Hello All - I have a long running passion project to design a FF9 themed magic set. Wanted to share a few designs from the set for feedback. These lands are a cycle -- only half of them are designed so far. They all follow this structure:
Legendary Land (R)
ETB tapped.
T: Color or other color.
Ability that costs X, 1 of each color, and sacrificing the land.
I have three different restrictions place on each of these lands (legendary, ETBT, and Sac for the effect) to help balance out the powerful effects. A nice feature is that the abilities do not require tapping so you can use the mana from the land towards the final ability.
Kuja's Desert Palace
Legendary Land (R)
Kuja’s Desert Palace enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add B or R XBR, Sacrifice Kuja’s Desert Palace: Exile the top X cards of your library and you lose X life. You may play any of those cards from exile until the end of your next turn.
Cleyra, the Spinning Sands
Legendary Land (R)
Cleyra, the Spinning Sands enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add G or W XGW, Sacrifice Cleyra, the Spinning Sands: Destroy up to X target creatures with flying and you gain X life.
Notes: A Whirlwind + Life Gain effect. Some good hate for flying creatures. Pretty strong fit for the favor of Cleyra.
Qu's Marsh
Legendary Land (R)
Qu’s Marsh enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add U or G XGU, Sacrifice Qu’s Marsh: Create half X food tokens rounded up.
Notes: Wanted a play on the frog catching mini-game and Quina's gourmand journey. Food tokens were a natural fit.
Ipsen's Castle
Legendary Land (R)
Ipsen’s Castle enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add W or B XWB, Sacrifice Ipsen’s Castle: Up to two target creatures you control with power X or less get +X/+X until end of turn. Up to two target creatures an opponent controls with power X or more get -X/-X until end of turn.
Note: Wierd ability that falls in line with the oddities of this FF9 dungeon where weakness is actually strength and vice-versa. Ability has x or less and X or more restrictions to add more layers then simply pump your guys, kill their guys. For instance at X = 3. This will give up to two creatures you control that are 3 power or less +3/+3 until end of turn, and give up to two creatures an opponent controls that have 3 power or more -x/-x making this a pump spell for your smaller creatures and either a kill spell or a shrinking spell for your enemies creatures.
Evil Forest
Legendary Land (R)
The Evil Forest enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add B or G XBG, Sacrifice Evil Forest: Create X 1/1 black and green insect tokens with menace.
Notes: Creates an insect army reminiscent of the one that chases you down early in FF9.
I agree and think this is a critical flaw, so I'll probably start fresh. Thinking maybe doing legendary painlands without the ability to tap for colorless, but with two activated abilities - one for each color.
Reducing the drawback of legendary lands is potentially advantageous though. Legendary lands don't get printed very often because that drawback can be really annoying on a land so having a way to sort of get around it potentially makes making legendary lands like these more printable. The other consideration there is, of course, balance, but I see no reason you can't balance around this.
You don’t typically see a sacrifice ability on legendary lands as it mostly negates the drawback of being legendary.
Other than the two legendary lands from Modern Horizon sets, the two most recent non-DFC legendary lands are Mirrorpool and Inventor’s Fair, both of which sacrificed themselves. Them sacrificing themselves is arguably what allowed them to be printed as legendary lands as the barrier of the second one being useless doesn’t impair gameplay.
The fact that a self-sacrifice ability effectively costs you a land drop plus the activation cost makes cards like that fairly balanced.
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Legendary Land (R)
ETB tapped.
T: Color or other color.
Ability that costs X, 1 of each color, and sacrificing the land.
I have three different restrictions place on each of these lands (legendary, ETBT, and Sac for the effect) to help balance out the powerful effects. A nice feature is that the abilities do not require tapping so you can use the mana from the land towards the final ability.
Kuja's Desert Palace
Legendary Land (R)
Kuja’s Desert Palace enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add B or R
XBR, Sacrifice Kuja’s Desert Palace: Exile the top X cards of your library and you lose X life. You may play any of those cards from exile until the end of your next turn.
Notes: Commune with Lava on a land at the cost of life.
Cleyra, the Spinning Sands
Legendary Land (R)
Cleyra, the Spinning Sands enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add G or W
XGW, Sacrifice Cleyra, the Spinning Sands: Destroy up to X target creatures with flying and you gain X life.
Notes: A Whirlwind + Life Gain effect. Some good hate for flying creatures. Pretty strong fit for the favor of Cleyra.
Qu's Marsh
Legendary Land (R)
Qu’s Marsh enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add U or G
XGU, Sacrifice Qu’s Marsh: Create half X food tokens rounded up.
Notes: Wanted a play on the frog catching mini-game and Quina's gourmand journey. Food tokens were a natural fit.
Ipsen's Castle
Legendary Land (R)
Ipsen’s Castle enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add W or B
XWB, Sacrifice Ipsen’s Castle: Up to two target creatures you control with power X or less get +X/+X until end of turn. Up to two target creatures an opponent controls with power X or more get -X/-X until end of turn.
Note: Wierd ability that falls in line with the oddities of this FF9 dungeon where weakness is actually strength and vice-versa. Ability has x or less and X or more restrictions to add more layers then simply pump your guys, kill their guys. For instance at X = 3. This will give up to two creatures you control that are 3 power or less +3/+3 until end of turn, and give up to two creatures an opponent controls that have 3 power or more -x/-x making this a pump spell for your smaller creatures and either a kill spell or a shrinking spell for your enemies creatures.
Evil Forest
Legendary Land (R)
The Evil Forest enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add B or G
XBG, Sacrifice Evil Forest: Create X 1/1 black and green insect tokens with menace.
Notes: Creates an insect army reminiscent of the one that chases you down early in FF9.
The Invincible
9
Legendary Artifact Vehicle
Flying
12/12
Crew 9
Tap, destroy target Legendary land
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
Other than the two legendary lands from Modern Horizon sets, the two most recent non-DFC legendary lands are Mirrorpool and Inventor’s Fair, both of which sacrificed themselves. Them sacrificing themselves is arguably what allowed them to be printed as legendary lands as the barrier of the second one being useless doesn’t impair gameplay.
The fact that a self-sacrifice ability effectively costs you a land drop plus the activation cost makes cards like that fairly balanced.