Set Name: BABEL: The Æther Wars Expansion Code: BAB Set size: 269 Tagline: As Above, So Below Mechanics: Hex, Survivor, Fuse, Essence, Gold Counters, Allies
The plane of Babel is one whose fate is being vied over by two rivaling factions from the Æther Realm. Planeswalkers native to the plane whose sparks are all igniting in response to the massive calamities that have been befalling them, some knowingly and some unknowningly are helping to push along an agenda which will inevitably lead to a cataclysmic planar war. The URUK nether realm has corrupted the mega-city AKKADIA and are using its techno-wizardry to build a massive drone army to conquer the remainder of the plane and enslave it under the rule of the half Demon half Djinn, Shaytan. Tavha, guardian of the higher realms is moving about silently and subtlety orchestrating a resistance, hoping to win the hearts of the other Planeswalkers on Babel to preserve the fate of its people.
Mechanics and Themes Hex — Hex (If you cast this card for its hex cost, its an Aura Curse spell with enchant player. When it enters the battlefield, enchanted player gains control of it.)
Bestow's evil twin. This mechanic is used on creatures that have drawback mechanics like Juzám Djinn and as such a return of Enchantment Creatures and Curses.
Survivor — Survivor (At the end of each combat, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature if it blocked or was blocked.)
A nice simple mechanic to race with other +1/+1 counter based themes in the set such as Allies.
Essence: — Essence (You may cast this card from your graveyard if you pay 2 more to cast it.)
While the mechanic can be placed on any type of card, the mechanic is showcased here on Aura's to accentuate the non-Redness.
Fuse — Fuse (You may cast one or both halves of this card from your hand.)
Fuse is the official returning mechanic, allowing players to use split cards that when combined create 4-Color spells which is the major theme of this set.
Gold Counters: Appearing on but a few cards in Magic's history thus far, Gold counters are explored as a set theme and mechanic to help smooth over the hard colorfixing requirements.
Ally Tribal: Allies and Tribal friendly mechanics make a return on Babel to highlight a faction based upon Native American lore.
AKKADIA is a sprawling metropolis, a culture built on the corpse of a dying world. Material possessions and monetary wealth reign supreme. Citizens are subject to little to no respect and are treated just as cogs in the wheel, machines, rather than living things. They are simply used to help feed the military prison industrial complex, which enslaves inhabitants not only by the sword but by debt. The city is founded on the expense of the rest of the plane, as the cost of progress sends the surrounding land of HASSUNA, further and further into ruin, soon to extend the reach of its empire to the plains of JEMDET!
URUK is an ethereal realm of hellish-horror. Dominion here belongs to Shaytan; half demon-half djinn. URUK's legion of fiends survive off of mortal fear, without it, the realm would vanish - Thus they terrorize and torment the living, that they may have a continued existence in the minds of men. They once offered a "deal-with-the-devil" to both the AKKADIANS and the KASSITES. While the AKKADIANS quickly became a greed driven mega city, exploiting the rest of the surrounding HASSUNA tribe lands in pursuit of material wealth, and rank among the devils; the KASSITES took on the demonic power however and ascended into the ethereal realms with the URUK, where they now are vying to protect the rest of their mortal-ancestry from the hands of evil!
The HASSUNA tribes were once living at peace with one another. The now arid wasteland once supported dense vegetation and material abundance. That was until it began to be exploited by industrial contamination by the AKKADIANs who had extracted anything of value from their pride-land in order to feed their materialistic mega-city. The HASSUNA tribes now fight amongst one another, over the increasingly scarce resources, most of them not even knowing why their lands had become barren in the first place. The entire region has become beaten and war-torn. The Orcs, while establishing their dominance over the other HASSUNA tribes are planning a full on invasion of human city, AKKADIA, but the Leonin are aware of how fool-hardy a decision that is, knowing of the AKKADIANs super-high tech military capacity.
The JEMDET tribes reside on the far eastern corner of the plane, watched over by the spirit guardians of the KASSITE realm. The JEMDET here are lead by the honorable and wise Chief Lakota, who for four generations has preserved perfect peace and utopia for his people. One with nature and each other, the tribes form an unbreakable bond between themselves, the KASSITE spirit realm and the earth beneath their feet. While they don't have outward military strength, their love and kindness are enough to conquer any demons. Not far off to the west however, the AKKADIANS are plotting a planar take-over as they gear for war, first extinguishing the existing HASSUNA rebels then the passive JEMDET.
The premise of KASSITE is that they were once a people much like that of Bant. Mostly human, high elves. Righteous and Patient. They were then approached by a demonic Planeswalker from Nether realm of URUK. He offered them great power through his magic, to which they accepted. The planeswalker had anticpated that the power would corrupt the Kassites and that they would join his legion of devils. They allowed the curse to take hold of them, for its ability to make them stronger, but unlike others who fell under its spell, they retained their repose and with a little effort fought off the ability to be controlled. As a result, the Kingdom of Felhaven became an Ethereal realm, separated from the material plane it was born from. Its inhabitants now vie over the fate of the material world against the evil forces of the URUK nether realms. The curse transformed some of the humans into half-demons known as Tieflings.
