If we do a Last Supper card, we'll have to make our own MTG twist on it so we'll keep some of the main themes (a dinner, 13 people, a betrayal) but it won't necessarily follow the original christian version (and obviously no actual Jesus/Judas involved).
Night at the Museum: I think the flavour is interesting, but defensive tokens have very low value and promote bad gameplay (board stalls) when in large numbers. So, I don't think this effect would fit.
Blue Leviathan: I think it's a bit all over the place (it's probably doing too many things and adding Renewal in the middle of all this doesn't help as Blue doesn't really synergise with it, it only really gets it when there are full cycles). The basic idea is there though, the archetype wants to produce cards and mana to cast them. But you need to ask yourself what would the card do for the archetype. It has abilities of an enabler, it helps the archetype to function, but it has the stats of a pay-off, an 8/9 is not going to cost less than 7 or 8 mana, so it's not going to have the opportunity to enable much.
Mythic Blue: I like the idea of replacing card draw with discover, it's an interesting advantage/disadvantage balance. The rest needs to be ironed out a bit, I don't know if the mana is necessary or doing anything really, while the life loss feels random. I'd start with finding the cleanest version of this design, and then see if it needs little details like adding mana or losing life. For the colour, I think it has a red feel to it, it reminds me a bit of a worst Experimental Frenzy.
Artist's Creativity: While the card is fine in a vaccum, we can't have more than one blue card dedicated to the Art tribal's card advantage at uncommon, and I think I'd rather have a "Whenever an Art enters the battlefield under your control, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card" because it has much more synergies with multiple types of recursion. This also leaves more room for an efficient draw spell that any blue deck could want.
Ok so, I think it's time I too contribute with more ideas.
Scornful Defender (2)(W)(W)
Creature - Angel Soldier Flying, Vigilance Whenever Scornful Defender blocks, you may pay 2(W). If you do, exile target attacking creature as long as Scornful Defender is on the battlefield. [2/5]
Purpose: I wanted to try making a white card that would fit either in the "good removal" or the "massive threat" type, mostly by making it a very scary opponent against tokens and aggro decks, but still killable by burn and control, as a countermeasure.
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Torturer of Malebranche (3)(B)(B)
Creature - Demon Flying Whenever Torturer of Malebranche blocks, you may pay (X)(B) where X is the number of attacking creatures. If you do, attacking creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn. [3/3]
Purpose: Still, I tried to make a """massive threat""" creature (I'm NOT giving up on the whole demon idea) that is based around the idea of some kind of oppressor, literally putting Dead Weight on each attacker, while still being a viable attacker itself. It might be overpower, but black cards aren't my cup of tea, really.
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Draconic Glassblower (1)(U)(U)
Creature - Human Artificer (or Artist) When Draconic Glassblower enters the battlefield, create two 1/1 colorless Construct artifact creature tokens with "When this creature dies, it deals 1 damage to any target". [1/1]
Purpose: Trying to find a good use for the glassblower image sent by @ningyounk as a card pointing towards a typical UR.
Scornful Defender: That's a little too strong ^^ Usually, at uncommon, you'd be able to exile one creature like this but not more.
Torturer of Malebranche: Yeap that's definitely too strong for uncommon as well ^^ The repeatability is the real issue here, that's more of a rare thing.
Draconic Glassblower: I have a few issues with this card:
• It's a red card if we only look at its abilities, blue cannot get direct damage like this. • The devil trigger doesn't particularly sell the flavour of glass, I think. I really liked the original idea of a really fragile creature for instance. Something that would shatter if you targeted it is a good example of direction it could go.
Princess Ball, Demonic Bargain, Intellectual's Gathering, Sculpture Judging, Artistic Competition: Whenever you cast your first spell each turn is very easy to trigger, it basically equals "at the beginning of your upkeep" at minimum. At uncommon, this doesn't fit with all the extremely strong removal abilities that these cards have.
Don't worry, you're absolutely not required to know that x) I'm just channelling the designs a bit because I'm starting to map out how the effects are going to be distributed between archetypes. So, if you want to tackle an Art-centric card advantage design, it would have to compete with something along those lines for the slot:
@ningyounk I actually really like art enthusiast! I could think of some stuff relating to that, but Art Enthusiast is simple and elegant, yet useful at the same time!
@ningyounk I showed some of my friends my two cards (scornful defender and torturer of Malebranche), and they said that they do are strong, but they are fit for uncommon. I am not saying that their judgement is more valuable than yours, but I don't think that they are that much op. In detail...
Scornful Defender: On paper, the card is strong, but how many times will a white deck have 3 mana to spare just to activate a 1-time-per-combat defensive ability? Also, it's a temporary exile, so if it dies or is bounced back, all the exiled creatures come back. This very clause is why I think this is a big threat fit for uncommon.
