I like the design, but I feel like the anthem effect is overused for flying matters commanders. If you’re worried that the anthem is too strong, you can remove black. Mono blue has had artifact graveyard interactions before, Emry, Lurker of the Loch, and that kinda limits self mill recursion. If you’d rather keep black, you could go with
“Whenever three or more creatures with flying you control deal combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice a non-token artifact. If you do, gain control of target artifact that player controls of lesser mana value. Otherwise, create a treasure token.”
Plus, the flavor of crows stealing things is pretty fun.
Sure, Jin could be printed at that power level, and could be in the set easy. I get Wizards trying to complete simic-banned-card tribal. But I have a problem with the last two cards. Pore over the scrolls sounds awfully similar to another card draw blue spell aptly named Pore over the pages. I seriously doubt that we’d see a new card with a name that similar. And the wizard legend throws me off guard, mostly because golems with keywords have been dealt with on human artificers. With the coloration being WU, now we have to assume that either A) all human creatures in this set are Wizards if they’re in the school; B) the school of WU or whatever it’ll be deals with artifacts and Wizards specifically, ignoring the recent printings of the artificer creature type; or C) this card was deemed too weak with the artificer typing so Wizards through the wizard typing on to make it stronger. And of course blue was the first to be leaked when the only thing we really know about this set is “wizard school,” therefore our first speculated leaks are blue wizards.
I think the biggest problem white faces is similar to the issue of confusion between the core functions of white and blue, Balance and Control. With hullbreacher, the mana is correct, in the sense that you’re replacing an action with another. If it was going to be white, it would be “for each card drawn create a treasure token,” rather than the replacement effect. Most cards that we see are rips or weaker versions of cards like the ones mentioned are either breaks in the identity of white, or are sorceries instead of instants, again enforcing balance rather than control. Equalizing the board is an extremely difficult mechanic to print, and on paper looks incredibly weak because it gives no player a specific advantage, which is why white was given the strength of locking out other boards or pillowforting so other players don’t attack. The issue with that is though, blue breaks identity frequently with board locking since it bridges the line between control and balance.
How can Wizards fix this? I don’t think they can. Looking at the most ‘white’ white cards I can think of, Balance, Land Tax and Wrath of God, again it’s about equalizing the board state, but it branches into the other color identities because in order to balance the board you have to affect all aspects of it. And it’s a problem for players. Nobody wants to be on equal footing, and Wizards recognizes this by limiting these balance cards by making them weaker (like in my opinion Ward of Bones could’ve been printed as a 2WW and been perfect.) It could also be said that the player base isn’t playing white as intended, in the sense that you’re not gaining advantage, rather equalizing advantage. White is weak by design, but it’s not flawed in its weakness.
Compared to Zedruu the Greathearted, Blim is a lot more difficult to build, mostly for the fact that he’s a 4/3 flyer. In order to maximize him, I’d go with something like Assault Suit and a swampwalk enabler with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, just for the pure chaos, and to maximize his ability. Plus he becomes less of a ‘threat’ and more of a ‘weapon’ that way.
For card ideas, there’s not a ton off the top of my head that I can think of, but any Lich type effect works good for an early-ish kill. Demonic Pact is another lose the game you can give somebody. Demonic Lore nukes card draw decks. Demonic Taskmaster works well too, or Akroan Horse if you want more of a group hug theme.
Some curses are controlled by the cursed player, again making Blim slightly more viable. A few other cards that work well that come into play under opponents control are Pendant of Prosperity, Sleeper Agent and Xantcha (basically the same idea, Coveted Jewel which is counterintuitive so opponents don’t attack you, but besides that there isn’t a lot you could use. And, aura enchantments you put on opponents creatures you still control, which really sucks for making Blim a fantastic commander.
Can somebody do the math for me and figure out how fast you can get this, Song of the Dryads, Wind Zendikon, and Helm of the Host onto the battlefield? Because I just threw up in my mouth the moment I read this card.
Wait what? I don't see it... Unless you're using cute interactions with stuff like Paradox Haze or Sphinx of the Second Sun, you only get one creature/planeswalker per turn.
