Hmm, perhaps. I mean i was looking to make war seem very aggressive and giving him doublstrike did that. I guess i could change it to menace and he gives knights i control menace. (Makes him synergize more with knights.
yea I am gonna be playing 3 out of the 4 available incarnations (Filth I am not sure about yet)
I am also looking at the lieges (and most of the llorwyn block, seems knights were well treated in that block.)
Also if i give menace instead of doublestrike i feel his ability should really be switched to each knight instead of just 3 creatures.
It definitely shouldn't buff up your other knights beyond the extra combat.
I strongly recommend looking at these knights both as individual commanders and as a cohesive whole, so lets investigate that a little more.
First of all, the individual mana costs of the horsemen have no bearing on the power of the cohesive whole, because you're not going to be paying for them 90% of the time. The mana costs are a balancing point almost exclusively for the individual creatures as commanders. At this juncture the cohesive whole is much closer to being overpowered than any individual knight by itself.
Also with this viewpoint, I think it would be best to distinguish between why you would go with "knights you control" versus "this creature and up to three other target creatures". The cohesive whole really loves knight tribal, since in four colors you're going to have access to a huge number of knights. The Four Horsemen sorcery specifies knight creatures, which is very relevant if you're building knight tribal. Knight tribal is good for the cohesive whole, and you may very well want to include cards like Knight Exemplar to tutor with The Four Horsemen and make your other horsemen harder to kill, or include Haakon, Stromgald Scourge since you're already in knight tribal and casting knights from your 'yard can be useful if you can't pay for The Four Horsemen just yet.
For the horsemen as individual commanders, the "up to three other target creatures" approach is much better, because certain colors like red or green really don't have a lot of knights, but every color can play a creature-based deck. The fact that it's looking for three other buddies is equally evocative of the "Four Horsemen" theme as looking for other knights, but much more compatible with other colors. For this reason I would recommend the "me and up to three other target creatures" be emphasized more on the individual cards, since it works better for the individuals and is more or less the same for the cohesive whole. If you really want one to be knight-specific, pick the white one because white has a lot of knights. Again, mana costs are also much more relevant for the individuals, which brings us to war...
War, The Horseman 3RR
Flanking, Menace
(extra combat for War and 3 other creatures on hitting a player)
4/4
This is a reasonable creature as a red commander for that mana cost. He's meaningfully different than Aurelia, and gives an effect that, surprisingly, mono-red doesn't really otherwise have available in the command zone (Iizuka the Ruthless, but there aren't enough other red samurai). Menace works better than double strike because you want this creature to get through for its ability (menace makes him harder to block, double-strike does not), because menace combines well with flanking (if they do block with two creatures, both of them will get the -1/-1), and because the extra combat step gives them a good reason to block rather than just deciding "eh, I'll just take the 4". All red decks are probably playing creatures that want to attack, but usually not many knights, so his "pick three buddies" extra combat is very useful as an individual.
On the other hand, War is already doubtlessly the strongest part of the cohesive whole, despite having the lowest mana cost, because of that extra combat step. It's only in the cohesive whole that he's overpowered, because he does the most of any of them for all of your other horsemen. Raising his mana cost won't change that, it will only make him bad as an individual commander. His extra combat ability makes sense at 5 CMC (it's weaker than Aurelia's at 6 CMC because War has to hit. I think you should keep it that way just because it has a good game-feel to it; it gives them a chance to stop what will otherwise be a 1-combat kill by the knights if they can just block War, but they'll still take a lot of damage either way), so you need to design a 5 CMC creature. Giving everything menace would make him too good at 5.
I can assure you that the individual is fine here. If you think the whole is too weak (which is much harder to judge, since it's much more of a departure from 'normal' commanders) then you should make the other horsemen better.
Death feels pretty good at 6 with his sacrifice ability, since he's distinctly weaker than Sheoldred, Whispering One at 7. Death and War feel pretty good both as individuals and as part of the whole, so I would mostly leave them alone aside from the menace/doublestrike choice (and you know where I stand on that ).
I would take another look at Conquest and Famine. Conquest could definitely steal two lands rather than one as long as he has the "until Conquest leaves the battlefield" clause (since then they have a way to get them back), and/or could also give the rest of them a small-ish buff (and is the only one that could give a knight-specific buff while remaining good as an individual commander). Land denial of some specific number of lands (as opposed to Armageddon-type wipes) becomes notably less effective as the game goes on. Thus, that ability can be stronger at Conquest's mana cost than it currently is (or can be paired with another modest ability).