Torturer of Malebranche: Ok, we could say that the repeated effect on multiple creatures isn't balanced, but what if we nerf it to -1/-1 on all attackers? Also, mind you that this card is strong per se, but I mostly planned it as a way for black to counter swarm strategies, with the clause that if you want to give the attackers a debuff, you have to pay 1 mana per attacker, +1. So if 3 creatures attack, you gotta pay 4. If 10 creatures attack, you can't choose to pay 5 (hence targeting 4 creatures): you HAVE to pay 11 mana to target all 10 attackers, and the debuff lasts for only one turn. YEs, it can kill squishy creatures, but this is what, in my opinion, makes it an early strong uncommon black threat, that gets weaker if there are way too many enemies.
Draconic Glassblower: I didn't really want it to be a red card, even though it would make sense. "Glass" creatures like you design them are very similar concept-wise to Illusions (which usually are sacrificed whenever they are targeted by an ability). The concept behind the "devil effect" is that the glass creatures are made from draconic fire. Hence if they are broken (die), they burn. Anyway, it was just a shot at using your art, nothing too serious.
The strength of removal across rarities is a subtle thing, maybe I'm misrating those cards, but I'm trying to compare them to existing cards when deciding what rarity they are — I'm sorry but mentioning that your friends found them ok at uncommon won't weight much. In this case, they are either 1) repeated unconditional removal in white or 2) repeated mass removal in black. To make sure, I have checked the data base for existing cards and couldn't find a single card that allowed you to remove a creature unconditionally every turn like Scornful Defender (in any colour), or allowed a small board wipe every turn like torturer of Malebranche (in any colour). Maybe I missed one, but the point is it's not something we should push for because it promotes unfun gameplay (you don't want to allow players to lock the opponent out of the game at uncommon or your Limited environment is going to be consistent board stalls all the time). So I'm still pretty confident they're too oppressive for uncommon.
Glassblower: I do like the illusion trigger flavour wise, though as you said it is pretty tied to illusions so it'd be nice if we can find a twist on it.
Re: Startling Concoction; I think that switching the effects is a good idea; when it was still hitting any target the haste seemed like a less relevant effect for the core of the card. Hitting the player is a nice bonus now but isn't the be all and end all of it.
Re: Effigy of Virtue/ Imperfect Effigy, I think knocking the stats down to a 4/3 is good - if it's still too strong with 'half flying' and 'half life gain' the mana cost could just be upped to 6 to keep it colourless - but making it white is also a fine option for it. Making it 'flying, can't block flying' is clearer than my version, although I think having the lifegain be a set 2 rather than half its power may be a good limiter for it if it remains colourless - although making it serran may be a bit too strong (since it's now a ramping tool too).
I made a few tweaks to some of my previous and older designs, and a couple of new designs.
Enthusiastic Glassblower 4W Creature - Elf Artist When Enthusiastic Glassblower enters the battlefield, create a colorless 2/2 Art creature token. Art creature tokens you control have double strike and "whenever this creature is dealt damage, sacrifice it". 1/1 OR Enthusiastic Glassblower 3U Creature - Elf Artificier When Enthusiastic Glassblower enters the battlefield, create a colorless 1/1 Art creature token. Art creature tokens you control can't be blocked and have "whenever this creature is dealt damage or becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it". 2/2 ---- Purpose: Two 'splicer' variants for the Glassblower - white isn't a main colour for the art theme while blue is, hence the two versions. The blue variant also feeds more into the 'illusion' version of the effect. Alternatively, both versions could make an Art Golem token instead and make the effect apply to Golems to fully feed into it being a splicer, and to keep their power contained in limited. ---- Smiling Cherub 1W Creature - Angel Flying At each end step, if you lost life this turn, gain 1 life. 2/1 ---- Purpose: Another version of this card to feed into the RBW wedge; the 'tap' damage has been removed for a point in power to make it a cleaner flying beater instead alongside its 'refuelling' aspect. The effect could say 'Whenever you pay life, gain 1 life' instead to really fit into the wedge and potentially get more value but I think the wording as is may be more versatile for defensive play too. ---- Anatomical Splay 1BB Sorcery Each player sacrifices a creature. Each player who sacrificed a creature this way draws two cards. Renewal - If the total sum of life gained and lost this turn is 3 or more, each opponent discards a card. ---- Purpose: Non-repeating version of my previous design for the Vitruvian Man with an 'abyss' card effect instead which also restocks - the renewal makes the draw more powerful for the caster but it isn't necessary for the spell to be valuable. This is essentially half of the Rare C14 card 'Infernal Offering' so I appreciate this still might be too potent for Uncommon. ---- Condemned Prophet 1G Creature - Art Human Cleric When Condemned Prophet enters the battlefield, you gain 3 serran life. 1G, Sacrifice Condemned Prophet: Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn. 0/4 ---- Purpose: A Last Supper design on the 'Jesus knows he's been betrayed' angle - this design doesn't necessarily lead into the aesthetics of the Last Supper, but I think it could be a good green fog for the serran life gain archetype regardless of the flavour. ---- Final Banquet V2 3WW Sorcery You gain 3 serran life and create a number of 1/1 white Art Cleric creature tokens equal to the amount of serran life you have. Target opponent creates a 1/1 black Art Cleric creature token with deathtouch. ---- Purpose: A Last Supper design with more of a 'people at a meal, with a betrayer' aesthetic, this is a token maker for white to catch up with based on Evangel of Heliod. ---- Sinking City Land Sinking City enters the battlefield tapped. {1}, Sacrifice Sinking City: Add one mana of any colour. Search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library. ---- Purpose: Another utility land design, this time based on Venice, which acts as a 'delayed evolving wilds' which has a little more power since it necessarily waits until the next turn card draw. ---- Damnable Satirist Creature - Demon Artist Masterwork Whenever your masterwork dies, you create a tapped colorless 2/2 Art creature token and target opponent discards a card. 2/2 ---- Purpose: A defensive masterwork card for either a GB pumping archetype or a BU art archetype - the artist becomes a big target over the masterwork, even if the masterwork itself is very strong. ---- Glorious Crescendo 4GG Creature - Art Spirit Warrior When Glorious Crescendo enters the battlefield, target creature gets +X/+X where X is the number of Arts you control. That creature must be blocked this turn if able. 2/2 ---- Purpose: A pushed UBG card that monopolises on Arts for a massive pump that can be used to devastate an opponent's board or crack in for a huge hit.
