Okay so I made a thread yesterday showcasing one of my Dragon creations. (And the final edits of it actually got me thinking.)
The Dragonlord cycle only showcased the 5 form khans, and while sure,s try wise there are only 5. That means there are 5 more color combination that are not seen (Enemy colored)
Now I am a Dragon Player. i love my 5-color Dragon EDH deck (Top 3 favorite decks I run. Along with Kenrith Twins and now my WIP Brudiclad, and i have other decks but overall those are my favorite) And of my decks, Dragons has survived not only the longest, but it has also outlived other decks i have built since.
Anyway i wanted to build some dragons that work like the dragonlords (Before they became dragonlords. A good example would be Atarka, World render and Dragonlord Atarka, Wolrd render synergizes with Dragons where as dragonlord, deals damage)
I want to build the Enemy colored version of these dragons. Ones that have "Whenever a dragon you control attacks" that grant abilities that work with their colors. For example, Boros could be something like Double strike (However, Atarka deals with double strke)
so this is what I have. I looked up evergreen keywords (saw the spread and what color utilized them the most) and use some old ones in order to get where i needed to go. I feel satisfied with the results but as always, step 2 is balancing. I avoided using keywords that have been used before (Vigilance, Trample, Haste) for the single keywords and the "Whenever a dragon attacks" doe snot grant anything that the other 5 granted. I had to make sure each one worked as well, as some keywords would not do anything during attack. That was the hard part.
Musika, Song of Life 4WB
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Intimidate
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains lifelink until end of turn
4/5
Priosa. Sky's Predator 5WR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Melee
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains trample until end of turn.
7/3
Iolas, The Mind's Elegance 4UR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Flash
Whenever a dragn you control attacks, scry 1
3/5
Nathairin, the Wind's Ego 4UG
Legendary Creature - dragon
Flying, Evolve
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains hexproof until end of turn.
4/5
Basakadd, The Grave's Judgement 5BG
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Deathtouch
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains Undying until end of turn.
6/5
So I am at the balancing and tweaking stage. I build the basic model, now to edit.
I think you could stand to stretch out more in the attack-triggered abilities. From the originals, Ojutai, Soul of Winter has a complex trigger, Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury boosts the entire team, not just the individual dragons, Dromoka, the Eternal leaves permanent buffs on the board, and Silumgar, the Drifting Death can wipe a board. Your formula is based on Atarka, World Render, in that each of them applies a buff just to the attacking Dragon in the form of a keyword. While there's nothing wrong with that, it makes these abilities feel less punchy and varied than the ones from Fate Reforged.
I would give Priosa and Nathairin in particular some rethinking on the attack triggers. Their effects are quite underwhelming.
How about:
For Nathairin, "Whenever a dragon you control attacks, spells your opponents cast cost 2 more to cast until end of turn." That has a similar effect in preventing spells from hitting your attacking dragons, and gets better and better the larger your forces are, additionally it continues working after the attack, allowing you to cast spells post-combat with little fear of countermagic, and blocks your opponent from casting any value instants at the end of your turn. I'm not 100% on the flavor you going for, but that seems wind-themed enough to me.
For Priosa, you need something with a lot of kick. Maybe "Whenever a dragon you control attacks, you may have it fight target creature defending player controls."? She is a predator after all. At CMC 7, trample until end of turn is really lackluster. I would also probably lose melee in favor of haste, you usually want a CMC 7 creature to be immediately impactful, and the aggression is already mitigated by the low toughness.
For the other three, I would hold onto them pretty much as-is:
Iolas's ability is quite good, there are some ways you could restructure it to dig deep once rather than shallow many times, but that's a preference thing, scry is a desirable effect anytime.
Musika's ability isn't very flashly, but it is powerful, acting like a Windbrisk Raptor-lite.
And I would say that Basakadd is the most immediately impactful of your group, making an existing force of dragons into a devastating threat right away, or setting you up for a virtual Plague Wind, or enabling sacrifice shenanigans during or after combat.
Beyond that, it's just a matter of tweaking numbers to find a good balance for them.
