From a current set I'm working on, called "Legends of Kamigawa". These three mythics each represent the three main characters of the story.
First up, the protagonist:
Tamiyo, Lady of Scrolls2UU Planeswalker - Tamiyo (M)
+1 Target player draws a card. -1 Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. -7 Draw seven cards. You have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.
3
Story: Tamiyo's efforts to travel the multiverse in search of knowledge to store within the Oboro scroll-towers has resulted in her being highly regarded by both her Soratami kin as well as the powerful human wizards of the Minamo School. She has even been referred to as heir to the mantle of "Lady of Scrolls" by some within the school. Now, with the fate of Kamigawa in jeopardy, Tamiyo will have to use all that she's found and learned if she hopes to save her plane from devastation!
Next, the antagonist:
Ikareru the Ragelord4BR Planeswalker - Ikareru (M)
+1 Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste and trample until end of turn. 0 Reveal the top two cards of your library and put those cards into your hand. You lose life equal to their total converted mana cost. -X Ikareru the Ragelord deals X damage to each creature and each opponent.
5
Story: The Sokenzan mountains continue to be home to bandits, akki goblins, and of course, the brutal o-bakemono ogres. Roughly a decade ago, a new human bandit king emerged by the name of Ikareru. Claiming to be a descendant of the legendary Godo, he seized control of both the bands of bandits and the ogres, and began to wage war on all who dared trespass in his domain. Ikareru knew how to battle with brawn and steel, but he was also highly skilled in both blood magic and chaos magic. Eventually, Ikareru decided that raiding was not enough to sate his bloodlust, and he sought to use his magic and his forces to destroy the Reikai, the Spirit World. He envied the powers of the Kami, and refused to allow them to continue to insult his pride by existing. Calling upon the Oni worshiped by his Ogre underlings, a fierce battle ensued, and in the end, his forces were defeated and sent back to the Sokenzan mountains. Ikareru was thought to be dead from the conflict, but instead, his planeswalker spark had ignited, and he found himself on the foreign plane of Alara. He spent the past decade exploring and learning and becoming stronger, and he's now returned to Kamigawa to finish what he started. He aims to obliterate the Kami, and he means to use his chaos magic to turn them against one another and against the denizens of Kamigawa! Can Ikareru be stopped?
The protector of the realm:
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit4WW Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor (M)
Double strike, indestructible
Your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn.
When Sisters of Flesh and Spirit enters the battlefield, exile all nonland permanents you don’t control until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield. (Those permanents return under their owners' control.)
2/4
Story: The fusion of Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker and That Which Was Taken, The Sisters of Flesh and Spirit are the guardians of Kamigawa, linking the Spirit World to the Mortal Realm. The Sisters do what they can to maintain the balance and peace, but the return of Ikareru has caused a great deal of panic to set in, and the Kami are beginning to lose control of themselves to Ikareru's magic. The Sisters have turned to Tamiyo to use her vast knowledge to find a means to counter the Ragelord's curse and end his reign of terror.
Thoughts? Any and all input is greatly appreciated!
EDIT: Here are updated versions of Tamiyo and the Sisters after some input:
Tamiyo, Lady of Scrolls2UU Planeswalker - Tamiyo (M)
+1 Until your next turn, up to one target creature an opponent controls gets -4/-0. -1 Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. -7 Draw seven cards. You have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.
3
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit4WW Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor (M)
Indestructible
Your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn. Spiritcraft — Whenever you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield.
Tamiyo's ability are pretty repetitive. Draw a card, draw a card, draw cards, draw even more cards, hey you want more cards? Have more cards! Needs a little more variety.
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit having both indestructible and a Silence effect AND a Planar Cleansing effect seems permission control style unfun. Too much counterplay on one card, give it more offensive capability or simply it's counter-effects to one or two so it's less universally a huge pain-the-ass.
Strong emphasis is fine, but Tamiyo does virtually nothing else expect give you cards, and that's not good for a planeswalker to be so 1D. It's a card type that benefits from versatility, its part of their design. I would make the second effect something protective in someway, bounce or prevent damage or something, but anything other than just cards-all-day is going to be good IMO.
Tamiyo - Are Moonfolk still doing return land activated abilities in this set? I think it would be good for Tamiyo to play around with mechanics that work well with Moonfolk. For example, either putting land from your hand onto the battlefield or counting the number of cards in your hand.
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit - From your story description, indestructible is the more important of the protective abilities. Is "spiritcraft" still a mechanic that is in this set? Maybe the trigger could just be a single target similar to Banisher Priest, but then trigger when other Spirits enter too?
Indestructible
Whenever Sisters of Flesh and Spirit or another Spirit creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield. (Those permanents return under their owners' control.)
4/4
Maybe it doesn't need to be restricted to Spirits and could just be "or another creature".
