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Rezatta, the Renaissance plane — Vision Design Part 2
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At common, I wonder if you can do effects that care about controlling your masterwork rather than being self-referencing. That could allow the common versions to be a bit more efficient perhaps and help with other cards that care about being your masterwork themselves. In fairness, it does start to look a bit more like City's Blessing. I don't want to push for dead text on a card but something like this may allow you to reference an ability without printing it on each of them.
Permanent - As long as you have a masterwork, ~ [gets/has condition].
Instant/Sorcery - Draw a card. If you have a masterwork, draw two cards instead.
Sounds smart to me.
That's an interesting idea, though it's a bit far from the play pattern it's meant to be. It is supposed to play like Soulbond yes, except creatures can "Soulbond themselves" in a sense. But the idea is that you pile up the effects and make your Masterwork more and more beautiful.
As it doesn't really make sense to have a card letting you choose a Masterwork before caring about if you have a Masterwork, this means you would have cards that just define a Masterwork without doing anything with it (not ideal) and cards that care about having a Masterwork but that don't give you a Masterwork by themselves. It's reinforcing the A/B problem.
One solution could be to only do ETB abilities that care about the Masterwork at common? I'm just unsure how the Artist/Art dichotomy would work, I'd really like this to be two creature types that work in distinct ways. Maybe all Art creatures get the same kind of bonus like an attack trigger, or a stat boost? Here's a try:
ART CREATURE at common: Get a stat boost.
E.g: 2U - 2/2 Masterwork. As long as CARDNAME is your Masterwork, it has +1/+1.
ART CREATURE at higher rarity: Get non-combat abilities.
E.g: 3U - 2/2 Masterwork. When CARDNAME enters the battle draw cards equal to your Masterwork's power then discard two cards.
ARTIST CREATURE at common: ETB ability that boost your Masterwork for a turn.
E.g: 2U - 1/3 Masterwork. As long as CARDNAME entered the battlefield this turn, your Masterwork gets +1/+1 and has flying. (This templating is to avoid that you chain multiple of those and boost different creatures which is not the point.)
ARTIST CREATURE at higher rarity: Give combat-relevant static abilities.
E.g: 4U - 4/5 Masterwork. Your Masterwork has hexproof.
Yes, I also agree there's design space here ^^ Actually the blue non-creature spell checks if the target creature is your Masterwork to give you a bonus and THEN allows you to choose a Masterwork. Now that this has been mentioned, it's possible all instants and sorceries should follow this pattern. Rewarding you if you have a Masterwork, then giving you a Masterwork to boost the next spell you're casting.
@Project1734
Right now, we're building the set skeleton for commons. It's a bit tricky as all pieces are interconnected, so I'm merging ideas and adding the concepts to the skeleton myself to make sure they all fit together. This means that the most useful propositions are going to be concepts for cool common cards that you think would work great with the set. For instance: "Hey, maybe the soft removal slot in black should deal 2 damage to any target and then gain 2 life. This way it can trigger Elated if you target the opponent." or "Hey, Masterwork seems like a mess right now at common, it needs some recognisable patterns. What if all the instant/sorceries cared about if you had a Masterwork without giving you one prior to that?" This kind of stuff ^^
Commons are all about the nitty-gritty details which can be a bit daunting, so we're always on the look-out for higher rarity cards that are exciting in a vaccum. Just remember that any card you propose probably won't be added to the set "as-is" since there are fixed slots for anything (for instance, maybe we can't do your cool counterspell because we already have one, or maybe we'll change your big creature to a small one because all the 5-mana slots in this colour are full and occupied by cards that are part of cycles that would require to change 20 other cards in the set if we moved one of them xD
Don't worry about being destroyed in playtesting x) We'll start with all-common play testing once the set skeleton is completed and it won't be especially spicy I'm afraid. Also, there are no archetypes at the moment, they will emerge from playtesting by figuring out what's fun and what's not, so the first playtests should feel like a hot mess xD
Where can I playtest?
Also, I would like something like this,
Instant: 3U/B, You lose life equal to your Masterwork's converted mana cost, and draw cards equal to its power.