Re: Effigy of Virtue/ Imperfect Effigy: I think I prefer the original idea of having it colourless, and people seem to find your first idea cleaner so I'm ok with the original abilities (we just need to adjust the stats) — I would like the name to be more explanatory of the concept though ^^
Enthusiastic Glassblower: I really like the tension between the double strike and "whenever it's dealt damage, it breaks" on the first one, conversely I'm less a fan of the "can't be blocked + whenever it's dealt damage" combo. I'm slighly wary about putting a negative ability on all your Art tokens including from other sources though.
Somehow, this reminded me the original art mechanic before Masterwork! It was called Virtuoso and was scratched because Blue needed it the most and it wasn't blue-friendly, but I had arrived at a point where I really enjoyed playing with it. I actually think it might work for the glassblower flavour:
In this case, the flavour would be that only the ones that are well-made (they damaged the opponent) get to stay at the end of turn while the others shatter.
Smiling Cherub: Seems to be functional enough, I like the clear agressive take ^^ I'm going to need to put all the life gain cards in one grid and distribute the effects to make sure there's not too much or too little, so I can't say yet how ell it fits unfortunately.
Anatomical Splay: I have hard time evaluating this one, making the opponent draw two cards makes me wince x) I'm really into the flavour though (there's a good illustration at common that could be repurposed for this card, see Sorrowful Lessons), but unless there's a special combo with this effect I think I'd favour something easier to use.
Condemned Prophet: Definitely in the spirit of what the GW archetype is trying to do and I like the gameplay story where it clearly points that it's meant to protect your serran life.
Final Banquet: Ooh that's an instant crush for me, I absolutely love this design. Maybe I'd try to make it a creature to play into the set's living Art theme but I don't think I'd change a thing otherwise. (I had to photoshop something for the frame, but I don't think it looks too bad and it can be improved):
Sinking City: Oh, a Venezia land sounds like a good idea, it's quite emblematic. This one is pretty weak though, I think it's significantly worst than Evolving Wilds.
On a similar note, I'm was not keen on doing a bicoloured rare cycle of lands — the only reason they are rare is monetary but there is nothing rare about a Shockland/Scryland etc.— but I wonder if there is enough iconic Italian locations like Venezia that we could make a cycle of monocoloured utility rare lands based on interesting flavours? I'm thinking Venezia (flavour win in blue), la torre di Pisa, the vatican (flavour win in white)... I'm missing two, any idea? Some famous catacombs I'm forgetting for Black?
Damnable Satirist: Because of the gameplay of Masterwork that's really encouraging you to play as many creatures with masterwork together, I'd like to stay away from designs that interact with your masterwork in a negative way (sacrifice, etc.) to reinforce the mechanical flavour, even if they work by themselves. So, I'm lukewarm about death triggers for masterwork because every other card tries to make sure it doesn't die.
Glorious Crescendo: That's a cool way of doing Green removal that's exclusively targeted at the Art deck. If we need an additional removal specifically in this archetype and the general green removal is not an Art already (I had a large Art that fights when it enters the battlefield in this slot so far), we can certainly do that ^^
I've made some finishers to try to refine the gameplay style of each archetype. In this cycle I've designed two finishers per colours that are destined to fit two archetypes at once (for instance, the first white card is made for GW+WG, the life-centric archetypes, and the second one is made for the WU and RW archetypes, the storm-centric ones). The idea was to propose a different type of finisher for each of them, the goal was to make them feel different not only in what they cared about but also in how they rewarded you.
