tenure as an information
extractor. If indeed you can travel between these planes that would
make you a planeswalker, and a valuable friend to have.”
“Planes…walker?” Azusa could barely fathom what the term meant.
“Stay for a bit, and we’ll talk. It appears there is much for us to
teach each other.”
Azusa ultimately ended up spending several weeks learning about
Ravnica with help from Circu. Azusa was a keen judge of character and
could tell that he had a dark past, however in her presence he was
always a gentleman and a source of great knowledge. As time
progressed, she began to hone her planeswalking skills and eventually
ended up moving from plane to plane with ease, constantly searching
for answers to questions she had yet to ask.
On some planes Azusa encountered fierce and violent creatures, though
her time spent with Circu had allowed her to hone her defensive magics
so she could turn the very ground the beasts walked upon against them.
As she continued to travel the multiverse, Azusa strengthened her
insights and inner resolve, never once forgetting the Kamigawa plane
that she used to call home.
Official Deschanel Stalker of The Called
Quotes in blog.
(Starting Loyalty: 4)
-A page taken from the journal of Ob Nixilis, found in the ruins of the Kazandu Refuge
Note - The context of the entry is that it takes place before the awakening of the Eldrazi.
12 Hours remain.
True to the stories as fitting to "Storyline Clan", the Greek Alliance chooses Jeska, Warrior Adept. as one of the true old planeswalkers who appeared in pre-walker form as legends.
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
Please EDIT your posts with your Planeswalker's in them, makes the thread cleaner.
Cheers,
~W
First post updated. 12 Hours remain. Hoping to see some render's or art forthese walker's soon...
Even though Niv-Mizzet was able to destroy two of the behemoths, the other three only seemed to intensify their assault, beating him to within an inch of his life. But before they could land a killing blow, the ancient dragon suddenly experienced a fiery flash of enlightenment as the vast potential of the Multiverse unlocked itself within his mind: He had ascended.
Despite his newly discovered powers, Niv-Mizzet realized that he was no match for the brute force and numeric advantage held by the nephilim while in his current battered state. Invigorated by quickened logic and a moderate dose of self-preservation, he decided to leave the plane of Ravnica, painfully aware that it would be at the mercy of the rampaging monsters.
In a weakened daze, Niv-Mizzet half-flew, half-fell through the Blind Eternities and eventually found himself drawn to a nearby plane with intense mana spikes. But in the process of materializing on Dominaria, he was caught in a time rift, hurtling him four thousand years into the past. Somewhere between the rush of nothingness and empty roars issuing from his throat, he lost consciousness.
Niv-Mizzet awoke to find himself surrounded by a group of refuge wizards from the ruins of the College of Lat-Nam, which had been destroyed in the wake of the Brothers' War. These pitiful-looking mages were kneeling or bowing in awe at the spectacle of a dragon Planeswalker, simultaneously trembling in fear and in greedy anticipation of the magic potential such a being could grant. Amused by their subservience, he obtained information regarding his temporal displacement under threat of dragonfire, then resolved to make the best of his new situation by founding a new school for magical study called the Institute of Arcane Study.
Niv-Mizzet would teach these Prodigal Sorcerers the way of the Firemind, and in turn they would spread their influence throughout the plane, with the ultimate goal of returning to their master with arcana and artifacts from afar. Constantly researching and devising a way to return home through Ravnica's planar seal, which had dissipated in his original timeline only because of the time rifts, he devoted the rest of his energy on a plan to defeat the foul nephilim that had so unceremoniously driven him away from his home plane.
Then again, four thousand years is not such a long time to wait for a fifteen thousand year old dragon Planeswalker...
Planeswalker - Niv-Mizzet [M]
[+2]: Niv-Mizzet, the Prodigal deals 2 damage divided as you choose among one or two target creatures and/or players. Draw a card.
[-2]: Target permanent's owner shuffles it into his or her library.
[-7]: You get an emblem with "At the beginning of your upkeep, search target player's library for a card and play it without paying its mana cost. If it's a creature, it has haste. Then that player shuffles his or her library."
{4}
The location of Volrath's death was forgotten, lost in the chaos of the Rathi Overlay. But there he remained, aware of naught but pain and anger, senseless to the passing of time. Years gone by, Yawgmoth's death had made a festering wound in the plane. A font of black mana like none before, it's power crept over the land until it found something of note. Volrath, still there, held between the earth and the Æther. Grabbing hold of the power that had found him so long ago he pulled himself through it. Again, he was whole, in a body made of mind and magic. His gaze warped the world around him, his mind filled with the power he'd lost and more. And he heard a sound, the unmistakable song. The Phyrexians were at work again.
He would be Evincar once more.
Art by deligaris.deviantart.com
Volrath, Returned 2BBB
Planeswalker - Volrath
[+1]: Target player discards two cards, then draws 2 cards, then loses 2 life.
[-1]: Each player sacrifices a permanent.
