Happy 2020 Y'ALL! Just some random cards that help God cards.
Uninhibited Believer W
Creature - Human Cleric (C)
God spells you play cost 1 less to cast. More Gods means more ears for my prayers.
1/2
Faithful Pilgrim 1G
Creature - Elf Cleric (C)
When Faithful Pilgrim enters the battlefield look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a God or land card from among them and put it into your hand. Then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. I want to believe in something, but I need to see it with my own eyes first.
2/2
Oil-Slick Zealot 2B
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
Clerics you control have +1/+1 for each God you control.
Sacrifice a Cleric: add B to your mana pool. Faith is a fuel and it is in our veins, to start the engines of the gods we must first bleed.
2/2
Seductive Missionary 3R
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
When Seductive Missionary enters the battlefield or whenever you cast a God spell, gain control of target creature an opponent controls with power 2 or less until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn. To be seduced by the power of the Gods is no crime, it is a blessing.
2/2
Prismatic Priest 4U
Creature - Merfolk Cleric (R)
You have devotion equal to 7 for each color.
Creature you control that have restrictions as to when they may attack or block may attack or block as if they did not have those restrictions. Shackles are for mortals
3/5
IDK - it's not like Eldrazi needed the help. Or Demons in Kamigawa, or Dragons, or Krakens, or even to a certain extent Dinosaurs etc. Sometimes there are one of effects that help big creatures.
This guy only has 4 power? They mine as well just made it an 8/8 with doublstrike for that cost (or just upped it to 10). It should have been on par with the Eldrazi. Moreso than support, many designs need to reprised entirely.
It probably does come off that way (idiosyncratic), as I have a very in-depth understanding of the game down to its finest intricacies and most fundamental dynamics. It seems to be very arcane knowledge, and denotes how many people have actually been designing the content for this game entirely blind. I am never trying to be overbearing. I am simply never trying to just say something and leave it unexplained, or leave it to the interpretation of others. Whenever you make a statement, it's often crucial to explain the concept/dynamic/principal, to ensure that your statements will be understood as intended, or as the concept truly exists. Understanding is all about detail (the understanding of scientific reality). And that is why I go out of my way so hard to explain everything.
The Elder Dinosaurs should have been on par with the Eldrazi in respects to their concept as a character of grandeur. They were essentially God scale characters.
One thing I've learned from especially Richard Garfield's designs is that within certain boundaries, a card can never be too powerful. And in my advanced interpretations, I can tell you that so long as some fundamental interactivity remains, linking the card to the open world to be engaged with (and not locking itself out entirely); it will remain pure and true to the game in all respects of fairness and fun (despite even large measures of power).
There is a bit of a technical factor in this regarding the aspect of grace. Essentially, a card can lock out interactivity if it wants to do too much for itself (and be too self-sufficient); cutting out the necessity for outside resources to interact with, or support it. So it's not just about being evasive/unstoppable/invincible—but is also about 'Never Putting The I In Team'. This can be a very tricky concept to understand, because certain levels of self-sufficiency can be crucial to the design's play value. If it doesn't have an essential amount of self-sufficiency that it beneficial to it, then its play options will be too limited for its own good. Not providing this fundamental level of self-sufficiency can cripple a design's playability this way—just as doing too much can make it appear vulgar and gaudy (or actually unfair/unfun).
Typically, you want to do one thing and do it well. And when you are doing more than this, you want to give a restriction for each permission.
I'm not going to dispute your credentials or anything - I just don't really understand what you're trying to get across. The principal that I see is Power limited by "Grace"/Interactivity, which . . . I'm just not sure what you mean or how to apply that to these designs. Are you saying they are weak? That they or the the concepts they embody are not "graceful? I apologize if this seems rude, but I just don't understand your critiques - may you provide a step by step of how this principal would go about to create a card? Thank you.
My initial point was that the God designs were pretty internal, as to not need direct support for themselves. Moreso, they aim to support other content, so the technique for building around them would involve creating designs that they boost or help to utilize.
