I think the first ability should be fine, given its mana cost. There are a lot of etb triggers that could be abused though. I think it’s probably still okay.
For the last black slot, I feel like there's room for a small wrath effect but I don't want to do an "all creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn" because I'd like to try the following design at rare instead (as the WB archetype is meant to be more removal-oriented):
So I'm trying to find a way to make a multiple sacrifice card work at uncommon instead. Maybe by making it symmetrical to some level?
Got randomly inspired by this artwork (xD) and thought that this design could be interesting for the set even though it doesn't fit into the uncommon slots right now. Art could probably be more renaissance, and the mana cost might be weird, but let me know what you think.
Beautiful illustration! ^^ But the effect is a bit too parasitic, I think, to justify taking a full card slot. In particular, if you don't have an Art in your top five cards (which would happen pretty fairly, see how often Glint-Nest Crane whiffs for instance) you skipped your fourth or fifth turn entirely, which might cost you the whole game. For an effect like this to work, it probably would need to be an expensive Rare/Mythic creature with something like "Whenever CARDNAME or another Art enters the battlefield, look at the top card of your library. If it's an Art, you may put it onto the battlefield."
@ningyounk , sorry for a late reply but I'm evaluating the Blue cards. Oracle of New Horizons seems very efficient; the idea is cool but it should Scry 2 because of the ability for U/W control or pretty much any modern deck to go T1 Fetch-Shock-Oracle and scry 3, which also allows them to cut back on lands with minimal cost.
Hurll feels like a bad design as a "Win more or lose even more" design, and relying on your opponent' life total to get a power boost doesn't feel blue. Not to mention, it's a 4 mana 4/5 with trample if your opponent has even 6 life left. The issue is that it's a part of a cycle: I recommend making the cycle uneven without a blue member, since Blue doesn't do much with life in the set.
Acrylic Elk has a typo and says "with base power an toughness".
Arcane Folio should probably cost 4 mana; continuous card draw at 3 mana with synergy and a late-game wincon is powerful in limited, like a phyrexian arena on steroids. Either that, or shift it to rare.
Icy Attitude could counter something unless its controller pays 2.
Glimpse from Beyond is fine: Footsteps of the Goryo already exists and doesn't see much play, and making it an instant that can "flicker" something isn't that good
As for a few different designs of mine that could fit and/or replace certain card slots:
Baroque Banshee - 2BB Creature - Art Spirit When ~ enters the battlefield, each player sacrifices a creature. Each opponent who can't loses 3 life. At the end of your turn, you may pay 3 life. If you do, exile ~, then return it to the battlefield under your control. 3/2
TBA - 1B Sorcery Each player sacrifices a creature. B, Discard a card, Pay 3 life: Return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.
Note: If needed, the card can be made into a card with cmc 3 with a 2 mana return cost to remove the "Discard a card" clause.
Surreal Smears - 2UU Creature - Art Horror Flash Whenever Surreal Smears or another Art enters the battlefield under your control, you may have target creature get -3/-0 until end of turn. 3/2
Again, thanks for all the extremely insightful feedback! ^^
Oracle of New Horizons: Agreed that it might be over the top and that the situation you described is problematic. There are two main reasons why I aimed a little high and didn't go straight for Scry 2: 1) Blue has the most difficulties with enabling Renewal so I'm trying to make sure the Blue effects in the cycle are on the strong side. 2) This effect is meant to reduce the frequency at which you discover a card you can't cast; because it triggers at the end of your turn, you're likely going to take your next draw step before being able to discover so I wanted this to be able to set up the second card of your library and Scry 2 is bad at that. I think just increasing its mana cost a bit solve a lot of the issue as it's not as easy to skip your second turn for library manipulation as it is to skip your first turn in older format, allowing it to stay at Scry 3. Alternatively, it could have an even higher mana cost and just brainstorm, which comboes amazingly with Discover.
Hurll, Avatar of the Deep: Blue is always the most difficult member of the life-matters cycle because it historically doesn't interact with life totals very much. That being said, this is a life-matters set so rather than cutting Blue out of the fun, I want to use some colour pie bending to give Blue some interaction with life totals. This means that it's always going to feel like something Blue wouldn't usually do, but it's ok as long as it's not undercutting some of Blue's weaknesses (and here caring about life totals is not going to allow Blue to do anything it shouldn't). If Hurll isn't good enough, one solution could simply be to increase its power a little bit. A priori I don't dislike the idea of a wall that becomes a one-shot threat in the endgame. Alternatively, Shaeban could become the blue member of the cycle, and black could get something more agressive like "CARDNAME's power is equal to the total life gained and lost this turn." This issue might require to sit down and actually define Blue's new colour identity regarding life gain interaction.
Arcane Folio: I could see it as a rare in the style of Phyrexian Arena or Howling Mine but discover has a pretty high fail rate and uncommon is missing some discover enablers right now I think, so I'd rather try to make it work within the uncommon territory of cards like Furious Rise or Colossal Majesty (which are in the "draw a card per turn sometimes" range). One obvious way to take it closer to this ballpark would be to make the card much simpler and simply say "T: Discover". I'm reluctant to attach a mana cost to the activation though because discover already requires you to have mana available. I kind of want to try the lands in graveyard rider though simply because 1) It provides a bit of a safe net for when you discover a land. 2) It enables a parallel strategy of milling. The reward could be reconsidered as well, I thought doubling a spell from time to time would be useful to most blue decks, my idea was to have something like this at rare to combo with it:
So far, I'm not married to Arcane Folio by any stretch but I'm not sure how to make it better and I feel like making it four-mana makes it too close to unplayable as discover is just scry 1 a lot of the time. So I'd like to playtest it before making any substantial decision about it.
Icy Attitude: I'm lukewarm about making it strictly better than Quench. The idea was to have a conditional counterspell that would primarily help you protect your masterwork. The first mode is meant to make it not totally useless against opponents that are light on removal, but it's really supposed to be the bonus more than the main purpose of the card. Maybe a different kind of ability would make it more appealing? Something like Discover?
Glimpse from Beyond: Let's try it this way, then! I'm trying to push the "whenever an Art enters OR LEAVES the battlefield" gimmick a bit harder and I'm curious to see if it will be considered enough to justify a slot in a deck. Alternatively, Black wouldn't say no to an additional agressive card in that slot instead.
Baroque Banshee: I like the first ability, which would play well with the Art deck, though I'm worried it's a bit much in addition to Spilled Ink. I believe the last ability is a bit much as a mix of recursion and repeated removal, it looks oppressing a priori.
TBA: I think the design is quite interesting balance wise. However, because Spilled Ink is already in the skeleton, I'd like to avoid any more repeated removal, I'm more in the market for one-shot effects for that last slot.
Surreal Smears: I like the idea, especially because it feels like a must-do if we manage to push the transformation theme as hard as I'd like in the art deck, but it's a bit redundant with Spilled Ink, its black counterpart in the directional uncommon cycle. In addition, I'd like at least one of the two UB directional monocoloured cards to do something against creatureless decks. On the other hand, it might be a good fit for common instead and could replace Oil Koi. The mill theme isn't particularly present in the set, I wanted it as a secondary theme in Blue but maybe it's time to cut it entirely?
Haha, don't worry, we're just ironing out the skeleton so it looks at least half-functional and then I'll be creating a fresh thread with a summary of where we're at in the intro x)
Ok, to finish ironing out Black, I was missing one slot. I couldn't really get a removal I was happy with so in the end I opted for a card draw spell, let me know if you think it's too strong as a worst Ambition's Cost:
I also smoothed out the creature mana curve a little bit by moving Mavellio to 2 mana so there are two 2-mana creatures and two 3-mana creatures instead of one at 2-mana and three at 3-mana, two of which where 2/2s.
@shadow123 Oops! Thanks, I added an "s" on Doctor's Recompense ^^
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Moving on to Red, here are the main concerns that will need to be ironed out: 1) It has 7 creatures. Removing one creature would be ideal. 2) Its creature mana curve currently goes 1-2-3-3-3-3-4. That's too many 3-mana creatures, and the set could also use a 5-or-6-mana top end as well. 3) There are two empty noncreature slots to fill. 4) There are two cards that can deal damage to any target (Sparktower Pupil and Bearer of New Light), no card that only goes face and no card that only burn creatures. Ideally, the set would have exactly one of each instead.