Helps with elated
Nature's artist (G)
Defender 0/2
???? (1G)
(4): put 3 +1/-1 counters on this creature, it gains trample
2/4
Treescape (GG)
(Living Art)
When a living art creature you control blocks or is blocked, search your library for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped
1/3
???? (2G)
(Living Art)
When a living art creature you control dies, put a paint token on this creature, then search your library for a living art creature token with a converted mana cost equal to the number of paint tokens on this creature
0/2
Spider Web (GGG)
(Living Art)
Reach
If this is your masterpiece, all living art creatures gain reach
2/4
Also, hitting players seems a bit red -- maybe make it an instant and only hit creatures? It's been done before with non-psylian life.
Moreover, the W enchantment may be a bit too powerful. Enchanting this on their only creature for the first few turns while you gain more psylian life may lead to problematic cases...?
And for the 2U repeated Discover creature, it seems weird just hitting sorceries. Maybe
3U -- 1/3 -- Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, discover.
would be another option.
And for the 1U Masterwork instant, you probably meant to flicker it, not permanently exile it
And since it's exiled (even for a moment), it can't be your masterwork at that time, so the wording could be "if it WAS your Masterwork..."
---------
Some card ideas:
(alternative pacifism)
3W Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
When ~ etbs, you gain 2 psylian life.
Enchanted creature can't attack or block.
(basis: Pious Interdiction from XLN. Basically a copy except with psylian life instead of regular life.)
(Looter)
U Creature
When ~ etbs, scry 1.
1/1
(basis: Wall of Runes from WAR but different stats.)
Lich's Caress 2
3BB Sorcery
Destroy target creature. You gain 3 life.
(Seems to fit perfectly. Of course the name needs to be changed.)
(some red small creature)
R Creautre
Haste
As long as (elated) this turn, ~ gets +1/+0.
1/1
(Nice for aggro in early game, isn't that bad later. Isn't a great payoff though)
(act of treason)
3R Sorcery
Choose target creautre. If it is its controller's Masterwork, it gets +2/+0 and gains trample until end of turn. Gain control of it until end of turn. Untap it. It gains haste until end of turn.
(A lot of weird wording, but wanted to give the player a feeling of stealing an opponent's masterwork. Might be problematic.)
(fog)
2G Instant
Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn. Each player gains 3 life.
(basis: more expensive fogs with upside. This time everyone wins!)
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BTW you might want to account for artifacts in the common slot in your table.
A bit of feedback on your concepts:
Nature's artist -
We don't really keep slots for specific vanilla cards when we design a set skeleton. That's because we first need to fill the more important slots that allow the themes of the set to work, and they also work as a cycle (which means all five vanilla cards should feel different in terms of stats distribution, we can't have too many 2-mana vanillas or 3-toughness ones for instance).
???(1G) -
+1/-1 counters would be a mechanic all by itself, we cannot have that on just one card. As a general rule, commons try to keep a single type of counters in one given set, or at least make sure it's not possible to mix different types of counters on the same cards, so this would also prevent the use of +1/+1 counters.
Treescape -
We won't have Living Art, but we could have Art tribal. Repeatable ramp is not really something you want at common though in a set. More generally, repeatable card advantage in a no-no for common. Even "draw three cards" effects are frowned upon.
???(2G) -
Once again, both the use of a new type of counters and repeatable card advantage would be very problematic at common.
Spider Web -
The idea behind Masterpiece is that you try to make one creature really big, the flavour being that you spend a lot of time perfecting this one piece of art. So, it's a bit antithetical to have this shared effect. It could be a good concept for one higher rarity card though, that instead of getting a bonus just share all its Masterpiece bonuses with all your other creatures.
@LyndonF
Yeap, the damage spell is supposed to be black, good catch ^^ It has to be able to hit both players and creatures so you have to choose between removing a creature or triggering Elated by sending it to the opponent's face. Black has dipped its toe in dealing damage with tests made on Dominaria to replace life loss (that has now been rolled back) and draining an opponent for life is a staple black effect. So I wouldn't even call that card a bend nowadays. Here are a few recent examples:
Yes, I agree the W enchantment could be problematic. It seemed a bit weak at two mana though. Maybe it could be two-mana and have "Its abilities can't be activated"? It's in a bit of a weird spot but I really like how it played. Here are cards I was considering for balancing:
I was a bit worried that "Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, discover" was too good for common, it's card advantage so it's not to be underestimated. I also don't want players to be able to discover into surprise blockers at common to avoid making combat too complicated. I figured that only caring about sorceries could solve the issue by being not that powerful and preventing surprise blockers, while opening a possible draft theme. The idea is that it's weird to care specifically about sorceries but it would be fine if multiple cards reward you for doing so as a theme to play around. Maybe this just needs to move at uncommon though.