[-8]: You gain an emblem with "You can't cast more than one spell each turn. You may play cards from your graveyard. If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead."
{5}
Nobody complained about my design that couldn't be dealt with quietly behind locked doors, so here it is! Good luck everyone!
Disappointed that the rules were merely skimmed over this time around, such a shame.
First post updated
First post updated...again. lol.
First Impression: She is just... useless. Especially surprising considering, ya know, Braids.
1) Power Level: 4/10
Her +1 and -1 both only exist to manipulate the loyalty counters on Braids. For those to be at all useful, her 3rd ability must do something devastating and, ideally, be useful to activate multiple times. Her 3rd ability can certainly hurt, but it does next to nothing if used a second time. Overall, she's exceptionally weak. I can't see her making the cut for any deck.
2) Creative Factor: 8/10
A -1 to increase loyalty (listed first), a +1 to remove loyalty (each player, so usable as a discard outlet), and a cool story about a planeswalker whose mind is completely broken. All the style points. From the design side of things, her ult is a dealbreaker.
3) Legendary choice: 4/5
Everybody loves Braids! Maybe too obvious a choice though.
First impression: Scary, and a bit oppressive.
1) Power Level: 7/10
To be considered fair I think his +1 needs some restriction (nonblack?) and his -3 should be a -4, though this would make it feel like he has 2 ults. Either way, I think his +1 is too hard to fight through.
2) Creative Factor: 9/10
Killing, taking, summoning abominations from the ocean depths, and an epic story. A well-written short story, truly, and one I didn't mind reading. I like the reference to his flavor text. I do think the core of his design is fine, though he is a bit too powerful.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
Ramirez! Who would have expected it?
First impression: Looks pretty broken.
1) Power Level: 7/10
His +1 is really good, his other +1 is also really good, his -3 great, and his -8 is liable to end the game that turn. The only limiting factor is his color restriction, which isn't a very safe way to keep a card balanced (especially when it's the 'good stuff' colors).
2) Creative Factor: 6/10
Cool story, but the card does nothing to reflect that he's been contaminated. Both his +1s are rather contrary to that, actually. From the design side, he does too many things and he does them too well.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
Solid choice. Cool to see a planeswalker that's not a dragon or humanoid.
First impression: Oh damn.
1) Power Level: 6/10
That is an absurd +1! Really powerful -2, game-ending -5. Super low cost is scary, barely justified by how low her starting loyalty is. Really though, I'm looking at this on turn 2 following a Birds and that being game over for people not playing Lightning Bolt. Should cost at least one more, and then take some number tweaking.
2) Creative Factor: 6/10
A rather uneventful story. All 3 of her abilities being land manipulation fits the flavor of the original card but her abilities directly mimic other cards more than I appreciate. Putting a really powerful ramp ability as a +1 with an Uproot and an amped Rude Awakening on the same card, she does everything entirely too well for a card that costs 1GG.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
A fairly unassuming card originally. Nice to see it get some attention.
First impression: Sweet spot!
1) Power Level: 10/10
His +1 is simply bad but it is still useful. This makes the absolutely game-ending -7 something to work towards and also pretty fair. His -2 is powerful but not dissimilar to Garruk's +1. Being a -2 instead of a +1 makes that entirely justifiable. He's not oppressive, he's not format warping, and he still looks like he could make the cut.
2) Creative Factor: 7/10
Curious to see something this significant as a 'before'/'what might have been' snapshot. There's not a lot to the story, but it works as a journal entry. His abilities are all very green so, from a design perspective, I really don't see why he's got R. His -7 granting vigilance is out of place and unnecessary.
3) Legendary Choice: 5/5
Did not expect this one!
First impression: Fun!
1) Power Level: 9/10
Sturdy, but costly. I worry how quickly you could get to his -7 though. To play any planeswalker that costs 6 requires a decent payoff, but his ultimate still seems too abusable. His -2 is reasonable as it leaves him very vulnerable.
2) Creative Factor: 8/10
Decent story. His abilities are nicely in-color, though I've a complaint about his -7. Historically, blue effects like that are very clearly limited to pilfering an opponent's library and for an ability this 'cheaty' I think it needs to remain so. Also, the haste granting seems gratuitous considering you've already got an emblem that's better than the blue Epic spell.
3) Legendary Choice: 4/5
Obvious, but I know he likely didn't give you a choice.
The Family: Braids, Exiled in Insanity (16/25)
House Dimir: Ramirez of the Deep (21/25)
The Crafters: Doran, the Surveryor (18/25)
The Called: Azusa, Seeking the Planes (17/25)
Mono-Blue Clan: Ob Nixilis, the Rekindled (22/25)
The Izzet: Niv-Mizzet the Prodigal (21/25)
Winner: MUC!
