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?
Turgi feels like it should be a 2/4 or in order to be storm crow stats doubled. The second ability feels a little bit strong considering how effectively it can keep this thing alive indefinitely. I would consider raising the cost of the ability to so it's harder to always have mana up for it.
Mystical Crow Cyclone is neat. I wonder if it's actually a bit weak though. Compare Experimental Overload. Creating a bunch of flying tokens is usually better than a single plain body, but this cost a whole 2 CMC more and the shuffle effect may often a positive be probably not as much as the regrowth effect on Experimental Overload. I would put this at for starters.
Grokma is cool. The repeatable fight could be oppressive but the restriction to dinosaurs works to limit it at least. I worry the second ability is too efficient and oppressive though. I would bump it to as well.
Primal Ferocity feels too efficient as well. It's slightly weird that it does one sided fight as well when Grokma does normal fight and the cards are so close to each other. Perhaps making it just do fight would work for both points. Alternatively, this could just do a single one sided fight, maybe allow it to target any creature you control?
The core idea is sound, but there are two big issues to solve. The structural issue is, how template the information in a way that is understandable and also fits on a card? The gameplay issue is, how do you make effects that are compelling enough to be worth all the hoops the player has to jump through to get them?
To the second point, the white card above is a wrath that you can't control when you cast (especially that one since it requires action from your opponent). Your would effectively have to build your deck around casting this card that is usually just a 5 mana sorcery. And given that your opponent can see it coming, it is easier for them to play around overcommitting to their board.
I did consider that reactive effects like a wrath might not work that well here but I also thought that wraths were an iconic big white effect and it might be interesting to try.
Interestingly, you might be able to solve for the second point with a solution to the first: Double-faced cards. If you make the "quest" one side of the card, it can transform when the quest is completed to be an actual legendary snake istelf of a token, or transformed and put on the stack as a sorcery for big one-shot spell effects.
I actually thought about exactly this idea, funnily enough. The question I came to was whether the reward effects would be complicated enough that you needed an extra face. It could also save a little space on the front side to do it this way, but dfcs are significantly more complicated to play with and perhaps the mechanic is complicated enough that aiming for simplicity with the rewards and avoiding dfcs is better.
I love the idea, but I am unsure about the balancing of the requirements and the effects. Explore the Undersea for example is probably the one that feels the most balanced in this regard to me, all of these are reasonable requirements for this effect.
Explore the Undersea was actually the one I felt best on as a package
But Splitting of Gangkou and Rise of the Jiangshi feel much more restrictive for smaller gains: At the point at which red has all these requirements together for Splitting, it is pretty late in the game, what does a smaller sweeper even help at that point? Getting lands into the graveyard is also not something trivial for red at all.
The idea with the land requirement is you will probably use discard like Tormenting Voice and fetchland type lands. I was considering Splitting could be a Fireball type effect instead. That might be better in the late game.
Rise on the other hand is even worse, if you fall below five lifepoints and your opponent has just killed two creatures of yours, I feel like four 2/1 lifelink tokens won't help much.
I think you've misread that. Rise requires you to have lost five life, not be at five life.
The two creatures dying requirement is also done with sacrifice effects in mind. Just do it yourself for consistency. These cards are meant to influence deck building.
Judgement and Bashe's Appeasement feel fine on the requirement side, but Judgement could have severe timing issues that the opponent could use against you (say, you having established the better board since you cast Judgement, and him flying into you with two small flying tokens to exile it all, since it seems to be mandatory to cast it)
The idea with Judgement is you play it in a control deck with few creatures (and a number of noncreature artifacts and enchantments). That also works well with the not casting a spell condition, the idea being you meet it earlier on while holding up instants in case your opponent plays something that you need to respond to.
and I somewhat doubt whether the payoff of the Appeasement is really worth the effort.
These are all a bit of a guess balance wise. A number of variables here, so I think it's not going to be easy to estimate. These are definitely designs that would want a bunch of playtesting to figure out the right place for them.
WotC have experimented with a 'Quest' mechanic during original Zendikar, ELD and ZNR design.
I liked the idea, so this is my take on it.
