May I suggest that for a bit of a twist Lizza isn't a villain in the traditional sense? She does wish to become powerful, but her followers are the ones who do everything, and she has no Idea of the consequences?
I'm still not sold on the followers thing by the way, do we have any cool depiction of them? I wouldn't want to re-invent House Dimir by accident xD I feel like she can be badass by herself, manipulating the right people.
Good point. What about a group of artists whose goal is to be able to paint well as herself? Side note:I actually have no care for the followers, but it seems other people do, but I'm not really caring for them, as it implicates Lizza as the bad guy, and I hate to see it that way.
@ningyounk I came up with the followers on a whim, they're entirely unnecessary. However, I have to say, @LordTachanka123 I really don't understand why you're so opposed to Lizza as a villain. You've mentioned you don't want black to always be seen as a bad guy color, but I really feel like Lizza is evil. As ningyounk said, it's good to experiment with colors in unexpected ways regarding their alignment, but if it doesn't come naturally there's no need to push it. I mean, just look at her: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/ed/1a/16ed1a2677fcc4153b21a2a4ecab0783.jpg
I don't want to seem aggressive or invalidate your opinion, but I just don't really get it.
@ningyounk the followers don’t have to be Dimir, they could fall into the RWB aggro strategy, I’ll look for some art for what I’m imagining.
@LordTachanka123 I agree with @SteampunkDragon that Lizza should maybe just be evil. We already have Gio as a good guy and he’s B/U so why not have an evil character in black?
Well @SteampunkDragon, I don't see her as evil. Maybe secretive, and not exactly good, but the art doesn't show someone literally with the Devils horns. One idea is to make her possess people who steal her and give her a magical lure so that she would make people evil.
Ok... It seems like me and @IzItTru, as well as @ningyounk to a lesser extent, disagree with @LordTachanka123. However, I wouldn't mind if everyone gave their opinion on the topic so we can settle this. It's pretty important to the story, and thus, to the higher rarity cards, so please just say whether you see her as a villain or not.
@LordTachanka123 don't worry, I know a bad villain when I see one. Lol like it's crazy that the main villain for magic's biggest storyline (maybe contested by the Eldrazi?) was so boring. He looked cool, and the spark-stealing idea was interesting, but that was about it.
About Mona Lisa, I don't mind having her as a typical villain as long as we nail the secret part of her. It'd be cool to have an original kind of villain, but I don't want to force that and miss the opportunity for a great evil character when if we have one.
She has the secret smile, she's probably great material for politics, lies, and betrayal ^^ I think she can be original with her motives. Bolas was about becoming a God, getting an army of zombies etc. (Pretty "standard" bad guy material.) She could be something more subtle, what is a cool ultimate secret she could have that none of us expected? We need to discard all the ideas that came to us first and really dig for the third or fourth idea you could come up. So she's not trying to take Serra's place, she's not trying to conquer the world, she's not trying to lead an Art rebellion. What motive could be intimate and weird but kinda makes sense when you think about it?
Serra is at least White. Probably mono-white based on her other cards, though we might add a second colour if necessary for gameplay reasons, but it seems unlikely so far. We won't make her Abzan as the set wouldn't support it, it's too colour-intensive.
@ningyounk I understand you don't want to make another dimir faction for Mona Lisa, but here's the thing: you depicted her as a figure shrouded in mistery, so Dimir would be a no-brainer here.
I think we should focus more on the character before making the cards revolving around her. Why is she evil? What is her purpose? How does she influence the plane?
Here's my take on it: Mona Lisa was once just a simple painting, created by the genius of Da Vinci. The magic of Rezatta slowly manifested, giving the painting the ability to think and see, but not to speak. At least, not yet. Eventually, Da Vinci left the plane, venturing in the usual planeswalking quests he does, but in the meantime Mona Lisa became a living being. She grew tired of waiting for her creator to return, and with a boiling grudge for those who create art and leave it in a museum to take dust. So she took the matters in her own hands...
