Cleric's awakening is an example of one of my earliest designs, and it had a lot of problems once it was looked into. Primarily, like you said, it's too busy for a common. Specifically, it's a common that tutors for cards that are typically only mythics (full disclosure, the set this card was intended for had a cycle of rare PWs, something I'll likely be doing in the future anyway.) Not only was this bad for common, but it also sucked for limited. It was too narrow and parasitic, at least in a vacuum.
As far as the other two... I kinda like the equipment guy. In my next block (codenamed 'blood'), you'll see a RW tribe that deals with equipment tokens like that. For now, however, it's not really a focus (My main focus is finishing out Soco, Amaretto, and Lime block). Once I get to Blood, Sweat, and Tears there'll be a lot more development done... at the moment it's all design.
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^ This. Honestly, for a split second I thought the seong was performed by Evanessence, who fit that same mold.
This is my thought as well. It'd be the easiest to balance at lower rarities.
Something like:
Ajani, Lord of the Cats 2WW
Legendary Planeswalker - Ajani (U)
At the beginning of your end step, if a creature entered the battlefield under your control this turn, put 2 loyalty counters on Ajani.
- 1: Target creature you control gains first strike and lifelink until the end of turn.
- 6: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. Those creatures gain vigilance until the end of your turn.
Starting Loyalty: 3
Which is a fine limited card but not at all broken for constructed.
You're not wrong in that Llanowar Elves doesn't really work in the GBw version. I'm ok with that, but I think a lot of it depends on the meta in which you're playing. I'm happier running multiple Siong of Freyalise and using it to power out Shalai, Voice of Plenty and multiple Tendershoot Dryads, but your mileage might vary.
One thing I am strongly considering is moving fungal plots to the sideboard. I'm finding that I often get little use out of it, as I don't often have creatures in my graveyard to exile (so much exile removal currently), and I don't get to use the sac effect enough for it to be worthwhile mainboard. Thoughts?
It would play very well with Historic, I can see it as a big possibility.
I'm having trouble remembering the manabase (I'm at work currently) but my 60 is something like:
Sporecrown Thallid x4
Metallic Mimic x2
Tendershoot Dryad x4
Slimefoot, the Stowaway x3
Shalai, Voice of Plenty x2
Ghalta, Primal Hunger x1
Fungal Plots x2
Song of Freyalise x3
Fungal Infection x2
Vicious Offering x3
Spore Swarm 2x
Vraska's Contempt x2
Saproling Migration x4
Golden Demise x2
+24 lands
I'm still playing with the manabase, but I'm finding that Shalai is not hard to cast, as you'll usually cast her off of Song of Freyalise
Metallic Mimic is a great card, but also not something you want a board full of. It sucks getting 3 or more mimics out without many saproling tokens too abuse them with. I don't think this is a 4-of, I'm running 2 in my maindeck.
Tendershoot Dryad is an all-star in this deck. There's a reason it's almost quadrupled in price since Dominaria released. Especially since so much of the deck is low-end, I've got no problems running four of these in the deck. If they aren't answered - and I mean immediately - there's very few options for your opponent to make a come back.
Golden Demise is phenomenal. You can ascend quite easily with this deck, and Demise straight up murders go-wide strategies.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty is the real deal. One of the biggest weaknesses of this deck is board wipes, Settle the Wreckage being the most prevalent. Shalai negates Settle, pumps our wide board late-game, and provides a decent flying body to boot. Not only is Shalai absolutely worth the splash into Abzan, IMO, she's also 100% mainboard worthy. I'm running 2x in my 60. (Note: I think her price is going to up up up, because she presents one of the sickest plays in UW historic - one of our worst match ups - and once she catches on there, if UW historic proves to be the tier 1 deck it seems to, she'll be pricy)
Anointed Procession isn't worth the splash, but since we're going into W anyway, we might as well. Don't go out of your way to get explosive procession value, though, as this can be a win-more trap. That said, I don't think it's all that great and I'm actually not running it in my current list.
Llanowar Elves doesn't feel worth it to me. It's the best green card in Standard right now, arguably, and being able to drop two 2-drop lords on turn 4 is nothing to sneer at, but ultimately I don't think it adds that much value here and we're already getting a cramped mainboard. Song of Freyalise may be slower at first, but ultimately helps us more consistently crank out Tendershoot Dryads mid- and late-game, which is plenty ramp enough for this deck.
Ghalta, Primal Hunger is a fantastic one-of that your opponent won't see coming and can end a lot of games.
I am main-boarding Vicious Offering as my local meta is a lot of aggressive red. This card chews up aggressive red creatures. I swap it out for Duress against control, but if your local meta is more heavily control you should do the reverse.
Fatal Push isn't something I'm running. Vicious Offering is excellent removal that takes care of plenty of threats, including Lyra Dawnbringer, and Fatal Push's cost is high enough that I'm fine not investing in it. This deck has plenty of removal without it.
If you read much of Mark Rosewater's stuff, you know that there are a few different phases to a set's creation, and you're basically through with the design phase. You know what you want your set to do, and you've got a rough idea of where everything is going to fit and what each card slot is going to accomplish. Now you're on to development - tweaking the cards for balance, making sure your thoughts are cohesive, making sure everything works.
I'm bookmarking this page, and as I have time later I'll give more specific feedback on individual cards, but I just wanted to say for now, well done up to this point.
No need for the disclaimer, the straightforwardness is welcome.
I think Dominance could stand to have a better name, but I think the mechanic works great in the set, especially when paired with vanguard. The difference between 'attacks and isn't blocked' and 'deals combat damage to a player' is small, but important I think.
Reverberate is there because as much as I want creature combat to be a theme, I'm not not making a set that is 100% creatures. Reverberating tricks or other spells is very tactical, and I think it fits well. That said, it still needs development in GEN. For BFD, I think Reverberate will be easier to do things with because reverberate costs will be non-mana costs, which will make them a bit easier to pull off.
Unity is one I agree with you on, I think. I'm still working with it in GEN but there's every possibility it won't survive. It certainly won't be in BFD.
I'm kinda surprised you don't like Retaliate. I like that it adds another dimension to combat. Yes, it's defensive as opposed to offensive, but it absolutely accomplishes my goal of making combat more interesting and it provides some nice tension when lined up against Vanguard. We'll see how it plays, but I like it.
Outside of Unity (which, btw, if I replace will be replaced with something like Bushido), I don't think my problem is trying to fit ideas into a set that doesn't fit them. I think I had a lot of problems in the initial design of GEN due to the way I approached it. I think I've learned from those mistakes (and am ready to make completely new ones), and I think once BFD is on its way it'll look a lot better.
This is true, in fact I'm already considering difference I'd like to see in this format (for instance, I'm thinking BFD will include removal spells, something that GEN did not). But is this enough to answer CommanderZ's concerns regarding the '2nd set problem'?
True. I think the big stopping point will be that they won't want to a duel deck with the same walker again. So we'd 'need' a new Bolas.
By the way, why is this even a discussion? Hasn't this project been complete for over a year?
That's fair. But at the end of the day I think, yeah there's enough here for 2 sets. Really, the way this is going to end up is that this basically is a 2-set block, since the 3rd set is completely different.
But let's ask this question - what does a second set need to have to avoid being un-memorable?