I don't have the designs yet but here's what I think would be the best direction from there: • Make Spartower Pupil a card that deals damage to opponents only. • Change Snowood Behemoth into a large 5-or-6-mana creature because its ability is a bit too reminiscent of the blue common Migrating Snowtusk right now. • Make Intimidating Violonist 2-mana. • Optional to force the percentage of creatures down: Make Partner of Frostvale an enchantment + Make Bearer of New Light 4-mana. • Make a removal spell that deals a huge amount of damage to creatures only as one of the two missing slots. • Make the last missing slot a boost effect, being either a combat trick, an aura or a coloured equipment.
2. Council of Traitors could definitely do with being 3 mana, or making each player discard a card. Not only is giving board clear reassurance really good and the effect could play into a variety of strategies, but the Renewal effect feels like a very potent and repeatable sideboard ability for a variety of decks, like Modern Death's Shadow builds which can consistently enable it the turn it's played and force the opponent to discard their hand while being able to recur it with Lurrus, or Orzhov Stoneblade which can easily rack the opponent out of the game repeatedly, or even Jund who can enable it consistently and use the fact that it's an enchantment to buff up their Tarmogoyf.
3. Spilled Ink should probably be "Whenever Spilled Ink or another Art you control enters or leaves the battlefield..."
4. Demise of the Unsightly could be one mana and still at instant speed. There are significant downsides to being unable to kill Uro's and Omnaths in most formats, Death's Shadows and Goblin Guides in modern, and it only kills one threat in the top deck of Standard. At 1 mana it seems like an interesting sideboard card against certain decks.
5. Doctor's Recompense isn't good compared to uncommons of the past like Ambition's Cost or Ancient Cravings. I'd recommend that the life loss comes first, then the card draw; it seems like it could bring interesting dilemmas as to if you want the cards faster or if you think you're going to play out your hand on-curve effectively compared to the life you're going to lose.
6. Even though I called Glimpse from Beyond okay, I've realized now that, at the current mana cost, it isn't okay, because Footsteps of Goryo is balanced around being in Modern only. Pioneer decks could easily cheat out, say, Worldspine Wurm, Hornet Queen, or Ashen Rider at instant speed.
I also feel like Avaricious Gorgon is a bit out of place; there's only one other card in Black that cares about +1/+1 counters, and that card is also a 3-drop. On the other hand, I do feel that Art needs a bit more synergy from black. I propose the following design:
Avaricious Gorgon - 2B Creature - Gorgon Artist When ~ enters the battlefield, create two 1/1 colorless Art Soldier artifact creature tokens with Defender. 2/1
I like the design; fits on-curve with Inkborn Hunter and works with Heresy and Sudden Animation, it can chump to protect your Serran Life, and it even has synergy with Glimpse from Beyond, in addition to being pretty flavorful in my opinion.
Personally, the set doesn't need a red card that only goes face. I can't recall a very recent set that has a "Goes Face Exclusively" instant or sorcery at uncommon.
Since we're up to red, I'll post a few ideas, and also remember my "Excess damage is dealt to you" card:
TBA - 4R Creature - TBA Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, scry 1 for each noncreature spell you've cast this turn. 3/5
Critic's Cerberus - 3R Creature - Cerberus When ~ enters the battlefield, you may have it fight target Art or Artist an opponent controls. 4/3
Magus of the Charred - 1R Creature - TBA 2R, T, Sacrifice ~: ~ deals 4 damage to target creature and 2 damage to you. 2/1
Abandoned Axe - 1R When you discover Abandoned Axe, you may cast it without paying its mana cost. Equipped creature gets +3/+1. Equip 2
Burn Blessings - 1R Instant Choose One -- *Target player loses 5 serra life. *Burn Blessings deals 3 damage to target player.
@ningyounk Since this set is so life dependent, do you think it would be okay for Sheban to be a little bigger? There is also the point that you can pay serran life whenever you want, but that’s just something I wanted to note.
Haha you actually picked up on things I hoped nobody would mention yet; I wanted to wait for the next round of changes before taking care of things like as-fan and gameplay identity since that would take much more time to tackle xD I probably won't address all these issues until we have a complete first file of uncommon, but since you mentioned them we can at least discuss some of them a little bit x)
1) True, both Somber Poet and its red equivalent Intimidating Violonist have more of a common vibe to them. I based the initial decision on existing similar cycles were deathtouch was kept at uncommon. For instance, the +1/+1 counter theme from Khans of Tarkir and the Amass cycle from War of the Spark:
I think the main difference here is that both cards can give deathtouch to multiple creatures at once, which in the Masterwork cycle would break the spirit of the mechanic, I feel. I'll try it with an additional rider and will probably do the same with the red card, though I'm sad to lose the elegant simplicity of the one-liner text. Here's a try:
2) Yes, the main reason it's 2-mana was that I wanted to avoid both WB Renewal enchantments be 3-mana. Looking back, they can definitely switch their CMC:
3) I don't know why I've been struggling with how to phrase this ability from the beginning >.< There are a bunch of commons and uncommons that feature this wrong templating so I'll wait until the end of this round of "ironing" before making the change. On the same note, I just recently discovered how to make the text on the black Art cards appear white so I'll do all of that in one-go later!
4) That's interesting, I didn't really dig yet into whether killing square creatures was more or less powerful than non-square ones. If square creatures are significantly more prominent, we might just want to switch the black subtheme theme to hating on square creatures instead. Having it at one-mana makes me feel like it's a bit too effective, but we could add an additional rider to make it worth 2-mana, the same way Heartless Act does. Alternatively, maybe something like this:
5) The thing is Ancient Craving was a rare and Ambition's Cost has appeared as an uncommon mostly in supplemental products so I was afraid it would be slightly too strong for Rezatta. I'm concerned that making the life loss happen before the draw would make it feel a bit too red gameplay wise and play significantly stronger than Ambition's cost. I need to think about it some more, I'll come back to it later. Maybe making it an instant would be a viable option?
6) Ok, let's scratch Glimpse from Beyond for now, and save the slot to increase of the Art synergies as mentioned in your next point.
7) Avaricious Gorgon is meant to be a part of a BG +1/+1 counter matters archetype, but I haven't leveled the as-fan for each archetype yet, which is why it looks out of place ^^ As I said above, you're touching to something I hoped nobody would mention before the next round of changes, to be honest x) Namely: - I haven't checked the exact as-fan of the +1/+1 counters enablers and Art creatures with ETB/LTB abilities but I know that we're low in Black on both. - While the art tribe is starting to have at least a recognisable enters/leaves the battlefield mechanical pattern built-in, the triggered effects are still a bit all over the place because the tribe is flavourfully not well-defined.
The same can be said about a lot of other archetypes right now, I have monitored the pay-offs so far but not yet the as-fan of the enablers, and the gameplay identity is still just a sketch for most of the archetypes. Because this is going to take more time, I'll wait until we finish "ironing" before doing that.
About the concept cards:
Avaricious Gorgon Revamped: In general, I'm not a fan of using defender unless it's needed as it encourages board stall; I feel like a black Tales of Frostwoods would be just fine in this slot. I don't want to lose the +1/+1 counter matters rider, however, so we would need to find another slot for this.
"Goes face": It doesn't have to be an instant or sorcery, but it's true it's not as important as having the three slots filled at common. For the creature-only blast, I'm very interested in trying your concept:
TBA 4R: I would like to avoid emphasising noncreature spells in blue/red in this set since the "second spell" theme is kind of taking its place and the UR focus is going to be the discover mechanic.
Critic Cerberus: I'd like to avoid cards that specifically hate on Art. Ideally the cards should just work against any creature since there's nothing about the Art subtype that requires specific hate against it. You wouldn't have a card that says "destroy target wizard" or "destroy all saprolings" for instance.
Magus of the Charred: This plays in the same space as Fight Fire with Fire, but since we're a little heavy on creatures at uncommon right now I think I'd rather go with the noncreature spell.
Abandoned Axe: I like the concept and that it varies the types of threat but Ihave two concerns: 1) Would UR discover play it? It feels more like a masterwork/RG even type of reward. 2) How to make it less parasitic? If it worked with Scry, it would be a great improvement for instance.
Burn Blessings: I'd like to wait and see if aggro is struggling before making any serran life hate, since it's possible to interact with it in many less parasitic ways.
