Wow, just stumbled across this project, looks gorgeous! Maybe I'll add my stone to the project ^^ A little feedback on top of my head: The set looks unique, gorgeous and engaging. It taps into new tropes, and feels very cohesive:
For the mechanics:
Renaissance: The wording is a bit clunky, and while it's pretty easy to enable, it will mostly be used with damage and not lifegain in normal decks, which won't lead to very interesting deckbuildings. Not a huge fan, but I guess it depends how it plays out.
Serran life: It's a complex mechanic, but it seems really intuitive. It taps into an unexplored design space, and I like it. However, the production of mana is very powerful, and it may be complicated to balance out.
Masterwork: An absolute hit! I love this mechanic, it's flavorful, simple, and should play nicely. Excellent idea!
Discover : A simple, scry-like mechanic (like surveil, explore, clash etc...) which every set can use. At the same time, it kind of fills the role of mana-sink mechanic (like overload, kicker, etc). Not the most impressive, but very necessary. Overall, good job!
2 little card-specific feedbacks:
serran soulwarden : It could read : Damage dealt by serran soulwarden also causes you to gain that much life. This can prevent the akward situation where you block with it, but the pseudo lifelink heal comes too late to save you. That's why WoTC changed their template when they introduced the lifelink keyword. But what if you block with it the same time you get damage by another creature? Which life do you lose? That's not necessary an issue, but a rule question XD
Surge of joy : is way waaaay too strong for constructed, because it can be abused with storm and whatnot. It's essencially a free spells that draws you a card, a better manamorphose, even without accounting that the mana can be stored for future turns! Finally, by the council of colors, white isn't supposed to be able to fix your colors, but I guess that's not too bad of a bend.
Same for light of hope: it's a free +2/+2 spell for infect, very very strong... I suggest to be reallly carefull with the cmc of serran cards. It is still a good deal at 2 manas
• About Sudden Bloom: I usually have a rule that says Renewal bonuses need to have some post-combat function specifically for that reason but I found this effect really clean, it's screaming super loud that the theme of this card is renewal — which is good since there are a lot of renewal cards outside green/black making the archetype less visible — and it plays into the resilience theme I was trying to imbue. So I'd be willing to get rid of the post-combat rule for the BG renewal cards only since, in this specific archetype, your deck will be built around creating life swings so you should rely less on incidental combat damage.
• About Effigy of Solace: Yeaaaah... Looking back at it I probably went a little over board, I agree XD I have two options to fix this issue: 1) Increasing the mana cost to recast it from your graveyard: "5BG: Return CARDNAME from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate this ability only if the sum of all life gained and lost this turn is 3 or more and only whenever you could cast a sorcery." 2) Changing the last ability to something like "CARDNAME has indestructible as long as the sum of all life gained and lost this turn is 3 or more." I think I'm leaning towards the first option for now.
• About Arbiter of Serra: Ah yeah, to be perfectly honest I genuinely thought Arbitrer was a word XD Will fix it!
• About Messenger of Serra: Yes, I can hear that argument, I found the double cross-synergy cute so I let it drive me where it wanted to end, which probably isn't an uncommon anymore, you're right. I think in this slot I'd still be interested in some way to ramp into big angels (just something less potent) but the +1/+1 counters ability is a bit random to begin with and would probably be better off as a "tap target creature" ability to recenter the archetype on removal as originally intended. Here's a new try, it's still quite potent but I think the 2 mana in the activation cost should be enough of a knob to bring it to a balanced place:
2, Tap two untapped creatures you control : Choose one or both — • You gain 1 serran life for each Cleric you tapped while activating this ability. • Tap up to one target creature for each Angel you tapped while activating this ability.
• About Frostbreath Dragon: I like that your version is a little less oppressive in the long run. It's more of a burst of damage, which fits the gameplay I'm aiming for with this archetype. I'm less of a fan about how close it is to the gold card that is also a 3-powered 4-mana card with haste that creates a big burst of damage. I think there might be a version in-between that oscillates between the feel of a Volcanic Dragon and a Charging Monstrosaur.
Here's an alternative try:
• About Spilled Ink: I see where you come from, the last ability with deathtouch was definitely a last minute addition because it felt a bit weak. For the flash part, I agree it's a bit unusual at uncommon but I don't think it's over the line considering it's limited to a specific tribe and it really helps UB Art develop its strategy in a more branded way. I think Spilled Ink might work as a simpler version of itself:
If it's too oppressive, removing flash from itself could also considerably nerf it.
• About Sunken Concerto: It takes it from 6 to 7 lines of text, which is wordy but not over the limit so we can try it with a "Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery" restriction ^^ I'm probably going to have to remove a bunch of text from all these cards later down the line, but that's a problem for future me xD
• About Soul of the Library: While Soul of the Library is a copy of Dovin's Acuity, what I like about it is how it recontextualises the card within this new archetype. In this situation, the fact that it grants serran life instead of regular life is ramp to help you cast two spells a turn. The most elegant aspect of it is how good of a first spell it makes since it enables your second spell synergy while returning to your hand for your next turn. So that's kind of the point of the card, at first your reaction should be "hey, I recognise this card" but then you realise it's much more synergistic than the first time around and plays very differently.
• About "If this is your second spell" vs. "If you've cast another spell this turn": I was going to have the WU archetype slowly become "play more than one spell a turn" as we climbed rarity but then I realised it plays like any Storm archetype and I would like to explore focusing on the second spell each turn specifically as this tension about whether or not you should cast your third spell is what makes it unique and branded. I believe it can lead to unique designs and interesting decisions so I'd like to commit to this more stringent version first.
Renaissance is a glue mechanic, while it's not the most flashy it really ties the different facets of the life-matters theme together ^^ After playtesting it, I found it's surprisingly hard to enable consistently just through combat damage so hopefully this will allow a distinction between decks that enable it from time to time vs. dedicated decks that really put in the effort to enable it every turn.
Serran life: It's definitely complex and risky but it's a lot of fun to play with from what I've tested so far! I think Treasures is a good example of a ramp mechanic that bent the colour pie a little bit but was fun to play with and didn't cause any major issues balance wise so we're hopefully going to land in the same ball park with serran life ^^
Masterwork: =D
Discover: I also found it's a lot more fun to play with than it looks at first. It feels a bit like a gamble and can lead to really surprising outcomes as it pushes you to play spells at times you usually wouldn't just to get some sort of card advantage x)
Serran Soulwarden: That's an excellent idea, I'll do the change! Note that the "also" was added to the reminder text for comfort but isn't actually part of the official rules text behind how lifelink works, so I didn't include it.
