At the beginning of each player's upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter on enchanted creature. If it were to be destroyed this way, you may instead attach CARDNAME to target creature.
Pastor: This is a bit too niche and it's telling a really convoluted story mechanically. Sickness: -1/-1 counters are not part of the set as they count as a non-evergreen mechanic!
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Moving on to the removal spells. Again, this is mostly to have some placeholders. The end goal is to come back to them later and adjust them to the specific threats in the set. For now, I tried to stay generic and make interesting cards in a vacuum so they're easy to replace later. I also made sure that every colour had at least two removal spells at uncommon (with the exception of Green that only gets one) and that the uncommon removals were different enough from the common ones.
WHITE —
Common had a Pacifism effect (Truce Accord) and an expensive exile spell (New Journey) so I went with a cheap removal spell for attackers/blockers and a more expensive Banishing enchantment:
BLUE —
Blue only gets one spell to deal with permanents and then a couple counterspells usually. At common, for permanents blue has a transformation spell (Paint on a Wall), a freeze spell (Study Hard) and an expensive bounce spell for creatures only (Breathing Waltz). Counterspells wise, it has a cheap conditional counter for instants (Bureaucatric Stare) and a three-mana unconditional counter with upsides (Dismiss the Cold). So, for uncommon, I went with a cheap universal bounce spell for permanents, and a cheap conditional counterspell. It also adds the repeatable tapping that was presented above (Whimsical Cataloger):
BLACK —
Common has a cheap -X/-1 spell (Moving Farewell), an expensive unconditional removal (Death Row), and a cheap splinter bones (Heresy). At uncommon, it already got a repeatable -1/-1 from the cards above (Spilled Ink) so I added a cheap conditional destroy spell that is meant as a vertical cycle in black hating on creatures with power different from their toughness as a metaphor for beauty.
RED —
Common got the usual creature blast (New Insults) + polyvalent blast (Sparks) combo, respectively at 1 and two-mana. So I'm adding a 3-mana polyvalent blast at uncommon, and it also gets the repeatable shock card from before (Spartower Pupil):
GREEN —
Green gets less removal than other colours. At common, it has a 3-to-4-mana fight spell (Scour the Wilds) so I'm adding a bite spell with upsides at uncommon:
Those cards will probably need to be adjusted balance wise, I'm pretty sure I made some interesting rares by accident in there XD The next step will be to fill the following cycles that were already started earlier: • A cycle of cards with a Renaissance ability that triggers at the end of each of your turn. • A cycle of masterwork cards.
Cards with masterwork abilities! Nothing too fancy, ideally we would still very much focus on evergreen abilities, just going up towards stronger ones (deathtouch, first strike etc.) while still keeping the really good ones (indestructible, double strike, probably lifelink and hexproof) for rares. The idea is that there should be a possible 5-colour masterwork deck where you create a creature with aaaaaall the abilities xD Actually, a colourless creature that helps ironing out your mana a bit and entices you to try the 5-colour masterwork plan is probably not a bad idea at uncommon as well. Here are the masterwork cards so far, we're basically finishing the uncommons from this cycle:
I think I'd rather have some flavour of indestructible or at least "prevent all damage" as a protective ability for rare/Mythic ^^ Otherwise, boosting a creature's toughness is never really that strong.
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For the uncommons, we are missing three colours: white, black and red. I'm pretty sure I want deathtouch, so that's black as neither white or red can do it otherwise. Next, I'm interested in having either first strike or straight up double strike (I don't think I want both in the set as the masterwork cards are meant to all be played together) but it can be either red or white. So it will depend on what the third ability is going to be and that's where things get complicated. Lifelink is too strong for uncommon, so is indestructible, and that's about as far as evergreen keywords go in white and red.
So I made a list of potential abilities in white and red that could be granted to your masterwork:
• WHITE - First strike - Double strike - Protection from color - Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to your masterwork. - If a source would deal damage to your masterwork, prevent N of that damage. (Absorb; Possibly half of it.) - Can block N additional creatures each combat. - Can't be blocked by creatures with power 3 or more.
• RED - First strike - Double strike - Gets +N/+0 as long as it's attacking and isn't blocked. (Frenzy) - Whenever your masterwork is blocked by a creature, it deals 2 damage to that creature. - Whenever your masterwork attacks, target creature can't block (it) this turn. (Panic) - {mana}: Target creature can't block your masterwork this turn. (Panic) - {mana}: Your masterwork gets +N/+0 until end of turn. (Firebreathing.) - Additional combat step only for your masterwork. - {mana}: Target creature must block your masterwork this turn if able.