How about:
For Nathairin, "Whenever a dragon you control attacks, spells your opponents cast cost 2 more to cast until end of turn." That has a similar effect in preventing spells from hitting your attacking dragons, and gets better and better the larger your forces are, additionally it continues working after the attack, allowing you to cast spells post-combat with little fear of countermagic, and blocks your opponent from casting any value instants at the end of your turn. I'm not 100% on the flavor you going for, but that seems wind-themed enough to me.
For Priosa, you need something with a lot of kick. Maybe "Whenever a dragon you control attacks, you may have it fight target creature defending player controls."? She is a predator after all. At CMC 7, trample until end of turn is really lackluster. I would also probably lose melee in favor of haste, you usually want a CMC 7 creature to be immediately impactful, and the aggression is already mitigated by the low toughness.
For the other three, I would hold onto them pretty much as-is:
Iolas's ability is quite good, there are some ways you could restructure it to dig deep once rather than shallow many times, but that's a preference thing, scry is a desirable effect anytime.
Musika's ability isn't very flashly, but it is powerful, acting like a Windbrisk Raptor-lite.
And I would say that Basakadd is the most immediately impactful of your group, making an existing force of dragons into a devastating threat right away, or setting you up for a virtual Plague Wind, or enabling sacrifice shenanigans during or after combat.
Beyond that, it's just a matter of tweaking numbers to find a good balance for them.
I think Natahrian, i will probably make it 1 more, but until your next turn (In games where instants are not as common, it is pretty bad. So the cost is in effect until your next upkeep. that would probably boost him to where he needs to be. However i then need to know if I should switch evolve for Hexproof or keep the evolve. I chose hexproof as (I believe) the only creatures to have it are either green or blue. and i wanted to find a way to protect my creatures. (Of course, teh Tax on spells makes it feel more WU rather than GU
With Priosa. I was gonna go with menace as her ability, but it was not a white ability which i felt was off color. (Then again double strike is not a green ability. So i guess be a little off color is fine) (Plus i have multiple ways to give my dragons haste, Karrthus, Kolaghan, Temur ascendancy. SO not sure if haste is really needed.
Giver that she only has 3 toughness, fighting is a scary thought. Almost anything will take her out. Boros is also more of an army/soldiers aspect so I was trying to think of a way to include that, without just making soldier tokens, that is rather boring, besides, I want to make dragon tokens, (The only 2 non dragons in my deck are Sakashima and Clever impersonator. And they will probably be removed sooner or later.)
Musika may have intimidate removed for something else, but not sure which yet, (Probably lifelink, so she will at least gain me life while defending)
I felt Basakadd was done really well in terms of golgari theme. Kills stiff, brings stuff back...
And hmm, Iolas would have very weird wording to make that ability work with a scry X. thus I felt scry 1 per dragon is fair. (Unless you can find a way to word the scry X properly, and not make it trigger for each dragon and instead just once. (I thought of a way, but then we have more ruling and confusion and it is just not worth the effort.)
I will also point out that evolve, melee, and undying are all out-of-block mechanics, and wouldn't really be appropriate here.
But yes, I would rethink all of these. Even Iolas should probably be something like...
Iolas, The Mind's Elegance 3UR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Prowess
Whenever one or more dragons you control attack, reveal that many cards from the top of your library. Put all instant and sorcery cards revealed this way into your hand, and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
3/4
That way you don't have to sit there and scry 1 five or more times, which is more tedious than you might realize.
As cards that hew close to their cycle, they are B+ level cards that work but do little to recommend themselves as the lure that pulls the fish that gets it out of the water. But this is hardly their fault; those ones are just... OTHER two-color versions that are weaker than the other versions of the same dragons. Which ALSO were constrained by having to be okay for Standard-level play.
All of which is to say, you could hardly have made them that great picking system A of B. Ojutai is good but the others are fairly weak and strange for their colors.
Along the same naming scheme, 10 two-color dragons seem very much indicated. And yes, significantly more complex. Would want to pull out all of the stops in some special Commander product that did them specifically, or included them.
