less for each point of damage dealt.)CascadeRecruit [N?] (Whenever this attacks an opponent, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a creature card [that costs less]/[that costs N or less]/[with less power]/[with N or less power]. You may put it onto the battlefield tapped and attacking that opponent. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.)
RebelRecruit N - (Whenever this attacks an opponent, you may pay . If you do, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a creature card [that costs N or less]/[with N or less power]. You may put it onto the battlefield tapped and attacking that opponent. Put the exiled cards on the bottom in a random order.)
KaaliaRecruit N (Whenever this attacks an opponent, you may put a creature card from your hand with power/CMC N or less onto the battlefield tapped and attacking that opponent.)
Another totally off-the-wall thing, if we want to play up the Valhalla-esque aspects of Nordic flavor and/or make this more a shard of undead (which is feasible if you in turn make Neter more ruled by spiritual undead and make Valheim home to the physical ones):
Battleraise (During combat, you may cast this from your graveyard. [If you do, you may have it enter the battlefield tapped and attacking.] Battleraise only one card per turn.)
Artifact Creature - Bird
Flying
Remove a +1/+1 counter from Arcbound Harrier: Arcbound Harrier gains protection from artifacts or from the color of your choice until end of turn.
Modular 3 (This enters the battlefield with three +1/+1 counters on it. When it dies, you may put its +1/+1 counters on target artifact creature.)
0/0
Next: Infernal Kirin in Rise of the Eldrazi
For Essya, there are a few possible flavor angles we can go with:
1) Evolution (likely something to do with counters, or Birthing Pod-esque shenanigans - maybe CMC-matters with a Pod-like keyword?)
2) Competition (not sure how we'd pull this off)
3) The mill direction. IMO, one way to make this work organically might be an old idea of mine for Essya, from way back--give the whole plane a single collective consciousness. Think Zerg Overmind. You could flavor milling as dumping more and more thoughts (both yours and your opponents') into the worldmind, which then uses the increased brainpower at its disposal for shenanigans.
Color-wise, the idea of a collective planewide hive-mind fits pretty well into GUB, I think. G is central, so everything is connected as a single community. U makes the connection a mental one, and B makes it a collective rather than just a decentralized network.
(Given this, I'm starting to wonder if we can't make Essya the mill/some-graveyard-stuff shard, and then have Neter be life-matters instead, which is now a feasible theme now that mana burn's gone. Would help distinguish this further from a colorshifted Alara--the black shard doesn't always have to be the graveyard shard.)
Silverwood Fury 1GWU
Enchantment
Whenever a creature you control attacks, choose one--that creature gets +1/+1 and gains trample until end of turn; or that creature gets +0/+2 and gains lifelink until end of turn; or that creature gets +2/+0 and gains shroud until end of turn.
Warrior Figment 3U
Creature - Illusion Warrior
Warrior Figment is unblockable.
Warrior Figment's power is equal to the number of Illusions you control.
*/2
Could do. I like that it enables pingers. And flavorfully, it's very "blood-in-the-water," like the war-crazed valkyries and giants are more easily summoned with the prospect of bloodshed.
I think we can all agree, at least, that the ideal Valheim strategy is to swarm, then finish up with some big hurty giant/valkyrie to either break any stalemates or finish off an on-the-ropes opponent. Flavorfully, the armies go out to spill blood and appease their bigass generals, who then join the fray once sufficiently enticed. So any mechanic we make for it has to work towards that.
With that in mind, my top 3 votes are:
Warcall 2.0
Bloodthirst
Rebel-Mercenary mech
"If a creature was destroyed this turn?" Small change, but it removes sacrifice and -X/-X effects as viable trigger conditions, which I imagine will help distinguish it from Neter.
---
I actually like Bloodthirst as-is, for Valheim. Great name, too. Just that, if we want something new, might as well focus on the fact that Valheim glories in face-to-face combat, hence creatures clashing and killing each other.
Out of this, my current frontrunners are:
Deathstroke (lol narcissistic)
Warcall (both the current version and a version that reduced cost based on damage dealt)
Rebel-Mercenary-combat-mechanic
True. Combos with trample, at that.
I can kind of see what you mean. I'm all right to go with it as-is, but in line with this concern...
Warpath N (If lethal damage was dealt this turn, this enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters.)
Bloodthirst variant, but focusing on creature combat. Also encourages suicidal charges, if such would serve the greater cause of war.
I really like this, actually. Combat-oriented but still individualistic, focuses more on damage than attacking, encourages blocking/combat but also enables dirty backstab-style fighting/assassinations. Plus it does cool things with lifelink, first strike, and deathtouch, all of which are Valheim mechanics.
EDIT: I'd even go so far as to also propose a powered-up version that doesn't rely on blocking:
StrongerWarpath N (If this is attacking, you may have it assign up to N of its combat damage to a creature defending player controls.)
Fleshforging RWU
Instant
Choose one--Target enchanted or equipped creature gets +4/+2 and gains haste until end of turn, or counter target enchantment or Equipment spell unless its controller pays :3mana:.