At least that's what I came up with, but this story would open new possibilities for Liza's colors and faction. Alongside Black (evil) and Blue (secrets), we can add Red (anger, revenge)... Yes I know these are the Bolas colors, it's not intentional.
@ningyounk Here is a reworked New Order Envoy idea:
New Order Envoy 1WB Creature - Angel
Flying Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on New Order Envoy. Whenever you lose life, New Order Envoy gains lifelink until the end of turn. 2/2
I’m worried that this could be a little powerful, but I like the synergy between its abilities.
————
The next idea is for Celestial Diplomat:
Celestial Diplomat 1GW Creature - Angel
Flying At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain 1 serran life for each Angel you control. {t}, Pay 8 serran life: Create a token that’s a copy of Celestial Diplomat. 3/3
Again, this may be a little powerful, but when you get the token copy, your serran life grows twice as fast and you eventually get a lot of Celestial Diplomats which can definitely be threatening because of its 3 power and flying.
Oh she's definitely Dimir-coloured philosophically ^^ But I don't feel we need a faction behind her. What I meant by "we don't need to re-invent House Dimir" is that we don't need an organisation under her with spies, assassins, a hierarchy, etc.
About the story: I like the concept of her having a grudge against her creator. Here are some ideas based on that:
1) Maybe the life of Artborn creatures is ephemeral, like the Aetherborn on Kaladesh. Maybe there's a room in Da Vinci's basement with one hundred dead portraits of her, and he keeps trying to make her as perfect as possible to see if that would make her last longer, but she keeps dying eventually. Maybe she's trying to become a real person. Or maybe she's just angry at Da Vinci.
2) Maybe the Artborn creatures are embodiment of the artist's emotions (tying this to the Muses) but Mona Lisa is an error, she's a wonderful technical piece but cold and emotionless. This explores similar themes as the monster of Dr. Frankenstein. She might want emotions of her own, or make Da Vinci suffer for making her this way.
I'd avoid Ajani's Pridemate-like creatures with lifelink, it's a bit too strong and it's funnier when you have to work for it a little ^^
For Celestial Diplomat, I really like the core concept but we should keep that for a rare or even mythic because of the copies. This might even work with other ressources than serran life by the way, there's something interesting there.
Just tossing those Mona Lisa related ideas out there. 1) A desire for independence, to establish an identity separate from being a creation 2) Originally a human turned into an art. 3) The motive of destruction of negative feelings as a whole. 4) Disrupting the plane's natural cycle to ensure winter never returns. 5) "The greatest works of art are fleeting and temporary."
@ningyounk Well, I like your ideas for Lisa, not gonna lie. I like the second story better, and it could possibly link up to Lisa meeting Serra.
@Lujikul maybe Mona Lisa was Da Vinci's daughter, trapped in a portrait. Hear me out: Lisa was a young girl, the daughter of Da Vinci, but eventually she underwent a deadly sickness (*coff coff black pestilence coff coff*) which could not be cured at the time, because the serran church wasn't a thing back then. Hence, Da Vinci had to either let go of her daughter and bury her forever, or trap her in a portrait, so that she could live forever, or at least until he found a cure for her illness. So the years went by, and Da Vinci never came back, so she is stuck in a portrait but is in fact, a living being. She aims to free herself and make his father pay for abandoning her for all this time.
Here's an uncommon based on @LyndonF's original idea which was:
Serran Bugler 4W Creature
Vigilance When CARDNAME etbs, look at the top four cards of your library. You may reveal any number of creature cards with total power 4 or less from among them and put them into your hand. Put the rest onto the bottom of your library in a random order. 2/4
I toyed with it a little and found I really liked the concept but a couple things bothered me: 1) The ability to grab one 4-powered creature feels very green. 2) The steep 5-mana costs makes it a hard sell in a deck dedicated to cheap creatures, I was afraid the deck would often not reach 5-mana at all.
So I went back to the inspiration for this card (Militia Bugler) and made a few twists:
This way, it's still at an interesting place on the mana curve (the deck may very well start to need a refill on turn three already), it does something very similar but keeps the original idea that you can grab a few smaller creatures instead.
