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COLONISERS: Season 3!!! (Colonisers of Krystel)
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For Lucius Blackthorne and...
For Undead Horde. I don't know whether that bothers you but I might as well point it out for if it does.
Oh, you didn't have to go stab me in the heart like that. From the first ambient note, I knew what you have done.
In a good way.
"But wait!", I hear you say. "Recruits? How can I become one of these incredibly powerful beings?" I'm glad you asked. When The Great Conquerors arrive on-plane, they immediately begin to slaughter all in their way, reveling in their overwhelming power. If you are foolish enough to try and resist, they kill you! If you cower and hide, they kill you! However, if you catch their attention, say by not dying when they decide you should, or by posing a slight amount of resistance, they may consider you as a recruit. If whichever Conqueror that is currently deciding your fate likes you, they will restrain you and take you to their home base with them. If they don't, then you better be good enough to disable them, or you are going to die. If you are able to disable one of their ranks, you are immediately considered for recruitment and will be transported back with them whether you like it or not. Once you are brought back to the home base, you will undergo a series of extremely taxing physical, mental, and emotional tasks. If you pass all three of these to the standards of the leader, or one or two at a significant margin(*), and survive, you will have the privilege of joining The Great Conquerors in their quest for a more perfect multiverse. You will not refuse this great opportunity.
The Great Conquerors share the beliefs of their leader, which is to say, survival of the fittest. The few recruits that are allowed to join their ranks are deemed strong enough to be allowed to survive the multiverse purge. For that is the primary reason behind their constant raids. They wish to travel to every plane in the multiverse, allowing only the strongest living creature on each plane to survive, if said creature is deemed worthy to enter their ranks. If they eventually reach their goal, they will be the only living creatures in the entire multiverse. The primary reason that so few recruits are even considered is because, compared to these beings capable of single-handedly annihilating a plane, no one is worthy.
I am not going to edit my currently existing Conquerors with the keyword, but all future Great Conquerors will have it instead of the rules sentence.
Character-Specific lore, like how they joined The Great Conquerors will be added later, likely with cards relating to that character.
*This is not advised, as there has only been one who has ever been able to pass in this way, and he is very much an exception.
Firstly, the striders are not too good, but not too bad. I would say in the middle road, but their underwhelming abilities would prevent them from seeing any play. And in a draft setting, they would require a lot of setup without much payoff.
Secondly, the Tricksters. Overall, the cards are either too overly powerful or very underpowered. Alefdane is blatantly overpowered, with a 2 mana Murder for attacking creatures that can double as a good creature. Secondly, Fair Confidant is Necropotence with a 1 mana 2/1 Flying Body and a downside which would never come into play. Everything else is very underwhelming, with Amria being a notable example by being a really high mana investment that will likely never come in.
Thirdly, The Sages of Everen Sky. The cards are blatantly overcosted, with the notable example Oath of Dust being a 3 mana, multicolored, sorcery speed, creature only Teferi's Time Warp.
Fourth, The Church of the Broken Cog. I will say, the concept is neat but it's executed very poorly. Instead of using the Artifact theme in a fun way it uses it in a preventive way that taxes your opponent for doing anything. Most notably, Eorlith is a 5 mana 3/4 that murders two minions unless your opponent lets you gain a good advantage every time they attack. Not unbalanced per say, just awfully uninteractive.
Fifth, The White Council. Overall, just underwhelming. Siria the Kind could be replaced by any other bomb creature and be better. Alsat couldn't fit anywhere as a good card, Samaran is equally underwhelming, Sirian could be replaced by a vanilla 3/3 and that would be better. This same underwhelming aspect applies to every creature; Arm is too costly, Talas has bad abilities and Alsats Familiar has useless abilities for 90% of all situations.
Part 1/3 or 1/4.. or 1/5. It depends.