Surge of Joy and Light of Hope: Yes, Potato13 has been lobbying for a while to remove Surge of Joy from the file. I finally listened to reason and removed 1-mana "You gain 2 serran life" from the file at the exception of Serran Gift in Green at common, which is meant to be a weird ramp spell. I must say I fought hard against removing Surge of Joy because it's such a perfect fit in the set, but yes it would definitely break something outside of this set
@ningyounk , I feel like as far as sets go, we're going good here. However, I will post a few mild notes about the commons.
Blue: For Discover, there's no common way to set up the library to take maximum advantage of it. I'd suggest replacing Mosaic Instructor with a reprint of Faerie Seer, or replacing New Findings with a reprint of Foresee; for the former, replacing Moon Sage with a vanilla 3/2 art creature would keep the amount of arts even.
Green: New Landscapes is more concerning than what I initially thought; in Modern, going t1 fetch-shock into this generates you an extra untapped mana at no cost. Control decks could get out a T3feri a turn earlier while leaving up mana for Path to Exile or Bolt or get out an Uro one turn earlier with the exact same logic, and Eladrami's Toolbox has the same luxuries. I'd have the land enter the battlefield tapped; alternatively, make it a Wild Growth variant that untaps the land if you triggered renewal that turn.
Happy New Year everyone! Sorry it took me that long to reply, as you can imagine I was pretty busy with all the festivities, I hope you all had a nice holidays as well
Thanks for dropping some concept! ^^ It's a good concept in a vacuum, we could use it in the white GW directional slot, but right now it's in competition with the card that's currently in this slot (Inspiring Archpriest) and I prefer to encourage an "alpha strike" kind of gameplay for this archetype, just so it feels distinct enough from the WB Clerics and Angels archetype. We'll definitely consider something like this if we decide to open up the play style of this archetype.
It's definitely important for multiple archetypes that Blue can control what's on the top of its library. Mosaic Instructor is a very pivotal card in WU second spell, UB art and UR discover though, so I feel it would be difficult to replace properly. I agree that New Findings might be the best spot to introduce some library manipulation. However, I need to keep a Renewal rider on this card as it's part of a cycle and it needs to feel different enough from the 3-mana draw spell in black (scry 1 + draw 2 cards). Interestingly, that slot was originally supposed to do exactly that but I gave up because I couldn't find the proper balancing. I'm going to explain what tripped me a bit below, see if you got any idea.
Because of Discover purpose, setting up the first card of the library won't be enough because you're most likely going to draw that card on the next turn before having a chance to discover it. To be able to discover the card you've set up, you should ideally have control over the second card of your library. I see two main ways of doing this:
1) Using Scry 2 or more. Foresee could be one way but we would need to find the right Renewal rider and that's where it gets tricky to balance:
- "3U Sorcery Draw 2, Renewal — Scry 4 before that" is too weak without renewal. - "3U Instant Draw 2, Renewal — Scry 4 before that" would be perfect but the cards of this cycle need to be sorcery (so your opponent working to enable renewal on their turn doesn't help you as well). - "3U Sorcery Draw 2, Renewal — Then Scry 4" is too weak without renewal. - "3UU Sorcery Draw 3, Renewal — Then Scry 3" would be nice but is probably too close to Unexplained Vision. - "3UU Sorcery Draw 3, Renewal — Scry 4 before that" doesn't let you set up the second card of your library. - "3UU Sorcery Draw 3, Renewal — Scry 5 before that" is probably too much for common.
2) Putting cards from your hand on top of your library, Brainstorm style. However, that brings its own kind of issues:
- "3U Sorcery Draw three cards, Renewal — then, put a card from your hand on top of your library unless renewal is enabled" will not set up the second card of your library. - "3UU Sorcery Draw four cards, Renewal — then, put two cards from your hand on top of your library unless renewal is enabled" crosses the line between common and uncommon by drawing four cards. - "3U Sorcery Draw three cards, Renewal — then, put a card from your hand second from the top of your library unless renewal is enabled" is probably too convoluted for common. - "3U Sorcery Look at the top four cards of your library, put two of them into your hand and the rest back on top in any order. Renewal — Look at three additional card" is probably too convoluted for common and probably too strong for common.
So far, my favourite variant is "3UU Sorcery Draw 3 cards, Renewal — Scry 3" but I'm bothered by how close it is to Unexplained Vision.
• About New Landscapes:
Ah yeah, you're right >.< Damn Modern and their fetch/shock lands combo, it's really creating big discrepancies between how hard it is to have a 3-life swings in Modern+ formats and the rest... I've considered just upping the threshold of Renewal to 4 life because of this but it makes it super hard to trigger in Standard as cards like Sparks aren't even enough to enable Renewal on their own. The solution is most likely to be super cautious about all Renewal cards under 3 mana.
For New Landscapes in particular, we were looking for one more incidental serran life gain card at common in green and I liked your idea of having a reprint of Gift of Paradise. That seems like a perfect opportunity, using the serran life as an additional burst of mana to justify the Renewal rider.
For the record, here are the other 2-or-less mana Renewal cards at common for now. I don't think any of them are likely to be any big concern in Modern+ formats, I'd assume the blue creature is the most likely to be problematic but I have a hard time imagining it's worth replacing a true Bogle:
Now that the dust has settled on changes at common (I'll make a round for them later), let's get back to the uncommon ironing!
We left at Red. Because a lot of things have moved due to the new archetypes, I'm first going to post a new summary of where Red is at right now and what needs to be "ironed out".
Red currently has 11 slots taken out of 12. It has 7 creatures with a mana curve going 1-2-3-3-3-4-5.
Here are the stuff I'd like to tweak a bit: • Obviously, we need a 12th slot, preferably some glue. • One less creature would be ideal. I'm thinking of making all the cards in the Renewal cycle enchantments with a first ability that helps you trigger renewal, on the same template as the white and black ones. This one might want to ping the opponent, but I'm not sure what is the right trigger yet. • I'd like one of the 3-mana creatures to become 2-mana to make the curve more agressive. • I need at least two more discover cards. The first one will probably go on the pay-off itself (Spartower Pupil). I'd like a "Whenever attacks, discover" ability somewhere. • I'd like a buff to Intimidating Violonist. Its black counterpart picked up the Sengir Vampire ability where your masterwork grows when it kills a creature. I think the red one should get the Bloodlust ability where it grows when it hits the player, for symmetry. • I don't like that Partner of Frostvale doesn't synergise with Street Masquerade and would like to fix this. • I need at least one life payment card.