Famine is tough, since he's getting shoehorned into the green role for the sake of completing the cycle while black as a color definitely fits the "Famine" concept better (but fits death better still). I think we can agree that while Wither feels good, it's not enough by itself to make Famine feel "Famine-y", and the rest of his abilities are iffy in that regard (and not necessarily very strong or cohesive with the others). This is definitely where the most potential for improvement is.
Thanks for teh corrections, but the main question is, do they seem balanced?
Hard to say without playtesting, quite simply. I will mention that I totally forgot War has doublestrike when recommending his mana cost. I might actually switch that to menace so that it's harder to block him but less scary when he hits. Menace also works nicely with Flanking.
Also if you nix the doublestrike that means they'll do exactly 40 damage with the extra combat step against a player who can't block, which is vaguely thematic. I think the full turn to react, lack of removal protection on any individual horseman, and the ability to block (unlike Progenitus) means that a 40-damage swing is okay, and it gives you an avenue for deck construction in that you'll want mass haste enablers like Anger or ways to keep your knights alive until next turn like Eerie Interlude.
For Conquest, the first instance of "conquest" should be capitalized.
For Death, "deeding player" should be "defending player". "power with less than Death." should be "power less than Death's power."
For Famine, "Whither" should be "Wither".
[...] Famine is still up in the air. I think I will go with giving other creatures wither but I feel it kind of defeats the purpose of giving him wither if other creatures get it.
What I may do is give him trample and do the wither thing with the -1/-1 counters gives +1/+1 power. (While also granting all creatures/knights I control wither. Though Would like to limit it to one creature grating the benefit (of +1/+1) so I would have to word it to be the most counters on an opponent's creature. Or maybe +1/+1 for each creature with -1/-1 counters.)
[...]
EDIT: Famine gets +1/+1 for each creature that has at least one -1/-1 counter on it.
So as a 5/5, flanking Whither and this ability, what would be an appropriate mana cost? is it still 4GG?
Yeah, I think this would be appropriate...
---------- Famine 4GG
Legendary Creature - Knight Avatar
~~~
Flanking, Wither, Trample
Other creatures you control have Wither.
Famine gets +1/+1 for each other creature with a -1/-1 counter on it.
~~~
5/5
----------
Trample is almost necessary since otherwise he's going to just make himself weaker every time they chump block with something that has -1/-1 counters on it.
War
"When War deals combat damage for the first time each turn, untap War and up to three other target creatures you control. After this phase there is an additional combat phase during which creatures not targeted by this ability other than War cannot attack."
This is as eloquently as I think it can be worded, which isn't that bad on a card whose only other abilities are keywords. I removed the restriction of knights-only since, again, people are going to want to play War by himself as a commander and there aren't a lot of red knights.
When compared to Aurelia, the Warleader, War is overcosted since A: he has to connect with an opponent, B: he only brings three other dudes with him, and C: he doesn't have haste. Make him a 4/4 for 3RR and move the extra point of power over to Death, whose new sacrifice effect benefits from it.
Death
If you make him a 6/6, Death is fair at 4BB. Deathtouch becomes less valuable with greater power, and without haste or some sort of protection it's not unreasonable to have a 6/6 flanking deathtouch with a powerful extra ability.
Conquest
I would keep Conquest's old ability over the new one, mainly because gaining control of a creature isn't very 'white'. A powerful alternative could be "When conquest deals combat damage to a player, gain control of target land that player controls until Conquest leaves the battlefield", which would still be questionably white, but is more white than controlling a creature and could be excused for fitting the theme. Conquest is also overcosted regardless of what ability you go with; 4WW for a 5/5 with flanking and lifelink wouldn't be unreasonable in white regardless of what third non-keyword ability you go with. White has a lot of neat effects in its colors, so there's a lot of options for that non-keyword ability. Doing something with equipment would also fit with the idea of 'Conquest' (something like "When Conquest deals combat damage to a player, search your library for an equipment card with converted mana cost less than or equal to Conquest's power and put it onto the battlefield attached to Conquest.", which could then feed into itself with P/T-boosting equipment.)
Famine
You're right that Famine's ability isn't green, but that it should be more destructive than what green would normally do. Destructive things monogreen can do with a mass-sacrifice that would make sense...