For example, the second ability of Prismatic Priest isn't needed in blue as much as it's needed in black or red. You mine as well make it "Creatures you control may attack and block as though they're unaffected by any spells or abilities." It might remove the isolated boundaries you intended for grace ('balance'), but it opens upinteractivity, and could you explain why those matter (the restrictive boundaries—only 'can't attack' and 'can't block' abilities)?
Automatically enabling devotion is kind of a lack-luster, no go either. I think it detracts too heavily from interaction, as to break the aspect of challenge, one of the primary aspects of fun that make up the game. It's just a very blanche and unimaginative effort—even if such an effect would perfectly match a concept such as True Believer.
Flavor wise I like the idea of cards that directly help Gods. The white, red, and green cards all seem realistic and fun to me, I like them.
My issue with the black card is that it gives +X/+X to the tribe that it also encourages you to sac for mana. I know there are some cards that do that, but I'd just think it'd be better design if the effects it provided didn't contradict each other (one makes the clerics disposable, the other makes them more powerful)
Power-wise, it's not bad, maybe a little pushed even, but if it was me I'd do something like:
~ 2B
Creature - Cleric
Clerics get +1/+1 for each god you control.
If you control 3 or more gods, clerics you control have menace
2/2
or
~ 4B
Creature - Cleric
Sacrifice a cleric: add B.
Whenever a cleric dies, each opponent loses X life, where X is equal to the number of gods you control
2/4
As for the blue one, I like what you're going for but I think instead of getting you all the way there with just 1 card, it might be more interesting if it just "helped"
like, instead of giving 7 devotion to all colors, maybe just 1 devotion for each color? Or maybe it can say "double your devotion to each color". That would make it great in decks that only run 1 or 2 colors too.
The 2nd part that helps the Amonkhet gods is interesting. Maybe it could be something like "1:Target creature you control that can't attack or block may attack or block this turn." but that feels clunky, and would also create weird scenarios. The trick would be to word it in a way that doesn't allow the creature to block creatures with evasion it wouldn't be able to block normally. And of course, these changes I suggest would lower the mana cost to maybe 3 or 2.
Also a gentle reminder that this is all just my opinion. I like to design cards for fun from time to time, but I'm no expert.
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Uninhibited Believer W
Creature - Human Cleric (C)
God spells you play cost 1 less to cast.
More Gods means more ears for my prayers.
1/2
Faithful Pilgrim 1G
Creature - Elf Cleric (C)
When Faithful Pilgrim enters the battlefield look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a God or land card from among them and put it into your hand. Then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
I want to believe in something, but I need to see it with my own eyes first.
2/2
Oil-Slick Zealot 2B
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
Clerics you control have +1/+1 for each God you control.
Sacrifice a Cleric: add B to your mana pool.
Faith is a fuel and it is in our veins, to start the engines of the gods we must first bleed.
2/2
Seductive Missionary 3R
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
When Seductive Missionary enters the battlefield or whenever you cast a God spell, gain control of target creature an opponent controls with power 2 or less until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
To be seduced by the power of the Gods is no crime, it is a blessing.
2/2
Prismatic Priest 4U
Creature - Merfolk Cleric (R)
You have devotion equal to 7 for each color.
Creature you control that have restrictions as to when they may attack or block may attack or block as if they did not have those restrictions.
Shackles are for mortals
3/5
What leads you to believe they need any help?
IDK - it's not like Eldrazi needed the help. Or Demons in Kamigawa, or Dragons, or Krakens, or even to a certain extent Dinosaurs etc. Sometimes there are one of effects that help big creatures.
But mostly - just for fun
Zetalpa, Primal Dawn (not, "the Primal Dawn"?)
This guy only has 4 power? They mine as well just made it an 8/8 with doublstrike for that cost (or just upped it to 10). It should have been on par with the Eldrazi. Moreso than support, many designs need to reprised entirely.