Something like even better than Ojutai but dies to removal, with dethrone and monarch mechanics, eminence/forecast, spellshaper mechanics, Invasion dragon triggers, manifest or morph, subdivided. That's gotta be it I think. As Shivan Dragon was the mascot, pick a spot and say "It Could Be Time Spiral", for 10 dragons, and maybe 10 others, and four color versions, too. Wherever simplicity overlaps with complexity and as already noted "bolster 2", etc. All of that. Phasing. Bands with other dragons. Snow-covered Wak-Walk. Taking some guidance from "if your theme's not at common, it's not your theme" as done in Masters sets, when the bar fills up and you could do something both obvious and unexpected at the same time, bust out these dragons/dragon decks.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
well, the entire I wanted to do is literally use the phrase "Whenever a dragon you control attacks" as each one says that. (And in most cases, say you are attacking with 7 dragons, and your second scry is the card you want on top. unless you have a player who wants you to scry each one, you just leave the card you want on top. I could also say you may scry 1.
I could also raise his cost and make it scry 2.
Yea natharin will be reading
Whenever a Dragon you control attacks, opponents must pay 1 extra to cast a non-creature spell until your next upkeep.
also i know Undying is an out of block mechanic, but I am keeping it in for this one. Nothing screams golgari more than death and revival.
What is Priosa granted menace to attacking dragons? Give her haste, and then whenever my dragons attack they gain menace.
As cards that hew close to their cycle, they are B+ level cards that work but do little to recommend themselves as the lure that pulls the fish that gets it out of the water. But this is hardly their fault; those ones are just... OTHER two-color versions that are weaker than the other versions of the same dragons. Which ALSO were constrained by having to be okay for Standard-level play.
All of which is to say, you could hardly have made them that great picking system A of B. Ojutai is good but the others are fairly weak and strange for their colors.
Along the same naming scheme, 10 two-color dragons seem very much indicated. And yes, significantly more complex. Would want to pull out all of the stops in some special Commander product that did them specifically, or included them.
Something like even better than Ojutai but dies to removal, with dethrone and monarch mechanics, eminence/forecast, spellshaper mechanics, Invasion dragon triggers, manifest or morph, subdivided. That's gotta be it I think. As Shivan Dragon was the mascot, pick a spot and say "It Could Be Time Spiral", for 10 dragons, and maybe 10 others, and four color versions, too. Wherever simplicity overlaps with complexity and as already noted "bolster 2", etc. All of that. Phasing. Bands with other dragons. Snow-covered Wak-Walk. Taking some guidance from "if your theme's not at common, it's not your theme" as done in Masters sets, when the bar fills up and you could do something both obvious and unexpected at the same time, bust out these dragons/dragon decks.
I am a little confused by your post, what are you saying?
I'm just saying that you shouldn't have even had to ask for these particular cards, they probably already should have been made exactly as they are more or less. I'm just saying that for someone other than a mega dragon-enthusiast who perhaps plays Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Wizards should slot in "Time Spiral Dragons" with the exact attack trigger type play that these exemplify. The fact that you want this is telling and worth zooming in on, that's all. There is an overlap between amplitude of preferred concept at your end and whether that concept will yield a "favorite card(s) of all time" in the larger ecosystem. It's the same reason that Magic with its color pie and eternally iteration spinning cogency is better than the clone CCGs that were pretty much obligated to be put to market after it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
I'm just saying that you shouldn't have even had to ask for these particular cards, they probably already should have been made exactly as they are more or less. I'm just saying that for someone other than a mega dragon-enthusiast who perhaps plays Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Wizards should slot in "Time Spiral Dragons" with the exact attack trigger type play that these exemplify. The fact that you want this is telling and worth zooming in on, that's all. There is an overlap between amplitude of preferred concept at your end and whether that concept will yield a "favorite card(s) of all time" in the larger ecosystem. It's the same reason that Magic with its color pie and eternally iteration spinning cogency is better than the clone CCGs that were pretty much obligated to be put to market after it.
So you are saying that wizards made a mistake by not finishing the set? Kind of like how the oddysey filer lands are only ally colors and the fact that they have not yet released ally guilds in the commander products?