Not all of them are meant to end up in the set at the same time but I thought it would be a good exercise while I'm researching the right number of finishers from previous sets. (I've used some of the previously proposed cards for some of the slots, mostly because I'm lazy xD)
WHITE — • GW + WB: Slow stream of tokens • WU + RW: +1/+1 counter on all you creatures
BLUE — • WU + UR: Big tokens • UB + GU: Unblockable
BLACK — • UB + BG: Big life loss • WB + BR: Slow life drain
RED — • BR + RW: Power boost your team • UR + RG: Big blast to the face
Obviously a lot of them are a little rough around the edges, but the main idea here is how do each archetype wins, how is it different from what the other archetypes are doing, and how is it synergising with them?
Sinking City: Now, this looks like a job for me! I'll try to give it a shot by creating lands that don't look like shocklands/scrylands per se, but these are experimental versions, mind you.
Blue: absolutely Venice, no questions asked. In that period, Venice had one of the mightiest fleets in the whole Mediterranean Sea, while also being a great centre of culture.
White: Vatican City. It is a bit obvious, no doubt, but the Vatican is both an artistic gem and (at the time) a place of religious Power.
Black: There aren't many swamps or "black-themed" sites in Italy, but it might be interesting to create a land that resembles the buried city of Pompei.
For Red, I was thinking Florence (and yes, I am aware that there is a plane based on florence). It's mostly because Florence was the very peak of discovery, science and art. The Reinassance itself DID start in Florence (hence why it can easily be tied to Discovery, which is a red ability). If you'd like something more fire-themed, you could also take into consideration the city of Catania, built on the sides of the Mt. Etna, an active volcano.
For Green, it can be a bit hard to find something fitting with civilization, per se. Italy is a country with a lot of hills, mountains and a few plains, but the wildest areas are the woods in the Appennines. Some italian regions (like Assisi) are engulfed in this biome, which leaves them almost secluded.
Nope, everything is fine, no worries ^^ It's just that I'm about to submit my thesis manuscript so I work 7d/7 (I probably mentioned it half a dozen times already but I'm a doctoral student in neurosciences). Thankfully I'll be done at the end of the month so I should be more active again starting next week. I still read stuff on the site every evening though! x)
Sorry I forgot to answer you last time >.< Angelic Passion: That seems balanced enough, I like the idea of having a massive bonus as a reward for the GW archetype.
Here's a little update on my situation so far, and where the set is heading.
I have written and submitted my PhD dissertation about two weeks ago \o/ It's not over yet, I still need to defend it in September, but at least I should get most of my weekends for myself from now on ^^
Last week, I started to look into what would be the next step for the design of Rezatta, but I quickly ran into an issue. What I did was that I chose several sets that I liked and didn't have a set skeleton that was too weird (e.g. Ravnica has a vastly different structure from other sets, half the archetypes on Theros are slightly different flavours of enchantment-matters, many cards in core sets are here to support archetypes from previous or upcoming sets). I went for Eldraine, Amonkhet, Dominaria, and Ikoria. My goal was to determine how many cards needed to be dedicated to each archetype in Rezatta, so I classified all uncommons from those sets into four categories based on how directional or open they are:
1) They are glue. They are not hinting at specific archetypes, any deck of that colour would want this on a mostly equal ground. Most removal fall into that category. E.g. Eliminate.
2) They are cards that enable an archetype subtly, their presence in the set wouldn't necessarily mean that the archetype is there. Cards that are a certain tribal type but don't care about it specifically fall into this category, for instance. E.g. Majestic Auricorn has vigilance and can give Vigilance to a creature by mutating on it so it synergises with the GW vigilance-matters archetype in Ikoria.
3) They are cards that don't care about an archetype by name but would not be there or in this form if the archetype wasn't in the set. E.g. Skull Prophet has no reason to be in a set if there is no graveyard archetype in BG.
4) They are pay-off cards that care about an archetype by name, in a very directional way. E.g. Zenith Flare can hardly scream "PLAY CYCLING CARDS!" at you any harder.
My plan was to count the number of very directional archetypes, very open archetypes, and see if I could find a pattern emerging when comparing the sets. Unfortunately, it hasn't been that easy, I did found some patterns but I'm still struggling to understand why there are outliers such as the the Cycling decks of both Ikoria (in RW) and Amonkhet (in UB) that have so many directional cards, while in most sets the UG Tempo archetype gets at most a single directional card if any at all.
I believe the solution lies in the global as-fan of the themes. Basically, I think I need to stop focusing on the uncommons, and look at the bigger picture. I've started to select very identifyable archetypes and measure their as-fan across all rarities to see if there are more recognisable patterns. I'm making progress but this is a large and grindy task so it's taking me a while.
That's why in the meantime I've opened a small contest, I wanted to do an experiment and change my mind a bit ^^ So the thread will take a bit more time to kick back because I need to:
1) Judge the little contest I created (Custom-Start).
2) Identify the correct as-fan for each archetype.
3) Come back with a more refined set skeleton.