@shadow123 A priori it could be bigger yes ^^ It's just that it's easier for math to have it start at 10, and it's an uncommon with an effect that you'd normally see on a rare/mythic so I don't want to overshoot. Let's wait to see how it performs in playtest before boosting it.
@ningyounk , if you wanted the Abandoned Axe to fit a theme slightly less plastic-ly, the my idea is:
Abandoned Axe - R Artifact - Equipment When you look at ~ from the top of your library, you may exile it. Until end of turn, you may cast it without paying it's mana cost. Equipped creature gets +2/+1. Equip 2
or, alternatively:
TBA - 1R Creature When you look at ~ from your library, if you weren't searching your library, you may exile it. Until end of turn, you may cast it without paying it's mana cost. When ~ enters the battlefield, if you didn't discover it, scry 2. 2/1
the TBA can work for 2-power synergy by being a good 2-drop and set up the library for Dance Leader, filter things to discover into, and is just a pretty decent card.
I feel a need to bring it up again; Surge of Joy is definitely cut-worthy, especially with recent developments or decks that have come out. It neatly allows for a Turn-2 Tef3ri from Control while also fixing mana and drawing cards with ease, in addition to giving you Uro turn-2 and providing a card to enable the Escape with, and allowing for a turn-3/4 Omnath. Not only that, but it's absurd with Snapcaster Mage and can allow for some really good turns against aggro, in addition to being just life gain if needed. Not to mention being able to get Primeval Titan out turn-3 even easier than usual, turn-2 Oko in legacy or some other dumb things in Esper Vial. There's no excuse for most white-based decks to not play it in every format, and that feels like an issue.
@ningyounk , I will also say that instead of having +1/+1 counter synergy, hear me out: Keyword Soup tribal. While the amount of +1/+1 counters in both Green and Black at common are lacking, there are a surprising amount of Keywords - Reach, Deathtouch, Trample and Vigilance in Green alone, with Black also having Flash, Haste, Flying, Meance, Haste, Lifelink and Masterwork. It would also be unique to finally define what a "keyword" is for this set, which has already been done by Unstable's Modular Monstrosity.
My suggested signpost, which can be buffed or nerfed as needed, is -
TBA - 2BG Creature - TBA Trample At the beginning of combat on your turn, target creature you control gets +x/+x, where X is the amount of keywords it has. 3/2
Alright, you're making a compelling case so I'll trust your instinct and cut Surge of Joy from the file ^^ The WU gold signpost might be enough to save the spirit of the card already, without the broken part. This leaves us with one open slot in White, I'll need to look into what's missing the most.
Scry/Discover pay-off: The more I look at it, the more I think this would be more suited for a rare/mythic that's a variation over Panglacial Wurm, it reads a bit complicated so I'd like to attach a substantial reward to make the complexity worth the effort.
Keyword soup: I really like the idea but it's basically a new mechanic and flashy enough that it would compete with something like serran life for attention on top of that. I think it's a deep concept that would open enough new design space to become the basis for its own set, probably in combination with stuff like keyword counters coming back. I could totally see Ikoria II doing something like that, for instance. We could try to make keyword soup an archetype on Rezatta without mentioning the word "keyword" but as you can tell it's difficult to make pay-offs that aren't super wordy like Soulflayer and it's close enough to what Masterwork is doing that it might compete with it for design space rather than synergise with it since a set can only support so many keywords and pay-off cards for each distinct archetype.
@ningyounk , the spot for Surge of Joy is probably best for either:
1. Another 2-Drop.
2. A sideboard card against certain deck archetypes / themes.
My thoughts for cards to fill the slot are:
TBA - W Sorcery Exile target artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost 3 or less. You gain 3 life.
A reprint of Cliffside Rescuer
Serra's Purge - 3W Instant This spell costs 2 less to cast if it targets a creature with converted mana cost 4 or greater. Exile target creature.
Also, looking at the updated White card file again, there are a few more issues or things of note:
Growling Missionary feels too strong. Adanto Vanguard saw immense play as a 1/1 on the defense and a 3/1 on the attack for 2 mana that had you pay four mana... in meta where mono-red aggro and, eventually, Chainwhirler were around. Making it a 1 mana 2/1 makes it much better as a blocker and attacker, and making you only pay 3 life is also really good.
Court Mentor could still be a 2/2.
As soon as I get a break with my schoolwork, I'll look at all of the commons and give my thoughts on if any of them are too good for limited, too terrible, worthy of being uncommon, eta.
@ningyounk , I also did a bit of checking on the wording for the current uncommons.
1. In Memorain should have the text "Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control with an additional +1/+1 counter on it. That creature is an Art in addition to its other types." based on Rise from the Grave and Drana, the Last Bloodchief
2. Doctor's Recompense should probably be "Draw three cards, then lose life equal to the number of cards in your hand." based off of the wording of Castle Locthwain.
3. On Drunk Wolf, the "Haste, lifelink, menace or deathtouch..." part should be "menace, deathtouch, lifelink, haste"; keyword ordering is very peculiar.
4. Healing Fountain should say "target player mills cards equal to that creature's toughness". Generally, "X power/toughness" is used when the creature is still on the board, whereas "Equal to that creature's toughness" is used for creatures that just left the battlefield.
5. The changed wording of Spilled Ink should also apply to Acrylic Elk and every other card with the ability, in case you haven't addressed that yet.
In addition, I found a possible member of the "X Life Legendary Cycle" for Blue.
TBA - 2UU Legendary Creature - TBA When ~ becomes the target of a spell (or ability, if needed), sacrifice it. ~ gets +X/+X, where X is the amount of life you've paid this turn / lost this turn. 3/3
The theory is that while the card can be very potent with Serran life and can swing the game, the card is very weak with a lack of evasion and can be defeated by a simple combat trick. You could also give the ability to Red or Black member of the cycle and vica versa for the blue member.
And also, I do believe Dancing Wave could be buffed to be:
"Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Until end of turn, you may cast spells that share a card type with that permanent as though they had flash."
And looking at the red and green uncommon cards in addition to the colorless and multicolored cards, I do have a few issues:
1. Brash Announcer feels too good. Decks like Rakdos Deaths Shadow, Mono-Red Aggro, Burn and others can have it consistently swing turn-1 as a 2/2 with haste, and turn 2 as a 3/3 - essentially, it's too good with fetches, shocks, lightning bolt clones and horizon lands in modern, even better than Goblin Guide.
2. Banded Missionary feels at bit too bomby for limited; it enters as a 4 mana 3/4 that can gain numerous keywords, and with support from other cards, it can easily becomes an 8/4. Maybe making it a 3/4 that gains a wider variety of keywords would be better?
3. Pristine Seraph feels too good for an uncommon, and also feels too close to the uncommon lifegain signpost from M21.
4. Sparkmage Instructor has wings... but doesn't have flying? I'd switch the art for it. I can provide art for it, if needed.
In the meantime, I'll be nitpicking the commons and attempting to find out more suitable themes for some color pairs; particularly for B/G.
Before I start, I wanted to point out that I agree with your analysis on most cards and you're being exteremely helpful, so thanks a lot! =D I'm saying that because I'm going to push back on changes to some cards afterwards but I wanted to explain it's not because I disagree with your analysis at all. For some of them, it's simply because I believe they have potential for fun gameplay and I would like to get a feel of them in playtest before deciding what would be the best way to improve their balance or if it's worth the effort at all.
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Growling Missionary: I agree it feels quite strong. I personally dislike the playstyle of Adanto Vanguard, which I find oppressive. But thinking about it, I realised the fact that it attacked with 3 power was a huge part of what I didn't like about it as it forces bad blocks more often than I feel is fun. This is why I'd be tempted to try a 2-powered version, to see if it plays fairer. I still have a problem with how it plays on defense though, so really I'm open to any suggestion for that slot. I would prefer a one-mana 2-power creature with an ability that makes you lose life though (and doesn't directly care about losing life itself).
Court Mentor: The main reason I made it a 1/1 was that I wanted to avoid having two creatures at two-mana that were 2/2s with upsides. I'd like to keep its stats square as well if possible. I'd be open in having it be a 2/2 but more so if we found interesting stats for Dance Leader that aren't 2/2. This one still has room for one keyword ability if needed. Maybe making it 1 or 0 power would be interesting with its ability.