Looks good. I only commented on cards that I felt needed commenting on.
WHITE
I suggest making Angelic Abolisher a 4/4 mythic for 2WW and increasing War Aven's mana cost to 3WW.
Gargoyle Ward could be 2WW.
How many cards with Survivor and has it been playtested? It seems like it shouldn't trigger from blocking because it heavily discourages attacking on both sides, which is okay in small numbers but not as a major theme.
Liquidate should cost 3W.
Quick Claws should say "before attackers are declared".
Rebirth should be rare with cantrip. It's not the kind of thing that Limited wants more than one floating around.
Sand Wurm is pushed but isn't about to ruin Magic forever.
Spirit Cylix, why not Lifelink.
Stonehorn Commando is a VERY exciting Limited card. It's so impactionative on Limited that it could/should be mythic.
Toll Gate is really going to gum up combat. I absolutely love the flavor, but in practice, it's gonna be a feel bad card. It's toughness should be reduced to 3 and instead of producing gold tokens, perhaps it could tax your opponent 1 ala Propaganda?
BLUE
Get Rich Quick Scheme is very efficient. Gold counters in white/blue are typically not well received on custom forums for good reason. Personally I've always liked the idea in all five colors but think that white and blue should be, by far, the least efficient at it.
Ghost Dancer is better suited as an uncommon.
Indolent Oculus' Hex effect is too weak for the trade off. Doubling the effect might make it worthwhile.
Mass Surveillance and P-17 Skyguard seem way out of flavor. They sound, look, and feel Phyrexian. But I don't know the set's story.
Permit Fee is just not balancable.
Rain Dance effectively reads "0: Draw a card.", which isn't printable.
Sheisty Shifter, this set has a decent amount of Flash and probably too much Flash at common.
Axela, I'd rather she just be Liliana. The zero ability looks busted.
Fatrat, I don't understand the flavor at all. I do like it though because it has all the design sensibilities seen in my favorite set - Legends.
Fear monger is awesome. It should be rare.
Hoard is broken.
Shadow Lancer, black doesn't get first strike at common.
Skaven Doubleagent should be uncommon, have a relevant drawback, or just trigger upon etb. Repeatable discard at common just isn't done.
Soul Reaver should lose trample and gain "can't block" imo.
RED
Bloodscale Marauder seems to get a +1/+1 counter no matter what.
Bonecrusher Giant is slightly pushed. It should cost 1 more.
Burning Desire should/would be rare and it would be black. The only way it could be red is if it tutored only for sorceries. And of course it would be restricted and banned in every format.
Drone Foundry, without checking, would be the best token generator ever - and it's red. That's probably not realistically printable.
Hellfire is easily uncommon material.
Hellspawn Effreet - I tend to gravitate towards griefer mechanics, but damn, even I think this thing's Hex is too harsh.
Lustful Attraction isn't printable with that name.
Moonlit Phoenix - I think the proper wording would be "an additional counter"
Waste Hellion could use trample.
GREEN
Felhaven Dryad should cost 1 more.
Garden Serpent should cost 1 more.
Harvester Ooze should get opponent's counters also.
Kassidian Enchantress could be mythic.
Stonehorn Charger is off flavor. Also, like flash, there's an awful lot of untap all/vigilance going on.
Swiftclaw Scout is rare material.
GOLD
Pickpocket... This is the most polite way I can think of to criticize it.
Secrecy should cost 2 more to cast and be rare.
Warm Meal, is there a precedent for this? It seems too efficient. And the flavor of Warm Meal is luke warm at best.
Community is quite the winmore card. It should kick I when you control the least creatures among players.
Scarcity is monoblack.
Thunderbird lacks a creature type.
Stormtrooper shouldn't have haste and should be common. Also, the flavor seems really far out for the set.
I have lots of individual card comments, and I'm putting them in spoilers:
Angelic Abolisher could have higher p/t
Ascending Acolyte is really strong for limited. Just compare Doomed Traveler. I would make it a 2/1 and it would still be quite good.
Blackhawk Squadron is interesting and has interesting deckbuilding ramifications.
Blinding Wisp feels like it should be green except it obviously can't be. I would consider making it so it either just prevented all damage target creature would deal this turn, or all damage that would be dealt to target creature this turn.
Diligance should be Diligence. This seems like a good way to keep auras non-punishing for their user.
Ethereal Angel seems fine
Gargoyle Ward is weird. Should be "As long as it's not your turn". Why does it care whose turn it is instead of just being an artifact creature outright? I suppose to mimic the night/day aspect of gargoyles. Maybe fine as is but it sometimes being a creature threw me for a loop, since it doesn't exactly interact with its other abilities.