Shortly after returning from the first mission The Gateway sent him on, recruitless, for The Great Conquerors would not be conceived before his introduction to Teshi, The Leader had a thought. What if The Gateway were to break? He would not be able to fulfill his divine purpose. He may be stranded on a plane with no worthy beings. That would not do. Then, as if reading his thoughts, The Gateway powered up. Through the mystical swirl, The Leader could make out what appeared to be a scrapyard. As he strode through the portal into this new world, he saw that it was indeed, a scrapyard. He could detect no magical or non-magical life in his area, so he searched the plane for anything. He found nothing. The entire plane was just rows and piles of broken down machinery. It made its own mountains and valleys, with the occasional pool with old oil. Annoyed The Gateway had sent him to a plane for no purpose, he detected a slight shimmer of life. He approached it. There, crawling amongst the scrap, was a small centipede. Laughing, assuming The Gateway had sent him there to kill a centipede as a joke, he brought his foot down on the creature, but stopped right before crushing it. He picked up the centipede, held it close to his face, and examined it.
He spent the next 15 years on that plane, tinkering away, creating the perfect construct. All the while the centipede watched him, advised him, and corrected his mistakes. Finally, he completed the body. He stood back to observe his work. It had been an unimaginable number of years since he had been challenged by something, but this project had been difficult. Presently, the centipede crawled forward. It climbed up the leg of the inanimate skeleton, across the chest, and though the open mouth. Nothing happened for a moment. Then, The Leader felt an absurd amount of magical power radiating from the construct. Its eyes lit up, its body straightened, its mouth closed. It peered at him through its sparkling eyes, and he felt very much like he imagined a normal centipede would have, 15 years ago, if it had been a normal centipede. It opened its mouth.
"You have done well", he said, organically. "My name is Boris. A pleasure to be of service."
Then, The Gateway pulled the two of them back. It had found a repairman.
Trivia: Boris is the only Conqueror to be allowed in without passing a single test. Additionally, he is the only one that The Leader appears to be frightened of.
Seventh, the Vampire Tribe. It's a mixed bag, with 1/2 of the cards either having too high of a mana cost or too low of a payoff to see play, which the other half is OVERPOWERED AS HELL. Undead Horde is a 3 mana 6/6 with additional sac potential, while Blood Knight is already good enough as a 3 mana 2/3 with double strike, but then it had to also be a Multi-Use blightning! Also too good.
Eighth , Aishel's Tribe. It's not the most competitively playable thing in the world, but it could see play in standard. Aishel's second ability is the main reason you'd play her. Best one so far, with so little cards.
Ninth, Kaselle's tribe! Loads very slowly for me.. but it's the same as the above. Lady Aerona could see play, but the stiff mana cost for taking control of a creature holds it back quite a bit. Nothing else to talk about, but pretty decent tribe all in all.
Tenth, Lady Alta's tribe. Everything but Unmake is either very underpowered (Sacrifical Bowl) or decent (the rest of them). Unmake is WAY TOO GOOD. Keeping in mind that Grixis Death's Shadow is a very good deck, this could turn into a "3 mana 2 for 1 your opponent and set your life to whatever you want for Death's Shadow" and that's insane.
Part 2/? so far, some decent ones so far!
Note: The Twelth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth tribes have been unranked due to either being mine, having an invalid link or invalid cards
Thirteenth, House of Elta's other cards! It's a mess. Full of Knights, Clerics, -1/-1 counters, bounce creatures with restrictive mana costs, card draw... too much going on really. The lack of visible synergy minus knights makes it hard to rate, so I'll give it a pass aswell.
Sixteenth, Great Conquerers! Very interesting, but it is flawed in a few ways; for one, the nature of them makes it near impossible to make a tribe around them (Only have one in play) and the fact that gateway fills your hand with more cards that would be hard to get out of your hand makes it hard to work. If you steer it in the right direction with ways to cheap them out or with cards that synergise with being exiled or just put in some non-creature support, then it could be good but for now it would be hard to make any sort of synergy for it. And in response to Pandashoop, while it may be a little bit complex, I think they'd be great bomb cards for draft on their own and could justifiably work.
Also, if you need a base line for what's a good bomb card, look at Sun Titan, Linvala or Reaper from the Abyss. Or for neat cards that support their archetype, look at the new Arcades or any of the Gods for the average power levels of those.