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Thanks for the templating and grammar checks! Don't invest too much time into details though, the concept cards are all pretty rough as they are unlikely to stay like this anyways. We'll do a proper correction at the end ^^
Blue Life-matters cycle: Ideally I'd like something that sticks to the rest of the cycle a little more and be just a potentially large threat, so I'd rather make it work without the downsides. The concept might fit, though at this stage I'd favour the designs that look at life totals rather than life gained and/or lost this turn because of memory burden (though it's still on the table if we can't find anything else).
Dancing Wave: That's a really interesting idea, but that's also a lot better than Disperse. Maybe we could focus it on creatures and do something like that to balance it: Return target creature to its owner's hand. Until end of turn, you may cast creature spells that share a creature type with it as though they had flash.
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For the following cards, I'm not going to change them yet so we can finish this first sweep of adjustments without getting too scattered, but I'm keeping those comments in a corner for when the time comes.
Brash Announcer: It's definitely meant to be the top red uncommon for an aggro deck. Do you feel it's too good to even try as-is? I'd still be interested in testing it out. Maybe it could lose haste, then? Or pick up a "must attack every turn" or "can't block" drawback? Red aggro is going to be struggling in the set so it needs some out-of-the box options to compete.
Banded Missionary: The main role of this card is to provide a finisher for the GW serran life deck. Because gaining life tends to drag out games without winning, I really need those directional GW cards to convert big amounts of serran life into a way to win. The idea is that the white one lets you make a wide alpha strike while the green one attacks with one giant trampling creature. So I'd like to keep the power = serran life rider, but we could replace the last ability with just regular trample if it is too much. The ability looks fun though so I'd be tempted to try it out as-is just to get a sense of it before nerfing accordingly.
Pristine Seraph: Yeah, I'd be interested in a design that's more different from the M21 signpost. Because both white and black directional cards have a more bleeder style of gameplay, the main idea would be to try something flashier and swingier — hence this initial concept.
Sparkmage Instructor: It gains flying! That being said, if you have an idea for an illustration I'm always on the lookout for those ^^ But don't worry too much about illustrations, everything that's flavour related (illustrations, names, flavour text, etc.) is just a placeholder, we'll go over it at the end and probably re-shuffle all the illustrations between the cards to make sure we really make use of all of our best ones.
B/G colour pair: +1/+1 counters is a pretty easy theme to implement so I think it won't be too hard to bring it to a place where it's satisfactory. It should play well especially with UB Art and GU masterwork, but if you get a better idea it's definitely still open for a change. The more archetypes the theme synergises with, the better. We tried reanimation at one point but I found it hard to implement as you can only have so many reanimation spells in one set.
@ningyounk , I agree with Brash Announcer losing haste, although even that is mildly concerning.
For Court Mentor, would it being a 0/2 or a 0/3 with Double Strike be interesting?
As for Growling Missionary, I feel it would be better if the card paid 3 life to gain first strike (and, if needed, vigilance.) or, if wanting to be really spicy and fit with the theme of an intimidating religious wolf, gain menace and/or vigilance / first strike.
Trust me when I say that B/G Counters is not an easy theme to implement if it doesn't accidentally come together. Take it from Zendikar Rising - It required the use of a theme that generally very heavily used +1/+1 counters at common (Kicker), two +1/+1 counter lords at common and countless other common synergy cards, three of the best uncommon +1/1 payoffs in recent sets from draft, and two drafts of the archetype myself to realize that even then the archetype was mediocre, and most of the wins came not from +1/+1 counter synergy, but the excess of other good B/G cards in Zendikar Rising that led to me winning through goodstuff and bombs.
First, I'm posting the image of the Dancing Wave variation just so I remember about it later xD
I find the idea of having Court Mentor as a 0-power double strike interesting, it feels like it might be fun so I'd be interested in playtesting it. It does look like it might end up too bomb-y and/or too math-y though, so let's put a red flag on this one for now.
Growling Missionary: I like the idea of making the keyword different than indestructible, but when I tried to flesh it out it really only worked with vigilance and first strike, which doesn't read particularly well. Nothing else really makes much sense in mono-white. Playing with that concept led me to a simple variation that I found interesting though, tell me what you think:
About the BG archetype: It is true that it might get difficult to make the +1/+1 counter theme reach the correct as-fan if there is no mechanic in the set that put +1/+1 counters on creatures. Based on the numbers in Zendikar Rising, it got a pretty high as-fan of 1.55 in black/green, mostly supported by five commons in both black and green. Rezatta is basically fine with the number of uncommons already that would put +1/+1 counters on creatures, but it does start at a low 1 common in black and 2 commons in green so that would indeed most of the pump effects to be transposed into using +1/+1 counters.
One solution that might work to lean more into the already existing synergies of the set might be a token-matters theme. I think the combination of WB Renewal + BG Tokens and WB tokens + BG Renewal are pretty interchangeable. Actually the second might be more synergistic with the rest of the set:
• BG Renewal: We still keep the main two synergies that WB had (GW serran life and BR suicide) and add more synergy with RG Even life.
• WB Tokens: White tokens could synergise with the GW Serran life plan of gumming up the board before making one big alpha strike and would feed the RW weenies archetype, which the BG version does not. Meanwhile, black tokens could trigger the UB art synergies when entering/leaving the battlefield and be used aggressively in the BR suicide archetype.
Just as the +1/+1 counters theme though, the tokens theme would require quite a lot of changes to the commons as there is only one common (Biospark Mage) that makes tokens in WB right now. Still, it might be easier to make tokens work than +1/+1 counters.
@ningyounk , I have a few other ideas for B/G archetypes that aren't shared with any other colors.
1. Humans. This is a rather plain one; lots of humans at common, and both Black and Green have attempted human synergy in the past (w/B in Ikoria, w/G in Innistrad blocks.), so this format could be applicable for some sort of Human Aggro deck.
2. Aristocratic Sacrifice Matters. Slightly different from Aristocrats, the synergy cards would use an ability like Mayhem Devil that care about if ANY permanent is sacrificed. Of course, it still has an Aristocrats shell, with Macabre Waltz and Heresy with Death's Row filling up the black part of the archetype, and Green bringing Marble Maiden, Restore Beauty and Scour the Wilds.
3. Heroic. A bit unusual, but green has 3 enablers along with stuff like Insectoid Guard, which can really threaten flyers when backed up by a possible trick, Watercolored Guide which can allow your buffed creature to swing through, with black only having 1 enabler but bringing things like Ominous Melodist to allow a buffed creature to swing through, Vexing Buffoon, Vexing Lurker and Museum Thief which are very good targets to buff, and a decent array of card advantage and removal.
And this is a primary one that seems to be very prominent and more draftable than +1/+1 counters right now:
4. Buffing Weak Stuff. Chucking an Alluring Chiseler or an Nature's Garb onto a Museum Thief, Twilight Angel or Vexing Buffoon seems very potent, cutting out weak blockers with removal and backing up every keyword soup creature with the threat of a Vicious Influence or Restore Beauty. Ominous Melodist is a great card in the archetype. This could easily be supported by cutting Heresy for an Aura, and adding whatever personal touches would be required.
I'll re-review the full common list soon-ish. Also, nerfed Growling Missionary is cool.
I like the idea of a light tribal theme to replace the +1/+1 counter theme since it would be easier to implement. Humans would be an interesting one to sell the Humanism theme of Renaissance, but I'm concerned it would restrict the flavour theme of having anthropomorphised animals on Rezatta. Looking at the creature types already in the set, I'd be interested in pushing the Angels & Clerics theme that was in the conversation earlier. The originality of the idea being that it's a double tribal theme where both angels and clerics are rewarded but having both at the same time would be rewarded even more than the sum of their respective bonuses. It's probably more synergistic in white/black due to Green's difficulty to produce flying Angels, so it would be:
• WB Angels and Clerics tribal • BG Renewal
Aristocrat sounds like a strong option as well. I originally wanted to avoid the theme to let the set feel more upbeat, but we're struggling so I'm ok opening some gates. It does feel more difficult to implement than Angels & Clerics and the synergies with the surrounding archetypes are low in green. Might work in White/Black though.
I'd prefer to stay away from heroic / buffing weak stuff to avoid a design space and gameplay style collision with the Masterwork archetype.
Set design is kind of the point of making an MTG custom set though ^^" As usual, same answer: We're dealing with the flavour aspect once we have a solid idea of what the cards will be, a.k.a. towards the end of the process.