Horseback Riders is strong... it's 6 power that buffs your other guys and gets buffed, too, for only 5 mana. Hard to fix that, though, other than making it cost 6. I'd pay attention to it during playtesting because I suspect this is a huge bomb.
Immortal Boon is fine
I echo what others have said about Survivor. It ironically makes you not want to attack or block because you're now unwilling to offer trades, and there's usually a trade available on the board in Limited. Maybe it plays differently but when I do a mental playtest of Survivor, I don't want to attack with it because I want to guarantee that I get use out of my mechanic. When I'm forced into using it and don't get the benefit, it feels bad, like I cast and used half of a card or something. The card itself seems finely costed.
Leonin Twinblade makes sense with Survivor and is a good application of it -- a lot of good tension, risk/payoff. I still wonder at how fun Survivor will make games, though.
I hear what others are saying about U/W not getting Gold ramp, but I like your application of it here if you have to keep Gold in U and W. You only get the Gold if you do something that is squarely within white's color pie and is already situational. (Liquidate.)
Medicine Man is good. I like the theme of your white allies and how their abilities are basically unique to the Zen allies, but also don't get too out of control.
Oathsworn Emissary might be too good at what it does. It can just end an aggro deck on its own in Limited, and it's common. I would drop the toughness a point or replace lifelink with something better for the draft environment.
Overarch seems neat, though maybe black?
I really like Policy Enforcer, although you do need to change his art
Property Tax probably has to be a rare. I like, again, how you keep white's Gold to a strictly situational scenario. The problem here is that, unlike Land Tax, you're not given the way to narrow the gap, and so you might just be getting Gold tokens forever. Maybe the one-time nature of Gold makes up for that, but I kind of liked how the advantage of Land Tax and spells like it kind of lessens itself naturally, whereas this could go on forever if you wanted it to.
I like Quick Claws, but don't like the awkwardness of its first sentence. Is it even necessary?
Rebirth seems like a heck of a lot of life, possibly too much. Consider that Heroes' Reunion only gives 7 but is the "strong" union of the two colors best as gaining life. I would say make Rebirth give 7 life as well, since I think WW is actually harder to cast than GW.
I like Rhox Shieldmate
Sand Wurm is fine; kinda high power for white at common, but costed accordingly
Skywatch Scout might be too strong. It's an Assault Griffin that gets bigger
Spirit Cylix has old-lifelink that can actually also neuter an opposing creature, and I don't know if that is still NWO (too nuanced an interaction for people).
I like Spirit Guide as an ally. "May" ally triggers that aren't always strictly good to do are interesting
Stonehorn Commando is a great intro pack rare
Tax Collector doesn't feel common at all. It's arguably not even white.
Toll Gate is very strong, and perhaps too good against aggro. It ramps you and is a great blocker. This may be too easy a way for white to get gold. I would probably make it more kill-able.
Tribal Prayer makes sense
Is Vision Quest white? I thought white put things on the bottom of libraries, not the top
War Aven is pretty sweet.
Wild Horse should really just have Plainswalk, because if you're casting it, you probably have a Plains -- unless you used gold, I guess, to play it, which I don't think will happen often.
AEther Wisp seems fine
Akkadian Agent introduces some feel-bad moments to limited where you can draft a deck full of these and randomly put all your opponent's bombs on the bottom of their deck. Maybe letting blue players feel clever with this card is worth it as a one-time effect on an otherwise unimpactful common, though
Alchemy is interesting; I have no idea whether this is costed just right or color-pie-breaking
Ancestral Spirit makes a lot of sense
Arcanum Scribe is nifty
City Drake works
Dream Snatcher is too strong. A 2/4 for 4 that bounces a creature is already too good for limited, let alone with the ability to get bigger.
Dreamweaver Djinn is great, although I haven't seen any blue auras yet and two cards that care about them
Enticing Illusion feels green, although I guess Thassa's Bident has the same effect
Forced Submission is fine
Formlessness is cool except that it's repeatable removal if they ever attack with the thing.
Get Rich Quick Scheme probably isn't the best name to eventually have, although it's a perfect playtest name. I worry this is squarely outside of blue's pie though.
Ghost Dancer is cool although I don't know offhand how many ETB effects you really want to abuse at common yet (other than ally ones)
Ghostcloak is exactly the kind of common aura you want
Hidden Knowledge should be "Draw three cards"
Indolent Oculus -- it's kinda weird to randomly see enchantment creatures this late into the card file, although I suppose it makes sense with the aura support going around. How much space is there for Hex? I suppose it's fine. I just don't know how excited players will be to turn their creatures into curses. It may be sweet; I don't know. I'd be curious to playtest it.
Intangible Sphinx seems good.
Jemdet Astronomer is cool but doesn't follow the Ally template. Does that matter? I don't know.
I don't know why you need Mass Surveillance in your set. Maybe to set up your Aura-drawing blue uncommon?
Mirror Mist is cool.