I think we have a decent amount of designs to start with the uncommons, we really need a plan now to fit them in and see what we're missing, but it takes a bit of time because I want to do that right and not end up with a set that feels weird because we just guessed the repartition of cards on pure intuition ^^
I'm defending my thesis in exactly one week so I'm basically gone from the surface of this world until then xD But I found out that the main site for calculating as-fan is also giving the as-fan for mechanics of existing sets which should speed up the process of creating an uncommon design skeleton afterwards so I'm itching to get back into it
Totally, this effect is on the list of Masterwork effect that we must try at uncommon! We do have the question remaining of if it should be in blue, green, or blue/green; we must design all masterwork cards in green and blue before we decide ^^
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On a general note, I have defended my thesis last week (I am now officially a doctor by the way \o/) so I started to work again on the uncommon skeleton! I figured the easiest way to move forward was to bring a first draft of a finished skeleton, as one of the most difficult part is to choose what to put it and what to leave on the side, this way we can start implementing on existing cards instead of working on a blank canvas. Here's the basic idea so far:
1) Not all archetypes are treated equally, but to remain simple it seems like usually a good third of the uncommon care directly about a given draft archetype in a directional way. I'm going to start with a basic four directional cards in each colour, one for each bicoloured archetype.
2) Two slots are reserved for removal in each colour. Then, some colours may get more (and green might be brought down to just one).
3) There are a few horizontal cycles I would like to implement. Those can overlap with either the glue slots, removal slots, or directional slots. Among them, I have:
Cycle of exciting legendaries.
Cycle of cards with Renewal that trigger each turn with a different effect. (White and Black being specifically focused on Renewal, they might get either a stronger version than the other colours, or an additional card with it.)
Cycle of cards with Masterwork. (Blue and Green being specifically focused on Masterwork, they might get either a stronger version than the other colours, or an additional card with it.)
Cycle of cards that do something crazy with life totals.
Cycle of cards that introduce a side-theme for draft and/or constructed.
Cycle of cards in the enemy colour of the three-colours common archetypes that entices you to splash that colour in a subtle way.
4) The rest of the cards should be given to glue cards that help as many archetypes as possible. We can then swap cards based on how each archetype feel like it needs help or not.
MTG Cardsmith Community Forums
Comments
Scornful Defender (2)(W)(W)
Creature - Angel Soldier
Flying, Vigilance
Whenever Scornful Defender blocks, you may pay 2(W). If you do, exile target attacking creature as long as Scornful Defender is on the battlefield.
[2/5]
Purpose: I wanted to try making a white card that would fit either in the "good removal" or the "massive threat" type, mostly by making it a very scary opponent against tokens and aggro decks, but still killable by burn and control, as a countermeasure.
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Torturer of Malebranche (3)(B)(B)
Creature - Demon
Flying
Whenever Torturer of Malebranche blocks, you may pay (X)(B) where X is the number of attacking creatures. If you do, attacking creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn.
[3/3]
Purpose: Still, I tried to make a """massive threat""" creature (I'm NOT giving up on the whole demon idea) that is based around the idea of some kind of oppressor, literally putting Dead Weight on each attacker, while still being a viable attacker itself. It might be overpower, but black cards aren't my cup of tea, really.
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Draconic Glassblower (1)(U)(U)
Creature - Human Artificer (or Artist)
When Draconic Glassblower enters the battlefield, create two 1/1 colorless Construct artifact creature tokens with "When this creature dies, it deals 1 damage to any target".
[1/1]
Purpose: Trying to find a good use for the glassblower image sent by @ningyounk as a card pointing towards a typical UR.
Enchantment
Whenever you cast your first spell each turn, exile target creature with cmc 4 or more.
Demonic Bargains 3b
Enchantment
Whenever you cast your first spell each turn, target creature gets -4/-4 until end of turn.
Intellectual's Gathering 3u
Enchantment
Whenever you cast your first spell each turn, put target creature on the top of it's owner's library.
Sculpture Judging 3g
Enchantment
Whenever you cast your first spell each turn, destroy target artifact, enchantment, or creature with flying.
Artistic Competition 3r
Enchantment
Whenever you cast your first spell each turn, destroy target land.
Is it odd for the red not to be removal?
Scornful Defender: That's a little too strong ^^ Usually, at uncommon, you'd be able to exile one creature like this but not more.
Torturer of Malebranche: Yeap that's definitely too strong for uncommon as well ^^ The repeatability is the real issue here, that's more of a rare thing.
Draconic Glassblower: I have a few issues with this card:
• It's a red card if we only look at its abilities, blue cannot get direct damage like this.
• The devil trigger doesn't particularly sell the flavour of glass, I think. I really liked the original idea of a really fragile creature for instance. Something that would shatter if you targeted it is a good example of direction it could go.
