Devastating Mastery
Sorcery (R)
You may pay rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
If the cost was paid, an opponent chooses up to two nonland permanents they control and returns them to their owner's hand.
Destroy all nonland permanents.
Secret Rendezvous
Sorcery (U)
You and target opponent each draw three cards.
Pretty solid looking planar cleansing variant. And there's the white card draw spell. Kinda meh, but the art on that card....hmmmmm…..
I can't believe how quickly we are going from 'omg WotC hates white?!?!? Why won't they just give white more effects???' to 'omg WotC is just giving white everything now???'
The 2 mana tax here may 'only' be 2 mana, but considering that you get to look at your opponents hand and target a specific card, this can seriously disrupt your opponents gameplan. You can stop your opponent from playing a key card, especially larger cards, within the next couple turns, maybe even longer if they don't draw enough lands. Let's say they are playing genesis ultimatum, now they need to wait for a whole nine mana. That could potentially seriously put your opponent on the back foot while waiting for their swing card to come through. Or maybe they have a single mass removal and you give your aggro/tempo deck two whole extra turns to try to beat down your opponent with creatures.
Seems good.
I like this is a new area for white as well. Natural extension of White's abilities.
The land side of these is quite strong alone. Compare to the mythic cycle from ZNR. The lands here seem like they might be better than those and all of the other land sides of the ZNR cards are weaker than those. The problem being that the more powerful the land side the weaker the other side needs to be, and you don't want the nonland side to be too overcosted or it's not as fun to play with.
I second rowanalpha on everything.
Choice and interactivity are good, but more is not always better. Especially for a set mechanic. Layer on more complexity and strategic depth on top of the mechanic, don't build too much into it. It limits your options for what kind of things you can add onto cards with the mechanic and prevents you from making nice simple commons with the mechanic.
Really like the idea. White one does seem like the least useful. I'd say they should be played and remain in exile facedown until all conditions are met. That way the opponent can't see what exactly is coming. If you have a few of them in each color then it could throw the opponent off and they may not guess correctly.
As rowanalpha said, I think face down is a bad idea. Your opponent seeing what's coming isn't much of a problem, especially compared to the difficulties involved in tracking the conditions of a facedown card.
Here's a question: is Strixhaven the name of the school? If so, we don't actually know the name of the plane? Or is the plane named after the school itself?
Relax, he didn't say anything about not using tropes. He's just saying it's not a reskin of an existing property. Like how Theros is a reskin of greek mythology rather than being their own take on mythology as a medium.
Will it have deus ex machina spells, and important objects to drive the story, and guilds/houses/dark wizards/fantastic beasts? Yes. Because this is their take on the genre and those are tropes that exist in the genre. He just literally means (and literally says) there isn't going to be reskins aka intentional parallel versions of any one of the existing magic school takes.
The problem here is that people already associate wizard schools with things outside of MTG. I am reluctant to say that this won't feel like Harry Potter or something similar, because humans are creatures that observe patterns and make associations based on them.
It will feel like Harry Potter *and* something similar. It will feel like Harry Potter in the same way other magic school stories feel like Harry Potter and the same way Harry Potter feels like other magic school stories.
I'm not sure what the confusion is about. Remember Innistrad? That was also a genre-based setting. It felt like Dracula, and the Wolfman, and Frankenstein and a number of other stories of the like. But it wasn't a reskin of any of those stories, it was it's own world and story that used a combination of familiar elements. Expect something similar here.
Really, there isn't a good way to do this without it having a Harry Potter feel anymore than it is possible to remove Mindflayers from the feel of Cthulu, Theros from Greek Mythos, Ixalan from Un'Goro, etc.
See, Ixalan is actually a perfect comparison here, because it's not based on Un'Goro, it's based a classic subgenre of 'lost world' stories including Marvel's Savage Land, the Dinotopia series, and the original Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle.
People need to realize that they intend to keep doing this. Their goal is to keep printing cards they can ban.
Banning cards isn't really in WotC's interest. Big money cards like Oko and Uro have lost value as a result of being banned.
It's more that it is in WotC's interest to push the envelope with big money cards like Oko and Uro to make sure they are highly sought after, and as a result, a number of such cards have been over the top. If you're deliberately aiming for top of the pack, sometimes they fall under and are more mediocre, sometimes they go over.
I'd say it's a case of WotC taking too many risks with these cards without enough playtesting to make sure they're in line.
Plus, WotC works on a delay between finalising the set and printing, so banning have flow-on effects of throwing off the balancing of the metagame that future sets were developed around. So banning can end up chaining like that.
Keywords SLUMBER
This ability places a creature with the slumber ability into exile, slumbering, from any zone where it is visible to the controlling player as a sorcery. A slumbering creature may be cast normally as though it was in its controller's hand. Slumbering creatures may have abilities that are relevant when they go to slumber, when the are cast from slumber or while they slumber.
The ability to slumber cards from various zones is kind of interesting, but I think it's going to cause issues with balancing. Being able to slumber from graveyard particularly is going to often be the most powerful way to use the mechanic because you're getting bonus card advantage compared to activating from the hand, using it as basically a free Disentomb. Slumber is going to have to be balanced, therefore, around the possibility of it being used in graveyard deck, which is going to make it less effective and less fun using it from the hand.