For each creature sacrificed this way, target opponent sacrifices a noncreature permanent. (this is my favorite if you stick with the mass sacrifice thing)
For each creature sacrificed this way, add one mana of any color to your mana pool. (seems more 'feast' than 'famine' to me)
Put a number of +1/+1 counters on famine equal to the number of creatures sacrificed this way (similar feel to Devour)
For each creature sacrificed this way, draw a card. (also doesn't feel very 'famine'-ish)
For each creature sacrificed this way, destroy target artifact or enchantment. (not very 'famine'-ish at all)
Good alternatives to mass-sacrifice might be the combination of "Other creatures you control have wither." and "Famine gets +1/+1 for each -1/-1 counter on other creatures." or even "When Famine attacks, choose up to three other target creatures you control. Whenever Famine or one of those creatures deals combat damage to a player this turn, that player sacrifices a noncreature permanent." although I wouldn't go with that one if you decide to go with Conquest stealing lands since it's overly punishing and anti-synergistic. Famine's mana cost could vary greatly depending on what combination of those you go with, but his P/T should probably be one less than his cost, or three less if you go with the -1/-1 counters thing.
With it being a sorcery, with War needing to hit to gain the extra combat step (a significant nerf), and with the reduction in their collective power, you can keep The Four Horseman's cost at WWBBRRGG or maybe even go down to 3WBRG.
The unfortunate part of this is that there isn't that much to support red burn in commander. The burn spells just won't cut it for edh.
Well, if you happen to be a mono-red control afficionado like myself then you don't have a lot of other options for removal. Single-target burn is questionable, but mass burn isn't bad. Also, though burn won't get you there alone, certain 'scaling' burn cards like Acidic Soil, Impact Resonance, and Runeflare Trapcan deal significant damage to a player and can help close out a game.
It's certainly not an effective competitive playstyle though. I'll be the first to admit that.
It's a very neat idea, and definitely a good way to communicate four colors without losing the individual identity of each color (since you have a total of five cards to spread your text across, rather than cramming it all on one card).
Multiple problems...
The Four Horsemen should absolutely be a sorcery. Otherwise you can EOT them (as you'd described) and they basically have haste, so you'll be dealing 60 damage to someone with only an instant-speed opportunity to respond, after wiping their two best blockers and any other creatures with 4 toughness or less, with an instant that can't be countered. That's not tough to survive, that's nigh-impossible. As something you always have access to every game, being nigh-impossible to survive for a turn is way too much. Also this is not a single creature, so even in that regard it's harder to stop.
This is too strong, even for 8 mana. Compare to Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Craterhoof Behemoth, Progenitus, or Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. Your card should not be stronger than any of these. Of particular note is that warping the game heavily in your favor is more acceptable than flat-out damage (see the praetors). This is why War, in particular, is problematic. You'll notice that the most immediately deadly of those I've listed (Craterhoof) is not legendary, and is therefore not always-available in commander like the others can be.
You might say "eh, I can just make it cost more mana instead", but one way or another they're going to get that mana. The difference is how much of their deck is devoted to ramping, and the higher you make the mana cost while keeping the incredibly absurd lethality, the more the deck is just going to look like a combo deck that tries to ignore opponents. Old Emmy is banned for a reason.
Remove horsemanship, give them flanking. Flanking is now the preferred 'guy on a horse' mechanic when you want to emphasize that they're riding something, just because not enough creatures have horsemanship for it to be particularly interesting (see also: shadow).
You should assign mana costs to the horsemen and make them independently cast-able so that they aren't dead draws, and so that you have a good metric for how strong each one should be individually. I actually recommend making them cost different amounts of mana, just to make each one stand out more and be more interesting alone (they are legendary creatures, and people are going to want to play them as commanders individually), and I wouldn't have any cost more than 7 CMC (average should probably be 4-to-5-ish). Higher manacost horsemen should be the 'powerhouses', while lower manacost horsemen should be more synergistic with the others but weaker when considered independently. This is because you're assumed to be getting them all together, and it's too strong if all of them more or less double the offensive abilities of every other one. At the same time, making the synergistic ones lower-cost rewards deck builders who want to use them individually and combine them with entirely different cards.
Further, people are going to want to be clever and include their other favorite horsemen instead of one or two of these. Don't stop them, that's a good thing. Try to make at least one or two of these comparable with other printed horsemen. In fact, you may just want to make their creature types "Avatar Knight" and change The Four Horsemen to search for knights instead just to facilitate this.
Have the sorcery itself be uncounterable, but make it cast the horsemen instead of putting them into play so that there is an opportunity to at least mitigate the damage with counterspells.
