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Renaissance Set — Design Phase
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E.g:
CARDNAME
1BB
At the beginning of your end step, if you gained life this turn, you draw a card and you lose 1 life.
1B, Sacrifice a creature: You gain 1 psylian life.
Which is a mix between these two cards powerwise:
A suggestion for Ajani. Currently there's no pc right now.
Ajani, the Unforgiving
{3}{W}{B}
Planeswalker -- Ajani
+1: Pay 2 psylian life. Create a 2/2 white and black Cat Rogue creature token.
0: Until end of turn, Ajani, the Unforgiving becomes a 4/4 Cat Warrior creature with first strike and menace that's still a planeswalker.
-X: Distribute X -1/-1 counters on any number of target creatures. You gain that much psylian life for each -1/-1 counter placed this way.
Starting loyalty: 5
On Orzhov Ajani:
+1: I don't think it's good to make a planeswalker so parasitic that its + ability can't be played if you put it outside a block deck specifically playing one of the block mechanics. It would be like having Saheeli requiring you to pay energy to activate her + ability.
0: This one if funny (I like him officially getting the Cat type for once) but I feel this effect is really tied to Gideon
-X: -1/-1 counters are a mechanic by themselves, if we made this card it would mean that we could not use +1/+1 counters in the same set. Flavourfully, I'm pretty sure a Renaissance set wants +1/+1 counters over -1/-1 counters ^^ Also, -1/-1 counters have a much more narrow design space, we probably shouldn't inflict that to ourselves, we barely know what are doing without digging for more difficulties x)
How about this?
{3}{W}{B}
Planeswalker -- Ajani
+1: Reveal the top two cards of your library. Put a card among them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
-1: Exile target nonland permanent. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost.
-X: Create X 2/2 white and black Cat Rogue creature token with lifelink and menace.
Starting loyalty: 5
-----
-2: Exile target nonland permanent. Then lose life equal to half its converted mana cost, rounded up.
-----
Ajani, the Unforgiving
{3}{W}{B}
Legendary Planeswalker -- Ajani
+1: Reveal the top two cards of your library. Put a card among them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
-2: Exile target nonland permanent. You lose life equal to half its converted mana cost, rounded up.
-X: Create X 2/2 white and black Cat Rogue creature token with lifelink and menace.
Starting loyalty: 5
Alright, let someone makes this then.
Goodbye planeswalker uniqueness.
I like that you revisited effects from the previous versions of Ajani ^^ But I want to stress a very important matter for planeswalker design: What's the vision for this WB Ajani? We can make three perfectly fine abilities for it, but if they don't tell a story and synergize once put together, the sum of three acceptable abilities still won't make a planeswalker card ^^
GW Ajani is the super-buddy. He has three iconic abilities: gaining life, pumping your team (planeswalkers usually included) and calling for friends (tutor creatures and planeswalkers from the top of the library.) Why is Ajani WB? Did he die? Does he take the power instead of helping others now? Is he a bad guy? I'm having a hard time defining what the version of Ajani you presented above would really represent.
Here's an example with an Ajani that wants the power to itself:
==> It's full of holes mechanically but you get the spirit: I didn't throw those three abilities together at random, I tried to tell a story about how Ajani had a really bad day and is done with helping people, stopping to nothing (from working with the opponent to sacrificing friends) in order to become selfishly invincible x)
So what's your vision for this planeswalker? (Note that you can change the colours and the planeswalker as well ^^) You don't have to rush, take your time finding an idea, a vision, that inspires you with something you think is interesting ^^
Also, you should give detail about the second ability since you can practically distribute the loyalty among another Ajanis that you control due to the new planeswalker rule.
5 starting loyalty
+1: create a 2/2 white and black cat rogue creature token with lifelink and menace
-2: exile target non-land permanent. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost
-7: you get an emblem with "At the begining of each end step, gain psylian life equal to half the life you lost this turn, rounded down"
Speaking of B/W mechanics set, here are some uncommons. Vengeful strike may have to be a rare.
