MTG Cardsmith Community Forums
Renaissance Set — Design Phase
This discussion has been closed.
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
I kind of like the idea of a less-humanoid planeswalker though we already have Ajani for that. Powerwise, it's mostly based off Deepglow Skate.
How would Shield counters interact with Planeswalkers? If they run out of loyalty, they only lose a shield counter. Then what happens? Does it survive with one loyalty? Does it return to default? Does it still die?
Actually I'm not sure the wording I used prevent creatures from dying of combat damage, now that you mention it ^^"
If a creature with a shield counter would be destroyed, you may remove a shield counter from it. If you do, that creature gains indestructible until end of turn.
It already has an ability that rewards him for having a lot of loyalty (the -X) and I wanted to make it feel less linear than get a lot of loyalty --> make a creature big --> give it trample. That's why I tried a second type of counters to synergize with the first ability and open up possibilities. But maybe what it needs is a type of counters that go only on noncreature permanents and wants to be doubled, that could be interesting.
Otherwise, something very different could be good too.
@everyone Actually, I realized for gender balance that we should probably save the last planeswalker slot for a woman, unless Ajani's slot get taken by a woman in compensation.
I don't feel that these cards are rare. I'd even say they're uncommon, or pushed commons. They require a specific deck to be at maximum powerful, making them a sad feeling rare to pull.
I like the idea, and the art is cool, but... Didn't Elspeth die?
Some thoughts that came to mind when seeing them:
- The red one basically triggers itself, since when the boosted creature connects to the opponent you just have to pay R to return it back to your hand. I think it makes it stronger than the rest.
- The white one creates a lock since all you have to do is have a lot of life and the tokens have lifelink. So, I'd say there is the same problem as the red one, it's probably a bit too strong because the return trigger synergizes so well with the effect itself.
- The black one probably doesn't work by the rules actually, I think it would require a very specific way of formatting it and it would be very long like "As long as you have 10 or more life, whenever you lose life, if your life total becomes less than 10"
Sorry I didn't see that earlier, it does help to have the visual canvas to really picture them ^^
@Lujikul Technically yes, Elspeth is dead. But she's just prisonner of Erebos's hell so she could probably escape, which gives here a perfect reason to become partially Black. A lot of players speculates that she will return one day!
Here are some posts on Mark Rosewater blog talking about this:
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/162180367113/since-youve-mentioned-that-elspeth-is-dead-but
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/158300073873/wb-elspeth-or-wb-liliana
Quick side note: Until now, we had been in agreement that the Da Vinci character is evil and becomes the new Muse of Desire until Kedrah kills him and steals the power as a twist. Are we scrapping that now?
Also, speaking of Renaissance figures, I think we should definitely save a space for the "rival" of Da Vinci, Michelangelo. A lot of his most famous works are religion-based (the ceiling of the sistine chapel, the Pietà, etc.) Considering his name, maybe we could make him an angel, so he could be called "Michel, Angel of {something]" which sounds like Michel-angel-o' when you say it out loud? xD Angel of Grandeur for instance could suit him, he was really into this kind of subjects (Gods, legends, etc.) I'm unsure how that translates into Magic term though ^^
You don't have to put titles for every legendary creatures, or planeswalkers. Like Saheeli Rai or Dovin Baan, they seem to be fine for the first version of those cards.
Also, is this bad?
On Keritzel:
- I like how Rebirth looks on a loyalty ability, very cool!
- Devotion is a mechanic by itself, its not really something you can mention on a card out of the blue
- I would feel kind of bad having a minus ability of a 5-mana planeswalker if all it was doing was giving me life.
- The choice of costs is interesting though risky. It combines the 1-turn not-that-explosive ultimate with a +2 on a 5 loyalty planeswalker which makes a very resilient permanent. Maybe the combination of fast ultimate and super resilience is a bit much on the same card.
- On the other hand, yes, I think the lack of protective ability is really problematic on a planeswalker that expensive, it could use a better second ability I believe.
- My main issue is the lack of mechanical focus, it deals with blink, +1/+1 counters, life gain and enchantment which sounds like random White themes put together. I'm having a hard time getting a personality of this card, I'd say it looks more like it's trying to explain what White does in Magic than it's trying to picture a planeswalker.