Ah yeah, I forgot the "bring it back" portion of the flicker effect, that could be useful XD The wording does say "if it WAS your Masterwork" but I used "if it IS a creature" afterwards because I figured it needed to look at its type when it comes back for animated noncreature permanents shenanigans.
On Alternative Pacifism:
It's a perfectly fine design, but I'd really like to make the other version work first, as it plays really fun.
On Looter:
That's the kind of simple design we'll add later if we require more card filtering in blue, and have an open slot at one mana, but we can't lock any slot in the design skeleton for it as long as we aren't done with making the more central pieces of the set (for instance, when trying to make the Masterwork archetype work, maybe we'd need a looter and it would have priority over just a virtual vanilla.) I dont think we should mix Scry and Discover too much though, I found it a bit confusing while playtesting. Ixalan did have one card with Scry despite Explore though (Opt) so we could make an exception if it was really needed.
On Lich's Caress:
It does seem to fit very well ^^ It's simple enough though that we don't need to lock a slot for it as we can add "You gain 3 life" to any staple. This will also depend on other removal cards. For instance, I believe the soft removal that deals 2 damage to target creature or player before giving you two psylian life creates more interesting gameplay because of the choice it offers between removal or triggering Elated. If we keep it, we likely can't have our hard removal also gaining you life.
On Small Red Creature:
Interesting but I would favour effects that are relevant in the post-combat phase at common, so players can use combat damage to trigger Elated and actually get value from it.
Act of Treason:
It's a fun twist but it's also creating a narrow hate card against Masterwork, which is something to avoid. In general you don't see hate cards in sets like "Creature your opponents control can't adapt" or "Whenever an opponent proliferates, they lose 3 life" etc. You want more subtle answers. Since gaining control temporarily of your opponent's Masterwork makes it that they won't have a Masterwork anymore when you give it back, I would argue that the regular Act of Treason effect is already a subtle answer to the Masterwork mechanic.
Fog:
It could be a nice card, I do think Group Hug would be a wonderful archetype for this set as it would help differentiate how white and green can trigger Elated (Instead of you gaining three life, you can have two players gain 2 life, the same way Black can drain for two life to trigger Elated.)
Yes, that table is an old one from way earlier in the conversation, we built everything in cycles so I removed artifacts and lands to simplify. We have 6 colorless slots left at common, so it could be 3 artifacts and 3 lands or more likely 4 artifacts and 2 lands.
(W)
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature's activated abilities can't be activated without it's controller paying 3 (Insert symbol for psylian life)
The idea behind the original version is that it's a pacifism that will wear off eventually but that you can recharge, it plays fun because it gives extra importance to your life total which can create unusual play patterns. The concept you're proposing is different in that it only prevents activated abilities but not attacks and blocks which makes it too narrow to be a common, and it punishes the opponent for not playing a psylian life deck. You usually want to avoid cards that have a high variance of power depending on your opponent's deck (something none of you really can't control) because it doesn't create interactive games and can be frustrating. That's why landwalking was removed from the game for instance.
Hoist
2R instant
destroy target artifact, deal 3 damage to target player
Perfectionist's Frenzy
2WR instant
Destroy target artifact, gain 3 psyllian life
Pearls To Swine
1RG sorcery
destroy target artifact
discover creature
Don't know if these are too complex for common. A pure artifact destruction card might be better for common. But I wanted to work in some of the themes.
Speaking of which, as vibrant as art is on this plane, vandalism is a crime tantamount to murder. That's a fun space to play in, when it comes to card names, art, and flavor text. I like the idea of a red-black artifact destruction that is borderline melodramatic about the grizzly nature of destroying art.
Also, @ningyunk I had a few questions.
You have some discover cards at instant speed. Since typically specific>general, the wording "You may cast that spell this turn," Could mean that it allows you to play sorceries or creatures at instant speed. Is this intended?