I think slumber should probably only be able to be used from the hand. Alternatively, you could make slumber an alternate cost that could then be used from whatever zone you would otherwise be able to cast it. This would make the wording a little more awkward though.
PORTENT
This keyword action causes the player to look at the top card of their library and either reveal it or draw it, and is typically paired with a triggered ability or effect that improves if the card is revealed instead of drawn, allowing the player to choose if immediately drawing the card or the improved effect is more useful.
I worry that like Fabricate, this won't have that much design space once you account for balance and good gameplay design. Making sure that the choice is a balanced and fun choice to make seems like it might be difficult.
I would also consider adding a clause like with explore that also you to mill or put on the bottom the card you revealed. Helps to reduce public information, interact better with other portend cards and add a little bonus deck cycling in.
HAUNT
Haunt is a keyword that first appeared in Guildpact. The keyword functions the same here, but the effects of the cards are used in a different way to affect the creature being haunted rather than triggering an ability when they die.
If you are using it consistently differently, why not just use a different name for this mechanic?
Well it is a green demon
Devastating Mastery
Sorcery (R)
You may pay
If the
Destroy all nonland permanents.
Secret Rendezvous
Sorcery (U)
You and target opponent each draw three cards.
Pretty solid looking planar cleansing variant. And there's the white card draw spell. Kinda meh, but the art on that card....hmmmmm…..
Nothing personnel kid.
I guess this is partly why they kept hexproof.
Kinda weird looking compared to actual ground sloths though.
Seems good.
I like this is a new area for white as well. Natural extension of White's abilities.
Choice and interactivity are good, but more is not always better. Especially for a set mechanic. Layer on more complexity and strategic depth on top of the mechanic, don't build too much into it. It limits your options for what kind of things you can add onto cards with the mechanic and prevents you from making nice simple commons with the mechanic.
As rowanalpha said, I think face down is a bad idea. Your opponent seeing what's coming isn't much of a problem, especially compared to the difficulties involved in tracking the conditions of a facedown card.
Strixhaven is the school, Arcavios is the plane.
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/643659492177936384/is-strixhaven-in-regatha#notes
Silverquil-
Lorehold-
Prismari-
Witherbloom-
Quandrix-
Colour balanced, mixed ally/enemy-
Silverquil
Lorehold
Prismari
Witherbloom
Quandrix
Assuming enemy colours-
Silverquil
Lorehold
Prismari
Witherbloom
Quandrix
Assuming ally colours-
Silverquil
Lorehold
Prismari
Witherbloom
Quandrix
Ally colours feels probably the hardest to match to me.
It will feel like Harry Potter *and* something similar. It will feel like Harry Potter in the same way other magic school stories feel like Harry Potter and the same way Harry Potter feels like other magic school stories.
I'm not sure what the confusion is about. Remember Innistrad? That was also a genre-based setting. It felt like Dracula, and the Wolfman, and Frankenstein and a number of other stories of the like. But it wasn't a reskin of any of those stories, it was it's own world and story that used a combination of familiar elements. Expect something similar here.
See, Ixalan is actually a perfect comparison here, because it's not based on Un'Goro, it's based a classic subgenre of 'lost world' stories including Marvel's Savage Land, the Dinotopia series, and the original Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Banning cards isn't really in WotC's interest. Big money cards like Oko and Uro have lost value as a result of being banned.
It's more that it is in WotC's interest to push the envelope with big money cards like Oko and Uro to make sure they are highly sought after, and as a result, a number of such cards have been over the top. If you're deliberately aiming for top of the pack, sometimes they fall under and are more mediocre, sometimes they go over.
I'd say it's a case of WotC taking too many risks with these cards without enough playtesting to make sure they're in line.
Plus, WotC works on a delay between finalising the set and printing, so banning have flow-on effects of throwing off the balancing of the metagame that future sets were developed around. So banning can end up chaining like that.
The ability to slumber cards from various zones is kind of interesting, but I think it's going to cause issues with balancing. Being able to slumber from graveyard particularly is going to often be the most powerful way to use the mechanic because you're getting bonus card advantage compared to activating from the hand, using it as basically a free Disentomb. Slumber is going to have to be balanced, therefore, around the possibility of it being used in graveyard deck, which is going to make it less effective and less fun using it from the hand.
I think slumber should probably only be able to be used from the hand. Alternatively, you could make slumber an alternate cost that could then be used from whatever zone you would otherwise be able to cast it. This would make the wording a little more awkward though.
I worry that like Fabricate, this won't have that much design space once you account for balance and good gameplay design. Making sure that the choice is a balanced and fun choice to make seems like it might be difficult.
I would also consider adding a clause like with explore that also you to mill or put on the bottom the card you revealed. Helps to reduce public information, interact better with other portend cards and add a little bonus deck cycling in.
If you are using it consistently differently, why not just use a different name for this mechanic?
Wish these conversations could be had without going quite this far off the rails.