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Rezatta Set Design - Uncommons Part 2
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So far, I've been playing with a toned down version that is meant to entice BR players to try and splash White. I'm pretty happy with how it's been performing, it's much less oppressive than the original since it can't be used to nullify removal and the fact that it only hits for 2 makes it much more manageable despite the fact that it comes down at 1-mana:
While it doesn't care about serran life specifically, I think it's a good candidate to become a Priest to synergise better with the WB archetype. I like that it can pay regular life for now because it acts like glue in the set: it's an important card for the BRW aggro theme as the only card that has "pay 1 life" as a cost and it's an agressive enabler for decks like WU aggro 2d spell or WR weenies. I do need to check the as-fan of Angels and Clerics in the set though ^^"
The WB archetype is a bit tricky because it wants to pay serran life as well as caring about angels and clerics, which isn't always easy to put on the same card. I would really like to make at least one white uncommon and one black uncommon that care about controlling both an Angel and a Cleric though, and if possible I would like those cards to tie into the serran life payment theme.
There are 5-ish remaining slots in white at uncommon that have to be shared between WB, RW and a couple other stuff:
1) A 2-mana creature with flying
2) A 4-mana creature with masterwork and a trigger when it hits someone in the face
3) A non-creature spell
4) A non-creature spell
5) I'm also counting the Golden Cage design I posted above. I just remembered that there is a new card drawing engine from the WU archetype in the skeleton so the Cage can't be card draw as well.
In Black at uncommon, we have three open slots to share between the WB archetype, the BG archetype and a couple other stuff:
1) A creature that's either 1-mana or 5-mana-and-more
2) A 5-mana creature with flying
3) A noncreature spell
Considering the current bias of the WB directional cards towards Clerics as opposed to Angels, I would like both the 2-mana white flyier and 5-mana black flyiers to be Angels. I also want the directional card that cares about having both an Angel and a Cleric to be that Angel in Black. White's directional card can either be the 2-mana Angel or one of the noncreature slots, with a preference for the noncreature slots for diversity reasons. This means we're looking for:
1) A white 2-mana Angel with flying that doesn't care directly about controlling an Angel and a Cleric, but synergises with the archetype, most likely by offering to pay serran life
2) A white non-creature spell that specifically cares about controlling both an Angel and a Cleric at the same time
3) A black 5-mana Angel with flying that specifically cares about controlling both an Angel and a Cleric at the same time
___
Now, I'm struggling the most with the kind of effects that would work with that archetype. Stuff like "Tap an untapped Cleric and an untapped Angel you control: Put a +1/+1 counter on each of them" sounds cool but I don't want to rely too much on +1/1 counters to keep the archetype as different as possible from the GW one. Because of this, I would like to lean towards more agressive effects while staying away from +1/+1 counters.
So here's my try for White:
1) I'm moving the team boost effect from the 5-mana archpriest to the 2-mana Angel. This way it becomes an actual potential glue card for the more agressive RW deck as well as its mana value is 2 or less. The 5-mana Archpriest becomes a finisher that also benefits the GW archetype by producing Angels, hence creating a pair of Angel and Cleric in a single card/ The Archpriest gets vigilance in the process just because it was missing from the list of White uncommon keywords that are mandatory.
For the non-creature spell that cares about controlling Angels and Clerics while synergising with serran life payment, it's a bit complicated to make a card that looks natural with al that on it. Here are two concepts I had using tapping creatures since that can be used offensively as well as defensively and also a soft removal card is kind of needed in White at uncommon anyways:
The first one is inspired by Bond of Discipline from Ravnica Allegiance. I think I prefer the enchantment though, it looks a bit cleaner, but I'm not convinced by the last activated ability on it, I just don't know what Angel/Cleric ability would work well while synergising with the first ability.
I might have found a design I like to fill this role in Serran Commander:
BEFORE/AFTER
The main problem with the enchantment was that the first ability was not enticing enough, so I simply made it cheaper to see if an improved rate would make it more of a viable option. I also made a Rare version of the Arcane Folio, for fun:
BEFORE / AFTER
I've considered several routes for the new version of this archetype:
- Stay on the Renewal theme. While this is synergistic with the other black and green archetypes, the WB archetype has picked up a "Pay serran life" theme since the last iteration and I don't want the set to have too many life-centric archetypes.