Okay, here are the updated versions of the two cards after some tweaks:
Tamiyo, Lady of Scrolls2UU Planeswalker - Tamiyo (M)
+1 Until your next turn, up to one target creature an opponent controls gets -4/-0. -1 Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. -7 Draw seven cards. You have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.
3
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit4WW Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor (M)
Indestructible
Your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn. Spiritcraft — Whenever you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield.
4/4
Thoughts? Also, any suggestions or feedback on Ikareru?
Updated Tamiyo and Sisters are both good, maybe could use tweaks but they are definitely suitable for some real testing. Ikareru is good as-is, but one question I do have is what is this planeswalker's mechanical identity, what is their central mechanical theme? Like Lilianna is grave recursion, Garruk is getting out big creatures through tokens and other effects, Elspeth is token army, etc.
Updated Tamiyo and Sisters are both good, maybe could use tweaks but they are definitely suitable for some real testing. Ikareru is good as-is, but one question I do have is what is this planeswalker's mechanical identity, what is their central mechanical theme? Like Lilianna is grave recursion, Garruk is getting out big creatures through tokens and other effects, Elspeth is token army, etc.
That's an important point. I'm pretty sure you sorta have to have at least one card advantage ability on a blue planeswalker, but you can't have it be too centric on that because, let's be honest, card advantage is a major element of Jace's planeswalking identity (the other is milling). Tamiyo's formal schtick as far as we can tell in somewhat undefined between tapping and recursion. Also I don't think recreating her original ultimate effect of "No hand limit" would work too well. I mena, it feels cheap to repeat the same ultimate on a card. Maybe some variation on Jin-Gitaxias' effect instead?.
Updated Tamiyo and Sisters are both good, maybe could use tweaks but they are definitely suitable for some real testing. Ikareru is good as-is, but one question I do have is what is this planeswalker's mechanical identity, what is their central mechanical theme? Like Lilianna is grave recursion, Garruk is getting out big creatures through tokens and other effects, Elspeth is token army, etc.
Ikareru is more intended as a one-of planeswalker villain, so I figured his abilities could be more varied to represent his specialties. His plus ability is chaos magic, his zero ability is blood magic, and his minus x ability is his rage manifesting.
I don't like the indestructible O-Ring nature of the Sisters.
O-Ring is meant to be an answer that can be answered - Indestructible changes that dynamic considerably and makes it more like a permanent exile effect.
On Tamiyo - Like Narset, your Tamiyo doesn't interact with the board. I'm OK with that. That said I'd probably have one of the abilities be clearly differentiated as I do feel the first two are too similar. Maybe +1 - Draw a card and -1 - look at and rearrange the top 7 cards of your library.
On 'Spirit or Arcane' triggers - Please keyword this to 'Spiritcraft - When you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, do X'. I think Magic overdoes ability words now (I'd never have keyworded Strive, Ferocious or Battalion among others) but even I think Kamigawa should have named that ability.
On 'Spirit or Arcane' triggers - Please keyword this to 'Spiritcraft - When you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, do X'. I think Magic overdoes ability words now (I'd never have keyworded Strive, Ferocious or Battalion among others) but even I think Kamigawa should have named that ability.
In my set, I have marked it as an ability word.
I have also posted newer versions of the cards now.
First up, the protagonist:
Tamiyo, Lady of Scrolls 2UU
Planeswalker - Tamiyo (M)
+1 Target player draws a card.
-1 Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
-7 Draw seven cards. You have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.
3
Story: Tamiyo's efforts to travel the multiverse in search of knowledge to store within the Oboro scroll-towers has resulted in her being highly regarded by both her Soratami kin as well as the powerful human wizards of the Minamo School. She has even been referred to as heir to the mantle of "Lady of Scrolls" by some within the school. Now, with the fate of Kamigawa in jeopardy, Tamiyo will have to use all that she's found and learned if she hopes to save her plane from devastation!
Next, the antagonist:
Ikareru the Ragelord 4BR
Planeswalker - Ikareru (M)
+1 Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste and trample until end of turn.
0 Reveal the top two cards of your library and put those cards into your hand. You lose life equal to their total converted mana cost.
-X Ikareru the Ragelord deals X damage to each creature and each opponent.