So, here are the modifications I've made so far:
1) Brash Announcer:
I just nerfed it a little bit so it attacks as a 3/1 but not a 3/3 in the worst case scenario.
2) Sparktower Pupil
I didn't like how the 2 damage to any target was redundant with both the Renewal enchantment and Set Ablaze, and I needed this slot to actually discover because the discover as-fan is way too low at uncommon. I kept the base ping ability but made it an equipment and added a bit of life payment to help with the as-fan of life loss.
I also got rid of the "if you cast a discovered spell this way" rider on the blue directional card for UR discover in order to add a discover trigger:
3) Intimidating Violonist
As mentioned above, I made it cost one less-mana to make the mana curve more agressive and I added a bloodlust trigger.
4) Bearer of New Light
I wanted to transform the whole cycle into enchantments with one ability that helps you enable Renaissance, and a Renaissance trigger at the beginning of your end step, following the model of the white and black ones. Here's the red one:
And here are the others:
5) Partner of Frostvale:
I wanted this card to better synergise with the other cards, especially Street Masquerade. So now it gives double strike instead of +2/+0 but I dropped trample. Additionally, it now cares about creatures that weren't cast from your hand so it also synergises with discovered and bounced creatures.
6) Last slot
With the Renewal card and the UR directional cards becoming noncreature permanents, Red actually needed one more creatures to go up to 6/12. For mana curve purposes, it had to be 2-mana. Red needed a bit more incidental life payment so I made something very simple but that could synergise with most red archetypes:
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Here's the summary for Red:
I know that Red is the hardest colour for me to design for so I'm going to need to get a feel of them in play before adjusting them power wise. When I look at them a priori, I would expect Red uncommons to overperform a bit more often than they underperform but we'll see.
Following up the "ironing" of uncommons with some Green: It's currently missing three slots and could use one more creature to go up to 7. In addition, the creature mana curve goes 1-2-3-4-4-6, which is currently a little top-ended even for Green.
The main issue with Green however is that most of the cards have problems at an individual level: • Imaginative Amateur feels slightly underpowered a priori. • Tales of Frostwood would be more suited as a Black card for the need of the set. • Banded Missionaries is already red-flagged as potentially too strong, though I'm ok trying it as-is to start with. • Simple Aesthete just isn't pulling its weight as the hidden 5-colour theme pay-off. • Feed Upon is too strong.
About what's missing, we're currently in need of: • A spell that can return any permanent from your graveyard to your hand. Because of the synergy with the Art strategy, we might want that to replace Tales of Frostwoods. • A ramp spell that allows you to get ahead in lands, unlike the Apostle of Past Ways. • At least one additional incidental serran life gain.
Ok, I haven't helped out with this for a while, so I decided to try my hand at a green card! I tried to fill the slots of getting ahead in lands and serran life gain.
I have technically used this art for another card I've submitted for this, but that one got vetoed and I feel like it fits for this as well.
I like the card in a vacuum, however it's going to create friction with another green uncommon that says "whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you gain 1 serran life" (Calls of Change). Because we just moved the Renewal-matters archetype to black/green and there are some "X is equal to the sum of all life gained and lost this turn" effects on the pay-offs, I think we're looking for the potential to gain a big chunk of serran life with this serran life slot.
Currently, we have a pretty good curve of ramp cards in Green with a variety of effects:
I believe what would complement this curve nicely would be a 4+mana spell that puts two lands onto the battlefield from your library, à la Migration Path:
We could go "Gain serran life equal to the number of lands you control" as a rider but I'm afraid it's a bit strong and also it doubles down on the ramp + life theme of Serran Druid ans New Harvest I feel.
1) I wanted to use the effect from Tales of Frostwood on a black card since Black is supposed to be the main support of the UBG Art archetype but is a bit lacking right now. Since UBG Art is all about recursion, I figured it was a good slot to sneak in the missing recuperation spell so I made a reverse Eternal Witness:
2) Simple Aesthete felt a bit weird, the original idea was that it was going to be big enough to serve the UG Masterwork and RG Even life archetypes while emphasising the fact that the serran life from the GW Serran life and BG Renewal archetypes made mana of all colours, creating a secret Converge archetype. But it didn't feel like it would pull its weight and I couldn't find a balanced design for it. I tried to mix it with the masterwork archetype for a while since it's the most likely archetype to play cards of all five colours, but it felt just as weird. So I decided to simply make this slot the ramp card and add a little 5-colours-matter rider to make it more interesting.
3) This freed an additional creature slot at four mana. I figured Green could use some repeatable card draw. I do think that recent sets have gone too far with this, but I like repeatable green card draw at uncommon when it's focused on a more parasitic set mechanic and isn't too cheap (like Edgewall Innkeeper if it was 2 or 3 more mana). After thinking about it, I figured Masterwork was the most parasitic mechanic in the set in green, so I made this:
4) Feed Upon was too strong. As I wanted to add some incidental life gain to an existing card, I simply replaced the +1/+1 counters with serran life.
5) I had six creatures and, since Green is a colour heavily oriented towards creatures I wanted to add an additional creature. I wanted it to be at two or three mana to help reduce the mana curve of the uncommon creatures as well. I couldn't fit an Ajani's Pridemate-style of cards in White but I figured it would be interesting to have a green variation for once, so I started with that idea. In addition, Green doesn't get a lot of removal, but I wanted to add a soft removal card to even things out a bit and ended up with this:
6) This left one final slot. I didn't have anything major left that I wanted to hit in green at uncommon, so I tried to make a glue card. When looking at the green archetypes, three out of four (GW Serran life, RG Even life and BG Renewal) were sensitive to serran life so I decided to make an additional serran life card but that would be more dedicated so you only wanted it if your deck had synergies with it and wouldn't be picked up by other decks like Spring Upon.
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So here's a first complete version of the green uncommons:
You would use "that's tapped" in the context of a token that's created "tapped and attacking" (e.g. Falconer Adept). However, you create a "tapped token" if the token doesn't enter the battlefield as part of a combat (e.g. Graveyard Marshal)
@ningyounk , I've returned to look at the cards once again, with a substantially greater understanding of mtg under my sleeve. The only card that I find really, really concerning is Sudden Blossom; I don't know if you've seen decks like Death's Shadow, but a degenerate Jund or maybe even Sultai version of Death's Shadow would emerge from the printing of the card; Cracking a fetch and Thoughtsiezing ensures 5 extra damage on a Monastery Swiftspear or similar card, and if you substitute Thoughtsieze for something like Dismember or Lightning Bolt, you've got a nasty deck on your hands. Combine that with stuff like Temur Battle Rage or Snapcaster Mage to double the damage dealt, and it's concerning. Not to mention, shennanagins with Embercleave in Pioneer or Historic for Gruul Stompy.
