Two thoughts came to mind when I read Totem Armor:
1) Animal Totems, a la spirituality, Native American, etc. I thought of armor linked to an animal/creature that would grant the wearer similar abilities as an enchantment, but upon activation or the death of the enchanted creature, the totem armor becomes a creature, similar to...
2) Griffin Guide, but cleaned up a bit and more representative of armor.
I liked some of the ideas of how the armor would turn into a 1/1 or other creature. It would be great if the totem armor would stay within the theme of the 'Animal Totem" or "Spirit Animal"...
Since all other colors have two different walkers characters, red needs another walker beyond its two versions of Chandra. However, red is well represented in the multi-color walkers, so not sure if that has any relevance.
If there is only 1, I'd say the pattern lends itself to red, but from what I gather the storyline and Gideon rumors hint otherwise... who knows, make we'll see a red, a white, and a multi-color..
Mechanically: A) Ghostfire style: Printed spell with the text ''~ is colourless''. B) Generic ability at increased colourless cost.
Flavourfully: With what little is known about the Eldrazi, its hard to say. With Ghostfire, you could assume its an ethereal, incorpreal type of of effect, as such to say that while associated with a colour (fire-red, ice-blue, etc), you would need special training, abilities or birthrights to be able to detect it. For a truly colourless spell, as in one without a colour association, you could say that its within the nature of any being to learn to do something not normal for them, but at increased expenditure. For instance, paying 6 colourless mana to draw 2 cards. While a blue mage has this ability far cheaper, as standard in his repitoire, a red or white mage would not, and thus they could learn to do it, but in a more round-about, time/resource consuming way.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for taking the time to provide some feedback. I'd be curious to hear what others think.
The situation for me that leaves me scratching my head a bit is a colorless instant/sorcery for colorless only mana (i.e. not ghostfire). My brain associates colorless cards/effects to artifacts, which can perform effects like instants, sorceries, and enchantments and are usable by anyone. I get the flavor and get the concept.
I'm sure it'll work out whichever direction(s) they take it.
We aren't dealing with the normal search space. What if individual Eldrazi (titans) have some sort of a super-legendary status, where you can only have one per library?
That would be rather interesting... Or perhaps, only 1 Eldrazi can be out in play on your side at any given time. Either way, it would reinforce just how powerful the Eldrazi are and that we couldn't command more than 1...
I'd like to vote for a new Speculation Forum Motto: Don't Hate, Speculate
A bit of unlikely or out of the box speculation never hurt anyone. I hope the Eldrazi as a whole surprise everyone and are something special. Very interested in seeing if an Eldrazi spell has any other impact or interactions beyond Eye of the Ugin. Also, if they are a transition into an artifact block, I'm curious how that is handled.
I think it would be great if the return to Mirrodin started as an artifact block and the storyline ended up being how the world was taken over/evolved/reverted to a lush green or less artificial place.
You are my favorite kind of ignorant. The kind who makes a statement based on ignoring facts proven in the same thread.
We know Eldrazi is a creature type and WotC has moved away from associating creature types directly with a rule, example: Walls now have Defender instead of reminder text of (Walls can't attack.)
Now, they're could be a theme with Eldrazi such as "They all have trample" or something like that, but it won't be associated with the creature type, because that would create rules baggage with Changelings.
You are my favorite kind of poster. The tact you bring to the thread is inspiring. Did you not consider my opening statement, " This doesn't sound too likely, but what the heck?" Not sure how that screams "Ignorant", but that's your call... Anyways, what is wrong with some highly unlikely speculation. That is a part of this forum, right?
Didn't we also know they moved away from -1/-1 counters, non-mana generating lands, etc?
You can think of Eldrazi as the name of a "race" in the same sense we say Japanese or French. It connotes not a species, but a people and culture. (which may or may not include ethnic or species-specific content.) This is confirmed not just by the capitalization, but also by the fact that Eldrazi answers the question "who" and not just "what."
Could all Eldrazi spells have some sort of baseline rule or cost associated with them? i.e. in order to cast an Eldrazi spell, you need to have at least 5 lands in play, OR must sacrifice a land, creature or artifact, OR perhaps they all have an upkeep cost of 3, OR some other unique requirement?
Granted that would rule out Eldrazi being a creature type, correct?, since it would affect changelings and such. Ya, just speculating in the speculation forum...
I think people's guesses so far about the costs being colorless are going to be mostly wrong. I think they will be "colorless" but have colored mana costs (see Ghostfire).
Something like this:
I'd like it if eldrazi were colorless cards with colored mana costs. This way, the cards abilities/theme can be reinforced by the mana costs, but the cards are still colorless to reinforce the whole Eldrazi Colorless/Ghostfire idea.
I'd like to see eldrazi have a mana/land requirement to their costs or upkeep. Perhaps the reason Zendikar is so turbulent and the roil exists, is due to the prior stress Eldrazi placed on the world by eating up the resources (environment and mana).... Also, this could be a twist on the land matters theme and a reason why the land are creatures as well, which was a natual defense.