@ningyounk , I'm very much against Angels and Clerics. You have to have a mass of both tribes in the set, which is much more restrictive than Humans, and you have to print non-parasitic payoffs for them which is a hard task to accomplish.
I do have a very crazy idea: Change B/G into the "Even life total matters" color.
By changing R/G into B/G, the even life matters cards have more synergy with the other themes that share a color with it. It removes the low amount of synergy between it and R/W "Two or less power" tribal, and U/R Discover. It then gives access to more life exploitation and payoffs in the form of synergy with the W/B renewal archetype, which cares about losing life and such.
You could then replace R/G with a different theme: Buffs could work better in the archetype, as there are 9 cards in the archetype which provide buffs. Other options are R/G Masterwork Stompy, Ranger Tribal, Renaissance Stompy, or even Shamans if you're willing to make a few changes to the set.
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So I'm trying to find a way to make a multiple sacrifice card work at uncommon instead. Maybe by making it symmetrical to some level?
Got randomly inspired by this artwork (xD) and thought that this design could be interesting for the set even though it doesn't fit into the uncommon slots right now. Art could probably be more renaissance, and the mana cost might be weird, but let me know what you think.
Thanks for the feedback @shadow123! Here's an updated mono green version with a slightly modified mana cost.
Beautiful illustration! ^^ But the effect is a bit too parasitic, I think, to justify taking a full card slot. In particular, if you don't have an Art in your top five cards (which would happen pretty fairly, see how often Glint-Nest Crane whiffs for instance) you skipped your fourth or fifth turn entirely, which might cost you the whole game. For an effect like this to work, it probably would need to be an expensive Rare/Mythic creature with something like "Whenever CARDNAME or another Art enters the battlefield, look at the top card of your library. If it's an Art, you may put it onto the battlefield."
Hurll feels like a bad design as a "Win more or lose even more" design, and relying on your opponent' life total to get a power boost doesn't feel blue. Not to mention, it's a 4 mana 4/5 with trample if your opponent has even 6 life left. The issue is that it's a part of a cycle: I recommend making the cycle uneven without a blue member, since Blue doesn't do much with life in the set.
Acrylic Elk has a typo and says "with base power an toughness".
Arcane Folio should probably cost 4 mana; continuous card draw at 3 mana with synergy and a late-game wincon is powerful in limited, like a phyrexian arena on steroids. Either that, or shift it to rare.
Icy Attitude could counter something unless its controller pays 2.
Glimpse from Beyond is fine: Footsteps of the Goryo already exists and doesn't see much play, and making it an instant that can "flicker" something isn't that good
As for a few different designs of mine that could fit and/or replace certain card slots:
Baroque Banshee - 2BB
Creature - Art Spirit
When ~ enters the battlefield, each player sacrifices a creature. Each opponent who can't loses 3 life.
At the end of your turn, you may pay 3 life. If you do, exile ~, then return it to the battlefield under your control.
3/2
TBA - 1B
Sorcery
Each player sacrifices a creature.
B, Discard a card, Pay 3 life: Return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.
Note: If needed, the card can be made into a card with cmc 3 with a 2 mana return cost to remove the "Discard a card" clause.
Surreal Smears - 2UU
Creature - Art Horror
Flash
Whenever Surreal Smears or another Art enters the battlefield under your control, you may have target creature get -3/-0 until end of turn.
3/2
Again, thanks for all the extremely insightful feedback! ^^
Oracle of New Horizons: Agreed that it might be over the top and that the situation you described is problematic. There are two main reasons why I aimed a little high and didn't go straight for Scry 2: 1) Blue has the most difficulties with enabling Renewal so I'm trying to make sure the Blue effects in the cycle are on the strong side. 2) This effect is meant to reduce the frequency at which you discover a card you can't cast; because it triggers at the end of your turn, you're likely going to take your next draw step before being able to discover so I wanted this to be able to set up the second card of your library and Scry 2 is bad at that. I think just increasing its mana cost a bit solve a lot of the issue as it's not as easy to skip your second turn for library manipulation as it is to skip your first turn in older format, allowing it to stay at Scry 3. Alternatively, it could have an even higher mana cost and just brainstorm, which comboes amazingly with Discover.
Hurll, Avatar of the Deep: Blue is always the most difficult member of the life-matters cycle because it historically doesn't interact with life totals very much. That being said, this is a life-matters set so rather than cutting Blue out of the fun, I want to use some colour pie bending to give Blue some interaction with life totals. This means that it's always going to feel like something Blue wouldn't usually do, but it's ok as long as it's not undercutting some of Blue's weaknesses (and here caring about life totals is not going to allow Blue to do anything it shouldn't). If Hurll isn't good enough, one solution could simply be to increase its power a little bit. A priori I don't dislike the idea of a wall that becomes a one-shot threat in the endgame. Alternatively, Shaeban could become the blue member of the cycle, and black could get something more agressive like "CARDNAME's power is equal to the total life gained and lost this turn." This issue might require to sit down and actually define Blue's new colour identity regarding life gain interaction.
Arcane Folio: I could see it as a rare in the style of Phyrexian Arena or Howling Mine but discover has a pretty high fail rate and uncommon is missing some discover enablers right now I think, so I'd rather try to make it work within the uncommon territory of cards like Furious Rise or Colossal Majesty (which are in the "draw a card per turn sometimes" range). One obvious way to take it closer to this ballpark would be to make the card much simpler and simply say "T: Discover". I'm reluctant to attach a mana cost to the activation though because discover already requires you to have mana available. I kind of want to try the lands in graveyard rider though simply because 1) It provides a bit of a safe net for when you discover a land. 2) It enables a parallel strategy of milling. The reward could be reconsidered as well, I thought doubling a spell from time to time would be useful to most blue decks, my idea was to have something like this at rare to combo with it:
So far, I'm not married to Arcane Folio by any stretch but I'm not sure how to make it better and I feel like making it four-mana makes it too close to unplayable as discover is just scry 1 a lot of the time. So I'd like to playtest it before making any substantial decision about it.
Icy Attitude: I'm lukewarm about making it strictly better than Quench. The idea was to have a conditional counterspell that would primarily help you protect your masterwork. The first mode is meant to make it not totally useless against opponents that are light on removal, but it's really supposed to be the bonus more than the main purpose of the card. Maybe a different kind of ability would make it more appealing? Something like Discover?
Glimpse from Beyond: Let's try it this way, then! I'm trying to push the "whenever an Art enters OR LEAVES the battlefield" gimmick a bit harder and I'm curious to see if it will be considered enough to justify a slot in a deck. Alternatively, Black wouldn't say no to an additional agressive card in that slot instead.
Baroque Banshee: I like the first ability, which would play well with the Art deck, though I'm worried it's a bit much in addition to Spilled Ink. I believe the last ability is a bit much as a mix of recursion and repeated removal, it looks oppressing a priori.
TBA: I think the design is quite interesting balance wise. However, because Spilled Ink is already in the skeleton, I'd like to avoid any more repeated removal, I'm more in the market for one-shot effects for that last slot.
Surreal Smears: I like the idea, especially because it feels like a must-do if we manage to push the transformation theme as hard as I'd like in the art deck, but it's a bit redundant with Spilled Ink, its black counterpart in the directional uncommon cycle. In addition, I'd like at least one of the two UB directional monocoloured cards to do something against creatureless decks. On the other hand, it might be a good fit for common instead and could replace Oil Koi. The mill theme isn't particularly present in the set, I wanted it as a secondary theme in Blue but maybe it's time to cut it entirely?
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The-DM
Haha, don't worry, we're just ironing out the skeleton so it looks at least half-functional and then I'll be creating a fresh thread with a summary of where we're at in the intro x)
I also smoothed out the creature mana curve a little bit by moving Mavellio to 2 mana so there are two 2-mana creatures and two 3-mana creatures instead of one at 2-mana and three at 3-mana, two of which where 2/2s.
Here's how Black looks like now:
Oops! Thanks, I added an "s" on Doctor's Recompense ^^
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Moving on to Red, here are the main concerns that will need to be ironed out:
1) It has 7 creatures. Removing one creature would be ideal.
2) Its creature mana curve currently goes 1-2-3-3-3-3-4. That's too many 3-mana creatures, and the set could also use a 5-or-6-mana top end as well.