I agree Sudden Blossom has the potential to be very swingy. We don't often see strong pump spells though and this one requires a lot of setting up to be worth it so I'd be interested in seeing how it would perform. My main concern is that it might be too difficult to play around, if it feels like so we can always try a variation at sorcery speed but that also grants some evasion maybe.
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I've done a little bit of clean-up at common to add some Clerics and Angels in White/Black as well as a couple Art in Blue/Black for as-fan purpose.
I also incorporated a couple cards that didn't really have a home at uncommon after the recent changes to Red, Green, and the new Renewal cycle:
1) The Renewal card in Blue used to be a creature. To keep the creature ratio acceptable now that it became an enchantment, I transformed an enchantment into a creature:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
2) Now that the Green Art token maker is gone (Tales of Frostwood) I wanted something to replace it in Black, which has more synergies with Art. To make room for it, I have fused the two creatures that had a sacrifice activated ability into one. I also needed a couple more way to incidentally pay life to help the BR archetype so both cards make you lose some life:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
3) Finally, there were two Black cards I kind of left hanging in the air without finalising them. The first one is the directional WB common, a cheap removal that synergises with Clerics an Angels that I wanted to streamline. The second was a blink spell that was a bit too concerning for uncommon:
@ningyounk , Another Self-Portrait could do with being 3 mana in order to not be too good. Party Harder also feels like a card that isn't technically a color pie break but definitely is - like if Green got a 2 mana 1/1 with deathtouch that fights something when it enters. Flicker isn't a black mechanic.
In addition, I have a semi-interesting card concept, a tech card:
Soul-Binder - {1} Artifact Nonland cards can't enter the battlefield from exile. Players can't cast cards in exile.
Yeah, I agree with Another Self-Portrait. I just filled in the missing 2-mana slot but it does look more like a 3-mana card now that I take a step back, somewhere between Hordeling Outburst and Scampering Scorcher. Actually, I just realised I forgot to update Spilled Ink, the UB directional card in black that changed from 3 to 2-mana so this works out perfectly, they can just switch place.
For the black flicker, it's a conscious proposition of colour pie bend. Black has been toying with this on very rare occasions (Blood for Bones, Rescue from the Underworld, Blood on the Snow, etc.), but always on expensive spells. The set calls for some recursion for the UB Art archetype but there's already a classic flicker card in Blue at common and a reanimation spell in Black. So, I figured we could try a Black variant of this, since it's mostly a bend for Black rather than a break. The idea is that it's not as efficient as White or Blue flicker, but it compensates by triggering death triggers and not being restricted to creatures you control. It's definitely unorthodox but I think it makes sense in the context of the set.
On Soul Binder: It's a fun idea to have a Grafdigger's Cage for the exiled zone, but in the context of this set with a mechanic that allows you to play cards from your library (Discover), I feel that it would be missing the point as a hate card. In addition, I personally prefer to have softer hate cards that have a wide range of applications rather than completely shutting down one specific type of deck. Typically, if I had designed Grafdigger's Cage, it would have had an additional ability like "5: Return Grafdigger's Cage to its owner's hand. Any player may activate this ability during their turn." so it doesn't completely shut down certain styles of deck but just slow them down.
Of course, feel free to post any idea you have ^^ Note though that, because it's set building and not a contest, cards might be good in a vaccum but not fit with the other cards already in the set. It's a bit like a giant sudoku, so it's always better to favour general concepts that can be remodeled easily with different stats etc.
Moving on to the multicoloured cards, here is where we stand right now:
Here are the modifications I'd like to make:
1) Snow Chimera attacking as a 3/3 dealing 3 damage is a bit much. I just adjusted the stats while keeping the same concept:
2) Now that we have a WB Angels and Clerics draft theme, Serran Pilgrims in GW is stepping on a design space that's available anymore and it would send the wrong signal to drafters. Here's a redesign:
3) For Arbiter of Serra, the main difficulty was that I had to redesign the white WB directional card Messenger of Serra at the same time and they were competing a bit for the same effects. Ultimately, I kept Arbiter of Serra the same except the first ability can target any creature now (the fact that the second ability wasn't caring about Clerics made the lack of symmetry very jarring). For Messenger of Serra, it kept a tone down version of the cost reduction and I traded the +1/+1 counter for a bit more removal:
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For the rest, I'm mostly ok with them so far. Siren Concerto and Effigy of Solace are a bit wordy so if they're not particularly fun gameplay wise they might end up getting a complete redesign.
1. Pure-Heart Pilgrim feels a bit too hard to enable - only 1 life per turn. I do have an alternate possibly design for the Serran Life archetype - which takes advantage of the inherent mechanics of Serran Life instead of being a simple Serran Life threshold, while also being a decent card in its own right. Something like:
TBA - 2WG Creature - Wurm Trample When ~ enters the battlefield, you gain life equal to the amount of life you've lost this turn. Then, if you control no tapped lands, put two +1/+1 counters on ~. 5/4
Mistifying Pied Piper feels like it needs to be a payoff for the masterwork deck, rather than the eighth card in a deck that gives masterwork - some sort of protection spell or something. The name also feels too Yu-Gi-Oh esque.
Other than these complaints, the gold cards seem nice.
Potato13 Yeah, the 1 life per turn is me giving up on finding something original and defaulting to a basic, to be honest x) It kinda works with the archetype though, the goal is to make a ticking bomb, hence all the threshold effects.
But I really like the elegance of your design, it does bring something different while still working in the archetype. I have a couple of bemols with it though: 1) It feels monoGreen. 2) 4-mana creates some friction with the 4-mana green (Banded Missionaries) and 5-mana white (Inspiring Archpriest) directional GW cards, I'd like a 2-or-3-mana card in that mix. 2) If possible I'd like a clear switch between when you play it in the "ticking phase" wanting to defend your life total vs. the "bomb" phase when you've amassed enough serran life that it's time to go all out. A 5/4 trample as a base sounds more like the kind of creature the RG aggro deck would want than the GW controlling archetype.
Here's my idea: • The original design for Banded Missionaries design becomes the GW signpost and your design becomes the directional green card. • I renamed the new GW signpost Moonlight Angel and made it 3-mana (it's definitely better than the orignal as it costs less and switches reach for flying, but the gold cards tend to be a bit stronger than the monocoloured ones so I hope this won't be over the line). • I made your design more defensive on the front face, but instead of getting +1/+1 counters it creates a 5/5 trample which indicates it's time for the bomb to explode.