So, this is the solution I came up with:
BLACK —
As I said, this one is easy as I wanted it to be deathtouch. I made it only two-mana so it feels more like an uncommon:
RED —
I ended up going with a variation of the panic ability as I thought it was one of the abilities from both list that were best suited for uncommon power wise:
WHITE —
This is a tricky one, I tried something a bit original and went for both first strike and double strike on the same card. Creatures can have multiple instances of the same evergreen keyword such as first strike, but usually it's redundant. What this does is that it upgrades having two times first strike into getting double strike. So if this creature is not your masterwork, it's a 2/3 first strike. If it's your masterwork, it's technically a 2/3 with first strike, first strike, and double strike x) Tell me if this is too weird xD
@ningyounk I think Four-Hands Composers is a little odd, especially since it isn’t intuitive that your creatures have first strike twice because it doesn’t show up in gameplay. The other thing is first strike isn’t really a supported archetype of any sort, so I think this might not really see much value is the double first strike thing.
I also think somber poet could get away being a 1/2. I’m not sure.
I made a "loading diagram" of the monocoloured uncommons to see where we're at (currently 58%). The idea is to fill up all these slots relatively quickly to have a base on which we can start seriously shape the uncommons:
Next step is finishing the Renewal cycle (white and black already have these) ^^ It's going to be something simple, with renewal abilities that trigger at the beginning of your end step. Blue, red and green shouldn't get any additional help for enabling Renewal on those cards though, to signal that white and black are the best colours for this.
Just passing by and (hopefully) contributing something here...
Masterwork cycle:
Intimidating Violonist: The ability is quite decent, though maybe making something can't block this turn is more intuitive? That's what I thought the ability did on my first read.
Four-Hands Composers: Interesting ability! Maybe a rewording will make it clearer: "If your masterwork has first strike, it has double strike. Otherwise, it has first strike."
Blue / Green members: The abilities are nice, and "for each creature you control with masterwork" seems like another way to word the abilities.
Renewal cycle:
Judging from the white and black ones, the cards are probably enchantments with "Renewal -- At the beginning of your end step, if (condition), (effect)."
Some ideas for the effects:
Blue: - Loot / Draw - Tap and freeze a creature - Untap a nonland permanent - Discover* - Scry (we already have Discover) - Bounce (too obnoxious imo)
Red: - Rummage - Ping some target - Discover* - Impulse draw (see FerociousFurious Rise, but we already have Discover)
Green: - Put +1/+1 counter(s) - Gain (serran) life - Create a small token (e.g. 1/1 Art or sth) - Fight? - Draw (let's leave this to blue)
*: Depends on how you think of repeatable Discover effects.
@ningyounk I'm not sure wether this card fits, but I wanted to give it a shot anyway:
I fear it would look bland, without a true purpose. My initial objective was to make it a Renewal card that slowly spawns griffins, but I figured that it would do the same thing as Griffin Aerie, so I decided to derail from my initial concept and try something different.
(I know it's not that useful to create cards on the go, but I figured that the ideas would look cleaner and easier to read in card form.)
About Intimidating Violonist: Yeah, I was afraid that people might misread it this way. I'm lukewarm about having straight-up "whenever attacks, target creature can't block this turn" because 1) there's a creature that does that at common and 2) it doesn't matter what creature is your masterwork if you do that. If thought it was more interesting as an evasive ability this way. I think I'm going to rephrase it "target creature can't block your masterwork" so it's clearer, even if it's repetitive.
Four-Hands Composer: That's how I worded at first but I was afraid that it was going to confuse people into thinking it's creating a paradoxical loop with itself. I think it's trying to be too cute, I'm probably going to make it straight-up double strike for like 5-mana ^^
Renewal cycle: I'm not opposed to having non-enchantment members in this cycle if the enchantment feels like it's not doing enough since it can be a bit hard to trigger and the other colours are not supposed to be as focused on enabling Renewal.
BLUE: I agree with all of this, except I would also consider Scry with a high number because library manipulation helps you discover cards you can actually cast. I think this feels different enough from discover gameplay wise. My only rule is that discover has priority over Scry 1 whenever possible and I don't want them on the same card (I tried and it's super easy to mess up and try to cast a card you're scrying into).
The other thing I was considering was to blink your own creature, like a conditional Thassa, since that would be very beneficial for the UB Art deck. However, I know I want a card in the glue slots that bounces back your creatures to your hand because that synergises both with the WU and UB archetype and I think we can't have both effects at uncommon.
RED: Similarly, I'm not again having impulse draw in addition to discover, especially if it triggers at the end of turn since it makes a bit more sense. I'm saving the repeatable ping for the discover archetype so far, but yeah we could switch the slots since shocking is a reward that fits renewal really well. In addition to rummaging, we could also consider straight up wheeling players' hands for a bit of a higher mana cost.
GREEN: I'd stay away from repeatable fight for the same reason I'd avoid repeatable bounce (it can lock players out of the game). White is already making small tokens on renewal trigger so that's taken for now. I really like the +1/+1 counter idea because it plays well with most of the green archetypes. I would also consider tutoring lands to either your hand or the battlefield depending on the mana cost.
5 power and toughness with flying is too much for 3 mana power wise, but apart from that small issue my main concern is that this is hinting at a flying-matters theme that isn't there in this set. It could be a secondary theme for white but I don't think it has enough synergies with the white draft archetypes.