- Go with a graveyard-centric archetype. It's not exactly an original theme for BG but focusing it on the Art tribe would introduce a new twist to it. However, the current green cards aren't really supporting this theme in any way so it would require a quite massive change at common as well.
- Introduce an entirely new theme that doesn't require a lot of support from other cards. I'm currently exploring this route and created a BG value archetype. I'm usually not a fan of "value" archetypes since they often feel like they don't have a theme at all, so I created a little rider to make the archetype more branded. It cares about "If the number of permanents you control plus the number of cards in your hand is the highest among all players", tying together effects like ramp, card draw, removal, discard, tokens, etc.
I've started by creating one directional card with that rider in each colour plus a multicoloured signpost, just to signal the theme. The point is that they give you a boost in ressources and then checks if you have the most ressources before adding an bonus. I've also made sure that their effects are synergistic with the UB Art tribal theme:I've also added a strong enabler in black at uncommon, and a single directional card at common, like for the other enemy-coloured archetypes:
Luckily, this is another archetype that doesn't require a lot of support since it rewards you for playing normally, which means it only requires the minimum number of directional cards. Since the introduction of "mana value" as a replacement for "converted mana cost", I've wanted to try modifying the archetype to care about mana value 2 or less since this releases a lot of tension in the design space coming from the fact that pump effects were non-synergistic. With this slightly modified theme, the RW archetype could become the natural home for all the cheap combat tricks.
As for the rest of the enemy-coloured archetypes, the minimum number of directional cards were one for each colour combination in RW at uncommon plus one common:
One of the main problems was that, when limited to only blue and green, the masterwork options are too few to make an interesting deck. So I added one masterwork creature in both blue and green at common.
Another problem was that both primary evasion abilities in blue/green (trample and flying) were stuck on 5-mana common. So I moved the trample one to 3-mana and added a Daunt masterwork at 2-mana.
This created a very large cascade of changes in green/blue to maintain the mana curve of each colour and avoid having two masterwork creatures at the same mana cost in the same colour:
Now, for the uncommon, I originally wanted to have a full horizontal cycle of creatures with a "whenever your masterwork deals combat damage to a player" triggers. However, I ran into two main issues: 1) There aren't that many effects that were good fits, I quickly realised the only ones I was really excited about were the ones I already had: draw a card and put a +1/+1 counter. 2) I still wanted to add deathtouch and either first or double strike to the list of available keywords. I toyed with a version where each creature in the cycle gave both an ability (I added ward—pay 3 life, etc.) and a damage-to-the-face trigger.
In the end, I went for the simpler version: some give interesting keywords, and some damage triggered abilities:
The key was making sure that each of them was at the most relevant point of the mana curve. The white one was inspired by Dreadhorde Butcher, the blue one was inspired by cards like Fly and Curious Obsession, the black one was inspired by Blacklance Paragon, doubles strike moved to the red one on a more agressive body, and the green one improves on the common one that gave +1/+1 (I'd like to continue the trend at rare and give an even bigger stat boost).
The white one in particular forced me to move things around a bit because you can't have two creature cards at the same mana cost at common.
- We already had two 2-mana creatures, so Serran Soulwarden moved to 2-mana and took vigilance from the 5-mana priest. The priest got +0/+2 in exchange.
- Now there are too many 3-mana creature cards. I needed to move one to one-mana to support the RW mana value 2 or less archetype. The one that made the most sense was the RW directional card.
The blue one also created a second one-mana card that repeatedly discovered. In parallel, I needed a way to repeatedly enable the signature Art trigger ("If that Art wasn't cast from your hand"), so I changed the reward for the blue renewal enchantment from discover to blink, in the style of Teleportation Circle or Escape Protocol.
BEFORE / AFTER
In addition, there was this one card in green that was interesting as a one-of but completely broken in multiple. I made it a legendary card to fix this problem and put the effect on a colour-filtering artefact à la Prophetic Prism to encourage the pentacoloured version of the masterwork deck:
BEFORE / AFTER
Also, a quick ruling question. If Pied Piper of Frostwoods is your masterwork, and you play a card with masterwork, would it get two +1/+1 counters, or one?