Haha, it does bring memories of a specific card when I as playing Yu-Gi-Oh! as a kid XD
Yu-Gi-Oh! is a weird game... X) All names in the set right now are placeholders anyways, but how about this for now:
The thing with the masterwork deck is that it needs a critical mass of spells with masterwork to function. This is actually a pay-off spell, the idea is that all your other masterwork cards make your masterwork bigger and more evasive. This is the one card that, instead of doing that, rewards you once your masterwork finally manages to connect. I really wanted a Curiosity masterwork effect and the GU signpost felt like a really good slot because of this.
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Comments
The set looks unique, gorgeous and engaging. It taps into new tropes, and feels very cohesive:
For the mechanics:
Renaissance: The wording is a bit clunky, and while it's pretty easy to enable, it will mostly be used with damage and not lifegain in normal decks, which won't lead to very interesting deckbuildings. Not a huge fan, but I guess it depends how it plays out.
Serran life: It's a complex mechanic, but it seems really intuitive. It taps into an unexplored design space, and I like it. However, the production of mana is very powerful, and it may be complicated to balance out.
Masterwork: An absolute hit! I love this mechanic, it's flavorful, simple, and should play nicely. Excellent idea!
Discover : A simple, scry-like mechanic (like surveil, explore, clash etc...) which every set can use. At the same time, it kind of fills the role of mana-sink mechanic (like overload, kicker, etc). Not the most impressive, but very necessary. Overall, good job!
2 little card-specific feedbacks:
serran soulwarden : It could read : Damage dealt by serran soulwarden also causes you to gain that much life. This can prevent the akward situation where you block with it, but the pseudo lifelink heal comes too late to save you. That's why WoTC changed their template when they introduced the lifelink keyword. But what if you block with it the same time you get damage by another creature? Which life do you lose? That's not necessary an issue, but a rule question XD
Surge of joy : is way waaaay too strong for constructed, because it can be abused with storm and whatnot. It's essencially a free spells that draws you a card, a better manamorphose, even without accounting that the mana can be stored for future turns! Finally, by the council of colors, white isn't supposed to be able to fix your colors, but I guess that's not too bad of a bend.
• About Sudden Bloom:
I usually have a rule that says Renewal bonuses need to have some post-combat function specifically for that reason but I found this effect really clean, it's screaming super loud that the theme of this card is renewal — which is good since there are a lot of renewal cards outside green/black making the archetype less visible — and it plays into the resilience theme I was trying to imbue. So I'd be willing to get rid of the post-combat rule for the BG renewal cards only since, in this specific archetype, your deck will be built around creating life swings so you should rely less on incidental combat damage.
• About Effigy of Solace:
Yeaaaah... Looking back at it I probably went a little over board, I agree XD I have two options to fix this issue:
1) Increasing the mana cost to recast it from your graveyard: "5BG: Return CARDNAME from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate this ability only if the sum of all life gained and lost this turn is 3 or more and only whenever you could cast a sorcery."
2) Changing the last ability to something like "CARDNAME has indestructible as long as the sum of all life gained and lost this turn is 3 or more."
I think I'm leaning towards the first option for now.
• About Arbiter of Serra:
Ah yeah, to be perfectly honest I genuinely thought Arbitrer was a word XD Will fix it!
• About Messenger of Serra:
Yes, I can hear that argument, I found the double cross-synergy cute so I let it drive me where it wanted to end, which probably isn't an uncommon anymore, you're right. I think in this slot I'd still be interested in some way to ramp into big angels (just something less potent) but the +1/+1 counters ability is a bit random to begin with and would probably be better off as a "tap target creature" ability to recenter the archetype on removal as originally intended. Here's a new try, it's still quite potent but I think the 2 mana in the activation cost should be enough of a knob to bring it to a balanced place:
2, Tap two untapped creatures you control : Choose one or both —
• You gain 1 serran life for each Cleric you tapped while activating this ability.
• Tap up to one target creature for each Angel you tapped while activating this ability.
• About Frostbreath Dragon:
I like that your version is a little less oppressive in the long run. It's more of a burst of damage, which fits the gameplay I'm aiming for with this archetype. I'm less of a fan about how close it is to the gold card that is also a 3-powered 4-mana card with haste that creates a big burst of damage. I think there might be a version in-between that oscillates between the feel of a Volcanic Dragon and a Charging Monstrosaur.
Here's an alternative try:
• About Spilled Ink:
I see where you come from, the last ability with deathtouch was definitely a last minute addition because it felt a bit weak. For the flash part, I agree it's a bit unusual at uncommon but I don't think it's over the line considering it's limited to a specific tribe and it really helps UB Art develop its strategy in a more branded way. I think Spilled Ink might work as a simpler version of itself:
If it's too oppressive, removing flash from itself could also considerably nerf it.
• About Sunken Concerto:
It takes it from 6 to 7 lines of text, which is wordy but not over the limit so we can try it with a "Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery" restriction ^^ I'm probably going to have to remove a bunch of text from all these cards later down the line, but that's a problem for future me xD
• About Soul of the Library:
While Soul of the Library is a copy of Dovin's Acuity, what I like about it is how it recontextualises the card within this new archetype. In this situation, the fact that it grants serran life instead of regular life is ramp to help you cast two spells a turn. The most elegant aspect of it is how good of a first spell it makes since it enables your second spell synergy while returning to your hand for your next turn. So that's kind of the point of the card, at first your reaction should be "hey, I recognise this card" but then you realise it's much more synergistic than the first time around and plays very differently.
• About "If this is your second spell" vs. "If you've cast another spell this turn":
I was going to have the WU archetype slowly become "play more than one spell a turn" as we climbed rarity but then I realised it plays like any Storm archetype and I would like to explore focusing on the second spell each turn specifically as this tension about whether or not you should cast your third spell is what makes it unique and branded. I believe it can lead to unique designs and interesting decisions so I'd like to commit to this more stringent version first.
@milanaarz
Hey, thanks for passing by!
Renaissance is a glue mechanic, while it's not the most flashy it really ties the different facets of the life-matters theme together ^^ After playtesting it, I found it's surprisingly hard to enable consistently just through combat damage so hopefully this will allow a distinction between decks that enable it from time to time vs. dedicated decks that really put in the effort to enable it every turn.