Negative Thoughts is strictly worse than Dampen Thought and basically worse than Mind Sculpt. I don't see much else mill support so maybe this is a slot that can be switched out for something else if necessary
Oblivion Mage is a neat Johnny card
P-17 Skyguard... having artifact creatures and enchantment creatures in the same color, but not in white at all, seems really weird. Other than that it seems fine
Permit Fee is really strong and kinda awkward
Prideful Djinn is a sweet application of Hex. The more I think about Hex the more I like it, actually
Rain Dance... why does it untap the land? And where are your Islandwalk creatures that care about this? I suppose you can use this to fix mana except that it only fixes it into blue, and you're already spending a blue to cast this. I suppose the best use of this is to draw a card for free at instant speed at common, which is too powerful; you tap an island to cast Rain Dance, then untap it with Rain Dance and draw a card. That feels too strong. I would suggest removing the untap clause, I suppose.
Sheisty Shifter... I dunno what Sheisty means, but I don't think it's a word. The card feels more uncommon than common to me
Spectral Wings is good
Stiflemage is fine, I feel like any objections to it would be developmental objections and I can't speak to that so much
Tribal Feathers... I really like this Tribal cycle
Whispers of the Djnn should be Djinn. This strikes me as an incredibly feel-bad card, although I can appreciate the trickiness of it. I would love to play this card and absolutely hate playing against it. I don't think you want Top Control as a limited archetype.
Wise Elder is legit
I will do the other cards later, hopefully. I like Hex and I like your allies and the Tribal cards.
I've updated the original post with some info on the five factions and updated their visual spoilers by group rather than color. Updated a large number of the complaints mentioned in the discussion thus far as well as deleted cards, added cards and swapped rarities around.
I'd just like to say, that this is a cool concept. Good job on the descriptions of the 5 factions. I'll check out the cards shortly. Short of doing that, I'd like to ask how you are going about making four-color viable for play in terms of mana? I know that if 5-color decks are possible, so are 4-color, but I'm curious how one goes about making 4-color cards and themes more easily playable.
I'd just like to say, that this is a cool concept. Good job on the descriptions of the 5 factions. I'll check out the cards shortly. Short of doing that, I'd like to ask how you are going about making four-color viable for play in terms of mana? I know that if 5-color decks are possible, so are 4-color, but I'm curious how one goes about making 4-color cards and themes more easily playable.
I used Fuse as a returning mechanic, allowing for a WU//BR split cards that can be cast as both or either; Gold counters is the major theme of the non-green faction and so can be used for non-green cards to colorfix and then there is a decent amount of "search for basic land type" stuff going on such as Terramorphic Expanse and Expedition Map reprints. That's all I've go so far before playtesting.
Yea, now that I'm scanning through the Akkadia cards I noticed a lot of usage of the gold counters thing. That definitely helps a lot. The split cards spanning four colors thing is also cool.
In case you haven't seen we did a community shoutout for your set in Episode 16 of Re-Making Magic.
Wow! Thank you guys so much I'll go over and check things out. Appreciate the feedback everyone and thanks back to the community for helping tweak the knobs and whistles to fine-tune everything.
Friendship... it just isn't mythic material. It looks cool but thats it. It's throughly worse than Wall of Denial And a handful of other low power defenders and zero power creatures.
Friendship... it just isn't mythic material. It looks cool but thats it. It's throughly worse than Wall of Denial And a handful of other low power defenders and zero power creatures.
Also, plz put each color in its own spoiler.
Updated the Original post with some minor changes to a few Akkadian cards and Dark Lord from Kassite Faction.
On Friendship: The WOW factor I was going for was just the sheer number and compare to Indomitable Ancients the Inspiration for Friendship, I wanted to have a Mythic rare vanilla, and simplicity is one of the major flavor anchors for the Jemdet. The point of the card is to use GW pump or +1/+1 counters in combination with UR "Switch this creature's power and toughness until end of turn". What if the toughness were higher? Call it the set's Misthollow Griffin.
'Spirit Auras' as you described don't have any marker in the set. I would suggest keywording the mechanic so players can identify it as such more easily. If you don't want to keyword it, I would recommend making a subtype for them instead, maybe even an ability word. Just put something to identify it.
I'm not saying Friendship is a bad card, it's a good card, it just isn't a mythic. A mythic should be able to singlehandedly turn the tide of a game (not dependent on set theme/archetype/mechanics to do so) - especially in limited. (Indomitable Ancients isn't mythic and would probably be uncommon these days.) Friendship just doesn't do that. It's a build-around uncommon.
it just isn't a mythic. A mythic should be able to singlehandedly turn the tide of a game.
This isn't quite true.
Mythics need to be splashy and exciting, not necessarily game changing.
We want the flavor of mythic rare to be something that feels very special and unique. Generally speaking we expect that to mean cards like planeswalkers, most legends, and epic-feeling creatures and spells. They will not just be a list of each set's most powerful tournament-level cards.
Friendship seems to fulfill that condition nicely. and its certainly not a build around uncommon.