Oh yeah good catch, the violin is indeed supposed to have the legendary supertype.
Oh that's a tricky question about the Pied Piper, I wasn't sure how to word it and I honestly forgot about that scenario xD The way it's worded now I believe it picks up two +1/+1 counters, after some pondering I think I'm ok with this, it makes the GU signpost a great candidate to be your masterwork which seems fitting. But it does need to be clearer then:
Thanks for the feedback!
WHITE:
BLUE:
BLACK:
RED:
GREEN: (a.k.a how did it get to this xD)
MULTICOLOURED:
COLOURLESS:
The 4-mana creature
I wanted something a bit on the simpler side—though still synergistic— for the creature so I went with a variation over Alirios, Enraptured that makes an excellent recursion target without the wordy Art signature rider for once:Might be a bit strong but for once I did a top-down design based on an illustration I really liked and only discovered recently x)
The spell with masterwork
Next is a noncreature spell with masterwork. I already made one at common that was a protection spell, so I wanted to explore something different, maybe more agressive. My main idea was to go with a transformation so here are two concepts for that slot:Tango of Loneliness would probably require to change other cards to maximise synergies so Saboteur effects would say:
The two remaining noncreature spells
This section is much more difficult because of the number of options available. I would like to fit, in any combination:A counter spell
A cheap spell (1-or-2-mana) you would always be happy to discover
A spell that discovers
So here are several designs I'm considering, I still am very unsure of what the right combination would be:
1. Cheap modal spells
The idea behind this category is to have a cheap spell that you would always be happy to discover because it's a modal spell so there's always one option that is somewhat relevant. I then mix in the counter spell and/or the discover requirement:As you can see, I would be interested in turning the common soft counterspell that is a bit difficult to use as-is into this card since it becomes more useful thanks to the other modes. The common one can then become something more generic, maybe even negate.
2. A cheap discover spell
Another option I'm considering is just having a one-mana instant with discover and maybe a little bonus. However I don't think I would want both slots to be taken by 1-mana instants so it's either this or the one above:
This is very synergistic with a lot of blue archetypes, however the first one looks like it might be broken and the second one is very close to the red discover sorcery:
3. An expensive counterspell with bonuses
Another option that would go well with either the cheap discover spell above or one of the cheap modal spells that don't get a counter ability is a more expensive counter spell. I like the following idea in particular, though it might be too strong for uncommon:
The set wouldn't mind an effective "draw two cards" instant, which is why I'm eyeing this design but I'm afraid of how better Dismiss would play.
For the masterwork spell, I'm not super fond of transformation spells in place of pump spells as they tend to not be the most effective. The one I proposed above that transforms your masterwork into a 5/5 is more generous than what you'd usually see for that mana cost and I'm not sure it's preferable to a Giant growth in many cases.
Hence, I think I prefer the copy design. However, it might be interesting to leave the door open for that cycle of artifact I originally planned, so I changed it to an equipment:
Which leaves us with two open noncreature slots. The defining factor was the counter spell, I decided to move up in rarity the common counterspell to allow room at common for something easier to slot in a deck (I'll use Negate for now). So I kept the idea of the the one-mana modal spell for the uncommon counterspell. I used effects that weren't card advantage since the other slot is going to end up being card advantage.
As I said, I wanted the last slot to be an efficient draw spell in the vein of Glimmer of Genius, Chemister's Inisght,or maybe Fact or Fiction.
I made multiple designs around those concepts, and I toyed a fair bit with a card that would synergise with milling so you could mill it as you discover it and still cast it.
In the end, there were two deciding factors:
1) Blue could really use an additional discover spell at uncommon.
2) It had to fit in with the suit of card advantage spells at common. Specifically, there was a 1-mana creature that drew half a card (= discover), a 2-mana sorcery that drew you one card and a half, and a 4-mana sorcery that drew you two cards and a half. (N.B.: Since it became apparent I wasn't going to have a cheap blue instant that discover at uncommon, I made an exception to my rules that commons shouldn't discover at instant speed and changed Enlightening Study to an instant in the process.)