Further in this vein, they should all either be two-colored (to give you more design space for what they each do, and to make them more interesting as standalone commanders), or mono-colored (to further emphasize the differences between each of them). In the latter case, you'll want to make one of them (probably Famine, since hunger is a green subtheme) feel a lot more green. Green's famine subtheme usually involve sacrificing other creatures you control, so you could go with something like "When Famine enters the battlefield, sacrifice all non-horseman creatures you control and do awesome thing equal to the (number/total power) of creatures sacrificed this way"
Famine's wither is very neat and on-theme. Note that even Flanking can be green-white as per Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa.
Aim for an average power of 5 instead of a uniform power of 6. That's just too much flat-out damage (as mentioned before), where as lowering it by one and splitting up the concentration (such that the smallest might be 4 power and the greatest might be 7) makes it more manageable and easier to block.
On the same note, War is too strong when considering he'll almost always show up with his buddies. He should be one of the lower-manacost synergistic types, maybe 3 or 4 CMC. Change his ability to "when War attacks, up to three other target creatures you control gain double-strike." or some other Bruse-ish ability. Other good options would be "when War attacks, creatures your opponents control must attack if able until your next turn." or just "when War attacks, up to three other target creatures get +2/+0 and trample until end of turn."; extra combat steps are too strong when he comes packaged with three other very significant creatures. The "up to three other" clause is there to emphasize that he is part of a group, which makes him more flavorful when played independently.
Mechanically, Death needs to remove indestructible before destroying the creature, otherwise it doesn't actually work. Frankly I would just forget that part since it feels too much like the arbitrary "can't be regenerated" clauses of before. Indestructible is a keyword for a reason, don't obviate it. Otherwise his abilities are a pretty good fit; Death should probably be the highest-manacost horseman unless you want to downgrade "destroy target creature" to "defending player sacrifices a creature".
The bottom line is that you *should* be vulnerable to mass removal in some fashion. That's what makes the game interactive. That's what enables synergistic deck building ("I'll include Heroic Intervention to protect them after I cast them!"). When all else fails it'll be right there in your command zone, ready to be cast again if it doesn't stick the first time. If you can reach 8 mana, you can definitely reach 10 or 12 to recast it without too much trouble.
I hope you'll pardon the wall of text, but as these are 5 cards and not just 1, I feel there's not a lot I can do to abridge this.
Landfall - When a land enters the battlefield under your control, choose one -
All islands you control become 2/2 Blue Drake creatures with flying until end of turn, in addition to their other colors and types.
Up to X target creatures get +1/+1 and trample until end of turn, where X is the number of forests you control.
Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of swamps you control.
~~~
4/4
-------
Something like that would be fairly strong for CMC 4, especially in green. The idea of it having shroud should simply be scrapped, it makes it too difficult to interact with when it has one or more very significant abilit(y/ies) that apply to more than just itself. (Also Hexproof replaced shroud, and for a good reason).
What's interesting is that, unlike wither, this *replaces* damage. It means that deathtouch and lifelink won't work for noncombat damage, but it also means that protection won't work against your Chain Reactions and Blasphemous Acts. As such, this is a huge staple in any red burn commander deck IMO.
(at least, I think it gets past protection. It's a replacement effect and damage prevention is also a replacement effect, but I think damage prevention happens last??)
Gideon looked bonkers until I actually thought about it for a second and realized he's probably horrible. His first ability is pretty unexciting, considering he can't really build up to any kind of ultimate, and also considering his more powerful second ability really wants you to be aggressive. It's an ok ability - he'll probably live or die based on that. But his third ability...is probably utter trash. If your opponent is hitting you for lethal amounts of damage, it's basically just "gain X life, where X life is gideon's loyalty" unless they have a bounce spell or whatever, in which case it doesn't even do that. The situation in which your opponent can kill you but not your planeswalker is almost nonexistent, and besides, they were probably planning to kill your planeswalker first anyway. I think you'd usually be better off using the +1 ability than activating the "ult", unless your opponent is trying to kill you with mill or something.
I'm a pretty big fan of it for Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, since he can't protect you but he can totally protect a planeswalker. Plus, I already have two other Gideon planeswalkers in the deck!
I want to run this golem, but he costs too much mana to then immediately be a 2-for-1 for my opponent (that dies to creature or artifact removal). I really wish shroud were one of the abilities he got (but I don't think it'd been keyworded yet).
He's in my Sram, Senior Edificer deck all the same. He's just so spikey and lovable.