MaRo isn't saying mythics can be weak as long as they're special. He's saying you can't just shuffle up a bunch of mythics and win a tournament - you'll still need inter-rarity card synergy to play and win. His isn't an argument for lame but special feeling mythics. EDIT: His point is that power level isn't the only requirement to be mythic.
Friendship does feel special, but so does Fusion Elemental and other uncommons. Specialness isn't exclusive to mythicness. Friendship is a build around uncommon. It's four colors with a unique toughness (the highest in the game) but zero offensive capability. It's begging for build-around abuse such as Doran, the Seige Tower offers.
This set is really cool! I think you did a great job of creating factions that felt like they were all four of their colors.
I especially like how well-suited the Ally mechanic was to the Jemdet faction. In making Deadsands, I've dabbled with making Native American themed cards and I never came up with anything thing that felt as resonant. Great job!
Mind if I adapt or riff off some of your gold card designs for Deadsands? (I'm planning to use gold counters in it.)
Set Name: BABEL: The Æther Wars
Expansion Code: BAB
Set size: 269
Tagline: As Above, So Below
Mechanics: Hex, Survivor, Fuse, Essence, Gold Counters, Allies
The plane of Babel is one whose fate is being vied over by two rivaling factions from the Æther Realm. Planeswalkers native to the plane whose sparks are all igniting in response to the massive calamities that have been befalling them, some knowingly and some unknowningly are helping to push along an agenda which will inevitably lead to a cataclysmic planar war. The URUK nether realm has corrupted the mega-city AKKADIA and are using its techno-wizardry to build a massive drone army to conquer the remainder of the plane and enslave it under the rule of the half Demon half Djinn, Shaytan. Tavha, guardian of the higher realms is moving about silently and subtlety orchestrating a resistance, hoping to win the hearts of the other Planeswalkers on Babel to preserve the fate of its people.
Mechanics and Themes
Hex — Hex (If you cast this card for its hex cost, its an Aura Curse spell with enchant player. When it enters the battlefield, enchanted player gains control of it.)
Bestow's evil twin. This mechanic is used on creatures that have drawback mechanics like Juzám Djinn and as such a return of Enchantment Creatures and Curses.
Survivor — Survivor (At the end of each combat, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature if it blocked or was blocked.)
A nice simple mechanic to race with other +1/+1 counter based themes in the set such as Allies.
Essence: — Essence (You may cast this card from your graveyard if you pay 2 more to cast it.)
While the mechanic can be placed on any type of card, the mechanic is showcased here on Aura's to accentuate the non-Redness.
Fuse — Fuse (You may cast one or both halves of this card from your hand.)
Fuse is the official returning mechanic, allowing players to use split cards that when combined create 4-Color spells which is the major theme of this set.
Gold Counters: Appearing on but a few cards in Magic's history thus far, Gold counters are explored as a set theme and mechanic to help smooth over the hard colorfixing requirements.
Ally Tribal: Allies and Tribal friendly mechanics make a return on Babel to highlight a faction based upon Native American lore.
WUBR: AKKADIA
AKKADIA is a sprawling metropolis, a culture built on the corpse of a dying world. Material possessions and monetary wealth reign supreme. Citizens are subject to little to no respect and are treated just as cogs in the wheel, machines, rather than living things. They are simply used to help feed the military prison industrial complex, which enslaves inhabitants not only by the sword but by debt. The city is founded on the expense of the rest of the plane, as the cost of progress sends the surrounding land of HASSUNA, further and further into ruin, soon to extend the reach of its empire to the plains of JEMDET!
UBRG : URUK
URUK is an ethereal realm of hellish-horror. Dominion here belongs to Shaytan; half demon-half djinn. URUK's legion of fiends survive off of mortal fear, without it, the realm would vanish - Thus they terrorize and torment the living, that they may have a continued existence in the minds of men. They once offered a "deal-with-the-devil" to both the AKKADIANS and the KASSITES. While the AKKADIANS quickly became a greed driven mega city, exploiting the rest of the surrounding HASSUNA tribe lands in pursuit of material wealth, and rank among the devils; the KASSITES took on the demonic power however and ascended into the ethereal realms with the URUK, where they now are vying to protect the rest of their mortal-ancestry from the hands of evil!
BRGW : HASSUNA
The HASSUNA tribes were once living at peace with one another. The now arid wasteland once supported dense vegetation and material abundance. That was until it began to be exploited by industrial contamination by the AKKADIANs who had extracted anything of value from their pride-land in order to feed their materialistic mega-city. The HASSUNA tribes now fight amongst one another, over the increasingly scarce resources, most of them not even knowing why their lands had become barren in the first place. The entire region has become beaten and war-torn. The Orcs, while establishing their dominance over the other HASSUNA tribes are planning a full on invasion of human city, AKKADIA, but the Leonin are aware of how fool-hardy a decision that is, knowing of the AKKADIANs super-high tech military capacity.