The haze and the Sphinx add another upkeep trigger so it triggers per upkeep
There are quite a few extremely blatant problems with the split deck idea you proposed. The easy one is that every single card that interacts with the library becomes void, because now you have two libraries. That means every draw, mill, exile, and search becomes completely void. Along with that ramp will become a fundamental part of the game because the only mana advantage possible is through ramp of a separate library rather than manipulating a mixed through scry effects. Green would become the most played color solely for the ramp options, or blue if you can target the second library with conventional draw. Resource management is a fundamental part of what makes Magic function, you’re either obtain more resource than your opponent, drain the resources from your opponent, or manipulate resources. By giving a split mana deck it becomes near impossible in practice to balance out resource management, solely for the fact that the aspect of resource gain is equalized, therefore the optimal strategy is increasing gain by ramp or other means.
Yes, I hate getting mana screwed or swamped, but with mulligans you’re probably going to see maybe one out of thirty games where you’re truly screwed or swamped.
Ultimately, my option is that a split deck is a very VERY poor idea.
Of these, I think Manifest Destiny, Tax Man, Eminent Domain, and Excise have the best shot at getting a future version printed. White does get to ramp, just very specifically in the way of basic plains. White has always had a taxing and rule making design philosophy, so Treasure or Gold tokens are def good new spaces to give White a ramp option that fits flavorfully. Saying that White does not get to expand it's abilities when Red has already received Impulse effects for card advantage and Black getting to hit enchantments, and Green gets a bit of everything now, is not fair to those players that would like to play White as a main color, not as support or splash. This is just like when Kabira Takedown was printed and everyone was like "Oh no, White can't have that! It's a Red card!!!" when White is in sore need of some payoff for being the best at flooding the board with creatures/tokens. Let White dabble with some color bends, let White get incidental card draw for once instead of gaining life, and let White get either some form of ramp or a fair way to punish ramp decks.
Those 4 cards seriously belong in a secret lair 4th of July set.
1
“Whenever three or more creatures with flying you control deal combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice a non-token artifact. If you do, gain control of target artifact that player controls of lesser mana value. Otherwise, create a treasure token.”
Plus, the flavor of crows stealing things is pretty fun.
1
1
How can Wizards fix this? I don’t think they can. Looking at the most ‘white’ white cards I can think of, Balance, Land Tax and Wrath of God, again it’s about equalizing the board state, but it branches into the other color identities because in order to balance the board you have to affect all aspects of it. And it’s a problem for players. Nobody wants to be on equal footing, and Wizards recognizes this by limiting these balance cards by making them weaker (like in my opinion Ward of Bones could’ve been printed as a 2WW and been perfect.) It could also be said that the player base isn’t playing white as intended, in the sense that you’re not gaining advantage, rather equalizing advantage. White is weak by design, but it’s not flawed in its weakness.
1
For card ideas, there’s not a ton off the top of my head that I can think of, but any Lich type effect works good for an early-ish kill. Demonic Pact is another lose the game you can give somebody. Demonic Lore nukes card draw decks. Demonic Taskmaster works well too, or Akroan Horse if you want more of a group hug theme.
Some curses are controlled by the cursed player, again making Blim slightly more viable. A few other cards that work well that come into play under opponents control are Pendant of Prosperity, Sleeper Agent and Xantcha (basically the same idea, Coveted Jewel which is counterintuitive so opponents don’t attack you, but besides that there isn’t a lot you could use. And, aura enchantments you put on opponents creatures you still control, which really sucks for making Blim a fantastic commander.
1
Song of the Dryads turns the enchantment into a land, Wind Zendikon turns it into a creature, and Helm of the Host copies it every combat. That’s about the only way to clone it.
Not only that but now you can get commander damage by getting a craterhoof but that’s a whole level of jank that’ll be funny once.
2
Yes, I hate getting mana screwed or swamped, but with mulligans you’re probably going to see maybe one out of thirty games where you’re truly screwed or swamped.
Ultimately, my option is that a split deck is a very VERY poor idea.
1
1