__
Also, it's too early for doing planeswalkers but I tried to find some untouched design space for Vraska. This is just for fun:
@ningyounk Most of those mechanic names sound like they'd have something to do with bringing creatures back from the graveyard (or granting protection/indestructible).
@ningyounk How about something like this for New Order Envoy?
1WB Creature - Angel
Flying Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on New Order Envoy. Whenever you lose life, New Order Envoy gains deathtouch unto the end of turn. 2/2
I don’t really know what to do here without making it too underpowered or overpowered. Once this creature is big, deathtouch won’t matter at all. You also could go with your original design and make it a 3/3 rather than a 2/2 though.
I feel like Renewal is borderline itself on creating expectation for a reanimating mechanic, so synonyms might not solve the issue. Reform and Reformation sound very much like you're re-assembling a dead creature, for instance.
I'd say the ones that use references to an era/age/etc. are the least likely to be confusing on the matter. I personally like New Dawn or Golden Dawn, for instance, as they could easily be used on other cards and in the story to label this new Renaissance-like era on the plane. Golden dawn, or alternatively any other recognisable colour, might also be a cool way of creating a flavour link between the cards. We just give an explanation in the story and whatever refers to this specific colour becomes immediately linked to that new era.
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Side note:I actually have no care for the followers, but it seems other people do, but I'm not really caring for them, as it implicates Lizza as the bad guy, and I hate to see it that way.
I don't want to seem aggressive or invalidate your opinion, but I just don't really get it.
@LordTachanka123 I agree with @SteampunkDragon that Lizza should maybe just be evil. We already have Gio as a good guy and he’s B/U so why not have an evil character in black?
She has the secret smile, she's probably great material for politics, lies, and betrayal ^^ I think she can be original with her motives. Bolas was about becoming a God, getting an army of zombies etc. (Pretty "standard" bad guy material.) She could be something more subtle, what is a cool ultimate secret she could have that none of us expected? We need to discard all the ideas that came to us first and really dig for the third or fourth idea you could come up. So she's not trying to take Serra's place, she's not trying to conquer the world, she's not trying to lead an Art rebellion. What motive could be intimate and weird but kinda makes sense when you think about it?
The-DM
Serra is at least White. Probably mono-white based on her other cards, though we might add a second colour if necessary for gameplay reasons, but it seems unlikely so far. We won't make her Abzan as the set wouldn't support it, it's too colour-intensive.
I think we should focus more on the character before making the cards revolving around her. Why is she evil? What is her purpose? How does she influence the plane?
Here's my take on it: Mona Lisa was once just a simple painting, created by the genius of Da Vinci. The magic of Rezatta slowly manifested, giving the painting the ability to think and see, but not to speak. At least, not yet. Eventually, Da Vinci left the plane, venturing in the usual planeswalking quests he does, but in the meantime Mona Lisa became a living being. She grew tired of waiting for her creator to return, and with a boiling grudge for those who create art and leave it in a museum to take dust. So she took the matters in her own hands...
At least that's what I came up with, but this story would open new possibilities for Liza's colors and faction. Alongside Black (evil) and Blue (secrets), we can add Red (anger, revenge)... Yes I know these are the Bolas colors, it's not intentional.
Here is a reworked New Order Envoy idea:
New Order Envoy
1WB
Creature - Angel
Flying
Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on New Order Envoy.
Whenever you lose life, New Order Envoy gains lifelink until the end of turn.
2/2
I’m worried that this could be a little powerful, but I like the synergy between its abilities.
Celestial Diplomat
1GW
Creature - Angel
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain 1 serran life for each Angel you control.
{t}, Pay 8 serran life: Create a token that’s a copy of Celestial Diplomat.
3/3
Oh she's definitely Dimir-coloured philosophically ^^ But I don't feel we need a faction behind her. What I meant by "we don't need to re-invent House Dimir" is that we don't need an organisation under her with spies, assassins, a hierarchy, etc.