But seriously, green has a million ways to damage anything with the audacity to be born with wings. Your only real concern would be how not to kill all of your other birds in the process.
I've heard a lot of people talk about their "turn-3" commander deck like they regularly get those sorts of hands. Their favorite commander is actually super-overpowered and they win by turn 3 etc. etc. Strictly speaking, I have a combo deck that can win turn 1, but it's never actually going to and it's not worth talking about it like it will.
No commander deck is that consistent. Griselbrand was that consistent, which is why he got banned. Edric is almost that consistent, but can be disrupted completely if you have the right card (i.e. any super-cheap mass removal like pyroclasm or massacre with a white opponent). What's scary about Sharuum is inevitability; they're going to get their combo pieces into play one way or another unless you're running graveyard hate, they can operate without their graveyard, and they have counterspells to protect their combos.
In otherwords they combo at the speed of blue: they take a good 10 to 12 turns, but you can't actually stop them unless you're also playing blue.
Spawnsire of Ulamog is a neat and fun win condition that should absolutely work as-intended.
Other than that, it seems iffy to me. Cards should follow normal deck construction rules for sure (i.e. matches color identity), otherwise you get the cheatyface problem (well, it doesn't need to match color identity, does that mean I can also ignore the banlist? Oh, does that mean unglued cards are legal targets? That means I can sneak in Cheatyface rather than wishing for him!). I think the format would be better overall without cheap tutors (basically anything at <= 3 cmc), so in that regard I think we're better off without the wishes.
It definitely shouldn't buff up your other knights beyond the extra combat.
I strongly recommend looking at these knights both as individual commanders and as a cohesive whole, so lets investigate that a little more.
First of all, the individual mana costs of the horsemen have no bearing on the power of the cohesive whole, because you're not going to be paying for them 90% of the time. The mana costs are a balancing point almost exclusively for the individual creatures as commanders. At this juncture the cohesive whole is much closer to being overpowered than any individual knight by itself.
Also with this viewpoint, I think it would be best to distinguish between why you would go with "knights you control" versus "this creature and up to three other target creatures". The cohesive whole really loves knight tribal, since in four colors you're going to have access to a huge number of knights. The Four Horsemen sorcery specifies knight creatures, which is very relevant if you're building knight tribal. Knight tribal is good for the cohesive whole, and you may very well want to include cards like Knight Exemplar to tutor with The Four Horsemen and make your other horsemen harder to kill, or include Haakon, Stromgald Scourge since you're already in knight tribal and casting knights from your 'yard can be useful if you can't pay for The Four Horsemen just yet.
For the horsemen as individual commanders, the "up to three other target creatures" approach is much better, because certain colors like red or green really don't have a lot of knights, but every color can play a creature-based deck. The fact that it's looking for three other buddies is equally evocative of the "Four Horsemen" theme as looking for other knights, but much more compatible with other colors. For this reason I would recommend the "me and up to three other target creatures" be emphasized more on the individual cards, since it works better for the individuals and is more or less the same for the cohesive whole. If you really want one to be knight-specific, pick the white one because white has a lot of knights. Again, mana costs are also much more relevant for the individuals, which brings us to war...
War, The Horseman
3RR
Flanking, Menace
(extra combat for War and 3 other creatures on hitting a player)
4/4
This is a reasonable creature as a red commander for that mana cost. He's meaningfully different than Aurelia, and gives an effect that, surprisingly, mono-red doesn't really otherwise have available in the command zone (Iizuka the Ruthless, but there aren't enough other red samurai). Menace works better than double strike because you want this creature to get through for its ability (menace makes him harder to block, double-strike does not), because menace combines well with flanking (if they do block with two creatures, both of them will get the -1/-1), and because the extra combat step gives them a good reason to block rather than just deciding "eh, I'll just take the 4". All red decks are probably playing creatures that want to attack, but usually not many knights, so his "pick three buddies" extra combat is very useful as an individual.
On the other hand, War is already doubtlessly the strongest part of the cohesive whole, despite having the lowest mana cost, because of that extra combat step. It's only in the cohesive whole that he's overpowered, because he does the most of any of them for all of your other horsemen. Raising his mana cost won't change that, it will only make him bad as an individual commander. His extra combat ability makes sense at 5 CMC (it's weaker than Aurelia's at 6 CMC because War has to hit. I think you should keep it that way just because it has a good game-feel to it; it gives them a chance to stop what will otherwise be a 1-combat kill by the knights if they can just block War, but they'll still take a lot of damage either way), so you need to design a 5 CMC creature. Giving everything menace would make him too good at 5.