Like "Hey, why should I help people? What are the benefits for me anyway? I'm really tired of this all bullshit. Let's just build some (crime) organizations that would be beneficial for me and my followers instead. And I'm the one who has the power here (he's an experienced walker, fighter and master of life and and banishment magic), why should I fear them?"
So, instead of helping people, he should become a sort of mafia boss or something like that, gaining followers who would be beneficial for him while removing any obstacles to get what he desires, like eternal life or riches or things that could grant someone awesome magical power or something like that.
While I'm not against it, we need a reason why Ajani would do that. Something related to Ahmonkhet might work, since he's had feuds with Bolas before.
On WB Ajani: Maybe a little example would help convey my message about designing a whole planeswalker instead of three abilities better actually. Let's look at the last Ajani from Aether Revolt:
All three abilities are completely tied to what we know about Ajani. It's screaming "I'm the support planeswalker." The first ability is *NOT* an Anticipation ability. It hasn't been put here because Ajani especially needed to help card flow, or because it symbolizes that Ajani is clever and thinks ahead. It's here for pure flavour reasons: Ajani is calling for help. He's looking for buddies. As already mentioned the second ability is not here to represent Swords to Plowshare because Ajani would be a fierce character, it's here because he needed a strong protection ability at 6 mana and this one happens to play in his healer theme. The utimate is just his most iconic ability pumped up ^^
So yes, the second ability you mentioned for instance would fit on a WB planeswalker. But what does it tell us? Swords to Plowshares have never been an iconic ability of Ajani, so why reverse this one specifically? All three abilities work, but what are they telling us about this Ajani? They could work sure, but is this card about Ajani being a Cat Lord? About being evil? About being a yin-yang type of planeswalker?
On Highcourt Fop: I think it would break the colour pie to have such a strong repeatable drawing effect outside Blue. Has it been done before? Maybe a more White effect would be more suitable? +1/+1 counters? You gain that much life plus one psylian life instead? Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn? Untap target creature? Etc.
On Vengeful Strike: It perfectly plays in the life-matters theme, in another set it may have cause a memory issue but as the whole set asks you to monitor your life total closer than usual, I think that's a perfect fit. Also it screams "Black is the destruction colour like it always should have been" at one mana ^^ I really like it personnally
On Tomescrapper: I'm conflicted about this one. It's a really cool design! It's original, it's on theme, it's flashy, but I'm not sure that would be ok without Green because this is also some kind of ramp (basically a reverse Courser of Kruphix.) Maybe it could go full mode and let you play anything from the top of your opponent's library?
@sanjaya666 The card above was just an exaggerated example, I do not think it would be good to have a psycho Ajani either ^^ We do have a secret organization on Rezatta, but it would not make a lot of sense for Ajani to be the boss of them. Since their story is so tied to the traditions of this plane and the Muses, it kinda have to be locals running this group, I believe. Dack Fayden would probably be a good recruit for a group of thieves though, if we decide to keep him around in the file, which is another reason why I would be reluctant to tie Ajani to the secret group.
Once again, it doesn't have to be Ajani, by the way ^^ For instance, we probably should lock the colours of the Da Vinci Planeswalker before deciding which planeswalkers are returning ^^ I'm having difficulties imagining Da Vinci without Blue, which is going to cause friction with Dack unfortunately
"White has a very narrow band of card drawing where it's focused on having to use a specific strategy (like say having a deck full of Equipment). All colors get cantrips (spells that draw you a single card)."
So "At the beginning of each end step, if you gained life this turn, draw a card" is definitely out of White's part of the colour pie. White is simply supposed to be bad at card drawing as it's the colour with the most answers. This pushes you to play it with another colour better at drawing cards if you want to draw those answers. It's an important weakness to keep the balance between colours ^^
Here's an example:
2UU
Sorcery
CARDNAME deals 4 damage to target creature.
I think we all agree this should be red, not blue. Now if I do this:
2UU
Sorcery
If you draw three or more cards this turn, CARDNAME deals 4 damage to target creature.
Does it make it ok? No, it's still a red card that should remain in Red. This is probably a Blue/Red card actually ^^ White is simple not supposed to get that much card draw I'm affraid