RGWU: JEMDET
The JEMDET tribes reside on the far eastern corner of the plane, watched over by the spirit guardians of the KASSITE realm. The JEMDET here are lead by the honorable and wise Chief Lakota, who for four generations has preserved perfect peace and utopia for his people. One with nature and each other, the tribes form an unbreakable bond between themselves, the KASSITE spirit realm and the earth beneath their feet. While they don't have outward military strength, their love and kindness are enough to conquer any demons. Not far off to the west however, the AKKADIANS are plotting a planar take-over as they gear for war, first extinguishing the existing HASSUNA rebels then the passive JEMDET.
GWUB: KASSITE
The premise of KASSITE is that they were once a people much like that of Bant. Mostly human, high elves. Righteous and Patient. They were then approached by a demonic Planeswalker from Nether realm of URUK. He offered them great power through his magic, to which they accepted. The planeswalker had anticpated that the power would corrupt the Kassites and that they would join his legion of devils. They allowed the curse to take hold of them, for its ability to make them stronger, but unlike others who fell under its spell, they retained their repose and with a little effort fought off the ability to be controlled. As a result, the Kingdom of Felhaven became an Ethereal realm, separated from the material plane it was born from. Its inhabitants now vie over the fate of the material world against the evil forces of the URUK nether realms. The curse transformed some of the humans into half-demons known as Tieflings.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
WHITE
I suggest making Angelic Abolisher a 4/4 mythic for 2WW and increasing War Aven's mana cost to 3WW.
Gargoyle Ward could be 2WW.
How many cards with Survivor and has it been playtested? It seems like it shouldn't trigger from blocking because it heavily discourages attacking on both sides, which is okay in small numbers but not as a major theme.
Liquidate should cost 3W.
Quick Claws should say "before attackers are declared".
Rebirth should be rare with cantrip. It's not the kind of thing that Limited wants more than one floating around.
Sand Wurm is pushed but isn't about to ruin Magic forever.
Spirit Cylix, why not Lifelink.
Stonehorn Commando is a VERY exciting Limited card. It's so impactionative on Limited that it could/should be mythic.
Toll Gate is really going to gum up combat. I absolutely love the flavor, but in practice, it's gonna be a feel bad card. It's toughness should be reduced to 3 and instead of producing gold tokens, perhaps it could tax your opponent 1 ala Propaganda?
BLUE
Get Rich Quick Scheme is very efficient. Gold counters in white/blue are typically not well received on custom forums for good reason. Personally I've always liked the idea in all five colors but think that white and blue should be, by far, the least efficient at it.
Ghost Dancer is better suited as an uncommon.
Indolent Oculus' Hex effect is too weak for the trade off. Doubling the effect might make it worthwhile.
Mass Surveillance and P-17 Skyguard seem way out of flavor. They sound, look, and feel Phyrexian. But I don't know the set's story.
Permit Fee is just not balancable.
Rain Dance effectively reads "0: Draw a card.", which isn't printable.
Sheisty Shifter, this set has a decent amount of Flash and probably too much Flash at common.
Axela, I'd rather she just be Liliana. The zero ability looks busted.
Fatrat, I don't understand the flavor at all. I do like it though because it has all the design sensibilities seen in my favorite set - Legends.
Fear monger is awesome. It should be rare.
Hoard is broken.
Shadow Lancer, black doesn't get first strike at common.
Skaven Doubleagent should be uncommon, have a relevant drawback, or just trigger upon etb. Repeatable discard at common just isn't done.
Soul Reaver should lose trample and gain "can't block" imo.
RED
Bloodscale Marauder seems to get a +1/+1 counter no matter what.
Bonecrusher Giant is slightly pushed. It should cost 1 more.
Burning Desire should/would be rare and it would be black. The only way it could be red is if it tutored only for sorceries. And of course it would be restricted and banned in every format.
Drone Foundry, without checking, would be the best token generator ever - and it's red. That's probably not realistically printable.
Hellfire is easily uncommon material.
Hellspawn Effreet - I tend to gravitate towards griefer mechanics, but damn, even I think this thing's Hex is too harsh.
Lustful Attraction isn't printable with that name.
Moonlit Phoenix - I think the proper wording would be "an additional counter"
Waste Hellion could use trample.
GREEN
Felhaven Dryad should cost 1 more.
Garden Serpent should cost 1 more.
Harvester Ooze should get opponent's counters also.
Kassidian Enchantress could be mythic.
Stonehorn Charger is off flavor. Also, like flash, there's an awful lot of untap all/vigilance going on.
Swiftclaw Scout is rare material.
GOLD
Pickpocket... This is the most polite way I can think of to criticize it.
Secrecy should cost 2 more to cast and be rare.
Warm Meal, is there a precedent for this? It seems too efficient. And the flavor of Warm Meal is luke warm at best.
Community is quite the winmore card. It should kick I when you control the least creatures among players.
Scarcity is monoblack.
Thunderbird lacks a creature type.
Stormtrooper shouldn't have haste and should be common. Also, the flavor seems really far out for the set.