One of the things I thought of was that if the quest went into exile while you were completing the requirements a bit like suspend, this avoids the issue of opponent's removing it too easily. The card could then be cast when you complete the requirements and the reward for the quest could just be the effect of the card. You could then make quests sorceries to match this functionality. They can still be countered this way, but your opponent only has one chance to counter it and fewer colours have access to counterspells so it might be a little better to work with.
The other main thing was that the name quests couldn't stay because quests are already a mechanic from original Zendikar. Saga and Adventure are already taken, so the other main contenders I thought of were Trial, Pursuit, Campaign, and Journey. Trial sounds negative when here it's definitely a positive. Pursuit sounds kind of unexciting, and Campaign sounds fairly military and I'm not sure if that's what I want to go for. So I've decided on Journey for now.
The new frame idea is probably something I want with this version as well so I think that will stay.
Here it is:
Sorcery- Journey ((When you cast this spell from your hand, exile it. Cast it from exile without paying its mana cost once you complete all stages.)
And some example cards. Flavour is relevant here for the storytelling aspect, so I included a Chinese historical/mythological theme that I was thinking could fit with these. The stages (as in, stages of a journey, you see) can be completed in any order but the order they are in was chosen to fit a certain story that the card is telling. I've included cheat sheets so you can see what I'm going for with each.
Judgement of Youshi
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You control two or more artifacts and/or enchantments
• At the start of your turn, you didn’t cast a spell since the start of your last turn.
• You are dealt combat damage by two or more creatures.
Exile all creatures.
A wrath of god type story as well as mechanical card.
1. artifacts and enchantments represent treasures guarded in the realm of the gods
2. You don't cast spells therefore you're peaceful.
3. But the opponent attacks you anyway.
And retribution comes.
Explore the Undersea
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You cast a Merfolk or Dragon spell with converted mana cost 3 or greater.
• You control four or more islands.
• Two or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player.
Scry 3, then draw three cards.
A journey of discovery
1. merfolk or dragon ready to go exploring
2. ...under the sea
3. Diving down, fighting your way past obstacles
Hidden treasures are yours.
Rise of the Jiangshi
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You have 5 or more life less than your starting life total.
• The second creature you control dies in a turn.
• An opponent has six or more cards in their graveyard.
Create four 2/1 black Vampire creature tokens with lifelink.
Creation process of Jianghsi (Chinese vampire/zombie creature)
1. Ill omens around
2. people die
3. Dark powers prevail
And the jiangshi rise
Splitting of Gangkou
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You attack with three or more creatures.
• You cast a noncreature spell with converted mana cost 4 or greater.
• You have three or more land cards in your graveyard.
Splitting of Gangkou deals 3 damage to each opponent and each creature they control.
A legendary magical feat
1. War rages.
2. Powerful spell is cast.
3. The land is torn apart.
Massive fiery fissure opens up beneath the enemy.
The Bashe's Appeasement
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You cast your second creature spell in a turn.
• You control five or more lands.
• You have three or more creature cards in your graveyard.
Create a 7/7 green Snake creature token with trample and reach.
Making an offering to a monster
1. Tasty creatures to eat.
2. Lands to inhabit.
3. The tasty creatures get eaten.
Giant snake monster is now your friend.
Compares well to Blossoming Defence. Better for long term value, worse for immediate zerging. Will see play at least in standard probably I think. Just very solid and reliable.
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.
Mystical Crow Cyclone is neat. I wonder if it's actually a bit weak though. Compare Experimental Overload. Creating a bunch of flying tokens is usually better than a single plain body, but this cost a whole 2 CMC more and the shuffle effect may often a positive be probably not as much as the regrowth effect on Experimental Overload. I would put this at
Grokma is cool. The repeatable fight could be oppressive but the restriction to dinosaurs works to limit it at least. I worry the second ability is too efficient and oppressive though. I would bump it to
Primal Ferocity feels too efficient as well. It's slightly weird that it does one sided fight as well when Grokma does normal fight and the cards are so close to each other. Perhaps making it just do fight would work for both points. Alternatively, this could just do a single one sided fight, maybe allow it to target any creature you control?
I did consider that reactive effects like a wrath might not work that well here but I also thought that wraths were an iconic big white effect and it might be interesting to try.