Serran life: It's definitely complex and risky but it's a lot of fun to play with from what I've tested so far! I think Treasures is a good example of a ramp mechanic that bent the colour pie a little bit but was fun to play with and didn't cause any major issues balance wise so we're hopefully going to land in the same ball park with serran life ^^
Masterwork: =D
Discover: I also found it's a lot more fun to play with than it looks at first. It feels a bit like a gamble and can lead to really surprising outcomes as it pushes you to play spells at times you usually wouldn't just to get some sort of card advantage x)
Serran Soulwarden: That's an excellent idea, I'll do the change! Note that the "also" was added to the reminder text for comfort but isn't actually part of the official rules text behind how lifelink works, so I didn't include it.
Surge of Joy and Light of Hope: Yes, Potato13 has been lobbying for a while to remove Surge of Joy from the file. I finally listened to reason and removed 1-mana "You gain 2 serran life" from the file at the exception of Serran Gift in Green at common, which is meant to be a weird ramp spell. I must say I fought hard against removing Surge of Joy because it's such a perfect fit in the set, but yes it would definitely break something outside of this set
Blue: For Discover, there's no common way to set up the library to take maximum advantage of it. I'd suggest replacing Mosaic Instructor with a reprint of Faerie Seer, or replacing New Findings with a reprint of Foresee; for the former, replacing Moon Sage with a vanilla 3/2 art creature would keep the amount of arts even.
Green: New Landscapes is more concerning than what I initially thought; in Modern, going t1 fetch-shock into this generates you an extra untapped mana at no cost. Control decks could get out a T3feri a turn earlier while leaving up mana for Path to Exile or Bolt or get out an Uro one turn earlier with the exact same logic, and Eladrami's Toolbox has the same luxuries. I'd have the land enter the battlefield tapped; alternatively, make it a Wild Growth variant that untaps the land if you triggered renewal that turn.
Sorry it took me that long to reply, as you can imagine I was pretty busy with all the festivities, I hope you all had a nice holidays as well
@AboveAndAbout
Thanks for dropping some concept! ^^ It's a good concept in a vacuum, we could use it in the white GW directional slot, but right now it's in competition with the card that's currently in this slot (Inspiring Archpriest) and I prefer to encourage an "alpha strike" kind of gameplay for this archetype, just so it feels distinct enough from the WB Clerics and Angels archetype. We'll definitely consider something like this if we decide to open up the play style of this archetype.
@Potato13
• About Blue and library manipulation:
It's definitely important for multiple archetypes that Blue can control what's on the top of its library. Mosaic Instructor is a very pivotal card in WU second spell, UB art and UR discover though, so I feel it would be difficult to replace properly. I agree that New Findings might be the best spot to introduce some library manipulation. However, I need to keep a Renewal rider on this card as it's part of a cycle and it needs to feel different enough from the 3-mana draw spell in black (scry 1 + draw 2 cards). Interestingly, that slot was originally supposed to do exactly that but I gave up because I couldn't find the proper balancing. I'm going to explain what tripped me a bit below, see if you got any idea.
Because of Discover purpose, setting up the first card of the library won't be enough because you're most likely going to draw that card on the next turn before having a chance to discover it. To be able to discover the card you've set up, you should ideally have control over the second card of your library. I see two main ways of doing this:
1) Using Scry 2 or more. Foresee could be one way but we would need to find the right Renewal rider and that's where it gets tricky to balance:
- "3U Sorcery Draw 2, Renewal — Scry 4 before that" is too weak without renewal.
- "3U Instant Draw 2, Renewal — Scry 4 before that" would be perfect but the cards of this cycle need to be sorcery (so your opponent working to enable renewal on their turn doesn't help you as well).
- "3U Sorcery Draw 2, Renewal — Then Scry 4" is too weak without renewal.
- "3UU Sorcery Draw 3, Renewal — Then Scry 3" would be nice but is probably too close to Unexplained Vision.
- "3UU Sorcery Draw 3, Renewal — Scry 4 before that" doesn't let you set up the second card of your library.
- "3UU Sorcery Draw 3, Renewal — Scry 5 before that" is probably too much for common.
2) Putting cards from your hand on top of your library, Brainstorm style. However, that brings its own kind of issues:
- "3U Sorcery Draw three cards, Renewal — then, put a card from your hand on top of your library unless renewal is enabled" will not set up the second card of your library.
- "3UU Sorcery Draw four cards, Renewal — then, put two cards from your hand on top of your library unless renewal is enabled" crosses the line between common and uncommon by drawing four cards.
- "3U Sorcery Draw three cards, Renewal — then, put a card from your hand second from the top of your library unless renewal is enabled" is probably too convoluted for common.
- "3U Sorcery Look at the top four cards of your library, put two of them into your hand and the rest back on top in any order. Renewal — Look at three additional card" is probably too convoluted for common and probably too strong for common.
So far, my favourite variant is "3UU Sorcery Draw 3 cards, Renewal — Scry 3" but I'm bothered by how close it is to Unexplained Vision.
• About New Landscapes:
Ah yeah, you're right >.< Damn Modern and their fetch/shock lands combo, it's really creating big discrepancies between how hard it is to have a 3-life swings in Modern+ formats and the rest... I've considered just upping the threshold of Renewal to 4 life because of this but it makes it super hard to trigger in Standard as cards like Sparks aren't even enough to enable Renewal on their own. The solution is most likely to be super cautious about all Renewal cards under 3 mana.
For New Landscapes in particular, we were looking for one more incidental serran life gain card at common in green and I liked your idea of having a reprint of Gift of Paradise. That seems like a perfect opportunity, using the serran life as an additional burst of mana to justify the Renewal rider.
For the record, here are the other 2-or-less mana Renewal cards at common for now. I don't think any of them are likely to be any big concern in Modern+ formats, I'd assume the blue creature is the most likely to be problematic but I have a hard time imagining it's worth replacing a true Bogle:
"Renaissance" in the siren isn't italicized.
We left at Red. Because a lot of things have moved due to the new archetypes, I'm first going to post a new summary of where Red is at right now and what needs to be "ironed out".
Red currently has 11 slots taken out of 12. It has 7 creatures with a mana curve going 1-2-3-3-3-4-5.
Here are the stuff I'd like to tweak a bit:
• Obviously, we need a 12th slot, preferably some glue.
• One less creature would be ideal. I'm thinking of making all the cards in the Renewal cycle enchantments with a first ability that helps you trigger renewal, on the same template as the white and black ones. This one might want to ping the opponent, but I'm not sure what is the right trigger yet.
• I'd like one of the 3-mana creatures to become 2-mana to make the curve more agressive.