Alright, for the Renaissance cycle I ended up making them creatures for the missing blue, red and green ones just because otherwise they were super awkward as do-nothing enchantments. If the white and black ones end up being lamer than the creature ones, I suppose we could either transform the existing ones into creature, or straight up adding a creature one on top of the enchantment.
For blue, I tried Scry 4 because it synergises so well with discover. For the red one, I couldn't find anything that sounded nearly as nice as a shock so I ended up using that but that means the Sparktower Pupil will have to change later. I used the +1/+1 counter for green because it synergises with all of green wants to do super nicely. An alternative could be a 4-or-5-mana creature that puts two +1/+1 counters instead of one. There's also the option of having "put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control" but that's probably a bit too much for uncommon.
P.S: Yeah, I just realised I used "Renaissance" again, for those of you who didn't follow the full story, this is the same thing as Renewal, we haven't chosen a proper name yet for that mechanic.
I am putting back the white and black ones here for reference:
Well, right now, the goal is to build a quick and dirty first draft of all uncommons (80 total, 12 for each colour, 10 gold signposts and 10 colorless). The easiest way to do this is to go by cycles, here are the next steps if you want to go ahead and start proposing ideas:
• A cycle of exciting legendaries, probably Art creatures referencing famous pieces of art. Those are meant to be impactful cards in a vaccum that don't entice you to play one specific draft archetype too strongly, they should be kind of open. Think the Demigods cycle from Theros or the Syr cycle from Eldraine.
• A cycle of cards that open a "hidden" secondary theme. Think Stormwild Capridor or Quirion Dryad, for instance. Some themes that were mentioned are clerics/angels-matter, legendary-matters, self-mill (to use discover in a different way), and converge (to synergise with how serran life makes mana of any color).
I have started exploring the "hidden" secondary theme cards a bit. Not all of them are meant to actually end up in the set but I wanted to propose one for each colour and then keep only the most interesting ones in the end. They're supposed to open new strategies for constructed and in draft for experienced players. They're also a little more targeted at Johnnies. I haven't finished the full cycle but here's my idea for the themes so far:
• WHITE: A cross tribal between angels and clerics. Those two creature types are going to be abundant because of the Church of Serra theme anyways, I would like to find a way to support a strategy where each of the creature type reinforces the other in a flavorful way.
• BLUE: A mill theme, to synergise with the fact that Discover can actually mill you. I was thinking of caring about whenever a land is put into a graveyard, to open more cross-synergies with fetch lands, land destruction, etc.
• BLACK: A legendary-matters theme, since black is the most central colour for the art theme and art creatures are naturally going to tend toward referencing existing art pieces, hence more often being legendary.
• RED: A token-matter theme, since it's something that could play well with the low-to-the-ground creature theme going on in the set and it naturally synergises with what other colours are doing as well.
• GREEN: A converge theme that counts the number of colours spent to cast spells, in order to synergise with the fact that serran life can produce mana of any colour as well as the usual ramp effects in green.
I haven't finished everything yet, and what I have is quite rough at this stage but here's a peek at my latest attempts so far:
@ningyounk Take into account that I don't know all of the current cards in the set right now, but on the matter of a secondary cycle, I believe it would be way easier to contextualize those 5 cards (one per color, much like Demigods and Syrs, as you stated before). What I mean is that, supposed that we have to create 5 cards, they need to have something in common, and it can't be purely a mechanical matter. What I'm trying to say is that we should define what the cards are and what is their place in the setting, and only then we can start thinking about the mechanics, because there IS a critical lack of worldbuilding here: we did a lot of cards but they don't have a place inside the setting.
I previously tried to bring into discussion a hypothetical cycle of creatures inspired by the Muses, but the project was discarded. Another neat idea could be a cycle of lands that favor their color's playstile for a cost (and I already sis post some cards before your break, so you might want to check them out if that tickles tour interest).
@Scaccogaming There is a plan for a cycle of exciting legendaries such as the Syrs/Demigods that will be much tighter ^^ This cycle is not meant to be a true cycle (we probably won't keep all five cards in the final version) and it is meant to be more hidden. The idea is that those cards look like they are meant for another archetype, but they actually open up another line of play.
I would like to try something a little bit new here, though I don't know if it's actually possible to do it in a clean way. The idea would be to encourage a style of gameplay that we had in Ikoria with the "if you control a Human and a non-Human creature" theme where you actually needed both at the same time. Ideally, the Clerics would boost the Angels, and the Angels would boost the Clerics in a flavourful way.
So, Golden Church Evangelist is a fine card but I'd like to try to find something where having two clerics and two angels is stronger than having four clerics or four angels. Similarly, LordTachanka123's cleric is missing the Angel side of the synergy (though if that doesn't work we can totally just make regular Cleric or Angel tribal) and it's a secondary theme so I'd prefer not having a threshold, it should be fully operational by itself, while offering a way to increase its synergy.
Here are some examples:
Angels you control get BONUS A for each Cleric you control. Clerics you control get BONUS B for each Angel you control.
BONUS A for each Cleric you control and BONUS B for each Angel you control, where bonus A and B are synergistic.
Tap an untapped Cleric you control: Target Angel gets BONUS A. Tap an untapped Angel you control: Target Cleric gets BONUS B.
Tap an untapped Angel and an untapped Cleric you control: BONUS.
For the black one, I figured we could try "sacrifice a legendary creature" just because it diminishes the issue with how legendaries can get stuck in your hand, especially if you have a lot of them in a deck. I wanted to aim at a card advantage engine, so I tried a "sacrifice a creature: draw a card" concept somewhere between Soulreaper of Mogis and Thallid Soothsayer that would have an additional upsides if the creature was legendary:
It's a reference to Niccolo Macchiavelli, author of the Prince who gave us the adjective "Macchiavellian" as a way to refer to someone who is ready to do evil things to reach their goal.
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And here's the cycle of "hidden" secondary theme build-arounds so far. As the rest, this is meant to be adjusted later, we'll probably not keep all of them but they can occupy the slots for now:
Next up is the cycle of legendary monocoloured Art creatures. This is not a mandatory cycle, but I think it could work great in this set to promote the Renaissance theme a bit more. The idea is to have a group of exciting threats acting as glue more than pushing for a specific archetype. Some good examples of this lind of cycles are the Syr cycle and demigods cycle, respectively from Eldraine and Theros, that were pushing for monocoloured themes.
The success of this cycle on Rezatta is mainly going to depend on our ability to find good illustrations. I'd like these Art creatures to reference very famous pieces of Art from the Renaissance era. So far, this is what I have:
They respectively reference:
1) The Last Supper by Da Vinci
2) The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo
3) La Pieta by Michelangelo
4) The Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci
5) The Birth of Venus by Boticelli
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I think the illustrations so far can be functional but I'm not thrilled either as there are many aspects I would like to enhance: - The Fatal Banquet uses a piece from Salvador Dali, which I think is weird. - The Danse of Creation is a bit hard to get as a reference. - The Monument of Pity uses a painting of the actual piece more than a twist on it. - The Bare Mannequin shows mechanical elements that can hardly pass for steampunk. - The Fountain of Birth is an extremely difficult reference to get. - There are two pieces of Da Vinci and two pieces of Michelangelo out of five illustrations.
- Fatal Banquet: I literally cannot find a better image, but maybe there are. Somewhere. - Dance of Creation: the pose is pretty iconic, it's not so hard to get the reference imho. - Monument of Pity: I agree that it's a copypaste of the original, we should change it if there's nothing else better. - Bare Mannequin: I honestly like it, despite the mechanical parts, and even then, it can be justified lorewise. - Fountain of Birth: yeah the reference is pretty cryptic, but the artwork is very good nonetheless, I'd keep it, maybe we can make the effect reference something about the original art.
For Monument of Pity maybe this would work? (Pieta by Hazal Yayalar)
Also for Simple Aesthete it might be a bit annoying to keep track of which colors of mana you've used to cast spells / activate abilities. Would straight-up Springmantle Cleric work? (Probably make the initial body smaller though -- it's much easier to get 3/4 colors here, so a 1/2 to start off with might be reasonable as well)
@LyndonF Wow that's a perfect illustration for that slot, thanks!
Yes, tracking colours of mana spet over the turn might indeed be a bit too much to ask here. I would like to avoid asking players to physically put too many colours in their deck though, because the fixing won't support it. Ideally, you could play the card from that slot in a monoGreen deck and still be able to leverage it just by producing other colours of mana. The original concept for that slot was to have your creatures enter the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counters on them for each colour of mana spent to cast them that they are not, but this is way to strong for uncommon unfortunately.
@ningyounk How about this, for Simple Aesthete: choose a color as it enters the battlefield. All creatures of that color gain +1/+1, or maybe your choice between +1/+0 and +0/+1?
@Scaccogaming The goal for this slot is to synergise with the way serran life produces mana of any colour, but this design would actually promote monocoloured decks instead. See Heraldic banner that was supporting the monocoloured theme from Eldraine for instance.
@LordTachanka123 The secondary themes won't have much support so these slots are meant to be build-around cards that are good enough on their own that they make you consider modifying your strategy a bit in Limited. Protector of the Pure wouldn't be enough to make me suddenly care about the Cleric subtype, and it's missing the Angel-matters aspect. It's flavourful though, we could use something like that for the protection slot in white, without the Cleric restriction.
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Here are my concepts so far for the Legendary Arts:
WHITE: White is the main colour for the serran life theme. I was thinking a variation over Ajani's Pridemate (gaining life can flavourfully represent the banquet, as a little bonus) except something special would happen nce it reaches 13 counters as a flavourful reference.
BLUE and GREEN: Flavourfully, we need to think of them at the same time because they both tackle the same subject (birth/creation). I was thinking of making green's birth aspect about mana and lands, maybe giving it the ramp slot. Green is the primary colour for the even life growth archetype so ramp fits in as well. On the other hand, Blue is the main colour for the second spell archetype so I was thinking of making some kind of card draw. Tying that into thematically into Adam's Creation is going to be more challenging. Maybe we could use a hint at the human creature type in there?
RED and BLACK: Similarly, red and black have a lot thematically in common with a darker theme that hints at death. Black could go with some removal, sacrifice for instance, as it's the main colour for the Art theme that is pretty attrition-based. Red is harder, I was thinking of trying to "dissect" a creature in two maybe? Otherwise, maybe playing with power and toughness for the anatomy theme? This could go well with the agressive suicide theme Red is primary for.
--- The Monument to Pity 2B Legendary Creature - Art
Flash
Whenever a creature you control dies, you gain 2 life. If it was an Art, you gain 2 serran life instead.
1/2 ---
It felt like the art had to do something whenever a creature you control dies (for some reason). Not sure if the effects are of the right scale though -- if an Art dies you basically get one mana of any color! Alternatively, "at eot, if one or more creatures you control died this turn, each opponent sacs a creature" might work as well.
--- The Bare Mannequin 2R Legendary Creature - Art
As an additional cost to cast this spell, exile a creature you control.
You may have ~ enter the battlefield as a copy of the exiled creature, except it's a 1/1, it's an Art in addition to its other types, and has "When this creature enters the battlefield, create a colorless Art creature token with power and toughness equal to the exiled card’s power and toughness."
1/1 ---
This would work much better as a spell, but it seems possible to squeeze it in the text box of a creature. The wording is mostly copied from Soul Separator. It's incidentally a 1/1 so helps with WR weenies.
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Comments
Creature-(Race) Cleric
Renewal-Untap CARDNAME.
uu, t: Target player's life total can't change until end of turn.
Whenever CARDNAME untaps, you lose 1 life.
Enchantment-Aura
Enchant Creature
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, put a -1/-1 counter on enchanted creature. If it were to be destroyed this way, you may instead attach CARDNAME to target creature.
Pastor: This is a bit too niche and it's telling a really convoluted story mechanically.
Sickness: -1/-1 counters are not part of the set as they count as a non-evergreen mechanic!
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Moving on to the removal spells. Again, this is mostly to have some placeholders. The end goal is to come back to them later and adjust them to the specific threats in the set. For now, I tried to stay generic and make interesting cards in a vacuum so they're easy to replace later. I also made sure that every colour had at least two removal spells at uncommon (with the exception of Green that only gets one) and that the uncommon removals were different enough from the common ones.
WHITE —
Common had a Pacifism effect (Truce Accord) and an expensive exile spell (New Journey) so I went with a cheap removal spell for attackers/blockers and a more expensive Banishing enchantment:BLUE —
Blue only gets one spell to deal with permanents and then a couple counterspells usually. At common, for permanents blue has a transformation spell (Paint on a Wall), a freeze spell (Study Hard) and an expensive bounce spell for creatures only (Breathing Waltz). Counterspells wise, it has a cheap conditional counter for instants (Bureaucatric Stare) and a three-mana unconditional counter with upsides (Dismiss the Cold). So, for uncommon, I went with a cheap universal bounce spell for permanents, and a cheap conditional counterspell. It also adds the repeatable tapping that was presented above (Whimsical Cataloger):BLACK —
Common has a cheap -X/-1 spell (Moving Farewell), an expensive unconditional removal (Death Row), and a cheap splinter bones (Heresy). At uncommon, it already got a repeatable -1/-1 from the cards above (Spilled Ink) so I added a cheap conditional destroy spell that is meant as a vertical cycle in black hating on creatures with power different from their toughness as a metaphor for beauty.RED —
Common got the usual creature blast (New Insults) + polyvalent blast (Sparks) combo, respectively at 1 and two-mana. So I'm adding a 3-mana polyvalent blast at uncommon, and it also gets the repeatable shock card from before (Spartower Pupil):GREEN —
Green gets less removal than other colours. At common, it has a 3-to-4-mana fight spell (Scour the Wilds) so I'm adding a bite spell with upsides at uncommon:Those cards will probably need to be adjusted balance wise, I'm pretty sure I made some interesting rares by accident in there XD The next step will be to fill the following cycles that were already started earlier:
• A cycle of cards with a Renaissance ability that triggers at the end of each of your turn.
• A cycle of masterwork cards.
The idea is that there should be a possible 5-colour masterwork deck where you create a creature with aaaaaall the abilities xD Actually, a colourless creature that helps ironing out your mana a bit and entices you to try the 5-colour masterwork plan is probably not a bad idea at uncommon as well.
Here are the masterwork cards so far, we're basically finishing the uncommons from this cycle:
I think I'd rather have some flavour of indestructible or at least "prevent all damage" as a protective ability for rare/Mythic ^^ Otherwise, boosting a creature's toughness is never really that strong.
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For the uncommons, we are missing three colours: white, black and red. I'm pretty sure I want deathtouch, so that's black as neither white or red can do it otherwise. Next, I'm interested in having either first strike or straight up double strike (I don't think I want both in the set as the masterwork cards are meant to all be played together) but it can be either red or white. So it will depend on what the third ability is going to be and that's where things get complicated. Lifelink is too strong for uncommon, so is indestructible, and that's about as far as evergreen keywords go in white and red.
So I made a list of potential abilities in white and red that could be granted to your masterwork:
• WHITE
- First strike
- Double strike
- Protection from color
- Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to your masterwork.
- If a source would deal damage to your masterwork, prevent N of that damage. (Absorb; Possibly half of it.)
- Can block N additional creatures each combat.
- Can't be blocked by creatures with power 3 or more.
• RED
- First strike
- Double strike
- Gets +N/+0 as long as it's attacking and isn't blocked. (Frenzy)
- Whenever your masterwork is blocked by a creature, it deals 2 damage to that creature.
- Whenever your masterwork attacks, target creature can't block (it) this turn. (Panic)
- {mana}: Target creature can't block your masterwork this turn. (Panic)
- {mana}: Your masterwork gets +N/+0 until end of turn. (Firebreathing.)
- Additional combat step only for your masterwork.
- {mana}: Target creature must block your masterwork this turn if able.
So, this is the solution I came up with:
BLACK —
As I said, this one is easy as I wanted it to be deathtouch. I made it only two-mana so it feels more like an uncommon:
RED —
I ended up going with a variation of the panic ability as I thought it was one of the abilities from both list that were best suited for uncommon power wise:
WHITE —
This is a tricky one, I tried something a bit original and went for both first strike and double strike on the same card. Creatures can have multiple instances of the same evergreen keyword such as first strike, but usually it's redundant. What this does is that it upgrades having two times first strike into getting double strike. So if this creature is not your masterwork, it's a 2/3 first strike. If it's your masterwork, it's technically a 2/3 with first strike, first strike, and double strike x) Tell me if this is too weird xD
I also think somber poet could get away being a 1/2. I’m not sure.
Next step is finishing the Renewal cycle (white and black already have these) ^^ It's going to be something simple, with renewal abilities that trigger at the beginning of your end step. Blue, red and green shouldn't get any additional help for enabling Renewal on those cards though, to signal that white and black are the best colours for this.
Masterwork cycle:
Intimidating Violonist:
The ability is quite decent, though maybe making something can't block this turn is more intuitive? That's what I thought the ability did on my first read.
Four-Hands Composers:
Interesting ability! Maybe a rewording will make it clearer:
"If your masterwork has first strike, it has double strike. Otherwise, it has first strike."
Blue / Green members:
The abilities are nice, and "for each creature you control with masterwork" seems like another way to word the abilities.
Renewal cycle:
Judging from the white and black ones, the cards are probably enchantments with "Renewal -- At the beginning of your end step, if (condition), (effect)."
Some ideas for the effects:
Blue:
- Loot / Draw
- Tap and freeze a creature
- Untap a nonland permanent
- Discover*
- Scry (we already have Discover)
- Bounce (too obnoxious imo)
Red:
- Rummage
- Ping some target
- Discover*
- Impulse draw (see FerociousFurious Rise, but we already have Discover)
Green:
- Put +1/+1 counter(s)
- Gain (serran) life
- Create a small token (e.g. 1/1 Art or sth)
- Fight?
- Draw (let's leave this to blue)
*: Depends on how you think of repeatable Discover effects.
I fear it would look bland, without a true purpose. My initial objective was to make it a Renewal card that slowly spawns griffins, but I figured that it would do the same thing as Griffin Aerie, so I decided to derail from my initial concept and try something different.
(I know it's not that useful to create cards on the go, but I figured that the ideas would look cleaner and easier to read in card form.)
About Intimidating Violonist: Yeah, I was afraid that people might misread it this way. I'm lukewarm about having straight-up "whenever attacks, target creature can't block this turn" because 1) there's a creature that does that at common and 2) it doesn't matter what creature is your masterwork if you do that. If thought it was more interesting as an evasive ability this way. I think I'm going to rephrase it "target creature can't block your masterwork" so it's clearer, even if it's repetitive.
Four-Hands Composer: That's how I worded at first but I was afraid that it was going to confuse people into thinking it's creating a paradoxical loop with itself. I think it's trying to be too cute, I'm probably going to make it straight-up double strike for like 5-mana ^^
Renewal cycle: I'm not opposed to having non-enchantment members in this cycle if the enchantment feels like it's not doing enough since it can be a bit hard to trigger and the other colours are not supposed to be as focused on enabling Renewal.
BLUE:
I agree with all of this, except I would also consider Scry with a high number because library manipulation helps you discover cards you can actually cast. I think this feels different enough from discover gameplay wise. My only rule is that discover has priority over Scry 1 whenever possible and I don't want them on the same card (I tried and it's super easy to mess up and try to cast a card you're scrying into).
The other thing I was considering was to blink your own creature, like a conditional Thassa, since that would be very beneficial for the UB Art deck. However, I know I want a card in the glue slots that bounces back your creatures to your hand because that synergises both with the WU and UB archetype and I think we can't have both effects at uncommon.
RED:
Similarly, I'm not again having impulse draw in addition to discover, especially if it triggers at the end of turn since it makes a bit more sense. I'm saving the repeatable ping for the discover archetype so far, but yeah we could switch the slots since shocking is a reward that fits renewal really well. In addition to rummaging, we could also consider straight up wheeling players' hands for a bit of a higher mana cost.
GREEN:
I'd stay away from repeatable fight for the same reason I'd avoid repeatable bounce (it can lock players out of the game). White is already making small tokens on renewal trigger so that's taken for now. I really like the +1/+1 counter idea because it plays well with most of the green archetypes. I would also consider tutoring lands to either your hand or the battlefield depending on the mana cost.
Scaccogaming
5 power and toughness with flying is too much for 3 mana power wise, but apart from that small issue my main concern is that this is hinting at a flying-matters theme that isn't there in this set. It could be a secondary theme for white but I don't think it has enough synergies with the white draft archetypes.
For blue, I tried Scry 4 because it synergises so well with discover. For the red one, I couldn't find anything that sounded nearly as nice as a shock so I ended up using that but that means the Sparktower Pupil will have to change later. I used the +1/+1 counter for green because it synergises with all of green wants to do super nicely. An alternative could be a 4-or-5-mana creature that puts two +1/+1 counters instead of one. There's also the option of having "put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control" but that's probably a bit too much for uncommon.
P.S: Yeah, I just realised I used "Renaissance" again, for those of you who didn't follow the full story, this is the same thing as Renewal, we haven't chosen a proper name yet for that mechanic.
I am putting back the white and black ones here for reference:
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FourEyesIsAFish
• WHITE: A cross tribal between angels and clerics. Those two creature types are going to be abundant because of the Church of Serra theme anyways, I would like to find a way to support a strategy where each of the creature type reinforces the other in a flavorful way.
• BLUE: A mill theme, to synergise with the fact that Discover can actually mill you. I was thinking of caring about whenever a land is put into a graveyard, to open more cross-synergies with fetch lands, land destruction, etc.
• BLACK: A legendary-matters theme, since black is the most central colour for the art theme and art creatures are naturally going to tend toward referencing existing art pieces, hence more often being legendary.
• RED: A token-matter theme, since it's something that could play well with the low-to-the-ground creature theme going on in the set and it naturally synergises with what other colours are doing as well.
• GREEN: A converge theme that counts the number of colours spent to cast spells, in order to synergise with the fact that serran life can produce mana of any colour as well as the usual ramp effects in green.
I haven't finished everything yet, and what I have is quite rough at this stage but here's a peek at my latest attempts so far:
I previously tried to bring into discussion a hypothetical cycle of creatures inspired by the Muses, but the project was discarded. Another neat idea could be a cycle of lands that favor their color's playstile for a cost (and I already sis post some cards before your break, so you might want to check them out if that tickles tour interest).
There is a plan for a cycle of exciting legendaries such as the Syrs/Demigods that will be much tighter ^^ This cycle is not meant to be a true cycle (we probably won't keep all five cards in the final version) and it is meant to be more hidden. The idea is that those cards look like they are meant for another archetype, but they actually open up another line of play.
Golden Church Evangelist (Placeholder)
(1)(W)(W)(W) (not sure tho)
Creature - Angel Cleric
[Cardname]'s power is equal to the amount of Clerics and Angels you control.
[*/3]
1w
w, t: You gain 1 life. You gain 5 life if you control N or more clerics.
I would like to try something a little bit new here, though I don't know if it's actually possible to do it in a clean way. The idea would be to encourage a style of gameplay that we had in Ikoria with the "if you control a Human and a non-Human creature" theme where you actually needed both at the same time. Ideally, the Clerics would boost the Angels, and the Angels would boost the Clerics in a flavourful way.
So, Golden Church Evangelist is a fine card but I'd like to try to find something where having two clerics and two angels is stronger than having four clerics or four angels. Similarly, LordTachanka123's cleric is missing the Angel side of the synergy (though if that doesn't work we can totally just make regular Cleric or Angel tribal) and it's a secondary theme so I'd prefer not having a threshold, it should be fully operational by itself, while offering a way to increase its synergy.
Here are some examples:
Angels you control get BONUS A for each Cleric you control.
Clerics you control get BONUS B for each Angel you control.
BONUS A for each Cleric you control and BONUS B for each Angel you control, where bonus A and B are synergistic.
Tap an untapped Cleric you control: Target Angel gets BONUS A.
Tap an untapped Angel you control: Target Cleric gets BONUS B.
Tap an untapped Angel and an untapped Cleric you control: BONUS.
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And a card to go with it:
It's a reference to Niccolo Macchiavelli, author of the Prince who gave us the adjective "Macchiavellian" as a way to refer to someone who is ready to do evil things to reach their goal.
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And here's the cycle of "hidden" secondary theme build-arounds so far. As the rest, this is meant to be adjusted later, we'll probably not keep all of them but they can occupy the slots for now:
The success of this cycle on Rezatta is mainly going to depend on our ability to find good illustrations. I'd like these Art creatures to reference very famous pieces of Art from the Renaissance era. So far, this is what I have:
They respectively reference:
1) The Last Supper by Da Vinci
2) The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo
3) La Pieta by Michelangelo
4) The Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci
5) The Birth of Venus by Boticelli
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I think the illustrations so far can be functional but I'm not thrilled either as there are many aspects I would like to enhance:
- The Fatal Banquet uses a piece from Salvador Dali, which I think is weird.
- The Danse of Creation is a bit hard to get as a reference.
- The Monument of Pity uses a painting of the actual piece more than a twist on it.
- The Bare Mannequin shows mechanical elements that can hardly pass for steampunk.
- The Fountain of Birth is an extremely difficult reference to get.
- There are two pieces of Da Vinci and two pieces of Michelangelo out of five illustrations.
- Dance of Creation: the pose is pretty iconic, it's not so hard to get the reference imho.
- Monument of Pity: I agree that it's a copypaste of the original, we should change it if there's nothing else better.
- Bare Mannequin: I honestly like it, despite the mechanical parts, and even then, it can be justified lorewise.
- Fountain of Birth: yeah the reference is pretty cryptic, but the artwork is very good nonetheless, I'd keep it, maybe we can make the effect reference something about the original art.
(Pieta by Hazal Yayalar)
Also for Simple Aesthete it might be a bit annoying to keep track of which colors of mana you've used to cast spells / activate abilities. Would straight-up Springmantle Cleric work? (Probably make the initial body smaller though -- it's much easier to get 3/4 colors here, so a 1/2 to start off with might be reasonable as well)
Wow that's a perfect illustration for that slot, thanks!
Yes, tracking colours of mana spet over the turn might indeed be a bit too much to ask here. I would like to avoid asking players to physically put too many colours in their deck though, because the fixing won't support it. Ideally, you could play the card from that slot in a monoGreen deck and still be able to leverage it just by producing other colours of mana. The original concept for that slot was to have your creatures enter the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counters on them for each colour of mana spent to cast them that they are not, but this is way to strong for uncommon unfortunately.
Creature-Angel
Flash, flying
When Protector of the Pure enters the battlefield, target cleric you control gains indestructible until end of turn.
1/3
The goal for this slot is to synergise with the way serran life produces mana of any colour, but this design would actually promote monocoloured decks instead. See Heraldic banner that was supporting the monocoloured theme from Eldraine for instance.
@LordTachanka123
The secondary themes won't have much support so these slots are meant to be build-around cards that are good enough on their own that they make you consider modifying your strategy a bit in Limited. Protector of the Pure wouldn't be enough to make me suddenly care about the Cleric subtype, and it's missing the Angel-matters aspect. It's flavourful though, we could use something like that for the protection slot in white, without the Cleric restriction.
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Here are my concepts so far for the Legendary Arts:
WHITE: White is the main colour for the serran life theme. I was thinking a variation over Ajani's Pridemate (gaining life can flavourfully represent the banquet, as a little bonus) except something special would happen nce it reaches 13 counters as a flavourful reference.
BLUE and GREEN: Flavourfully, we need to think of them at the same time because they both tackle the same subject (birth/creation). I was thinking of making green's birth aspect about mana and lands, maybe giving it the ramp slot. Green is the primary colour for the even life growth archetype so ramp fits in as well. On the other hand, Blue is the main colour for the second spell archetype so I was thinking of making some kind of card draw. Tying that into thematically into Adam's Creation is going to be more challenging. Maybe we could use a hint at the human creature type in there?
RED and BLACK: Similarly, red and black have a lot thematically in common with a darker theme that hints at death. Black could go with some removal, sacrifice for instance, as it's the main colour for the Art theme that is pretty attrition-based. Red is harder, I was thinking of trying to "dissect" a creature in two maybe? Otherwise, maybe playing with power and toughness for the anatomy theme? This could go well with the agressive suicide theme Red is primary for.
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The Monument to Pity 2B
Legendary Creature - Art
Flash
Whenever a creature you control dies, you gain 2 life. If it was an Art, you gain 2 serran life instead.
1/2
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It felt like the art had to do something whenever a creature you control dies (for some reason). Not sure if the effects are of the right scale though -- if an Art dies you basically get one mana of any color! Alternatively, "at eot, if one or more creatures you control died this turn, each opponent sacs a creature" might work as well.
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The Bare Mannequin 2R
Legendary Creature - Art
As an additional cost to cast this spell, exile a creature you control.
You may have ~ enter the battlefield as a copy of the exiled creature, except it's a 1/1, it's an Art in addition to its other types, and has "When this creature enters the battlefield, create a colorless Art creature token with power and toughness equal to the exiled card’s power and toughness."
1/1
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This would work much better as a spell, but it seems possible to squeeze it in the text box of a creature. The wording is mostly copied from Soul Separator. It's incidentally a 1/1 so helps with WR weenies.