Note: I'm not up to speed on the Zendikar storyline, just speculating based on the size of the eldrazi and the fact that they were locked away for a reason.
After looking at the Strength of the Tajuru card spoiled, I couldn't help but focus on the background and supporting cast in the card. With that being said, I'd like to see more interaction like that card art and have those supporting characters reference other cards/scenarios within the set/world, I think it would only further enhance the art, story, and set theme.
There are a lot of options in that card. Most of the supporting cast could be other cards in this set/block.
- The supersized elf
- Large cat
- Drakes
- Archer(s)
- Soldiers
- Bridge
- Mountain/setting
I could be mistaken, but I recall a lot of synergy in the artwork back in most of the early sets, espcially with the Coalition, Phyrexians, etc. Maybe I'm missing a lot of the synergy in the current sets artwork, but even so, I think it would be great to add more into the artwork.
It can't be easy to do given the way artwork is handled, left open to the artist, kept in a vault for future use, etc, but I just wondered what others thought about this and if you were intrigued by all the action and characters in the spoiled card mentioned above. It would be great to see more of the story unfold in the cards.
I was buying all this speculation before reading this, but for some reason this correlation makes it significantly more viable to me. Good find!
1) Animal Totems, a la spirituality, Native American, etc. I thought of armor linked to an animal/creature that would grant the wearer similar abilities as an enchantment, but upon activation or the death of the enchanted creature, the totem armor becomes a creature, similar to...
2) Griffin Guide, but cleaned up a bit and more representative of armor.
I liked some of the ideas of how the armor would turn into a 1/1 or other creature. It would be great if the totem armor would stay within the theme of the 'Animal Totem" or "Spirit Animal"...
Since all other colors have two different walkers characters, red needs another walker beyond its two versions of Chandra. However, red is well represented in the multi-color walkers, so not sure if that has any relevance.
If there is only 1, I'd say the pattern lends itself to red, but from what I gather the storyline and Gideon rumors hint otherwise... who knows, make we'll see a red, a white, and a multi-color..
Thanks for taking the time to provide some feedback. I'd be curious to hear what others think.
The situation for me that leaves me scratching my head a bit is a colorless instant/sorcery for colorless only mana (i.e. not ghostfire). My brain associates colorless cards/effects to artifacts, which can perform effects like instants, sorceries, and enchantments and are usable by anyone. I get the flavor and get the concept.
I'm sure it'll work out whichever direction(s) they take it.
That would be rather interesting... Or perhaps, only 1 Eldrazi can be out in play on your side at any given time. Either way, it would reinforce just how powerful the Eldrazi are and that we couldn't command more than 1...
A bit of unlikely or out of the box speculation never hurt anyone. I hope the Eldrazi as a whole surprise everyone and are something special. Very interested in seeing if an Eldrazi spell has any other impact or interactions beyond Eye of the Ugin. Also, if they are a transition into an artifact block, I'm curious how that is handled.
You are my favorite kind of poster. The tact you bring to the thread is inspiring. Did you not consider my opening statement, " This doesn't sound too likely, but what the heck?" Not sure how that screams "Ignorant", but that's your call... Anyways, what is wrong with some highly unlikely speculation. That is a part of this forum, right?
Didn't we also know they moved away from -1/-1 counters, non-mana generating lands, etc?
On Topic: I'm on board with this:
Could all Eldrazi spells have some sort of baseline rule or cost associated with them? i.e. in order to cast an Eldrazi spell, you need to have at least 5 lands in play, OR must sacrifice a land, creature or artifact, OR perhaps they all have an upkeep cost of 3, OR some other unique requirement?
Granted that would rule out Eldrazi being a creature type, correct?, since it would affect changelings and such. Ya, just speculating in the speculation forum...
Moving on...
I'd like it if eldrazi were colorless cards with colored mana costs. This way, the cards abilities/theme can be reinforced by the mana costs, but the cards are still colorless to reinforce the whole Eldrazi Colorless/Ghostfire idea.
Note: I'm not up to speed on the Zendikar storyline, just speculating based on the size of the eldrazi and the fact that they were locked away for a reason.
There are a lot of options in that card. Most of the supporting cast could be other cards in this set/block.
- The supersized elf
- Large cat
- Drakes
- Archer(s)
- Soldiers
- Bridge
- Mountain/setting
I could be mistaken, but I recall a lot of synergy in the artwork back in most of the early sets, espcially with the Coalition, Phyrexians, etc. Maybe I'm missing a lot of the synergy in the current sets artwork, but even so, I think it would be great to add more into the artwork.
It can't be easy to do given the way artwork is handled, left open to the artist, kept in a vault for future use, etc, but I just wondered what others thought about this and if you were intrigued by all the action and characters in the spoiled card mentioned above. It would be great to see more of the story unfold in the cards.