@LordTachanka123
Princess Ball, Demonic Bargain, Intellectual's Gathering, Sculpture Judging, Artistic Competition: Whenever you cast your first spell each turn is very easy to trigger, it basically equals "at the beginning of your upkeep" at minimum. At uncommon, this doesn't fit with all the extremely strong removal abilities that these cards have.
shadow123
Don't worry, you're absolutely not required to know that x) I'm just channelling the designs a bit because I'm starting to map out how the effects are going to be distributed between archetypes. So, if you want to tackle an Art-centric card advantage design, it would have to compete with something along those lines for the slot:
Sorcery
You may sacrifice an art rather than pay this card's mana cost.
Return target creature to the battlefield from the graveyard except it's an art in addition to it's other types and has menace.
Scornful Defender: On paper, the card is strong, but how many times will a white deck have 3 mana to spare just to activate a 1-time-per-combat defensive ability? Also, it's a temporary exile, so if it dies or is bounced back, all the exiled creatures come back. This very clause is why I think this is a big threat fit for uncommon.
Torturer of Malebranche: Ok, we could say that the repeated effect on multiple creatures isn't balanced, but what if we nerf it to -1/-1 on all attackers? Also, mind you that this card is strong per se, but I mostly planned it as a way for black to counter swarm strategies, with the clause that if you want to give the attackers a debuff, you have to pay 1 mana per attacker, +1. So if 3 creatures attack, you gotta pay 4. If 10 creatures attack, you can't choose to pay 5 (hence targeting 4 creatures): you HAVE to pay 11 mana to target all 10 attackers, and the debuff lasts for only one turn. YEs, it can kill squishy creatures, but this is what, in my opinion, makes it an early strong uncommon black threat, that gets weaker if there are way too many enemies.
Draconic Glassblower: I didn't really want it to be a red card, even though it would make sense. "Glass" creatures like you design them are very similar concept-wise to Illusions (which usually are sacrificed whenever they are targeted by an ability). The concept behind the "devil effect" is that the glass creatures are made from draconic fire. Hence if they are broken (die), they burn. Anyway, it was just a shot at using your art, nothing too serious.
(Purpose: works basically like Mad Ratter, but with a pinch of repeatability.)
The strength of removal across rarities is a subtle thing, maybe I'm misrating those cards, but I'm trying to compare them to existing cards when deciding what rarity they are — I'm sorry but mentioning that your friends found them ok at uncommon won't weight much. In this case, they are either 1) repeated unconditional removal in white or 2) repeated mass removal in black. To make sure, I have checked the data base for existing cards and couldn't find a single card that allowed you to remove a creature unconditionally every turn like Scornful Defender (in any colour), or allowed a small board wipe every turn like torturer of Malebranche (in any colour). Maybe I missed one, but the point is it's not something we should push for because it promotes unfun gameplay (you don't want to allow players to lock the opponent out of the game at uncommon or your Limited environment is going to be consistent board stalls all the time). So I'm still pretty confident they're too oppressive for uncommon.
Glassblower: I do like the illusion trigger flavour wise, though as you said it is pretty tied to illusions so it'd be nice if we can find a twist on it.
Re: Effigy of Virtue/ Imperfect Effigy, I think knocking the stats down to a 4/3 is good - if it's still too strong with 'half flying' and 'half life gain' the mana cost could just be upped to 6 to keep it colourless - but making it white is also a fine option for it. Making it 'flying, can't block flying' is clearer than my version, although I think having the lifegain be a set 2 rather than half its power may be a good limiter for it if it remains colourless - although making it serran may be a bit too strong (since it's now a ramping tool too).
I made a few tweaks to some of my previous and older designs, and a couple of new designs.
Enthusiastic Glassblower
4W
Creature - Elf Artist
When Enthusiastic Glassblower enters the battlefield, create a colorless 2/2 Art creature token.
Art creature tokens you control have double strike and "whenever this creature is dealt damage, sacrifice it".
1/1
OR
Enthusiastic Glassblower
3U
Creature - Elf Artificier
When Enthusiastic Glassblower enters the battlefield, create a colorless 1/1 Art creature token.
Art creature tokens you control can't be blocked and have "whenever this creature is dealt damage or becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it".
2/2
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Purpose: Two 'splicer' variants for the Glassblower - white isn't a main colour for the art theme while blue is, hence the two versions. The blue variant also feeds more into the 'illusion' version of the effect. Alternatively, both versions could make an Art Golem token instead and make the effect apply to Golems to fully feed into it being a splicer, and to keep their power contained in limited.
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Smiling Cherub
1W
Creature - Angel
Flying
At each end step, if you lost life this turn, gain 1 life.
2/1
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Purpose: Another version of this card to feed into the RBW wedge; the 'tap' damage has been removed for a point in power to make it a cleaner flying beater instead alongside its 'refuelling' aspect. The effect could say 'Whenever you pay life, gain 1 life' instead to really fit into the wedge and potentially get more value but I think the wording as is may be more versatile for defensive play too.
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Anatomical Splay
1BB
Sorcery
Each player sacrifices a creature. Each player who sacrificed a creature this way draws two cards.
Renewal - If the total sum of life gained and lost this turn is 3 or more, each opponent discards a card.