One thing I am happy about is that my playgroup (Well some of my playgroup) don't mind me using custom cards (As long as they are balanced)
Okay so I kept Iolas and Basakadd the same. Musika got liflink instead of intimidiate. Nathairin lost evolve, gaianed hexprrof and his ability read "Whenever a dragon you control attacks, Non-creature Spells your opponents cast cost 1 more to cast until your next upkeep) (I feel it is off color but oh well. maybe he will be updated again.) Priosa creates 4/4 red dragons with flying tapped and attacking. I feel i may have to change her again to keep it on theme of her being a predator, but for now that is how she is gonna act (As creating attacking tokens is kind of a boros thing to do)
The Dragonlord cycle only showcased the 5 form khans, and while sure,s try wise there are only 5. That means there are 5 more color combination that are not seen (Enemy colored)
Now I am a Dragon Player. i love my 5-color Dragon EDH deck (Top 3 favorite decks I run. Along with Kenrith Twins and now my WIP Brudiclad, and i have other decks but overall those are my favorite) And of my decks, Dragons has survived not only the longest, but it has also outlived other decks i have built since.
Anyway i wanted to build some dragons that work like the dragonlords (Before they became dragonlords. A good example would be Atarka, World render and Dragonlord Atarka, Wolrd render synergizes with Dragons where as dragonlord, deals damage)
I want to build the Enemy colored version of these dragons. Ones that have "Whenever a dragon you control attacks" that grant abilities that work with their colors. For example, Boros could be something like Double strike (However, Atarka deals with double strke)
so this is what I have. I looked up evergreen keywords (saw the spread and what color utilized them the most) and use some old ones in order to get where i needed to go. I feel satisfied with the results but as always, step 2 is balancing. I avoided using keywords that have been used before (Vigilance, Trample, Haste) for the single keywords and the "Whenever a dragon attacks" doe snot grant anything that the other 5 granted. I had to make sure each one worked as well, as some keywords would not do anything during attack. That was the hard part.
4WB
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Intimidate
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains lifelink until end of turn
4/5
5WR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Melee
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains trample until end of turn.
7/3
4UR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Flash
Whenever a dragn you control attacks, scry 1
3/5
4UG
Legendary Creature - dragon
Flying, Evolve
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains hexproof until end of turn.
4/5
5BG
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Deathtouch
Whenever a dragon you control attacks, it gains Undying until end of turn.
6/5
So I am at the balancing and tweaking stage. I build the basic model, now to edit.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
I would give Priosa and Nathairin in particular some rethinking on the attack triggers. Their effects are quite underwhelming.
I already know the best trigger of them id Iolas. As Scrying is a great effect.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
For Nathairin, "Whenever a dragon you control attacks, spells your opponents cast cost 2 more to cast until end of turn." That has a similar effect in preventing spells from hitting your attacking dragons, and gets better and better the larger your forces are, additionally it continues working after the attack, allowing you to cast spells post-combat with little fear of countermagic, and blocks your opponent from casting any value instants at the end of your turn. I'm not 100% on the flavor you going for, but that seems wind-themed enough to me.
For Priosa, you need something with a lot of kick. Maybe "Whenever a dragon you control attacks, you may have it fight target creature defending player controls."? She is a predator after all. At CMC 7, trample until end of turn is really lackluster. I would also probably lose melee in favor of haste, you usually want a CMC 7 creature to be immediately impactful, and the aggression is already mitigated by the low toughness.
For the other three, I would hold onto them pretty much as-is:
Iolas's ability is quite good, there are some ways you could restructure it to dig deep once rather than shallow many times, but that's a preference thing, scry is a desirable effect anytime.
Musika's ability isn't very flashly, but it is powerful, acting like a Windbrisk Raptor-lite.
And I would say that Basakadd is the most immediately impactful of your group, making an existing force of dragons into a devastating threat right away, or setting you up for a virtual Plague Wind, or enabling sacrifice shenanigans during or after combat.
Beyond that, it's just a matter of tweaking numbers to find a good balance for them.
I think Natahrian, i will probably make it 1 more, but until your next turn (In games where instants are not as common, it is pretty bad. So the cost is in effect until your next upkeep. that would probably boost him to where he needs to be. However i then need to know if I should switch evolve for Hexproof or keep the evolve. I chose hexproof as (I believe) the only creatures to have it are either green or blue. and i wanted to find a way to protect my creatures. (Of course, teh Tax on spells makes it feel more WU rather than GU
With Priosa. I was gonna go with menace as her ability, but it was not a white ability which i felt was off color. (Then again double strike is not a green ability. So i guess be a little off color is fine) (Plus i have multiple ways to give my dragons haste, Karrthus, Kolaghan, Temur ascendancy. SO not sure if haste is really needed.