That being said, its always enjoyable getting comments on cards I design. Thanks for your feedback.
and
(All songs I have posted on this contest so far are by Nitrosparxx)
House Elta is the only noble family legally allowed to practice blood magic in their kingdom. This is because they have long been regarded as a bastion of good, uncorruptible by promises of power. They practice bloodmagic only by sacrificing themselves, and only for the good of the people. Less known is the fact that ancient and evil gods long forgotten by most have a long standing interest in their bloodline, and it is the duty of the house to keep those powers in check.
I originally conceived of this family as a sort of "anti church of Orzhov. I wanted to combine the black and white colors of magic to make a faction with a strong theme of self sacrifice. I knew part of that would mean paying live, and part of that would be creatures sacrificing themselves (not other creatures.) So I designed Elta to do both. As the head of the family she is fully privy to the true nature of the ancient gods, who have always taken a sinister interest in her family. She barters with these powerful forces, usually paying with bits of herself and willing family members for the good of the people and the world. (I might go back and make her a cleric.)
Our Soldiers.
This is a small thing, but I wanted this house to have a longstanding tradition of female leadership. Most of the knights in this faction are woman. I choose this card to capture another aspect of self sacrifice, where the knight defends others at the cost of themselves. (I might go back and make this Vigilant)
Our Magic.
This card is meant to capture the more sinister side of House Elta, and how scary the blood magic they wield truly is. While still operating under the principle of self sacrifice, their is no doubt it used as a powerful tool, which can be used to utterly destroy opponents.
Our Sign.
It only seemed appropriate to me that the sign of House Elta both harms them, and empowers their ability to defend. All member of the house are called to sacrifice part of themselves for the greater good, and this sigil represents that.
Our charges
It was important to me to show what House Elta was sacrificing themselves for, the everyday happiness of it's citizens. If appropriate challenges come up I might do more with home counters since I like the concept.
Our priests.
Most of the world is unaware of the dark forces House Elta barters with. This card is meant to show the hidden costs of their faith and power. I specifically call out Clerics and Knights since they are the ones who would be called on to make sacrifices to the ancient gods. The tattoos they bare usually celebrate their kingdom, family and life in general, but the hidden meaning lies in the wounds they deliberately inflicted on themselves at the behest of a dark power.
Our Heir.
Dame Almer is is not as serious as her aunt. She tends to be more flippant, informal, and irreverent. Some question whether she truly is ready to take up the mantle should something happen to the head of house.
Also, being able to pay any amount of life would make Death's Shadow too good.
It can only be a counterspell/ murder for five life if your opponent as a creature on the table with cmc exactly five.
You can only pay any amount of life if your playing it as a counterspell, otherwise it has no target and it thus can't be cast.
Perhaps we could alter the second half to make it a hard counter and you have to pay the target spells cmc? that would make all the life costs fixed.
The following lucky ducks shall be invited to colonize Krystel:
@AxNoodle
@kandra127
@pjbear2005
@MonkeyPirate2002
@Lujikul
@RedTower
@Derain2
@EmolgAn
@MemoryHead
@Potato13
EXPECT YOUR MAP AND FIRST CHALLENGE SHORTLY!
P. S. Sorry to everyone who didn't make it in, but I had to cut some people, and I just liked these ten way too much.
@AxNoodle's Bant-colored elks (Conclave of Striders).
@kandra127's Dimir-colored faerie tricksters (Fae of Slipspect).
@pjbear2005's Esper-colored sages (Sages of Evren Skies).
@MonkeyPirate2002's Azorius fanatics (Church of the Broken Cog).
@Lujikul's Grixis-colored lantern-whisperers (Flamebearers of Dusk).
@Red_Tower's Abzan-colored carbon-wizards (Empire of Pravor).
@Derain2's Esper-colored blood-magicians (House Elta).
@EmolgAn's Azorius-colored life-clerics (Blessed Army of Cyni).
@Potato13's Simic-colored hivemind (Hivehome Collective).
And my Jeskai samurai, monks and ninjas (Houses of Nihoja).
This is only vague and it's as much of a reference for me whenever I think "Who the heck is running that faction?" than anything else.