I think these cards would be cleaner with plain old bushido and abilities that triggered when they blocked/became blocked. You could still require a mana payment on the trigger if you needed to for balance. Combining triggers with bushido is not a bad idea, though I feel like it highly disincentivizes blocking and thus you'd be very unlikely to trigger these.
As far as using this to teach a beginner, triggered abilities, especially onboard tricks, are probably more complicated than combat trick instants (and they make you feel dumber when you miss them).
As an alternative, I recommend a sorcery-speed version of the "rootwalla" ability:
Fortify- (Cost): ~ gets +N/+N until end of turn. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once per turn.
Alternately, you could just use the regular version of the ability and not mention "instant speed" stuff until later. Also, I'd pick a consistent value for N, just to simplify things.
Again, I admit it's just a nitpick. I'm guessing WotC has done this just to maintain creative continuity. I don't think it will cause any problems, I just wanted you to be aware of it.
Since this is Boros, I imagine this mechanic will just function like raid in most cases.
Thanks guys. I think, on its surface, Supply looks more like Raid than it actually is. I don't think it needs to check for more than one tapped creature because, unlike Raid, it requires you to control a tapped creature after combat (excepting the instant speed cards). I think that this characteristic of the mechanic will inherently encourage attacks of opportunity (with a single creature) and attacks with multiple creatures in the hopes that at least one will survive combat. It also functions off of creatures with activated abilities that have T in their activation costs. Plus, Angel of Fury and the instants with Supply have a defensive mode that Raid is incapable of. So I think Supply is a "smarter" version of Raid in that it requires more thought/set-up, thereby making it feel more tactical in application and therefore more Boros. So I believe it will play differently enough from Raid to be its own mechanic. In theory.
Ah. I didn't notice there was a large functional change between the mechanics (i.e. needing to still control the tapped creature). I did realize that it would interact with T abilities, but my "Since this is Boros" comment was my way of saying that I expected Boros/RW to be all about attacking and thus not have those types of dudes. Considering what you just said, I imagine you have this angle covered, but here's some T designs that also play up the "teamwork" feel:
Broadshield Cohort 2W
Creature- Human Soldier T: Target creature gets +0/+3 and can block an additional creature this turn.
0/3
Needlesword Cohort 1R
Creature- Goblin Soldier T: Target creature gets +1/+0 and gains menace until end of turn.
1/2
Battlefield Blacksmith W
Creature- Human Soldier T: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature that does not have any +1/+1 counters on it. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
1/1
(I just thought of these, so the numbers and effects are probably off.)
Currently the rules can't handle referring to a partial name, and I'm not sure how to fix that. Why does this mechanic allow legendary at common, you make this ascertain without any real elaboration, as though it were obvious. Would you really make legends as common as artifacts in Mirrodin? That doesn't sound promising. If the rules can be worked to find partial card names then there are some interesting stuff to be done here, I still don't think common legends or metalcraft legend are 'good'.
He might just mean that it allows the names of legends show up more, which I'd be fine with. (Though note that "as-fan" usually refers to how much of something you actually have and not its creative impact.)
I like the concept of pledged. Maybe just make it a full keyword?:
Squire to House Aymer 1W
Creature- Human Soldier (C)
Pledged to Aymer
Discard another card that has pledged to Aymer: CARDNAME gets +1/+2 until the end of turn.
1/2
As far as using this to teach a beginner, triggered abilities, especially onboard tricks, are probably more complicated than combat trick instants (and they make you feel dumber when you miss them).
As an alternative, I recommend a sorcery-speed version of the "rootwalla" ability:
Fortify- (Cost): ~ gets +N/+N until end of turn. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once per turn.
Alternately, you could just use the regular version of the ability and not mention "instant speed" stuff until later. Also, I'd pick a consistent value for N, just to simplify things.
A minor nitpick- "Viridian" in Magic refers exclusively to the elves that inhabit Mirrodin.
Couldn't it just be a normal "At the beginning of your upkeep" trigger then?
Upgrading your Frost Breath effects into kill spells seems like an interesting thing for a Spike-Johnny to play around with.
I find the lack of puns here disappointing.
Ah. I didn't notice there was a large functional change between the mechanics (i.e. needing to still control the tapped creature). I did realize that it would interact with T abilities, but my "Since this is Boros" comment was my way of saying that I expected Boros/RW to be all about attacking and thus not have those types of dudes. Considering what you just said, I imagine you have this angle covered, but here's some T designs that also play up the "teamwork" feel:
Broadshield Cohort
2W
Creature- Human Soldier
T: Target creature gets +0/+3 and can block an additional creature this turn.
0/3
Needlesword Cohort
1R
Creature- Goblin Soldier
T: Target creature gets +1/+0 and gains menace until end of turn.
1/2
Battlefield Blacksmith
W
Creature- Human Soldier
T: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature that does not have any +1/+1 counters on it. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
1/1
(I just thought of these, so the numbers and effects are probably off.)
He might just mean that it allows the names of legends show up more, which I'd be fine with. (Though note that "as-fan" usually refers to how much of something you actually have and not its creative impact.)
I like the concept of pledged. Maybe just make it a full keyword?:
Squire to House Aymer 1W
Creature- Human Soldier (C)
Pledged to Aymer
Discard another card that has pledged to Aymer: CARDNAME gets +1/+2 until the end of turn.
1/2
Reality Hemorrhage 1R
C Sorcery
(This card has no color.)
~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
I would also reintroduce traps, re-flavored as weapons to fight the eldrazi.
Yeah, some non-interactive stuff is fine, it just seems relatively easy to get this guy in play and then bounce it or something.