Giver that she only has 3 toughness, fighting is a scary thought. Almost anything will take her out. Boros is also more of an army/soldiers aspect so I was trying to think of a way to include that, without just making soldier tokens, that is rather boring, besides, I want to make dragon tokens, (The only 2 non dragons in my deck are Sakashima and Clever impersonator. And they will probably be removed sooner or later.)
Musika may have intimidate removed for something else, but not sure which yet, (Probably lifelink, so she will at least gain me life while defending)
I felt Basakadd was done really well in terms of golgari theme. Kills stiff, brings stuff back...
And hmm, Iolas would have very weird wording to make that ability work with a scry X. thus I felt scry 1 per dragon is fair. (Unless you can find a way to word the scry X properly, and not make it trigger for each dragon and instead just once. (I thought of a way, but then we have more ruling and confusion and it is just not worth the effort.)
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
But yes, I would rethink all of these. Even Iolas should probably be something like...
Iolas, The Mind's Elegance 3UR
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying, Prowess
Whenever one or more dragons you control attack, reveal that many cards from the top of your library. Put all instant and sorcery cards revealed this way into your hand, and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
3/4
That way you don't have to sit there and scry 1 five or more times, which is more tedious than you might realize.
- Rabid Wombat
As cards that hew close to their cycle, they are B+ level cards that work but do little to recommend themselves as the lure that pulls the fish that gets it out of the water. But this is hardly their fault; those ones are just... OTHER two-color versions that are weaker than the other versions of the same dragons. Which ALSO were constrained by having to be okay for Standard-level play.
All of which is to say, you could hardly have made them that great picking system A of B. Ojutai is good but the others are fairly weak and strange for their colors.
Along the same naming scheme, 10 two-color dragons seem very much indicated. And yes, significantly more complex. Would want to pull out all of the stops in some special Commander product that did them specifically, or included them.
Something like even better than Ojutai but dies to removal, with dethrone and monarch mechanics, eminence/forecast, spellshaper mechanics, Invasion dragon triggers, manifest or morph, subdivided. That's gotta be it I think. As Shivan Dragon was the mascot, pick a spot and say "It Could Be Time Spiral", for 10 dragons, and maybe 10 others, and four color versions, too. Wherever simplicity overlaps with complexity and as already noted "bolster 2", etc. All of that. Phasing. Bands with other dragons. Snow-covered Wak-Walk. Taking some guidance from "if your theme's not at common, it's not your theme" as done in Masters sets, when the bar fills up and you could do something both obvious and unexpected at the same time, bust out these dragons/dragon decks.
I could also raise his cost and make it scry 2.
Yea natharin will be reading
also i know Undying is an out of block mechanic, but I am keeping it in for this one. Nothing screams golgari more than death and revival.
What is Priosa granted menace to attacking dragons? Give her haste, and then whenever my dragons attack they gain menace.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
I am a little confused by your post, what are you saying?
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
I'm just saying that you shouldn't have even had to ask for these particular cards, they probably already should have been made exactly as they are more or less. I'm just saying that for someone other than a mega dragon-enthusiast who perhaps plays Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Wizards should slot in "Time Spiral Dragons" with the exact attack trigger type play that these exemplify. The fact that you want this is telling and worth zooming in on, that's all. There is an overlap between amplitude of preferred concept at your end and whether that concept will yield a "favorite card(s) of all time" in the larger ecosystem. It's the same reason that Magic with its color pie and eternally iteration spinning cogency is better than the clone CCGs that were pretty much obligated to be put to market after it.
So you are saying that wizards made a mistake by not finishing the set? Kind of like how the oddysey filer lands are only ally colors and the fact that they have not yet released ally guilds in the commander products?
One thing I am happy about is that my playgroup (Well some of my playgroup) don't mind me using custom cards (As long as they are balanced)
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist