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Rezatta Set Design - Uncommons Part 2
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Yeap, I'm fishing a bit with this design, thanks for the help! ^^
I don't want it to end up a strictly worst Grafdigger's Cage so I tried to pile up more hate on it with the first design x) The second ability talked to me so I tried the second design next to riff on it, but as you mentioned it has a bunch of issues because it lets you replay your free spells an infinite number of times, it's really harsh on the broken staples of older formats, and on top of that it does something weird with the templating and has some redundant abilities (If you cast a permanent spell from your library, you need to pay the tax when casting it THEN again when it enters the battlefield.)
Here's a more thought-through design, hopefully I didn't forget anything essential with this one. I think it's an interesting alternative to Grafdigger's cage since it also hits exile and it has some combo potential:
This change should avoid any infinite two-cards combo that would allow you to replay a spell indefinitely, unless I'm missing something? You do get to return your Flashback spells to your hand for their flashback cost, but you still need to pay for casting them again on top of that. Also this transforms Collected Company into a weird draw two spell xD Finally, this version doesn't hate on mana acceleration and free spells, and fetch lands and tokens aren't affected by the first ability so I think it's safe.
If I'm missing a combo potential, we could also just affect the opponent's stuff.
Oh yeah, I think you're right, I thought it was a book or something at first x) Well, it's definitely not the illustration we'll be using if the card makes it into the set! Thanks for the heads-up xD
No it's ok! This is a placeholder, the flavour elements like names and illustrations will all be redistributed at the very end when we add the flavour texts and everything ^^
Ah yeah, thx!
Basically, I have an idea for each of the remaining slots of each colour except White.
I think the masks actually offer a cute little side quest in Limited, they're synergistic enough and the last version is short enough that I'm ok trying them like that — I put comedy in Green since the +1/+1 counter is more synergistic with what Green's doing and it could accidentally nonbo with the RW weenies synergies in white.
The red one is a slight variation on the previous design, it looks like a potential staple designs by its simplicity so I'm curious to see how it performs.
The Blue one is new, I just figured the UB Art deck could use one more pay-off and a bit more interaction. I'm also considering changing the black blink card into a discard spell for that purpose.
For the remaining White slot, we now have exactly one coloured artifact in each of the other colour, so I figured we should as well make a white artifact to complete the cycle:
Because Arcane Folio is the only non-equipment of the cycle, I'd like the White one to also be a non-Equipment artifact so the blue one doesn't stand out as much.
I just can't find the right effect to go with it, I figured each other colour has a small secret theme going on (Blue has "whenever a land is put into a graveyard", Black hates on creatures whose power and toughness aren't equal though that's admittedly not an actual game plan unlike the rest, Red has ephemeral tokens, and Green has a pentacoloured theme). White used to have the Angel and Clerics double tribal theme but that's now the official White/Black draft archetype. Maybe this last slot can launch a secret theme in White?
So here's a recap of what I'm looking for:
• A white card
• It cannot be a creature
• It must be an artifact
• It should not be an equipment
• It might offer a new "secret" game plan based on what already existing cards do
Because I was so stuck, I went through my illustration folder and found an image that could fit, hoping to hit the right design by going top-down. We don't have an instrument as an artifact yet, so I figured this might be the occasion. Here is the illustration, if it helps, but it's totally optional, simply for inspiration purpose:
Among the effects we could use in White, a "can block an additional creature" effect would be pretty synergistic with the GW archetype. In the "weird secret synergies" department, we have quite a few choice cards in the set, I wonder if we could maybe offer a pay-off for this?
I had a small idea, same art, same concept, I don't expect it to actually be taken into account, but it might jog your inspiration.
It doesn't seem that interesting, but it seems simple enough. Maybe kind of "new" enough.
The flavour text was just for my creativity.
After that, I have a few points about some of the cards recetly.
- Well, first of all, while we're on this card, this seems more common than an uncommon. You know what I mean? Anyway, it probably wouldn't be worth {2} if it didn't equip a masterwork. Also, the {2} isn't a mana symbol, it's just the number '2'.
Unfortunately, I thought I would have tome for more, but I gotta go now, so this is all I got.Thanks for the feedback!
I actually agree that a repeatable tapper would be the most logical effect to use in this situation. The only issue is that repeatable tapping is really strong against Masterwork strategies, so I'm trying to find an alternative.
I also agree the talisman feels a bit in-between common and uncommon, so in the comment above I added indestructible to the card. I think this way it's reasonable, possibly even a bit strong.
I know Arcum's Astrolabe has become an issue in multiple formats so I don't want this slot to be too pushed either.
Maybe this could be another card to help with that archetype? The mana cost might need to be changed, but I think that the effect is neat.
Edit: I didn't see what you said about repetable tappers until after posting this. Maybe some form of life gain or buffing a creature instead?
It's a good observation, the WU archetype could use some help from this slot ^^ There are a couple of restrictions that makes it harder though:
• As mentioned above, repeatable tapping is a little too harsh on Masterwork to be an option.
• Life gain is the next best thing, but 1/3 of the White uncommons already gain life. We can't go over this even in a life-matters set, I'm afraid
• Because this is an artifact and not an enchantment, it would be best to have a tap ability if it's not an equipement.
I actually explored the idea of aiming the slot at the WU on my side. I still haven't figured out a satisfying design, but my concept was be to use a "target opponent and you each draw a card" effect and accompany it with a group hug secret theme that would yield value when an opponent draws additional cards and gain life. But repeatable "each player draw a card" is firmly into rare domain, and as said above the card cannot make you gain life so I couldn't make anything conclusive. On top of that, being able to have a group hug deck would require a lof of tweaks in the set (though it's possible, I think).
We've had different attempts at white card draw recently, I think the philosophy of the card isn't against the most recent version of the colour pie as you either balance out the number of cards if you're below, or you allow your opponent to draw as much as you. But, imagining it was a weird Blue card, do you think power wise it's somewhere acceptable for uncommon or is it too much?
I had a look at some white artifacts and quite a few of them had removal....
But this is a violin....
So I carried on searching.
Perhaps damage prevention?
Crystal Violin [w]
Artifact
When Crystal Violin enters the battlefield, exile target creature you control until Crystal Violin leaves the battlefield.
Crystal Violin has all activated abilities of the exiled creature.
{1}{w}
or
Crystal Violin {1}{w}
When Crystal Violin enters the battlefield, choose target permanent.
When Crystal Violin leaves the battlefield, prevent the next 5 damage dealt to the chosen permanent.
Fine. Is anyone going to ever.....
You know what? Who cares?
You aren't making invalid suggestions, we just have different viewpoints. What you're saying is just as valid as what I am.
Yes, card draw, in general, isn't white's thing, but that doesn't mean that white can't do it ever. If you look at some of the examples that ningyounk presented earlier, white usually does card draw in a way that balances both players, such as allowing all players to draw a card at once, or to catch up to opponents in card advantage (Unlike blue who can gain card advantage without any restrictions).
In terms of violins not being renaissance, I can see why you may think that. It's probably not the first thing you may think of when you think of the Renaissance Era. But, there actually was a genre of music called Renaissance music, which was created during that era! If you are curious, here's the Wikipedia page for renaissance music:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_music
It is true that the go-to design for a White artifact would be a prison effect. However we have "Excomunnication" in the file already, and we can't have two at the same time.
One solution could be to repurpose the previous slot as an artifact. This way, the remaining slot has way fewer restrictions attached to it and it would be easier to fill the last slot. We'd basically need to make any noncreature card. Also, note that it *does not* have to be a violin, this was just for inspiration but any kind of artifact is fair game ^^
However, I've been thinking about the card draw design and it's growing on me quite a lot, I'd be really interested in trying it now. There has been a lot of experiments recently to find a way for White to draw more cards. It's slowly shaping to be a group hug type of card draw, but there's also a history of White cards that allows you to catch up with the opponent when they're ahead of you in ressource, not just with the number of cards in hands but in other areas as well:
The card draw design above feels like a natural development in this search for White card draw. I think whether it feels White is not the problem, this is a purely White card draw design, no other colour would do something so weird. It's more about whether it's drawing too many cards for White card draw. The thing is, it does two things:
• If you already have a lot of cards, it can be used as group hug card draw, and I'm personally a huge fan of "each player draws a card" effects, they make games much more interesting, I think. This doesn't allow you to pull ahead; You still have the worst card draw at the table.
• If you're behind on cards, it helps you catch up to the opponent if they draw more cards than you. I like that it only triggers once per turn so the opponent can still draw way more than you do, it's just nudging you a bit. I feel like it can be fine since it won't allow you to pull ahead of the opponent.
I have two issues with the current design though:
1) In the situation where you have the same number of cards than an opponent and you activate during their turn, it lets you draw two cards, which I'm not a fan of.
2) I think there's a missed opportunity to make this a more general group hug card by also caring about the opponent gaining life.
Hence, here's a little variation that's less powerful and also cares for life gain without letting you gain life:
Out of curiosity, I think I'm down to try this card drawing design first. Then, after a bit of playtesting, we'll decide if it's really over the top or not. If it is, then we'll probably do as mentioned above, making it a prison effect, and using the slot we freed to add more synergy where the playtest showed it's most needed.
This might sound risky, but we could have a Stax-ing effect in the set by replacing Excommunicate with Soul Trap. Something like:
TBA - {1}{W}
Creature - TBA Cleric
Each player can't cast more than two spells each turn.
2/2 or 2/1
It plays nice with clerics, "Second spell" and 2 or less power, and does something that white already wants to do in an unusual way. Still just a suggestion though.
The violin would definitely be a proposition of colour pie evolution. It's difficult to do this in a custom set, as it's unrealistic by definition, but in the specific case of White card draw I feel that they've been aiming in that direction pretty clearly. I'm fully expecting something similar to happen sooner rather than later in an official set — we've already had Dawn of Hope, for instance. In addition, they've explained the philosophy behind White's group hug's draw was that they were ok with White drawing more answers as long as the opponent was drawing more threats. The violin doesn't violate these rules.
The main reason I'm proposing this is not because I'm trying to find the solution for White's drawing issue and underdog position in Commander or anything grandiose like that. I just think group hug draw makes games genuinely more interesting, and it happens to be very synergistic with Rezatta's WU archetype, which could use a little boost.
I do agree the life gain hate is weird. I wanted to make this a more general group hug card but I don't think it came out well. The card is probably cleaner in its first version.
About the Staxing effect, I think that a player casting three or more spells in the same turn is uncommon enough that this effect wouldn't accomplish much. In addition, it's actually weird to have a kind of hate against storm that is specifically ineffective against the Storm archetype in this set. I'm not sure the card would be useful enough.
___
Ok, for the last White slot, I propose to take a little break to consider our two options:
1) We accept the idea of a colour pie evolution, with the idea that we predict it's something that's going to happen in official MTG soon, and go for repeatable White card draw.
2) We decide repeatable White card draw is too unrealistic and out of boundaries until MTG officially goes for it. In that case, we transform Excommunication into an artifact, and we found a non-artifact design for the last slot.
In the meantime, I'm going to launch a quick White card draw contest to see if anyone comes up with a great idea that would solve all of our issues x)