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Purpose: Non-repeating version of my previous design for the Vitruvian Man with an 'abyss' card effect instead which also restocks - the renewal makes the draw more powerful for the caster but it isn't necessary for the spell to be valuable. This is essentially half of the Rare C14 card 'Infernal Offering' so I appreciate this still might be too potent for Uncommon.
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Condemned Prophet
1G
Creature - Art Human Cleric
When Condemned Prophet enters the battlefield, you gain 3 serran life.
1G, Sacrifice Condemned Prophet: Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.
0/4
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Purpose: A Last Supper design on the 'Jesus knows he's been betrayed' angle - this design doesn't necessarily lead into the aesthetics of the Last Supper, but I think it could be a good green fog for the serran life gain archetype regardless of the flavour.
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Final Banquet
V2
3WW
Sorcery
You gain 3 serran life and create a number of 1/1 white Art Cleric creature tokens equal to the amount of serran life you have. Target opponent creates a 1/1 black Art Cleric creature token with deathtouch.
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Purpose: A Last Supper design with more of a 'people at a meal, with a betrayer' aesthetic, this is a token maker for white to catch up with based on Evangel of Heliod.
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Sinking City
Land
Sinking City enters the battlefield tapped.
{1}, Sacrifice Sinking City: Add one mana of any colour. Search your library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.
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Purpose: Another utility land design, this time based on Venice, which acts as a 'delayed evolving wilds' which has a little more power since it necessarily waits until the next turn card draw.
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Damnable Satirist
Creature - Demon Artist
Masterwork
Whenever your masterwork dies, you create a tapped colorless 2/2 Art creature token and target opponent discards a card.
2/2
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Purpose: A defensive masterwork card for either a GB pumping archetype or a BU art archetype - the artist becomes a big target over the masterwork, even if the masterwork itself is very strong.
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Glorious Crescendo
4GG
Creature - Art Spirit Warrior
When Glorious Crescendo enters the battlefield, target creature gets +X/+X where X is the number of Arts you control. That creature must be blocked this turn if able.
2/2
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Purpose: A pushed UBG card that monopolises on Arts for a massive pump that can be used to devastate an opponent's board or crack in for a huge hit.
Re: Effigy of Virtue/ Imperfect Effigy: I think I prefer the original idea of having it colourless, and people seem to find your first idea cleaner so I'm ok with the original abilities (we just need to adjust the stats) — I would like the name to be more explanatory of the concept though ^^
Enthusiastic Glassblower: I really like the tension between the double strike and "whenever it's dealt damage, it breaks" on the first one, conversely I'm less a fan of the "can't be blocked + whenever it's dealt damage" combo. I'm slighly wary about putting a negative ability on all your Art tokens including from other sources though.
Somehow, this reminded me the original art mechanic before Masterwork! It was called Virtuoso and was scratched because Blue needed it the most and it wasn't blue-friendly, but I had arrived at a point where I really enjoyed playing with it. I actually think it might work for the glassblower flavour:
In this case, the flavour would be that only the ones that are well-made (they damaged the opponent) get to stay at the end of turn while the others shatter.
Smiling Cherub: Seems to be functional enough, I like the clear agressive take ^^ I'm going to need to put all the life gain cards in one grid and distribute the effects to make sure there's not too much or too little, so I can't say yet how ell it fits unfortunately.
Anatomical Splay: I have hard time evaluating this one, making the opponent draw two cards makes me wince x) I'm really into the flavour though (there's a good illustration at common that could be repurposed for this card, see Sorrowful Lessons), but unless there's a special combo with this effect I think I'd favour something easier to use.
Condemned Prophet: Definitely in the spirit of what the GW archetype is trying to do and I like the gameplay story where it clearly points that it's meant to protect your serran life.
Final Banquet: Ooh that's an instant crush for me, I absolutely love this design. Maybe I'd try to make it a creature to play into the set's living Art theme but I don't think I'd change a thing otherwise. (I had to photoshop something for the frame, but I don't think it looks too bad and it can be improved):
Sinking City: Oh, a Venezia land sounds like a good idea, it's quite emblematic. This one is pretty weak though, I think it's significantly worst than Evolving Wilds.
On a similar note, I'm was not keen on doing a bicoloured rare cycle of lands — the only reason they are rare is monetary but there is nothing rare about a Shockland/Scryland etc.— but I wonder if there is enough iconic Italian locations like Venezia that we could make a cycle of monocoloured utility rare lands based on interesting flavours? I'm thinking Venezia (flavour win in blue), la torre di Pisa, the vatican (flavour win in white)... I'm missing two, any idea? Some famous catacombs I'm forgetting for Black?
Damnable Satirist: Because of the gameplay of Masterwork that's really encouraging you to play as many creatures with masterwork together, I'd like to stay away from designs that interact with your masterwork in a negative way (sacrifice, etc.) to reinforce the mechanical flavour, even if they work by themselves. So, I'm lukewarm about death triggers for masterwork because every other card tries to make sure it doesn't die.