3) There are two empty noncreature slots to fill.
4) There are two cards that can deal damage to any target (Sparktower Pupil and Bearer of New Light), no card that only goes face and no card that only burn creatures. Ideally, the set would have exactly one of each instead.
I don't have the designs yet but here's what I think would be the best direction from there:
• Make Spartower Pupil a card that deals damage to opponents only.
• Change Snowood Behemoth into a large 5-or-6-mana creature because its ability is a bit too reminiscent of the blue common Migrating Snowtusk right now.
• Make Intimidating Violonist 2-mana.
• Optional to force the percentage of creatures down: Make Partner of Frostvale an enchantment + Make Bearer of New Light 4-mana.
• Make a removal spell that deals a huge amount of damage to creatures only as one of the two missing slots.
• Make the last missing slot a boost effect, being either a combat trick, an aura or a coloured equipment.
1. Somber Poet feels like a common.
2. Council of Traitors could definitely do with being 3 mana, or making each player discard a card. Not only is giving board clear reassurance really good and the effect could play into a variety of strategies, but the Renewal effect feels like a very potent and repeatable sideboard ability for a variety of decks, like Modern Death's Shadow builds which can consistently enable it the turn it's played and force the opponent to discard their hand while being able to recur it with Lurrus, or Orzhov Stoneblade which can easily rack the opponent out of the game repeatedly, or even Jund who can enable it consistently and use the fact that it's an enchantment to buff up their Tarmogoyf.
3. Spilled Ink should probably be "Whenever Spilled Ink or another Art you control enters or leaves the battlefield..."
4. Demise of the Unsightly could be one mana and still at instant speed. There are significant downsides to being unable to kill Uro's and Omnaths in most formats, Death's Shadows and Goblin Guides in modern, and it only kills one threat in the top deck of Standard. At 1 mana it seems like an interesting sideboard card against certain decks.
5. Doctor's Recompense isn't good compared to uncommons of the past like Ambition's Cost or Ancient Cravings. I'd recommend that the life loss comes first, then the card draw; it seems like it could bring interesting dilemmas as to if you want the cards faster or if you think you're going to play out your hand on-curve effectively compared to the life you're going to lose.
6. Even though I called Glimpse from Beyond okay, I've realized now that, at the current mana cost, it isn't okay, because Footsteps of Goryo is balanced around being in Modern only. Pioneer decks could easily cheat out, say, Worldspine Wurm, Hornet Queen, or Ashen Rider at instant speed.
I also feel like Avaricious Gorgon is a bit out of place; there's only one other card in Black that cares about +1/+1 counters, and that card is also a 3-drop. On the other hand, I do feel that Art needs a bit more synergy from black. I propose the following design:
Avaricious Gorgon - 2B
Creature - Gorgon Artist
When ~ enters the battlefield, create two 1/1 colorless Art Soldier artifact creature tokens with Defender.
2/1
I like the design; fits on-curve with Inkborn Hunter and works with Heresy and Sudden Animation, it can chump to protect your Serran Life, and it even has synergy with Glimpse from Beyond, in addition to being pretty flavorful in my opinion.
Personally, the set doesn't need a red card that only goes face. I can't recall a very recent set that has a "Goes Face Exclusively" instant or sorcery at uncommon.
Since we're up to red, I'll post a few ideas, and also remember my "Excess damage is dealt to you" card:
TBA - 4R
Creature - TBA
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, scry 1 for each noncreature spell you've cast this turn.
3/5
Critic's Cerberus - 3R
Creature - Cerberus
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may have it fight target Art or Artist an opponent controls.
4/3
Magus of the Charred - 1R
Creature - TBA
2R, T, Sacrifice ~: ~ deals 4 damage to target creature and 2 damage to you.
2/1
Abandoned Axe - 1R
When you discover Abandoned Axe, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
Equipped creature gets +3/+1.
Equip 2
Burn Blessings - 1R
Instant
Choose One --
*Target player loses 5 serra life.
*Burn Blessings deals 3 damage to target player.
Haha you actually picked up on things I hoped nobody would mention yet; I wanted to wait for the next round of changes before taking care of things like as-fan and gameplay identity since that would take much more time to tackle xD I probably won't address all these issues until we have a complete first file of uncommon, but since you mentioned them we can at least discuss some of them a little bit x)
1) True, both Somber Poet and its red equivalent Intimidating Violonist have more of a common vibe to them. I based the initial decision on existing similar cycles were deathtouch was kept at uncommon. For instance, the +1/+1 counter theme from Khans of Tarkir and the Amass cycle from War of the Spark:
I think the main difference here is that both cards can give deathtouch to multiple creatures at once, which in the Masterwork cycle would break the spirit of the mechanic, I feel. I'll try it with an additional rider and will probably do the same with the red card, though I'm sad to lose the elegant simplicity of the one-liner text. Here's a try:
2) Yes, the main reason it's 2-mana was that I wanted to avoid both WB Renewal enchantments be 3-mana. Looking back, they can definitely switch their CMC:
3) I don't know why I've been struggling with how to phrase this ability from the beginning >.< There are a bunch of commons and uncommons that feature this wrong templating so I'll wait until the end of this round of "ironing" before making the change. On the same note, I just recently discovered how to make the text on the black Art cards appear white so I'll do all of that in one-go later!
4) That's interesting, I didn't really dig yet into whether killing square creatures was more or less powerful than non-square ones. If square creatures are significantly more prominent, we might just want to switch the black subtheme theme to hating on square creatures instead. Having it at one-mana makes me feel like it's a bit too effective, but we could add an additional rider to make it worth 2-mana, the same way Heartless Act does. Alternatively, maybe something like this:
5) The thing is Ancient Craving was a rare and Ambition's Cost has appeared as an uncommon mostly in supplemental products so I was afraid it would be slightly too strong for Rezatta. I'm concerned that making the life loss happen before the draw would make it feel a bit too red gameplay wise and play significantly stronger than Ambition's cost. I need to think about it some more, I'll come back to it later. Maybe making it an instant would be a viable option?
6) Ok, let's scratch Glimpse from Beyond for now, and save the slot to increase of the Art synergies as mentioned in your next point.
7) Avaricious Gorgon is meant to be a part of a BG +1/+1 counter matters archetype, but I haven't leveled the as-fan for each archetype yet, which is why it looks out of place ^^
As I said above, you're touching to something I hoped nobody would mention before the next round of changes, to be honest x) Namely:
- I haven't checked the exact as-fan of the +1/+1 counters enablers and Art creatures with ETB/LTB abilities but I know that we're low in Black on both.
- While the art tribe is starting to have at least a recognisable enters/leaves the battlefield mechanical pattern built-in, the triggered effects are still a bit all over the place because the tribe is flavourfully not well-defined.
The same can be said about a lot of other archetypes right now, I have monitored the pay-offs so far but not yet the as-fan of the enablers, and the gameplay identity is still just a sketch for most of the archetypes. Because this is going to take more time, I'll wait until we finish "ironing" before doing that.
About the concept cards:
Avaricious Gorgon Revamped: In general, I'm not a fan of using defender unless it's needed as it encourages board stall; I feel like a black Tales of Frostwoods would be just fine in this slot. I don't want to lose the +1/+1 counter matters rider, however, so we would need to find another slot for this.
"Goes face": It doesn't have to be an instant or sorcery, but it's true it's not as important as having the three slots filled at common. For the creature-only blast, I'm very interested in trying your concept:
TBA 4R: I would like to avoid emphasising noncreature spells in blue/red in this set since the "second spell" theme is kind of taking its place and the UR focus is going to be the discover mechanic.
Critic Cerberus: I'd like to avoid cards that specifically hate on Art. Ideally the cards should just work against any creature since there's nothing about the Art subtype that requires specific hate against it. You wouldn't have a card that says "destroy target wizard" or "destroy all saprolings" for instance.
Magus of the Charred: This plays in the same space as Fight Fire with Fire, but since we're a little heavy on creatures at uncommon right now I think I'd rather go with the noncreature spell.
Abandoned Axe: I like the concept and that it varies the types of threat but Ihave two concerns: 1) Would UR discover play it? It feels more like a masterwork/RG even type of reward. 2) How to make it less parasitic? If it worked with Scry, it would be a great improvement for instance.