So this uncommon being an instant was a given, and I ended making it a 3-mana card that draws two cards with a downside (you reveal the cards) but the upside of having various synergies with discover. This way it fills the hole in the mana curve and provides a much needed instant card draw to blue:
So that's it for Blue, here are the four remaining slots together:
Here's the deal: This card played terribly, it was either really oppressive or didn't do anything. However, it's part of a duo of cards and its counterpart, Mask of Comedy, actually was really fun and interesting. So it all boils down to whether it's possible to make a black mask that feels nice, or if both masks need to be removed from the set.
I toyed with it for a few days and I think I have a version that might work. The reason the green one worked but the black one didn't was that the green one had positive effects while the black one had negative effects. So, I made a black version using only positive effects. I then redistributed all the effects between the two masks so they synergise with the different archetypes happening in their respective colours:
I think this new version might work and I'm interested to see how the opponent's choosing ends up playing with positive effects.
This means there are two slots (one 4-mana creature and one noncreature) that can be filled with anything.
Looking at what's already in Red, I think there are two effects that could really help:
1) For the 4-mana creature slot, being able to control the parity of your life total in RG is still a big issue. In red, the uncommons that do this are only one-shot effects or need you to attack. So I figured a "T, Pay 1 life: Effect" ability could help.
That effect might be worth a rare slot, but at 4-mana I figured it might be ok and the set is quite mana-hungry.
2) For the non-creature spell, one thing that's not in red at uncommon yet is a proper pump spell, and the set doesn't have a first strike pump spell at all at the moment. Red could also use one more one-shot discover spell, so I figured this could be the spot. I've retained two options so far:
I think I'm tempted to try the more complex version first, see if it does anything.
___
Also, not unrelated, some red cards were a bit pushed stats-wise, which made red look a bit unbalanced in general. Upon re-reading them, I've nerfed a couple of them preemptively:
• 1 creature at 2-mana (open for anything)
• 3 non-creature spells that need to cover the following: a fight spell, a one-shot serran life gain spell, a pump spell, a masterwork spell
So here's what I came up with:
1) The 2-mana creature:
I made it a Charming Prince-type value creature that can help every archetype in some way by providing some small amount of value. It also checks the one-shot life gain effect. It's on the generous side of things in comparison to other cards but each effect taken individually would definitely be a common card so I hope this will be fine.
2) The masterwork spell:
This checks both the masterwork and pump spell boxes. Usually, putting two +1/+1 counters on a creature at instant speed costs 4-mana at common when it's accompanied with upsides but my problem is that those cards are usually unplayable. Considering there's a 2-mana version of this effect at rare, I figured 3-mana at uncommon would be the correct spot to try. The idea behind the card, in case this wasn't clear, is that you get two options (since choosing masterwork twice is redundant): 1) You choose a masterwork then put two +1/+1 counters on it. 2) You already have a masterwork you're happy with so you put four +1/+1 counters on it.
3) The fight spell
I wanted to make a pump spell that would work anywhere, without any set-specific mechanic. I was interested in using one of those unusual bite spells that use multiple creatures you control so your opponent can't two-for-one you with a removal spell in response to your fight spell. I added a tribal element so it works better with Arts.
4) Last open slot
For this last slot, the set didn't need something specific though an additional one-shot discover effect wouldn't hurt as a rider. For the main effect, I checked recent sets and figured an artifact/enchantment/land removal was the most common missing effect here. Once again, I'm making a card that's technically better than what this much mana usually allows, but at the same time those effects are mostly terrible for this price even if the modularity is nice. I still think this is mostly a sideboard card in both Limited and Constructed.
1) An artifact card to replace Hieromantic Trap
With more self-mill in the UBG archetype, I wouldn't mind some anti-mill technology in that slot that would double as graveyard hate in the style of Epitaph Golem:To avoid the same problem as Hieromantic Trap, I want the card to be a creature so it's not completely unplayable in Limited. Since we've got a 2-mana and 7-mana artifact creature, 4-mana should be a good spot for it, so basically a variation of Junktroller:
2) A utility land
I've wanted to add a whole cycle of bicoloured lands in the basic land slots for a while now, like how they did gates or snow bilands in recent sets. I think a pumped up version of the lifegain bilands would play great in this set—allowing life gain, life loss, and adjusting life parity, especially since I really hate rare bilands and I don't intend to have those in the set. So here's the idea for the land slot:This means the uncommon utility land cannot simply be a pumped up version of the old design since it would be redundant with the new common taplands. After looking at what kind of effects you'd find in this kind of slots in recent sets, I figured a variation of the "secret passage" effect would be beneficial for the masterwork mechanic:
However, I didn't want a repeatable effect so the masterwork cards that grant evasion wouldn't be irrelevant, so I made this:
The goal of that card was to allow you the flexibility to lose 1 life whenever you needed it for the RG and BR archetype, or any renewal card. However, it wasn't flexible enough since you couldn't really afford to keep it uncracked until you needed it and it ended up being a real annoyance, especially in the RG deck.