I can assure you that the individual is fine here. If you think the whole is too weak (which is much harder to judge, since it's much more of a departure from 'normal' commanders) then you should make the other horsemen better.
Death feels pretty good at 6 with his sacrifice ability, since he's distinctly weaker than Sheoldred, Whispering One at 7. Death and War feel pretty good both as individuals and as part of the whole, so I would mostly leave them alone aside from the menace/doublestrike choice (and you know where I stand on that
I would take another look at Conquest and Famine. Conquest could definitely steal two lands rather than one as long as he has the "until Conquest leaves the battlefield" clause (since then they have a way to get them back), and/or could also give the rest of them a small-ish buff (and is the only one that could give a knight-specific buff while remaining good as an individual commander). Land denial of some specific number of lands (as opposed to Armageddon-type wipes) becomes notably less effective as the game goes on. Thus, that ability can be stronger at Conquest's mana cost than it currently is (or can be paired with another modest ability).
Famine is tough, since he's getting shoehorned into the green role for the sake of completing the cycle while black as a color definitely fits the "Famine" concept better (but fits death better still). I think we can agree that while Wither feels good, it's not enough by itself to make Famine feel "Famine-y", and the rest of his abilities are iffy in that regard (and not necessarily very strong or cohesive with the others). This is definitely where the most potential for improvement is.
Hard to say without playtesting, quite simply. I will mention that I totally forgot War has doublestrike when recommending his mana cost. I might actually switch that to menace so that it's harder to block him but less scary when he hits. Menace also works nicely with Flanking.
Also if you nix the doublestrike that means they'll do exactly 40 damage with the extra combat step against a player who can't block, which is vaguely thematic. I think the full turn to react, lack of removal protection on any individual horseman, and the ability to block (unlike Progenitus) means that a 40-damage swing is okay, and it gives you an avenue for deck construction in that you'll want mass haste enablers like Anger or ways to keep your knights alive until next turn like Eerie Interlude.
Looks great other than a few typos.
For Conquest, the first instance of "conquest" should be capitalized.
For Death, "deeding player" should be "defending player". "power with less than Death." should be "power less than Death's power."
For Famine, "Whither" should be "Wither".
... in the Magic the Gathering: Battlegrounds videogame. Not so much in the cardgame.
Yeah, I think this would be appropriate...
----------
Famine
4GG
Legendary Creature - Knight Avatar
~~~
Flanking, Wither, Trample
Other creatures you control have Wither.
Famine gets +1/+1 for each other creature with a -1/-1 counter on it.
~~~
5/5
----------
Trample is almost necessary since otherwise he's going to just make himself weaker every time they chump block with something that has -1/-1 counters on it.
War
"When War deals combat damage for the first time each turn, untap War and up to three other target creatures you control. After this phase there is an additional combat phase during which creatures not targeted by this ability other than War cannot attack."
This is as eloquently as I think it can be worded, which isn't that bad on a card whose only other abilities are keywords. I removed the restriction of knights-only since, again, people are going to want to play War by himself as a commander and there aren't a lot of red knights.
When compared to Aurelia, the Warleader, War is overcosted since A: he has to connect with an opponent, B: he only brings three other dudes with him, and C: he doesn't have haste. Make him a 4/4 for 3RR and move the extra point of power over to Death, whose new sacrifice effect benefits from it.
Death
If you make him a 6/6, Death is fair at 4BB. Deathtouch becomes less valuable with greater power, and without haste or some sort of protection it's not unreasonable to have a 6/6 flanking deathtouch with a powerful extra ability.
Conquest
I would keep Conquest's old ability over the new one, mainly because gaining control of a creature isn't very 'white'. A powerful alternative could be "When conquest deals combat damage to a player, gain control of target land that player controls until Conquest leaves the battlefield", which would still be questionably white, but is more white than controlling a creature and could be excused for fitting the theme. Conquest is also overcosted regardless of what ability you go with; 4WW for a 5/5 with flanking and lifelink wouldn't be unreasonable in white regardless of what third non-keyword ability you go with. White has a lot of neat effects in its colors, so there's a lot of options for that non-keyword ability. Doing something with equipment would also fit with the idea of 'Conquest' (something like "When Conquest deals combat damage to a player, search your library for an equipment card with converted mana cost less than or equal to Conquest's power and put it onto the battlefield attached to Conquest.", which could then feed into itself with P/T-boosting equipment.)