Pagan Rites doesn't make sense.
Shaytan, Demon Djinn is like saying Demon Demon.
Brotherhood makes no sense.
Friendship - Is an uncommon.
Sophia shouldn't be an Angel.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Angelic Abolisher could have higher p/t
Ascending Acolyte is really strong for limited. Just compare Doomed Traveler. I would make it a 2/1 and it would still be quite good.
Blackhawk Squadron is interesting and has interesting deckbuilding ramifications.
Blinding Wisp feels like it should be green except it obviously can't be. I would consider making it so it either just prevented all damage target creature would deal this turn, or all damage that would be dealt to target creature this turn.
Diligance should be Diligence. This seems like a good way to keep auras non-punishing for their user.
Ethereal Angel seems fine
Gargoyle Ward is weird. Should be "As long as it's not your turn". Why does it care whose turn it is instead of just being an artifact creature outright? I suppose to mimic the night/day aspect of gargoyles. Maybe fine as is but it sometimes being a creature threw me for a loop, since it doesn't exactly interact with its other abilities.
Horseback Riders is strong... it's 6 power that buffs your other guys and gets buffed, too, for only 5 mana. Hard to fix that, though, other than making it cost 6. I'd pay attention to it during playtesting because I suspect this is a huge bomb.
Immortal Boon is fine
I echo what others have said about Survivor. It ironically makes you not want to attack or block because you're now unwilling to offer trades, and there's usually a trade available on the board in Limited. Maybe it plays differently but when I do a mental playtest of Survivor, I don't want to attack with it because I want to guarantee that I get use out of my mechanic. When I'm forced into using it and don't get the benefit, it feels bad, like I cast and used half of a card or something. The card itself seems finely costed.
Leonin Twinblade makes sense with Survivor and is a good application of it -- a lot of good tension, risk/payoff. I still wonder at how fun Survivor will make games, though.
I hear what others are saying about U/W not getting Gold ramp, but I like your application of it here if you have to keep Gold in U and W. You only get the Gold if you do something that is squarely within white's color pie and is already situational. (Liquidate.)
Medicine Man is good. I like the theme of your white allies and how their abilities are basically unique to the Zen allies, but also don't get too out of control.
Oathsworn Emissary might be too good at what it does. It can just end an aggro deck on its own in Limited, and it's common. I would drop the toughness a point or replace lifelink with something better for the draft environment.
Overarch seems neat, though maybe black?
I really like Policy Enforcer, although you do need to change his art
Property Tax probably has to be a rare. I like, again, how you keep white's Gold to a strictly situational scenario. The problem here is that, unlike Land Tax, you're not given the way to narrow the gap, and so you might just be getting Gold tokens forever. Maybe the one-time nature of Gold makes up for that, but I kind of liked how the advantage of Land Tax and spells like it kind of lessens itself naturally, whereas this could go on forever if you wanted it to.
I like Quick Claws, but don't like the awkwardness of its first sentence. Is it even necessary?
Rebirth seems like a heck of a lot of life, possibly too much. Consider that Heroes' Reunion only gives 7 but is the "strong" union of the two colors best as gaining life. I would say make Rebirth give 7 life as well, since I think WW is actually harder to cast than GW.
I like Rhox Shieldmate
Sand Wurm is fine; kinda high power for white at common, but costed accordingly
Skywatch Scout might be too strong. It's an Assault Griffin that gets bigger
Spirit Cylix has old-lifelink that can actually also neuter an opposing creature, and I don't know if that is still NWO (too nuanced an interaction for people).
I like Spirit Guide as an ally. "May" ally triggers that aren't always strictly good to do are interesting
Stonehorn Commando is a great intro pack rare
Tax Collector doesn't feel common at all. It's arguably not even white.
Toll Gate is very strong, and perhaps too good against aggro. It ramps you and is a great blocker. This may be too easy a way for white to get gold. I would probably make it more kill-able.
Tribal Prayer makes sense
Is Vision Quest white? I thought white put things on the bottom of libraries, not the top
War Aven is pretty sweet.
Wild Horse should really just have Plainswalk, because if you're casting it, you probably have a Plains -- unless you used gold, I guess, to play it, which I don't think will happen often.
AEther Wisp seems fine
Akkadian Agent introduces some feel-bad moments to limited where you can draft a deck full of these and randomly put all your opponent's bombs on the bottom of their deck. Maybe letting blue players feel clever with this card is worth it as a one-time effect on an otherwise unimpactful common, though
Alchemy is interesting; I have no idea whether this is costed just right or color-pie-breaking
Ancestral Spirit makes a lot of sense
Arcanum Scribe is nifty
City Drake works
Dream Snatcher is too strong. A 2/4 for 4 that bounces a creature is already too good for limited, let alone with the ability to get bigger.
Dreamweaver Djinn is great, although I haven't seen any blue auras yet and two cards that care about them
Enticing Illusion feels green, although I guess Thassa's Bident has the same effect
Forced Submission is fine
Formlessness is cool except that it's repeatable removal if they ever attack with the thing.