Flashback 2RWU
Better idea.
Definitely good.
To my mind, it's a bad thing only because the other mechanics aren't direct flips. I'd have no problem with a set-up where either all the mechanics were flips or none of them were, but having one and only one be a direct shift seems off.
For reference, hypothetical everything-is-a-shift world:
Valheim - Whenever three or more creatures attack (shift from Bant having creatures attack alone)
Hala'o - Everything is part enchantment (shift from Essya's artifacts)
Neter - Gravecycling's justifiable here, actually (graveyard to library instead of graveyard to play)
Sirat - Convoke is justifiable (tap rather than consume, cheapen rather than strengthen)
Essya - CMC-matters rather than power-matters?
My contention is that Bant is also about war, but as formal duels between representatives of each kingdom, with rules and terms and such. Promoting permanent destruction makes Valheim's war very different, focusing on dirty tactics (scorched-earth, burn the fields, assassinate enemy warriors before the fight, smash their weapons, etc).
I think the question shouldn't be "How does <main color> feel, separated from its allies and forced to be with <side colors>?" but more of "How do <main color> and <side colors> work together on this world?"
So, for the Neter form, my version would be something like this:
Black's cooperation with green and white have tempered its selfishness, but not its desire for power. Neter's black revels in the greater power green and white give it over the magics of the divine, the spiritual, and the natural cycles of decay and resurgence. On Neter, black, green, and white combine their visions of a "natural order," resulting in a ritualized cycle of life, death, and rebirth, where greater power affords more control over one's place in the cycle--as well as the places of others.
For Valheim mechanic, my only problem with the "Whenever three or more creatures attack" thing is that it's almost a direct flip of Exalted. I see the problem with the lethal damage mechanic not encouraging a style of play, though.
How about something scorched-earth-like, encouraging combat and/or destruction of permanents in general?
Warpath (placeholder name) - As long as a permanent was destroyed this turn/Whenever a permanent is destroyed, <effect>. (Creatures dealt lethal damage are destroyed.)
A Valheim deck could then enable its effects by sacrificing its creatures in combat, having them destroy other creatures, or simply taking the more controllish route and destroying creatures outside of combat.
Assuming we all stick to it and get this done, what might work as an order is
1) Individual shard flavor
2) Mechanics
3) Storyline/Ara'al-as-a-whole flavor
4) Design
I like this idea so much. Multicolor Praetors sound like love.
Kos the Reforged 4RW
Legendary Creature - Horror Warrior
Whenever Kos the Reforged attacks, prevent all damage that would be dealt to creatures you control and double all damage that would be dealt to creatures you don't control this turn.
Urabrask's secret weapon--monstrous flesh housing a hero's heart.
5/4
Next: Tibor and Lumia
Because very little other than War makes sense for Hala'o, and Valheim could also be justified as Death based on its love of destruction. Again, my two cents, and if Valheim is War, then I'd propose a model like:
Famine - Hala'o-based (stretch--hunger for experiences?)
Pestilence - Essya-based
War - Valheim-based, Big Bad
Conquest - Sirat-based
Death - Neter-based
Well that's nice and constructive. I saw the bit of Folza's post that suggested that the mechanics were set in stone, but given that he was compromising with netn9 after his post (including something as fundamental as changing morph to a cross-shard mechanic), I assumed that that opened them up for discussion again.
I actually really like the idea of Horsemen as a peg. And if we go Biblical, we could go with five Horsemen (one per shard?), based on the original four plus the misconception of Pestilence (who was added later).
Famine - Neter-based, consumes the spirits of the dead (or everything)
Pestilence - Essya-based, spreading ever-mutating plagues that affect both flesh and minds
War - Hala'o-based, using the destructive power of the elements
Conquest - Sirat-based, wielding mind control and subjugation
Death - Valheim-based, Big Bad himself, The End of All Things, etc
Mechanics Comments
Valheim
I dislike having an attack trigger as the Valheim mechanic simply because it would feel too much like a mirrored version of Exalted. The current version of Glory, in any event, is "Whenever this deals lethal damage," which I think is very combat-related.
If not, we could pirate a commonly made mechanic on the boards and use something Bloodthirst-like:
Bloodcast (This costs
Or just Bloodthirst itself, come to think of it.
Hala'o
I really don't see the flavor or the utility behind having morph in every shard. (Although I do agree that we need some kind of cross-shard mechanic--Scry, perhaps?) The mechanic has a very specific flavor which I think can only be justified in either Hala'o or Essya. Having it appear across shards would make Ara'al a very strange place, one better suited (IMO) to exploration as a whole plane rather than as five shards.
Looking at the shards right now, just for context, the cohesive goals seem to be as such:
Valheim - attack!
Essya - mill
Sirat - big convoked spells/creatures
Neter - graveyard-based control/recursion
Hala'o's niche, taking into account its blue-centricness, would seem to be the hand. Could we not simply make it the hand-size-matters shard?
Trance - <Effect that scales based on hand size.>