• I need at least two more discover cards. The first one will probably go on the pay-off itself (Spartower Pupil). I'd like a "Whenever attacks, discover" ability somewhere.
• I'd like a buff to Intimidating Violonist. Its black counterpart picked up the Sengir Vampire ability where your masterwork grows when it kills a creature. I think the red one should get the Bloodlust ability where it grows when it hits the player, for symmetry.
• I don't like that Partner of Frostvale doesn't synergise with Street Masquerade and would like to fix this.
• I need at least one life payment card.
So, here are the modifications I've made so far:
1) Brash Announcer:
I just nerfed it a little bit so it attacks as a 3/1 but not a 3/3 in the worst case scenario.
2) Sparktower Pupil
I didn't like how the 2 damage to any target was redundant with both the Renewal enchantment and Set Ablaze, and I needed this slot to actually discover because the discover as-fan is way too low at uncommon. I kept the base ping ability but made it an equipment and added a bit of life payment to help with the as-fan of life loss.
I also got rid of the "if you cast a discovered spell this way" rider on the blue directional card for UR discover in order to add a discover trigger:
3) Intimidating Violonist
As mentioned above, I made it cost one less-mana to make the mana curve more agressive and I added a bloodlust trigger.
4) Bearer of New Light
I wanted to transform the whole cycle into enchantments with one ability that helps you enable Renaissance, and a Renaissance trigger at the beginning of your end step, following the model of the white and black ones. Here's the red one:
And here are the others:
5) Partner of Frostvale:
I wanted this card to better synergise with the other cards, especially Street Masquerade. So now it gives double strike instead of +2/+0 but I dropped trample. Additionally, it now cares about creatures that weren't cast from your hand so it also synergises with discovered and bounced creatures.
6) Last slot
With the Renewal card and the UR directional cards becoming noncreature permanents, Red actually needed one more creatures to go up to 6/12. For mana curve purposes, it had to be 2-mana. Red needed a bit more incidental life payment so I made something very simple but that could synergise with most red archetypes:
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Here's the summary for Red:
I know that Red is the hardest colour for me to design for so I'm going to need to get a feel of them in play before adjusting them power wise. When I look at them a priori, I would expect Red uncommons to overperform a bit more often than they underperform but we'll see.
The main issue with Green however is that most of the cards have problems at an individual level:
• Imaginative Amateur feels slightly underpowered a priori.
• Tales of Frostwood would be more suited as a Black card for the need of the set.
• Banded Missionaries is already red-flagged as potentially too strong, though I'm ok trying it as-is to start with.
• Simple Aesthete just isn't pulling its weight as the hidden 5-colour theme pay-off.
• Feed Upon is too strong.
About what's missing, we're currently in need of:
• A spell that can return any permanent from your graveyard to your hand. Because of the synergy with the Art strategy, we might want that to replace Tales of Frostwoods.
• A ramp spell that allows you to get ahead in lands, unlike the Apostle of Past Ways.
• At least one additional incidental serran life gain.
I have technically used this art for another card I've submitted for this, but that one got vetoed and I feel like it fits for this as well.
Thanks for sending ideas! =D
I like the card in a vacuum, however it's going to create friction with another green uncommon that says "whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you gain 1 serran life" (Calls of Change). Because we just moved the Renewal-matters archetype to black/green and there are some "X is equal to the sum of all life gained and lost this turn" effects on the pay-offs, I think we're looking for the potential to gain a big chunk of serran life with this serran life slot.
Currently, we have a pretty good curve of ramp cards in Green with a variety of effects:
I believe what would complement this curve nicely would be a 4+mana spell that puts two lands onto the battlefield from your library, à la Migration Path:
We could go "Gain serran life equal to the number of lands you control" as a rider but I'm afraid it's a bit strong and also it doubles down on the ramp + life theme of Serran Druid ans New Harvest I feel.
1) I wanted to use the effect from Tales of Frostwood on a black card since Black is supposed to be the main support of the UBG Art archetype but is a bit lacking right now. Since UBG Art is all about recursion, I figured it was a good slot to sneak in the missing recuperation spell so I made a reverse Eternal Witness:
2) Simple Aesthete felt a bit weird, the original idea was that it was going to be big enough to serve the UG Masterwork and RG Even life archetypes while emphasising the fact that the serran life from the GW Serran life and BG Renewal archetypes made mana of all colours, creating a secret Converge archetype. But it didn't feel like it would pull its weight and I couldn't find a balanced design for it. I tried to mix it with the masterwork archetype for a while since it's the most likely archetype to play cards of all five colours, but it felt just as weird. So I decided to simply make this slot the ramp card and add a little 5-colours-matter rider to make it more interesting.
3) This freed an additional creature slot at four mana. I figured Green could use some repeatable card draw. I do think that recent sets have gone too far with this, but I like repeatable green card draw at uncommon when it's focused on a more parasitic set mechanic and isn't too cheap (like Edgewall Innkeeper if it was 2 or 3 more mana). After thinking about it, I figured Masterwork was the most parasitic mechanic in the set in green, so I made this:
4) Feed Upon was too strong. As I wanted to add some incidental life gain to an existing card, I simply replaced the +1/+1 counters with serran life.
5) I had six creatures and, since Green is a colour heavily oriented towards creatures I wanted to add an additional creature. I wanted it to be at two or three mana to help reduce the mana curve of the uncommon creatures as well. I couldn't fit an Ajani's Pridemate-style of cards in White but I figured it would be interesting to have a green variation for once, so I started with that idea. In addition, Green doesn't get a lot of removal, but I wanted to add a soft removal card to even things out a bit and ended up with this:
6) This left one final slot. I didn't have anything major left that I wanted to hit in green at uncommon, so I tried to make a glue card. When looking at the green archetypes, three out of four (GW Serran life, RG Even life and BG Renewal) were sensitive to serran life so I decided to make an additional serran life card but that would be more dedicated so you only wanted it if your deck had synergies with it and wouldn't be picked up by other decks like Spring Upon.
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So here's a first complete version of the green uncommons:
Create a 7/7 green Giant Art creature token that’s tapped.
Don't worry, I'll make a fresh post with everything soon since I'm on holidays next week ^^
@shadow123
You would use "that's tapped" in the context of a token that's created "tapped and attacking" (e.g. Falconer Adept). However, you create a "tapped token" if the token doesn't enter the battlefield as part of a combat (e.g. Graveyard Marshal)
I agree Sudden Blossom has the potential to be very swingy. We don't often see strong pump spells though and this one requires a lot of setting up to be worth it so I'd be interested in seeing how it would perform. My main concern is that it might be too difficult to play around, if it feels like so we can always try a variation at sorcery speed but that also grants some evasion maybe.