Burn Blessings: I'd like to wait and see if aggro is struggling before making any serran life hate, since it's possible to interact with it in many less parasitic ways.
A priori it could be bigger yes ^^ It's just that it's easier for math to have it start at 10, and it's an uncommon with an effect that you'd normally see on a rare/mythic so I don't want to overshoot. Let's wait to see how it performs in playtest before boosting it.
Abandoned Axe - R
Artifact - Equipment
When you look at ~ from the top of your library, you may exile it. Until end of turn, you may cast it without paying it's mana cost.
Equipped creature gets +2/+1.
Equip 2
or, alternatively:
TBA - 1R
Creature
When you look at ~ from your library, if you weren't searching your library, you may exile it. Until end of turn, you may cast it without paying it's mana cost.
When ~ enters the battlefield, if you didn't discover it, scry 2.
2/1
the TBA can work for 2-power synergy by being a good 2-drop and set up the library for Dance Leader, filter things to discover into, and is just a pretty decent card.
I feel a need to bring it up again; Surge of Joy is definitely cut-worthy, especially with recent developments or decks that have come out. It neatly allows for a Turn-2 Tef3ri from Control while also fixing mana and drawing cards with ease, in addition to giving you Uro turn-2 and providing a card to enable the Escape with, and allowing for a turn-3/4 Omnath. Not only that, but it's absurd with Snapcaster Mage and can allow for some really good turns against aggro, in addition to being just life gain if needed. Not to mention being able to get Primeval Titan out turn-3 even easier than usual, turn-2 Oko in legacy or some other dumb things in Esper Vial. There's no excuse for most white-based decks to not play it in every format, and that feels like an issue.
My suggested signpost, which can be buffed or nerfed as needed, is -
TBA - 2BG
Creature - TBA
Trample
At the beginning of combat on your turn, target creature you control gets +x/+x, where X is the amount of keywords it has.
3/2
Alright, you're making a compelling case so I'll trust your instinct and cut Surge of Joy from the file ^^ The WU gold signpost might be enough to save the spirit of the card already, without the broken part. This leaves us with one open slot in White, I'll need to look into what's missing the most.
Scry/Discover pay-off: The more I look at it, the more I think this would be more suited for a rare/mythic that's a variation over Panglacial Wurm, it reads a bit complicated so I'd like to attach a substantial reward to make the complexity worth the effort.
Keyword soup: I really like the idea but it's basically a new mechanic and flashy enough that it would compete with something like serran life for attention on top of that. I think it's a deep concept that would open enough new design space to become the basis for its own set, probably in combination with stuff like keyword counters coming back. I could totally see Ikoria II doing something like that, for instance. We could try to make keyword soup an archetype on Rezatta without mentioning the word "keyword" but as you can tell it's difficult to make pay-offs that aren't super wordy like Soulflayer and it's close enough to what Masterwork is doing that it might compete with it for design space rather than synergise with it since a set can only support so many keywords and pay-off cards for each distinct archetype.
1. Another 2-Drop.
2. A sideboard card against certain deck archetypes / themes.
My thoughts for cards to fill the slot are:
TBA - W
Sorcery
Exile target artifact or enchantment with converted mana cost 3 or less. You gain 3 life.
A reprint of Cliffside Rescuer
Serra's Purge - 3W
Instant
This spell costs 2 less to cast if it targets a creature with converted mana cost 4 or greater.
Exile target creature.
Also, looking at the updated White card file again, there are a few more issues or things of note:
- Growling Missionary feels too strong. Adanto Vanguard saw immense play as a 1/1 on the defense and a 3/1 on the attack for 2 mana that had you pay four mana... in meta where mono-red aggro and, eventually, Chainwhirler were around. Making it a 1 mana 2/1 makes it much better as a blocker and attacker, and making you only pay 3 life is also really good.
- Court Mentor could still be a 2/2.
As soon as I get a break with my schoolwork, I'll look at all of the commons and give my thoughts on if any of them are too good for limited, too terrible, worthy of being uncommon, eta.1. In Memorain should have the text "Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control with an additional +1/+1 counter on it. That creature is an Art in addition to its other types." based on Rise from the Grave and Drana, the Last Bloodchief
2. Doctor's Recompense should probably be "Draw three cards, then lose life equal to the number of cards in your hand." based off of the wording of Castle Locthwain.
3. On Drunk Wolf, the "Haste, lifelink, menace or deathtouch..." part should be "menace, deathtouch, lifelink, haste"; keyword ordering is very peculiar.
4. Healing Fountain should say "target player mills cards equal to that creature's toughness". Generally, "X power/toughness" is used when the creature is still on the board, whereas "Equal to that creature's toughness" is used for creatures that just left the battlefield.
5. The changed wording of Spilled Ink should also apply to Acrylic Elk and every other card with the ability, in case you haven't addressed that yet.
In addition, I found a possible member of the "X Life Legendary Cycle" for Blue.
TBA - 2UU
Legendary Creature - TBA
When ~ becomes the target of a spell (or ability, if needed), sacrifice it.
~ gets +X/+X, where X is the amount of life you've paid this turn / lost this turn.
3/3
The theory is that while the card can be very potent with Serran life and can swing the game, the card is very weak with a lack of evasion and can be defeated by a simple combat trick. You could also give the ability to Red or Black member of the cycle and vica versa for the blue member.
And also, I do believe Dancing Wave could be buffed to be:
"Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Until end of turn, you may cast spells that share a card type with that permanent as though they had flash."
And looking at the red and green uncommon cards in addition to the colorless and multicolored cards, I do have a few issues:
1. Brash Announcer feels too good. Decks like Rakdos Deaths Shadow, Mono-Red Aggro, Burn and others can have it consistently swing turn-1 as a 2/2 with haste, and turn 2 as a 3/3 - essentially, it's too good with fetches, shocks, lightning bolt clones and horizon lands in modern, even better than Goblin Guide.
2. Banded Missionary feels at bit too bomby for limited; it enters as a 4 mana 3/4 that can gain numerous keywords, and with support from other cards, it can easily becomes an 8/4. Maybe making it a 3/4 that gains a wider variety of keywords would be better?
3. Pristine Seraph feels too good for an uncommon, and also feels too close to the uncommon lifegain signpost from M21.
4. Sparkmage Instructor has wings... but doesn't have flying? I'd switch the art for it. I can provide art for it, if needed.
In the meantime, I'll be nitpicking the commons and attempting to find out more suitable themes for some color pairs; particularly for B/G.
Before I start, I wanted to point out that I agree with your analysis on most cards and you're being exteremely helpful, so thanks a lot! =D I'm saying that because I'm going to push back on changes to some cards afterwards but I wanted to explain it's not because I disagree with your analysis at all. For some of them, it's simply because I believe they have potential for fun gameplay and I would like to get a feel of them in playtest before deciding what would be the best way to improve their balance or if it's worth the effort at all.
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Growling Missionary: I agree it feels quite strong. I personally dislike the playstyle of Adanto Vanguard, which I find oppressive. But thinking about it, I realised the fact that it attacked with 3 power was a huge part of what I didn't like about it as it forces bad blocks more often than I feel is fun. This is why I'd be tempted to try a 2-powered version, to see if it plays fairer. I still have a problem with how it plays on defense though, so really I'm open to any suggestion for that slot. I would prefer a one-mana 2-power creature with an ability that makes you lose life though (and doesn't directly care about losing life itself).
Court Mentor: The main reason I made it a 1/1 was that I wanted to avoid having two creatures at two-mana that were 2/2s with upsides. I'd like to keep its stats square as well if possible. I'd be open in having it be a 2/2 but more so if we found interesting stats for Dance Leader that aren't 2/2. This one still has room for one keyword ability if needed. Maybe making it 1 or 0 power would be interesting with its ability.
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Thanks for the templating and grammar checks! Don't invest too much time into details though, the concept cards are all pretty rough as they are unlikely to stay like this anyways. We'll do a proper correction at the end ^^
Blue Life-matters cycle: Ideally I'd like something that sticks to the rest of the cycle a little more and be just a potentially large threat, so I'd rather make it work without the downsides. The concept might fit, though at this stage I'd favour the designs that look at life totals rather than life gained and/or lost this turn because of memory burden (though it's still on the table if we can't find anything else).
Dancing Wave: That's a really interesting idea, but that's also a lot better than Disperse. Maybe we could focus it on creatures and do something like that to balance it: Return target creature to its owner's hand. Until end of turn, you may cast creature spells that share a creature type with it as though they had flash.