It probably does come off that way (idiosyncratic), as I have a very in-depth understanding of the game down to its finest intricacies and most fundamental dynamics. It seems to be very arcane knowledge, and denotes how many people have actually been designing the content for this game entirely blind. I am never trying to be overbearing. I am simply never trying to just say something and leave it unexplained, or leave it to the interpretation of others. Whenever you make a statement, it's often crucial to explain the concept/dynamic/principal, to ensure that your statements will be understood as intended, or as the concept truly exists. Understanding is all about detail (the understanding of scientific reality). And that is why I go out of my way so hard to explain everything.
The Elder Dinosaurs should have been on par with the Eldrazi in respects to their concept as a character of grandeur. They were essentially God scale characters.
One thing I've learned from especially Richard Garfield's designs is that within certain boundaries, a card can never be too powerful. And in my advanced interpretations, I can tell you that so long as some fundamental interactivity remains, linking the card to the open world to be engaged with (and not locking itself out entirely); it will remain pure and true to the game in all respects of fairness and fun (despite even large measures of power).
There is a bit of a technical factor in this regarding the aspect of grace. Essentially, a card can lock out interactivity if it wants to do too much for itself (and be too self-sufficient); cutting out the necessity for outside resources to interact with, or support it. So it's not just about being evasive/unstoppable/invincible—but is also about 'Never Putting The I In Team'. This can be a very tricky concept to understand, because certain levels of self-sufficiency can be crucial to the design's play value. If it doesn't have an essential amount of self-sufficiency that it beneficial to it, then its play options will be too limited for its own good. Not providing this fundamental level of self-sufficiency can cripple a design's playability this way—just as doing too much can make it appear vulgar and gaudy (or actually unfair/unfun).
Typically, you want to do one thing and do it well. And when you are doing more than this, you want to give a restriction for each permission.
That is the best way to sum of the technique.
Not saying your designs are weak, but if I was to go over them I just see some misassignments. I'm guessing you may have mixed these up on purpose?
For example, the second ability of Prismatic Priest isn't needed in blue as much as it's needed in black or red. You mine as well make it "Creatures you control may attack and block as though they're unaffected by any spells or abilities." It might remove the isolated boundaries you intended for grace ('balance'), but it opens up interactivity, and could you explain why those matter (the restrictive boundaries—only 'can't attack' and 'can't block' abilities)?
Automatically enabling devotion is kind of a lack-luster, no go either. I think it detracts too heavily from interaction, as to break the aspect of challenge, one of the primary aspects of fun that make up the game. It's just a very blanche and unimaginative effort—even if such an effect would perfectly match a concept such as True Believer.
My issue with the black card is that it gives +X/+X to the tribe that it also encourages you to sac for mana. I know there are some cards that do that, but I'd just think it'd be better design if the effects it provided didn't contradict each other (one makes the clerics disposable, the other makes them more powerful)
Power-wise, it's not bad, maybe a little pushed even, but if it was me I'd do something like:
~ 2B
Creature - Cleric
Clerics get +1/+1 for each god you control.
If you control 3 or more gods, clerics you control have menace
2/2
or
~ 4B
Creature - Cleric
Sacrifice a cleric: add B.
Whenever a cleric dies, each opponent loses X life, where X is equal to the number of gods you control
2/4
As for the blue one, I like what you're going for but I think instead of getting you all the way there with just 1 card, it might be more interesting if it just "helped"
like, instead of giving 7 devotion to all colors, maybe just 1 devotion for each color? Or maybe it can say "double your devotion to each color". That would make it great in decks that only run 1 or 2 colors too.
The 2nd part that helps the Amonkhet gods is interesting. Maybe it could be something like "1:Target creature you control that can't attack or block may attack or block this turn." but that feels clunky, and would also create weird scenarios. The trick would be to word it in a way that doesn't allow the creature to block creatures with evasion it wouldn't be able to block normally. And of course, these changes I suggest would lower the mana cost to maybe 3 or 2.
Also a gentle reminder that this is all just my opinion. I like to design cards for fun from time to time, but I'm no expert.