- God, that art looks amazing! We have to use it somewhere! =D
Oh well, at least I found some interesting angel artworks. I was thinking one of these two, but we don't really get the character of Michelangelo. Maybe there's an illustration of someone painting angels somewhere or something like that instead?
(I have no clue who the artists are, sorry
We have a very reasonable amount of interesting cards going on so far! I think the next big step is to produce the set design file ^^ I can't start that myself now for the reason above, but if anyone is interesting in getting it started, here's the spirit:
1) Fill the design skeleton with descriptions of what we need. I already have the beginning of a design skeleton with the right number of cards in each colour and the right percentage of creatures in each colours in the file linked below. Note that I haven't put the multicoloured planeswalker slots yet though ^^ You can follow the corresponding Nuts & Bolts article (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/nuts-bolts-filling-design-skeleton-2011-02-28) but here's a nonexhaustive list of things we have to plan ahead:
- Distribute the staple effects each colour needs (for instance a team pump spell in white, a bounce spell in blue and a discard spell in black).
- Distribute each evergreen keywords on the right number of creatures.
- Decide how many cards help each archetype.
- Make sure you have enough evasion from the start (if I remember correctly, we should have 5% of creatures that mostly can't be blocked, 5% of creatures that can be blocked conditionally (e.g. menace), and 5% of creatures that can be blocked but at a cost (e.g. deathtouch))
2) Summarize all the cards that have been proposed in text form like this:
Name (Rarity)
Mana Cost
Type - Subtype
Power/Toughness
Abilities
We don't have to do that for every single cards that were proposed, for instance we can skip cards that clearly won't fit the design skeleton for whatever reason, or all previous versions of cards that got enhanced.
3) Create an Art file. We have seen a ton of awesome art! We don't need to collect all illustrations but it would be cool to know how many "homerun" illustrations we have to distribute them on the most important cards.
We had an internal file for creative design but since it was made by @OneBigBlueSky and his full real-life name appears on it, I figured I would make available a new version for the design phase. I'll try to switch some illustrations to the new file when I have more time
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3CIGQi9r7NyeXBBblZqN1VfX00?usp=sharing
P.S: The cards transcription can be added in the appropriate sheet of the design skeleton file.
But it could really be anything, I just put an Ent because I thought it was fun to have a nonhuman planeswalker. It's an idea that could help shape the story and give it an unexpected turn (just imagine this thing touching a Muse after being specifically told not to, planeswalk away, come back, look really confused then just carry on with its life like nothing has happened xD) or we can simply pick a different art and name ^^ If we stick to the poet theme for instance, a counter theme could mean a supporting character.
Independantly of how it ends up being flavoured, I'm quite fond of that design so far ^^ It has a hidden + ability, such a counter theme is new on a planeswalker (I believe?), and the last ability really wants to combo off ^^
EDIT: Just saw first Avinzi, am currently ROFLing at what would happen at a Rezatta prerelease tournament. If I activated his ultimate, each turn I'd be going up to the game store owner and asking to borrow an Ancestral Recall or Moxen.
Speaking of, WOTC would looooove this idea! Maybe I should give MaRo a call...
They aren't allowed to look at unofficial card designs.
On the tree: Yes, the first ability does double its own loyalty, that's the starting point of this design actually ^^ You have to choose between giving it a (big) amount of loyalty or actually impacting the board though, but the 0 ability is definitely the most interesting part of it and why it's sitting at 6 mana ^^
On Avinzi: Haha x) That would be very fun, but cards that allow you to play things from outside the game in tournament actually only allow you to take things from your sideboard (which, for draft and sealed, means all the cards you drafted/opened but didn't put in your deck). It's not *that* broken but it's still a quite powerful ability ^^ Basically, it allows you to make a "silver-bullets" sideboard in constructed where you put 15 different cards so you can answer virtually any situation ^^ And in a casual game with your friends, yes you could go and ask the shop's owner to borrow an Ancestrall Recall x)
@MagicChess I agree the big skull on its head definitely makes him look Black/Green more than mono-green x) Maybe we could use this slot for the returning planeswalker actually? Nissa seems like an ok fit for counters sheningans, or do you think it would create too much expectation for land reanimation from her? Otherwise, we could simply change the character, once again it doesn't *have* to be a tree, it was just to try something funny x) Or we can find another tree/nonhumanoid illustration if we want to dig this idea ^^