Famine
You're right that Famine's ability isn't green, but that it should be more destructive than what green would normally do. Destructive things monogreen can do with a mass-sacrifice that would make sense...
Good alternatives to mass-sacrifice might be the combination of "Other creatures you control have wither." and "Famine gets +1/+1 for each -1/-1 counter on other creatures." or even "When Famine attacks, choose up to three other target creatures you control. Whenever Famine or one of those creatures deals combat damage to a player this turn, that player sacrifices a noncreature permanent." although I wouldn't go with that one if you decide to go with Conquest stealing lands since it's overly punishing and anti-synergistic. Famine's mana cost could vary greatly depending on what combination of those you go with, but his P/T should probably be one less than his cost, or three less if you go with the -1/-1 counters thing.
With it being a sorcery, with War needing to hit to gain the extra combat step (a significant nerf), and with the reduction in their collective power, you can keep The Four Horseman's cost at WWBBRRGG or maybe even go down to 3WBRG.
Well, if you happen to be a mono-red control afficionado like myself then you don't have a lot of other options for removal. Single-target burn is questionable, but mass burn isn't bad. Also, though burn won't get you there alone, certain 'scaling' burn cards like Acidic Soil, Impact Resonance, and Runeflare Trap can deal significant damage to a player and can help close out a game.
It's certainly not an effective competitive playstyle though. I'll be the first to admit that.
Multiple problems...
The Four Horsemen should absolutely be a sorcery. Otherwise you can EOT them (as you'd described) and they basically have haste, so you'll be dealing 60 damage to someone with only an instant-speed opportunity to respond, after wiping their two best blockers and any other creatures with 4 toughness or less, with an instant that can't be countered. That's not tough to survive, that's nigh-impossible. As something you always have access to every game, being nigh-impossible to survive for a turn is way too much. Also this is not a single creature, so even in that regard it's harder to stop.
This is too strong, even for 8 mana. Compare to Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Craterhoof Behemoth, Progenitus, or Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger. Your card should not be stronger than any of these. Of particular note is that warping the game heavily in your favor is more acceptable than flat-out damage (see the praetors). This is why War, in particular, is problematic. You'll notice that the most immediately deadly of those I've listed (Craterhoof) is not legendary, and is therefore not always-available in commander like the others can be.
You might say "eh, I can just make it cost more mana instead", but one way or another they're going to get that mana. The difference is how much of their deck is devoted to ramping, and the higher you make the mana cost while keeping the incredibly absurd lethality, the more the deck is just going to look like a combo deck that tries to ignore opponents. Old Emmy is banned for a reason.
Remove horsemanship, give them flanking. Flanking is now the preferred 'guy on a horse' mechanic when you want to emphasize that they're riding something, just because not enough creatures have horsemanship for it to be particularly interesting (see also: shadow).
You should assign mana costs to the horsemen and make them independently cast-able so that they aren't dead draws, and so that you have a good metric for how strong each one should be individually. I actually recommend making them cost different amounts of mana, just to make each one stand out more and be more interesting alone (they are legendary creatures, and people are going to want to play them as commanders individually), and I wouldn't have any cost more than 7 CMC (average should probably be 4-to-5-ish). Higher manacost horsemen should be the 'powerhouses', while lower manacost horsemen should be more synergistic with the others but weaker when considered independently. This is because you're assumed to be getting them all together, and it's too strong if all of them more or less double the offensive abilities of every other one. At the same time, making the synergistic ones lower-cost rewards deck builders who want to use them individually and combine them with entirely different cards.
Further, people are going to want to be clever and include their other favorite horsemen instead of one or two of these. Don't stop them, that's a good thing. Try to make at least one or two of these comparable with other printed horsemen. In fact, you may just want to make their creature types "Avatar Knight" and change The Four Horsemen to search for knights instead just to facilitate this.
Have the sorcery itself be uncounterable, but make it cast the horsemen instead of putting them into play so that there is an opportunity to at least mitigate the damage with counterspells.
Further in this vein, they should all either be two-colored (to give you more design space for what they each do, and to make them more interesting as standalone commanders), or mono-colored (to further emphasize the differences between each of them). In the latter case, you'll want to make one of them (probably Famine, since hunger is a green subtheme) feel a lot more green. Green's famine subtheme usually involve sacrificing other creatures you control, so you could go with something like "When Famine enters the battlefield, sacrifice all non-horseman creatures you control and do awesome thing equal to the (number/total power) of creatures sacrificed this way"
Famine's wither is very neat and on-theme. Note that even Flanking can be green-white as per Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa.