5
Story: The Sokenzan mountains continue to be home to bandits, akki goblins, and of course, the brutal o-bakemono ogres. Roughly a decade ago, a new human bandit king emerged by the name of Ikareru. Claiming to be a descendant of the legendary Godo, he seized control of both the bands of bandits and the ogres, and began to wage war on all who dared trespass in his domain. Ikareru knew how to battle with brawn and steel, but he was also highly skilled in both blood magic and chaos magic. Eventually, Ikareru decided that raiding was not enough to sate his bloodlust, and he sought to use his magic and his forces to destroy the Reikai, the Spirit World. He envied the powers of the Kami, and refused to allow them to continue to insult his pride by existing. Calling upon the Oni worshiped by his Ogre underlings, a fierce battle ensued, and in the end, his forces were defeated and sent back to the Sokenzan mountains. Ikareru was thought to be dead from the conflict, but instead, his planeswalker spark had ignited, and he found himself on the foreign plane of Alara. He spent the past decade exploring and learning and becoming stronger, and he's now returned to Kamigawa to finish what he started. He aims to obliterate the Kami, and he means to use his chaos magic to turn them against one another and against the denizens of Kamigawa! Can Ikareru be stopped?
The protector of the realm:
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit 4WW
Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor (M)
Double strike, indestructible
Your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn.
When Sisters of Flesh and Spirit enters the battlefield, exile all nonland permanents you don’t control until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield. (Those permanents return under their owners' control.)
2/4
Story: The fusion of Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker and That Which Was Taken, The Sisters of Flesh and Spirit are the guardians of Kamigawa, linking the Spirit World to the Mortal Realm. The Sisters do what they can to maintain the balance and peace, but the return of Ikareru has caused a great deal of panic to set in, and the Kami are beginning to lose control of themselves to Ikareru's magic. The Sisters have turned to Tamiyo to use her vast knowledge to find a means to counter the Ragelord's curse and end his reign of terror.
Thoughts? Any and all input is greatly appreciated!
EDIT: Here are updated versions of Tamiyo and the Sisters after some input:
Tamiyo, Lady of Scrolls 2UU
Planeswalker - Tamiyo (M)
+1 Until your next turn, up to one target creature an opponent controls gets -4/-0.
-1 Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
-7 Draw seven cards. You have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.
3
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit 4WW
Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor (M)
Indestructible
Your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn.
Spiritcraft — Whenever you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield.
4/4
- Main Cube
- No Brains, All Feelings Cube
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit having both indestructible and a Silence effect AND a Planar Cleansing effect seems permission control style unfun. Too much counterplay on one card, give it more offensive capability or simply it's counter-effects to one or two so it's less universally a huge pain-the-ass.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
- Main Cube
- No Brains, All Feelings Cube
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit - From your story description, indestructible is the more important of the protective abilities. Is "spiritcraft" still a mechanic that is in this set? Maybe the trigger could just be a single target similar to Banisher Priest, but then trigger when other Spirits enter too?
Whenever Sisters of Flesh and Spirit or another Spirit creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield. (Those permanents return under their owners' control.)
4/4
Maybe it doesn't need to be restricted to Spirits and could just be "or another creature".
Tamiyo, Lady of Scrolls 2UU
Planeswalker - Tamiyo (M)
+1 Until your next turn, up to one target creature an opponent controls gets -4/-0.
-1 Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
-7 Draw seven cards. You have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.
3
Sisters of Flesh and Spirit 4WW
Legendary Creature - Spirit Advisor (M)
Indestructible
Your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn.
Spiritcraft — Whenever you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls until Sisters of Flesh and Spirit leaves the battlefield.
4/4
Thoughts? Also, any suggestions or feedback on Ikareru?
- Main Cube
- No Brains, All Feelings Cube
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
That's an important point. I'm pretty sure you sorta have to have at least one card advantage ability on a blue planeswalker, but you can't have it be too centric on that because, let's be honest, card advantage is a major element of Jace's planeswalking identity (the other is milling). Tamiyo's formal schtick as far as we can tell in somewhat undefined between tapping and recursion. Also I don't think recreating her original ultimate effect of "No hand limit" would work too well. I mena, it feels cheap to repeat the same ultimate on a card. Maybe some variation on Jin-Gitaxias' effect instead?.
Ikareru is more intended as a one-of planeswalker villain, so I figured his abilities could be more varied to represent his specialties. His plus ability is chaos magic, his zero ability is blood magic, and his minus x ability is his rage manifesting.
- Main Cube
- No Brains, All Feelings Cube
O-Ring is meant to be an answer that can be answered - Indestructible changes that dynamic considerably and makes it more like a permanent exile effect.
On Tamiyo - Like Narset, your Tamiyo doesn't interact with the board. I'm OK with that. That said I'd probably have one of the abilities be clearly differentiated as I do feel the first two are too similar. Maybe +1 - Draw a card and -1 - look at and rearrange the top 7 cards of your library.
On 'Spirit or Arcane' triggers - Please keyword this to 'Spiritcraft - When you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell, do X'. I think Magic overdoes ability words now (I'd never have keyworded Strive, Ferocious or Battalion among others) but even I think Kamigawa should have named that ability.
In my set, I have marked it as an ability word.
I have also posted newer versions of the cards now.
- Main Cube
- No Brains, All Feelings Cube