The [Pack]: 19
[The Family]: 12.75
[Limited]: 11
[ARD]: 14
[House Dimir]: 18.5
[The Crafters]: 17
[The Called]: 18.75
[Izzet]: 18.75
[Clan Mono Black]: 19
The [Pack]: (19/25) [The Family]: (13/25) [Limited]: (11/25) [ARD]: (14/25) [House Dimir]: (21/25) [The Crafters]: (16/25) [The Called]: (20/25) [Izzet]: (19/25) [Clan Mono Black]: (22/25)
Braids, Exiled in Insanity [12.5]
Power [4] : The first ability can potentially lead to infinite loyality - would be dangerous if she actualy could use that in a threatening way.
Design [1+5] : For the card's design I want to give it 0, 'cuz the wording isn't correct and thus it does nothing. The abilities don't add up to something. The plus and minus being reversed (sort of) is clever, so that gets a point. The story is conceptually awesome and fitting for our all favourite dementia mage, 5 points.
Legend [3.5] : Braids only stands out as broken EDH general - but apart from that? I don't mean she's a bad choice, just medicore.
Ramirez of the Deep [16]
Power [5] : The second that it's allmost a lock on creature based decks. The two other abilities are reasonable given the cmc and starting loyality.
Design [3.5+3.5] : A plus ability that targets a creature is a no-go for me. That story is too long and too much yada-yada.
Legend [4] : An old-school Legends legend, but apart from that a boring card to start with.
Doran [18]
Power [7] : Potentially quite strong, because he does so many things and that at 3cmc.
Design [3+4] : If the standard text box is not enough, you did something wrong. The third ability feels tacked on. Story isn't bad, but feels ripped off Karn/Garruk etc.
Legend [4] : Doran is a nice card to start from, but his ability is hard to translate to a PW and you didn't.
Azusa [17.5]
Power [7] : The first ability in itself is woth three mana for one use, see Untamed Wilds. Adding a mini Plow Under, Early Harvest and Rude Awekening on a 3cmc Walker gives a potent card.
Design [3.5+3] : Too cheap, and the second ability doesn't tie into the card. Circu being a nice guy? Sure. apart from that random stuff that makes me yawn.
Legend [4] : Medicore card, but it somehow makes sense that she becomes a PW.
Niv [18.5]
Power [6]: Two damage plus a card for [+2]? Ok, he costs six, but still. The middle ability means he can get rid of any other walker and the ultimate is bonkers.
Design [4+3.5] : I actualy like the card and can't find obvious faults, but the extra point for innovation he doesn't get. The story's medicore.
Legend [5] : What else was to be expected from the Izzet? and he indeed makes for a good candidate.
Volrath [16]
Power [6] : I don't see him being that powerfull. The plus is balanced no matter who you point it at. The Minus isn't gamebreaking either and Yawg Will loses oomph as emblem.
Design [3+4] : Medicore untied abilities, the plus really shines as balanced. the story has a Dr.Manhatten (gone evil) vibe. I approve.
Legend [3] : He's dead. Sadly. and your card failed to express that he was a shapeshifter.
[The Crafters] averaged votes are:
1) Ramirez of the Deep [8,8.5,4.5] 21/25
2) Niv-Mizzet the Prodigal [7,7.5,3.5] 18/25
3) Azusa, Seeking the Planes [7,5.5,3.5] 16/25
Niv-Mizzet: Balance: 8/10-I really like it. I think I’d make the abilities +1/-2/-6, but otherwise he seems great.
Creative: 7/10-Fits niv-mizzet, doesn’t fit the card itself per se.
Choice: 3/5-Sorry, but I’m not going to give you the points like everyone else for choosing niv-mizzet. He’s a good choice, don’t get me wrong-but he’s also super-obvious from you guys.
Doran: Balance: 7/10-seems a tad-bit overpowered, to me. I think he’d be perfect at 3 loyalty-its of note that at that point he’d be a mortify and a putrefy stuck together as one option. As is, the fact that he can come down, wipe an opponents threat, and then either start ramping or make a defender for any more threats seems a little too much.
Creative:7/10-I liked to story, but the abilities reflect neither Doran nor the story super-well. There is a sort of dissonance between the card and everything else.
Choice: 4/5-Nothing super-crazy, but definitely not an obvious choice by any means.
Volrath: Balance: 8/10-oddly enough, taking points of for being, imo, slightly underpowered. His ultimate, especially-I don’t think I’d limit it to one spell per turn, but rather one spell *this way* each turn. Keep in mind it still keeps you from recasting spells from hand.
Creative: 7/10-references the ending of his previous storyline well, but does nothing for the card. A little on the short side, as well, thouh beyond the 14 minimum.
Choice: 4/5-Volrath is a pretty good choice for a walker, and not too obvious of one.
Or, more concisely:
CMB:19/25
Izzet: 18/25
Crafters: 18/25
UUUJin-Gitaxias, Core AugurUUU
Modern
WWWHatebearsWWW
Our clan leader provided this rubric for his choices:
however, when tallying all the votes from members, the clans ranked as below:
Sorry if this isn't right, but I did the best I could.
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