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I've done a little bit of clean-up at common to add some Clerics and Angels in White/Black as well as a couple Art in Blue/Black for as-fan purpose.
Here's the before/after:
1) The Renewal card in Blue used to be a creature. To keep the creature ratio acceptable now that it became an enchantment, I transformed an enchantment into a creature:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
2) Now that the Green Art token maker is gone (Tales of Frostwood) I wanted something to replace it in Black, which has more synergies with Art. To make room for it, I have fused the two creatures that had a sacrifice activated ability into one. I also needed a couple more way to incidentally pay life to help the BR archetype so both cards make you lose some life:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
3) Finally, there were two Black cards I kind of left hanging in the air without finalising them. The first one is the directional WB common, a cheap removal that synergises with Clerics an Angels that I wanted to streamline. The second was a blink spell that was a bit too concerning for uncommon:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
In addition, I have a semi-interesting card concept, a tech card:
Soul-Binder - {1}
Artifact
Nonland cards can't enter the battlefield from exile.
Players can't cast cards in exile.
Yeah, I agree with Another Self-Portrait. I just filled in the missing 2-mana slot but it does look more like a 3-mana card now that I take a step back, somewhere between Hordeling Outburst and Scampering Scorcher. Actually, I just realised I forgot to update Spilled Ink, the UB directional card in black that changed from 3 to 2-mana so this works out perfectly, they can just switch place.
For the black flicker, it's a conscious proposition of colour pie bend. Black has been toying with this on very rare occasions (Blood for Bones, Rescue from the Underworld, Blood on the Snow, etc.), but always on expensive spells. The set calls for some recursion for the UB Art archetype but there's already a classic flicker card in Blue at common and a reanimation spell in Black. So, I figured we could try a Black variant of this, since it's mostly a bend for Black rather than a break. The idea is that it's not as efficient as White or Blue flicker, but it compensates by triggering death triggers and not being restricted to creatures you control. It's definitely unorthodox but I think it makes sense in the context of the set.
On Soul Binder: It's a fun idea to have a Grafdigger's Cage for the exiled zone, but in the context of this set with a mechanic that allows you to play cards from your library (Discover), I feel that it would be missing the point as a hate card. In addition, I personally prefer to have softer hate cards that have a wide range of applications rather than completely shutting down one specific type of deck. Typically, if I had designed Grafdigger's Cage, it would have had an additional ability like "5: Return Grafdigger's Cage to its owner's hand. Any player may activate this ability during their turn." so it doesn't completely shut down certain styles of deck but just slow them down.
Still making awesome cards I see. Don't mind me
Of course, feel free to post any idea you have ^^ Note though that, because it's set building and not a contest, cards might be good in a vaccum but not fit with the other cards already in the set. It's a bit like a giant sudoku, so it's always better to favour general concepts that can be remodeled easily with different stats etc.
Here are the modifications I'd like to make:
1) Snow Chimera attacking as a 3/3 dealing 3 damage is a bit much. I just adjusted the stats while keeping the same concept:
2) Now that we have a WB Angels and Clerics draft theme, Serran Pilgrims in GW is stepping on a design space that's available anymore and it would send the wrong signal to drafters. Here's a redesign:
3) For Arbiter of Serra, the main difficulty was that I had to redesign the white WB directional card Messenger of Serra at the same time and they were competing a bit for the same effects. Ultimately, I kept Arbiter of Serra the same except the first ability can target any creature now (the fact that the second ability wasn't caring about Clerics made the lack of symmetry very jarring). For Messenger of Serra, it kept a tone down version of the cost reduction and I traded the +1/+1 counter for a bit more removal:
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For the rest, I'm mostly ok with them so far. Siren Concerto and Effigy of Solace are a bit wordy so if they're not particularly fun gameplay wise they might end up getting a complete redesign.
1. Pure-Heart Pilgrim feels a bit too hard to enable - only 1 life per turn. I do have an alternate possibly design for the Serran Life archetype - which takes advantage of the inherent mechanics of Serran Life instead of being a simple Serran Life threshold, while also being a decent card in its own right. Something like:
TBA - 2WG
Creature - Wurm
Trample
When ~ enters the battlefield, you gain life equal to the amount of life you've lost this turn. Then, if you control no tapped lands, put two +1/+1 counters on ~.
5/4
Mistifying Pied Piper feels like it needs to be a payoff for the masterwork deck, rather than the eighth card in a deck that gives masterwork - some sort of protection spell or something. The name also feels too Yu-Gi-Oh esque.
Other than these complaints, the gold cards seem nice.
Yeah, the 1 life per turn is me giving up on finding something original and defaulting to a basic, to be honest x) It kinda works with the archetype though, the goal is to make a ticking bomb, hence all the threshold effects.
But I really like the elegance of your design, it does bring something different while still working in the archetype. I have a couple of bemols with it though:
1) It feels monoGreen.
2) 4-mana creates some friction with the 4-mana green (Banded Missionaries) and 5-mana white (Inspiring Archpriest) directional GW cards, I'd like a 2-or-3-mana card in that mix.
2) If possible I'd like a clear switch between when you play it in the "ticking phase" wanting to defend your life total vs. the "bomb" phase when you've amassed enough serran life that it's time to go all out. A 5/4 trample as a base sounds more like the kind of creature the RG aggro deck would want than the GW controlling archetype.
Here's my idea:
• The original design for Banded Missionaries design becomes the GW signpost and your design becomes the directional green card.
• I renamed the new GW signpost Moonlight Angel and made it 3-mana (it's definitely better than the orignal as it costs less and switches reach for flying, but the gold cards tend to be a bit stronger than the monocoloured ones so I hope this won't be over the line).
• I made your design more defensive on the front face, but instead of getting +1/+1 counters it creates a 5/5 trample which indicates it's time for the bomb to explode.
Haha, it does bring memories of a specific card when I as playing Yu-Gi-Oh! as a kid XD
Yu-Gi-Oh! is a weird game... X) All names in the set right now are placeholders anyways, but how about this for now:
The thing with the masterwork deck is that it needs a critical mass of spells with masterwork to function. This is actually a pay-off spell, the idea is that all your other masterwork cards make your masterwork bigger and more evasive. This is the one card that, instead of doing that, rewards you once your masterwork finally manages to connect. I really wanted a Curiosity masterwork effect and the GU signpost felt like a really good slot because of this.
Again, thanks a lot for all the help! =D