Glorious Crescendo: That's a cool way of doing Green removal that's exclusively targeted at the Art deck. If we need an additional removal specifically in this archetype and the general green removal is not an Art already (I had a large Art that fights when it enters the battlefield in this slot so far), we can certainly do that ^^
Not all of them are meant to end up in the set at the same time but I thought it would be a good exercise while I'm researching the right number of finishers from previous sets. (I've used some of the previously proposed cards for some of the slots, mostly because I'm lazy xD)
WHITE —
• GW + WB: Slow stream of tokens
• WU + RW: +1/+1 counter on all you creatures
BLUE —
• WU + UR: Big tokens
• UB + GU: Unblockable
BLACK —
• UB + BG: Big life loss
• WB + BR: Slow life drain
RED —
• BR + RW: Power boost your team
• UR + RG: Big blast to the face
GREEN —
• RG + GU: Massive threat
• BG + GW: Growing threat
Obviously a lot of them are a little rough around the edges, but the main idea here is how do each archetype wins, how is it different from what the other archetypes are doing, and how is it synergising with them?
Sinking City: Now, this looks like a job for me! I'll try to give it a shot by creating lands that don't look like shocklands/scrylands per se, but these are experimental versions, mind you.
Blue: absolutely Venice, no questions asked. In that period, Venice had one of the mightiest fleets in the whole Mediterranean Sea, while also being a great centre of culture.
White: Vatican City. It is a bit obvious, no doubt, but the Vatican is both an artistic gem and (at the time) a place of religious Power.
Black: There aren't many swamps or "black-themed" sites in Italy, but it might be interesting to create a land that resembles the buried city of Pompei.
For Red, I was thinking Florence (and yes, I am aware that there is a plane based on florence). It's mostly because Florence was the very peak of discovery, science and art. The Reinassance itself DID start in Florence (hence why it can easily be tied to Discovery, which is a red ability).
If you'd like something more fire-themed, you could also take into consideration the city of Catania, built on the sides of the Mt. Etna, an active volcano.
For Green, it can be a bit hard to find something fitting with civilization, per se. Italy is a country with a lot of hills, mountains and a few plains, but the wildest areas are the woods in the Appennines. Some italian regions (like Assisi) are engulfed in this biome, which leaves them almost secluded.
Instant
Target creature gets +X/+X and gains indestructible until end of turn, where X is the amount of serran life you have.
Hey!
Nope, everything is fine, no worries ^^ It's just that I'm about to submit my thesis manuscript so I work 7d/7 (I probably mentioned it half a dozen times already but I'm a doctoral student in neurosciences). Thankfully I'll be done at the end of the month so I should be more active again starting next week. I still read stuff on the site every evening though! x)
LordTachanka123
Sorry I forgot to answer you last time >.<
Angelic Passion: That seems balanced enough, I like the idea of having a massive bonus as a reward for the GW archetype.
I'm defending my thesis in exactly one week so I'm basically gone from the surface of this world until then xD But I found out that the main site for calculating as-fan is also giving the as-fan for mechanics of existing sets which should speed up the process of creating an uncommon design skeleton afterwards so I'm itching to get back into it
2(u)(u)
Creature-Human Artist
Whenever your master work deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card.
Totally, this effect is on the list of Masterwork effect that we must try at uncommon! We do have the question remaining of if it should be in blue, green, or blue/green; we must design all masterwork cards in green and blue before we decide ^^
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On a general note, I have defended my thesis last week (I am now officially a doctor by the way \o/) so I started to work again on the uncommon skeleton! I figured the easiest way to move forward was to bring a first draft of a finished skeleton, as one of the most difficult part is to choose what to put it and what to leave on the side, this way we can start implementing on existing cards instead of working on a blank canvas. Here's the basic idea so far:
1) Not all archetypes are treated equally, but to remain simple it seems like usually a good third of the uncommon care directly about a given draft archetype in a directional way. I'm going to start with a basic four directional cards in each colour, one for each bicoloured archetype.
2) Two slots are reserved for removal in each colour. Then, some colours may get more (and green might be brought down to just one).
3) There are a few horizontal cycles I would like to implement. Those can overlap with either the glue slots, removal slots, or directional slots. Among them, I have:
- Cycle of exciting legendaries.
- Cycle of cards with Renewal that trigger each turn with a different effect. (White and Black being specifically focused on Renewal, they might get either a stronger version than the other colours, or an additional card with it.)
- Cycle of cards with Masterwork. (Blue and Green being specifically focused on Masterwork, they might get either a stronger version than the other colours, or an additional card with it.)
- Cycle of cards that do something crazy with life totals.
- Cycle of cards that introduce a side-theme for draft and/or constructed.
- Cycle of cards in the enemy colour of the three-colours common archetypes that entices you to splash that colour in a subtle way.
4) The rest of the cards should be given to glue cards that help as many archetypes as possible. We can then swap cards based on how each archetype feel like it needs help or not.