Get Rich Quick Scheme probably isn't the best name to eventually have, although it's a perfect playtest name. I worry this is squarely outside of blue's pie though.
Ghost Dancer is cool although I don't know offhand how many ETB effects you really want to abuse at common yet (other than ally ones)
Ghostcloak is exactly the kind of common aura you want
Hidden Knowledge should be "Draw three cards"
Indolent Oculus -- it's kinda weird to randomly see enchantment creatures this late into the card file, although I suppose it makes sense with the aura support going around. How much space is there for Hex? I suppose it's fine. I just don't know how excited players will be to turn their creatures into curses. It may be sweet; I don't know. I'd be curious to playtest it.
Intangible Sphinx seems good.
Jemdet Astronomer is cool but doesn't follow the Ally template. Does that matter? I don't know.
I don't know why you need Mass Surveillance in your set. Maybe to set up your Aura-drawing blue uncommon?
Mirror Mist is cool.
Negative Thoughts is strictly worse than Dampen Thought and basically worse than Mind Sculpt. I don't see much else mill support so maybe this is a slot that can be switched out for something else if necessary
Oblivion Mage is a neat Johnny card
P-17 Skyguard... having artifact creatures and enchantment creatures in the same color, but not in white at all, seems really weird. Other than that it seems fine
Permit Fee is really strong and kinda awkward
Prideful Djinn is a sweet application of Hex. The more I think about Hex the more I like it, actually
Rain Dance... why does it untap the land? And where are your Islandwalk creatures that care about this? I suppose you can use this to fix mana except that it only fixes it into blue, and you're already spending a blue to cast this. I suppose the best use of this is to draw a card for free at instant speed at common, which is too powerful; you tap an island to cast Rain Dance, then untap it with Rain Dance and draw a card. That feels too strong. I would suggest removing the untap clause, I suppose.
Sheisty Shifter... I dunno what Sheisty means, but I don't think it's a word. The card feels more uncommon than common to me
Spectral Wings is good
Stiflemage is fine, I feel like any objections to it would be developmental objections and I can't speak to that so much
Tribal Feathers... I really like this Tribal cycle
Whispers of the Djnn should be Djinn. This strikes me as an incredibly feel-bad card, although I can appreciate the trickiness of it. I would love to play this card and absolutely hate playing against it. I don't think you want Top Control as a limited archetype.
Wise Elder is legit
I will do the other cards later, hopefully. I like Hex and I like your allies and the Tribal cards.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
I used Fuse as a returning mechanic, allowing for a WU//BR split cards that can be cast as both or either; Gold counters is the major theme of the non-green faction and so can be used for non-green cards to colorfix and then there is a decent amount of "search for basic land type" stuff going on such as Terramorphic Expanse and Expedition Map reprints. That's all I've go so far before playtesting.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
Extensive internet searching but mostly Deviantart.com
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
Nope! Haha, I just have a real passion for aesthetics.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
Write out a design goal for reference, it makes critique more effective.
Write out a clear mechanics overview for easier viewing.
Seems like a solid set, although the four-colour theme is very risky, then again, I'm doing it (FAL in my signature).
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
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
I've updated the original post with a more extensive overview of the set's themes. And made some small changes to some of the Akkdian cards.
Wow! Thank you guys so much I'll go over and check things out. Appreciate the feedback everyone and thanks back to the community for helping tweak the knobs and whistles to fine-tune everything.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
Also, plz put each color in its own spoiler.
Updated the Original post with some minor changes to a few Akkadian cards and Dark Lord from Kassite Faction.
On Friendship: The WOW factor I was going for was just the sheer number and compare to Indomitable Ancients the Inspiration for Friendship, I wanted to have a Mythic rare vanilla, and simplicity is one of the major flavor anchors for the Jemdet. The point of the card is to use GW pump or +1/+1 counters in combination with UR "Switch this creature's power and toughness until end of turn". What if the toughness were higher? Call it the set's Misthollow Griffin.
Avalon: The Legend Begins :: Pirate Set :: Babel: The Æther Wars
Favorite Magic Card: Fowl Play
[Primer] [Barrin's Tome]: A Master Wizard's Spellbook.
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
Also, thanks for dividing the spoilers.
This isn't quite true.
Mythics need to be splashy and exciting, not necessarily game changing.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Friendship does feel special, but so does Fusion Elemental and other uncommons. Specialness isn't exclusive to mythicness. Friendship is a build around uncommon. It's four colors with a unique toughness (the highest in the game) but zero offensive capability. It's begging for build-around abuse such as Doran, the Seige Tower offers.
I especially like how well-suited the Ally mechanic was to the Jemdet faction. In making Deadsands, I've dabbled with making Native American themed cards and I never came up with anything thing that felt as resonant. Great job!
Mind if I adapt or riff off some of your gold card designs for Deadsands? (I'm planning to use gold counters in it.)