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For the following cards, I'm not going to change them yet so we can finish this first sweep of adjustments without getting too scattered, but I'm keeping those comments in a corner for when the time comes.
Brash Announcer: It's definitely meant to be the top red uncommon for an aggro deck. Do you feel it's too good to even try as-is? I'd still be interested in testing it out. Maybe it could lose haste, then? Or pick up a "must attack every turn" or "can't block" drawback? Red aggro is going to be struggling in the set so it needs some out-of-the box options to compete.
Banded Missionary: The main role of this card is to provide a finisher for the GW serran life deck. Because gaining life tends to drag out games without winning, I really need those directional GW cards to convert big amounts of serran life into a way to win. The idea is that the white one lets you make a wide alpha strike while the green one attacks with one giant trampling creature. So I'd like to keep the power = serran life rider, but we could replace the last ability with just regular trample if it is too much. The ability looks fun though so I'd be tempted to try it out as-is just to get a sense of it before nerfing accordingly.
Pristine Seraph: Yeah, I'd be interested in a design that's more different from the M21 signpost. Because both white and black directional cards have a more bleeder style of gameplay, the main idea would be to try something flashier and swingier — hence this initial concept.
Sparkmage Instructor: It gains flying! That being said, if you have an idea for an illustration I'm always on the lookout for those ^^ But don't worry too much about illustrations, everything that's flavour related (illustrations, names, flavour text, etc.) is just a placeholder, we'll go over it at the end and probably re-shuffle all the illustrations between the cards to make sure we really make use of all of our best ones.
B/G colour pair: +1/+1 counters is a pretty easy theme to implement so I think it won't be too hard to bring it to a place where it's satisfactory. It should play well especially with UB Art and GU masterwork, but if you get a better idea it's definitely still open for a change. The more archetypes the theme synergises with, the better. We tried reanimation at one point but I found it hard to implement as you can only have so many reanimation spells in one set.
For Court Mentor, would it being a 0/2 or a 0/3 with Double Strike be interesting?
As for Growling Missionary, I feel it would be better if the card paid 3 life to gain first strike (and, if needed, vigilance.) or, if wanting to be really spicy and fit with the theme of an intimidating religious wolf, gain menace and/or vigilance / first strike.
Trust me when I say that B/G Counters is not an easy theme to implement if it doesn't accidentally come together. Take it from Zendikar Rising - It required the use of a theme that generally very heavily used +1/+1 counters at common (Kicker), two +1/+1 counter lords at common and countless other common synergy cards, three of the best uncommon +1/1 payoffs in recent sets from draft, and two drafts of the archetype myself to realize that even then the archetype was mediocre, and most of the wins came not from +1/+1 counter synergy, but the excess of other good B/G cards in Zendikar Rising that led to me winning through goodstuff and bombs.
I thoroughly enjoy the set so far.
First, I'm posting the image of the Dancing Wave variation just so I remember about it later xD
I find the idea of having Court Mentor as a 0-power double strike interesting, it feels like it might be fun so I'd be interested in playtesting it. It does look like it might end up too bomb-y and/or too math-y though, so let's put a red flag on this one for now.
Growling Missionary: I like the idea of making the keyword different than indestructible, but when I tried to flesh it out it really only worked with vigilance and first strike, which doesn't read particularly well. Nothing else really makes much sense in mono-white. Playing with that concept led me to a simple variation that I found interesting though, tell me what you think:
About the BG archetype: It is true that it might get difficult to make the +1/+1 counter theme reach the correct as-fan if there is no mechanic in the set that put +1/+1 counters on creatures. Based on the numbers in Zendikar Rising, it got a pretty high as-fan of 1.55 in black/green, mostly supported by five commons in both black and green. Rezatta is basically fine with the number of uncommons already that would put +1/+1 counters on creatures, but it does start at a low 1 common in black and 2 commons in green so that would indeed most of the pump effects to be transposed into using +1/+1 counters.
One solution that might work to lean more into the already existing synergies of the set might be a token-matters theme. I think the combination of WB Renewal + BG Tokens and WB tokens + BG Renewal are pretty interchangeable. Actually the second might be more synergistic with the rest of the set:
• BG Renewal: We still keep the main two synergies that WB had (GW serran life and BR suicide) and add more synergy with RG Even life.
• WB Tokens: White tokens could synergise with the GW Serran life plan of gumming up the board before making one big alpha strike and would feed the RW weenies archetype, which the BG version does not. Meanwhile, black tokens could trigger the UB art synergies when entering/leaving the battlefield and be used aggressively in the BR suicide archetype.
Just as the +1/+1 counters theme though, the tokens theme would require quite a lot of changes to the commons as there is only one common (Biospark Mage) that makes tokens in WB right now. Still, it might be easier to make tokens work than +1/+1 counters.
1. Humans. This is a rather plain one; lots of humans at common, and both Black and Green have attempted human synergy in the past (w/B in Ikoria, w/G in Innistrad blocks.), so this format could be applicable for some sort of Human Aggro deck.
2. Aristocratic Sacrifice Matters. Slightly different from Aristocrats, the synergy cards would use an ability like Mayhem Devil that care about if ANY permanent is sacrificed. Of course, it still has an Aristocrats shell, with Macabre Waltz and Heresy with Death's Row filling up the black part of the archetype, and Green bringing Marble Maiden, Restore Beauty and Scour the Wilds.
3. Heroic. A bit unusual, but green has 3 enablers along with stuff like Insectoid Guard, which can really threaten flyers when backed up by a possible trick, Watercolored Guide which can allow your buffed creature to swing through, with black only having 1 enabler but bringing things like Ominous Melodist to allow a buffed creature to swing through, Vexing Buffoon, Vexing Lurker and Museum Thief which are very good targets to buff, and a decent array of card advantage and removal.
And this is a primary one that seems to be very prominent and more draftable than +1/+1 counters right now:
4. Buffing Weak Stuff. Chucking an Alluring Chiseler or an Nature's Garb onto a Museum Thief, Twilight Angel or Vexing Buffoon seems very potent, cutting out weak blockers with removal and backing up every keyword soup creature with the threat of a Vicious Influence or Restore Beauty. Ominous Melodist is a great card in the archetype. This could easily be supported by cutting Heresy for an Aura, and adding whatever personal touches would be required.
I'll re-review the full common list soon-ish. Also, nerfed Growling Missionary is cool.
I like the idea of a light tribal theme to replace the +1/+1 counter theme since it would be easier to implement. Humans would be an interesting one to sell the Humanism theme of Renaissance, but I'm concerned it would restrict the flavour theme of having anthropomorphised animals on Rezatta. Looking at the creature types already in the set, I'd be interested in pushing the Angels & Clerics theme that was in the conversation earlier. The originality of the idea being that it's a double tribal theme where both angels and clerics are rewarded but having both at the same time would be rewarded even more than the sum of their respective bonuses. It's probably more synergistic in white/black due to Green's difficulty to produce flying Angels, so it would be:
• WB Angels and Clerics tribal
• BG Renewal
Aristocrat sounds like a strong option as well. I originally wanted to avoid the theme to let the set feel more upbeat, but we're struggling so I'm ok opening some gates. It does feel more difficult to implement than Angels & Clerics and the synergies with the surrounding archetypes are low in green. Might work in White/Black though.
I'd prefer to stay away from heroic / buffing weak stuff to avoid a design space and gameplay style collision with the Masterwork archetype.
KorandAngels
Set design is kind of the point of making an MTG custom set though ^^" As usual, same answer: We're dealing with the flavour aspect once we have a solid idea of what the cards will be, a.k.a. towards the end of the process.
I do have a very crazy idea: Change B/G into the "Even life total matters" color.
By changing R/G into B/G, the even life matters cards have more synergy with the other themes that share a color with it. It removes the low amount of synergy between it and R/W "Two or less power" tribal, and U/R Discover. It then gives access to more life exploitation and payoffs in the form of synergy with the W/B renewal archetype, which cares about losing life and such.
You could then replace R/G with a different theme: Buffs could work better in the archetype, as there are 9 cards in the archetype which provide buffs. Other options are R/G Masterwork Stompy, Ranger Tribal, Renaissance Stompy, or even Shamans if you're willing to make a few changes to the set.