About the story: I like the concept of her having a grudge against her creator. Here are some ideas based on that:
1) Maybe the life of Artborn creatures is ephemeral, like the Aetherborn on Kaladesh. Maybe there's a room in Da Vinci's basement with one hundred dead portraits of her, and he keeps trying to make her as perfect as possible to see if that would make her last longer, but she keeps dying eventually. Maybe she's trying to become a real person. Or maybe she's just angry at Da Vinci.
2) Maybe the Artborn creatures are embodiment of the artist's emotions (tying this to the Muses) but Mona Lisa is an error, she's a wonderful technical piece but cold and emotionless. This explores similar themes as the monster of Dr. Frankenstein. She might want emotions of her own, or make Da Vinci suffer for making her this way.
I'd avoid Ajani's Pridemate-like creatures with lifelink, it's a bit too strong and it's funnier when you have to work for it a little ^^
For Celestial Diplomat, I really like the core concept but we should keep that for a rare or even mythic because of the copies. This might even work with other ressources than serran life by the way, there's something interesting there.
1) A desire for independence, to establish an identity separate from being a creation
2) Originally a human turned into an art.
3) The motive of destruction of negative feelings as a whole.
4) Disrupting the plane's natural cycle to ensure winter never returns.
5) "The greatest works of art are fleeting and temporary."
Oh, I like the one where she was a human turned into Art, that could be a cool secret.
@Lujikul maybe Mona Lisa was Da Vinci's daughter, trapped in a portrait.
Hear me out: Lisa was a young girl, the daughter of Da Vinci, but eventually she underwent a deadly sickness (*coff coff black pestilence coff coff*) which could not be cured at the time, because the serran church wasn't a thing back then. Hence, Da Vinci had to either let go of her daughter and bury her forever, or trap her in a portrait, so that she could live forever, or at least until he found a cure for her illness. So the years went by, and Da Vinci never came back, so she is stuck in a portrait but is in fact, a living being. She aims to free herself and make his father pay for abandoning her for all this time.
Ooh I like the disease thing, I'm into that, it brings quite some depths to the situation.
___
Here are some tries at a new name for the Renaissance mechanic:
Serran Bugler
4W
Creature
Vigilance
When CARDNAME etbs, look at the top four cards of your library. You may reveal any number of creature cards with total power 4 or less from among them and put them into your hand. Put the rest onto the bottom of your library in a random order.
2/4
I toyed with it a little and found I really liked the concept but a couple things bothered me:
1) The ability to grab one 4-powered creature feels very green.
2) The steep 5-mana costs makes it a hard sell in a deck dedicated to cheap creatures, I was afraid the deck would often not reach 5-mana at all.
So I went back to the inspiration for this card (Militia Bugler) and made a few twists:
__
Also, it's too early for doing planeswalkers but I tried to find some untouched design space for Vraska. This is just for fun:
Most of those mechanic names sound like they'd have something to do with bringing creatures back from the graveyard (or granting protection/indestructible).
Maybe we need to explore renewal synonyms?
https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/renewal
Reform - Reformation?
1WB
Creature - Angel
Flying
Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on New Order Envoy.
Whenever you lose life, New Order Envoy gains deathtouch unto the end of turn.
2/2
I don’t really know what to do here without making it too underpowered or overpowered. Once this creature is big, deathtouch won’t matter at all. You also could go with your original design and make it a 3/3 rather than a 2/2 though.
I feel like Renewal is borderline itself on creating expectation for a reanimating mechanic, so synonyms might not solve the issue. Reform and Reformation sound very much like you're re-assembling a dead creature, for instance.
I'd say the ones that use references to an era/age/etc. are the least likely to be confusing on the matter. I personally like New Dawn or Golden Dawn, for instance, as they could easily be used on other cards and in the story to label this new Renaissance-like era on the plane. Golden dawn, or alternatively any other recognisable colour, might also be a cool way of creating a flavour link between the cards. We just give an explanation in the story and whatever refers to this specific colour becomes immediately linked to that new era.