Also, with your elated cards, a +1/+1 counter is not always what I'm looking for. In fact, if I'm playing a deathtouch creature, I probably want it to trade with a beefier creature anyway, so I don't care much if it's elated mechanic triggers. Maybe gain two life (or psyllian life if that's not too complex) if elated.
Or, to keep the cycle tighter, a 0/2 or 0/3 with deathtouch that gains +1/+1 if elated. So its a wall if not elated, and a great trader if it is
Artifact destruction being an type of answer, it will mostly be tailoured around the artifact threats we have in the set ^^ So far, there is no reason to have more artifact destruction than usual since we don't have an artifact theme to keep in check (we have three slots at common attributed to artifacts, like in most sets). This means that spending a multicoloured slot on artifact destruction is very unlikely (multicoloured slots are very precious) unless it's an incidental bonus.
Absolutely, the fact that you can play any spell at instant speed with Discover is actually what started the idea of the whole mechanic (I was trying to find overlaps for Green/Blue and started to play around playing creatures at instant speed). For the sake of complexity, discovering at instant speed should probably be kept away from common though.
For the Elated deathtoucher, it shouldn't be unplayable without Elated, just slightly better with it. Making it 0-powered means I will never ever want to cast it without Elated, while it's often correct to play it even without the +1/+1 counter otherwise.
I'll keep coming back with some simpler ideas. Common is a difficult space for me to work in. I build janky-ass decks, and I like janky-ass cards.
First, I believe that there should be no cards that say "as long as [card name] is your masterwork, [effect]," (arts) and instead should always be "your masterwork gets [effect]" or "as long as you control your masterwork [effect]" (artists). My rational is that two different cards with the "as long as [card name] is your masterwork, [effect]" clause are in play, they are both strictly worse. I believe that players should not be punished for playing cards with the same mechanic, and should instead be rewarded for combining cards with synergy.
Secondly, Discover is a mechanic that would scare me, when I was a new player, away from playing it. To a new player, the top card of your library could always be your one 'awesome bomb,' and by playing Discover they will probably always feel like they might accidentally lose that one amazing, splashy card. I think it should be worded as follows:
"Look at the top card of your library. You may put that card onto the bottom of your library. If you don't, you may cast it until end of turn."
This eliminates any feel bad moments with the mechanic and allows for it to be consistently fun.
Hey!
First, just a small update because it did go silent for some time now ^^ I haven't dropped the project and I'm actually working on it quite hard recently, but I'm trying to reach the point where I have a full set skeleton for common that I think is semi-playable before I publish it. The idea is that I'll make a new conversation with the first draft of the common sheet, as it's usually easier to iterate on something than start from scratch. Also, I think it's easier to make a clean conversation that shows how to build a set if I know exactly where I'm going because I've done it in full. But to let you know, I have made 101 commons, tried different archetypes already, I've printed them and I'm currently playtesting with them.
Now, as for the answer:
For Masterwork, I found a solution I'm very happy with so far. I got inspired by Slivers, all the commons I have grant some combat-relevant ability to your Masterwork. This way it's less complicated and it synergises much better with Elated.
The only exception is this card, because it just plays really well, but as it's the only one, the problem you've mentioned doesn't apply:
For Discover, I think you've misread the reminder text, it's a may ability. It's a strictly better version than Surveil, it never forces you to dump the card in your graveyard. So you'll never feel bad, there are only three scenarios possible:
- Great: You discover a card you like and you can cast it. You basically drew a card.
- Good: You discover a card you don't want, you dump it in your graveyard. You improved your next draw.
- Neutral: You discover a card you want but you can't cast it yet, you leave it here. Nothing happened except that you know the next card you'll draw.
As a reminder:
Discover (Look at the top card of your library. You may cast it. If you don't, you may put it into your graveyard.)
From playtesting, I can tell you that Discover is really exciting, I've become super pumped about this mechanic, I've never been so happy to draw one-mana cards xD
I feel like we need to tone it down a bit and figure out what mechanics work together internally instead of picking out of a hat, like how Amass and Proliferate worked together in WAR, or how in RNA Spectacle and Afterlife synergised by having the Spirit tokens deal a small amount of unblockable damage.