I actually thought about exactly this idea, funnily enough. The question I came to was whether the reward effects would be complicated enough that you needed an extra face. It could also save a little space on the front side to do it this way, but dfcs are significantly more complicated to play with and perhaps the mechanic is complicated enough that aiming for simplicity with the rewards and avoiding dfcs is better.
Explore the Undersea was actually the one I felt best on as a package
The idea with the land requirement is you will probably use discard like Tormenting Voice and fetchland type lands. I was considering Splitting could be a Fireball type effect instead. That might be better in the late game.
I think you've misread that. Rise requires you to have lost five life, not be at five life.
The two creatures dying requirement is also done with sacrifice effects in mind. Just do it yourself for consistency. These cards are meant to influence deck building.
The idea with Judgement is you play it in a control deck with few creatures (and a number of noncreature artifacts and enchantments). That also works well with the not casting a spell condition, the idea being you meet it earlier on while holding up instants in case your opponent plays something that you need to respond to.
These are all a bit of a guess balance wise. A number of variables here, so I think it's not going to be easy to estimate. These are definitely designs that would want a bunch of playtesting to figure out the right place for them.
thanks for the feedback
I liked the idea, so this is my take on it.
One of the things I thought of was that if the quest went into exile while you were completing the requirements a bit like suspend, this avoids the issue of opponent's removing it too easily. The card could then be cast when you complete the requirements and the reward for the quest could just be the effect of the card. You could then make quests sorceries to match this functionality. They can still be countered this way, but your opponent only has one chance to counter it and fewer colours have access to counterspells so it might be a little better to work with.
The other main thing was that the name quests couldn't stay because quests are already a mechanic from original Zendikar. Saga and Adventure are already taken, so the other main contenders I thought of were Trial, Pursuit, Campaign, and Journey. Trial sounds negative when here it's definitely a positive. Pursuit sounds kind of unexciting, and Campaign sounds fairly military and I'm not sure if that's what I want to go for. So I've decided on Journey for now.
The new frame idea is probably something I want with this version as well so I think that will stay.
Here it is:
Sorcery- Journey
((When you cast this spell from your hand, exile it. Cast it from exile without paying its mana cost once you complete all stages.)
And some example cards. Flavour is relevant here for the storytelling aspect, so I included a Chinese historical/mythological theme that I was thinking could fit with these. The stages (as in, stages of a journey, you see) can be completed in any order but the order they are in was chosen to fit a certain story that the card is telling. I've included cheat sheets so you can see what I'm going for with each.
Judgement of Youshi
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You control two or more artifacts and/or enchantments
• At the start of your turn, you didn’t cast a spell since the start of your last turn.
• You are dealt combat damage by two or more creatures.
Exile all creatures.
1. artifacts and enchantments represent treasures guarded in the realm of the gods
2. You don't cast spells therefore you're peaceful.
3. But the opponent attacks you anyway.
And retribution comes.
Explore the Undersea
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You cast a Merfolk or Dragon spell with converted mana cost 3 or greater.
• You control four or more islands.
• Two or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player.
Scry 3, then draw three cards.
1. merfolk or dragon ready to go exploring
2. ...under the sea
3. Diving down, fighting your way past obstacles
Hidden treasures are yours.
Rise of the Jiangshi
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You have 5 or more life less than your starting life total.
• The second creature you control dies in a turn.
• An opponent has six or more cards in their graveyard.
Create four 2/1 black Vampire creature tokens with lifelink.
1. Ill omens around
2. people die
3. Dark powers prevail
And the jiangshi rise
Splitting of Gangkou
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You attack with three or more creatures.
• You cast a noncreature spell with converted mana cost 4 or greater.
• You have three or more land cards in your graveyard.
Splitting of Gangkou deals 3 damage to each opponent and each creature they control.
1. War rages.
2. Powerful spell is cast.
3. The land is torn apart.
Massive fiery fissure opens up beneath the enemy.
The Bashe's Appeasement
Sorcery- Journey (R)
• You cast your second creature spell in a turn.
• You control five or more lands.
• You have three or more creature cards in your graveyard.
Create a 7/7 green Snake creature token with trample and reach.
1. Tasty creatures to eat.
2. Lands to inhabit.
3. The tasty creatures get eaten.
Giant snake monster is now your friend.
Hawk looks kinda good.