Aim for an average power of 5 instead of a uniform power of 6. That's just too much flat-out damage (as mentioned before), where as lowering it by one and splitting up the concentration (such that the smallest might be 4 power and the greatest might be 7) makes it more manageable and easier to block.
On the same note, War is too strong when considering he'll almost always show up with his buddies. He should be one of the lower-manacost synergistic types, maybe 3 or 4 CMC. Change his ability to "when War attacks, up to three other target creatures you control gain double-strike." or some other Bruse-ish ability. Other good options would be "when War attacks, creatures your opponents control must attack if able until your next turn." or just "when War attacks, up to three other target creatures get +2/+0 and trample until end of turn."; extra combat steps are too strong when he comes packaged with three other very significant creatures. The "up to three other" clause is there to emphasize that he is part of a group, which makes him more flavorful when played independently.
Mechanically, Death needs to remove indestructible before destroying the creature, otherwise it doesn't actually work. Frankly I would just forget that part since it feels too much like the arbitrary "can't be regenerated" clauses of before. Indestructible is a keyword for a reason, don't obviate it. Otherwise his abilities are a pretty good fit; Death should probably be the highest-manacost horseman unless you want to downgrade "destroy target creature" to "defending player sacrifices a creature".
The bottom line is that you *should* be vulnerable to mass removal in some fashion. That's what makes the game interactive. That's what enables synergistic deck building ("I'll include Heroic Intervention to protect them after I cast them!"). When all else fails it'll be right there in your command zone, ready to be cast again if it doesn't stick the first time. If you can reach 8 mana, you can definitely reach 10 or 12 to recast it without too much trouble.
I hope you'll pardon the wall of text, but as these are 5 cards and not just 1, I feel there's not a lot I can do to abridge this.
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Flying
Landfall - When a land enters the battlefield under your control, choose one -
- All islands you control become 2/2 Blue Drake creatures with flying until end of turn, in addition to their other colors and types.
- Up to X target creatures get +1/+1 and trample until end of turn, where X is the number of forests you control.
- Target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn, where X is the number of swamps you control.
~~~4/4
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Something like that would be fairly strong for CMC 4, especially in green. The idea of it having shroud should simply be scrapped, it makes it too difficult to interact with when it has one or more very significant abilit(y/ies) that apply to more than just itself. (Also Hexproof replaced shroud, and for a good reason).
What's interesting is that, unlike wither, this *replaces* damage. It means that deathtouch and lifelink won't work for noncombat damage, but it also means that protection won't work against your Chain Reactions and Blasphemous Acts. As such, this is a huge staple in any red burn commander deck IMO.
(at least, I think it gets past protection. It's a replacement effect and damage prevention is also a replacement effect, but I think damage prevention happens last??)
I'm a pretty big fan of it for Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, since he can't protect you but he can totally protect a planeswalker. Plus, I already have two other Gideon planeswalkers in the deck!
He's in my Sram, Senior Edificer deck all the same. He's just so spikey and lovable.
But seriously, green has a million ways to damage anything with the audacity to be born with wings. Your only real concern would be how not to kill all of your other birds in the process.
Divine Deflection, Acolyte's Reward, and Refraction Trap would all work, since the spell itself becomes the source of the damage (rather than actually redirecting it).
No commander deck is that consistent. Griselbrand was that consistent, which is why he got banned. Edric is almost that consistent, but can be disrupted completely if you have the right card (i.e. any super-cheap mass removal like pyroclasm or massacre with a white opponent). What's scary about Sharuum is inevitability; they're going to get their combo pieces into play one way or another unless you're running graveyard hate, they can operate without their graveyard, and they have counterspells to protect their combos.
In otherwords they combo at the speed of blue: they take a good 10 to 12 turns, but you can't actually stop them unless you're also playing blue.
Other than that, it seems iffy to me. Cards should follow normal deck construction rules for sure (i.e. matches color identity), otherwise you get the cheatyface problem (well, it doesn't need to match color identity, does that mean I can also ignore the banlist? Oh, does that mean unglued cards are legal targets? That means I can sneak in Cheatyface rather than wishing for him!). I think the format would be better overall without cheap tutors (basically anything at <= 3 cmc), so in that regard I think we're better off without the wishes.
I used to run Living Wish in an Omnath 1.0 deck just to hide my Emrakul, the Aeons Torn from Briberies(back when old Emmy was legal).