I think the solution is fairly simple: Making it a variation of Warped Landscape instead of Evolving Wilds should allow it to function as originally intended. I dropped the graveyard search, it was supposed to synergise with discover but since having a land card in your graveyard doesn't really give you any bonus compared to just searching your library, it made it wordier for no good reason.
Now the file should be full and ready for another intensive playtest ^^
That'd be really cool, though I need to understand how to upload a card file for Cockatrice then because I'm not eager to upload 191 cards on untap.in one by one xD I'll also be printing the new file IRL to playtest physically as usual ^^ If I figure it out, I'll propose a public playtest for people interested. (Fair warning though, the file is very rough so it might still play weird.)
___
Also, I found two more slots I forgot while preparing everything:
1) The fog effect:
I forgot to choose between those two cards for the fog effect:
I'm going to keep the green one, Icy Mist, since I've been struggling with the flyer removal slot before. Now that the manamorphose variation at uncommon has been killed, I'd like to try a pumped up Revitalize in White instead:
Miiiiight need to be 3-mana, we'll see ^^
2) A red four-mana creature
I forgot to replace this card after it got killed:
The slot doesn't need to care about even life anymore but I still need the artifact and land removal. Usually I put ETB abilities on Art to synergise with the dedicated recursion tools in UBG, but I also wouldn't mind helping RG control its life parity more easily and the archetype would be interesting in a big creature so I made the removal part an activated ability that costs 1 life instead. In addition, the two current reachers in the set at common are really small:
Hence, I'm moving Reach on the 5-mana card to balance things a bit, and I'm giving Soft-Paw Burglar one more power to compensate:
In addition, I've been researching ways to simulate Limited draft/sealed online and I believe the most efficient way has to be using Planesculptor. To make the draft experience more enjoyable, I'm going to add the minimum number (24) of rares to the skeleton—they won't be officially part of the set, it's just for Limited purpose—so the Limited format can function properly. Here are the placeholders rares, there are all directional cards (one monocoloured and one bicoloured card for each archetype + 4 filler cards) so nothing fancy that opens a new archetype or anything.
Also, I feel like masterwork's reminder text should say "It's an art in additon to its other types", since that's usually how most creatures gain a creature type (unless your masterwork is supposed to lose all other creature types.)
Thanks for the feedback!
1) Silver Monarch
Yeap, it's supposed to say Art creatures, my bad ^^The panharmonicon effect is actually inspired by Harmonic Prodigy, I put it at 6-mana so it doesn't overshadow the actual cards in the set but if it creates any kind of issues I'll replace it with something more parasitic.
2) Masterwork
Hmm that's a good point, I didn't realise that phrasing might actually imply it replaces the other creature types. Adding "in addition to its other types" is actually a pretty big problem for the reminder text, I'm not sure the added value wouldn't be worth the added length but so far it has increased the synergy of the set so I want to try and keep it. Thankfully we might be able to play with the malleability of the reminder text compared to rules text to make it clearer.Basically, I see two options:
BEFORE / AFTER
I'm also preemptively changing one card for playtest purposes. After trying it on my own, I don't know if the new black/green theme will get to stick but it has certainly proven too annoying to track permanently so, if it does, it will strictly be restricted to one-shots effects:
BEFORE / AFTER
Thank you for the feedback! =D
I've been gone for a while now because I'm having issues enjoying MTG content lately--I don't handle very well how Constructed formats have felt under the recent power creep--so I figured I needed to take a step back from the game to refocus.
I'll stay away from the site for a while but I'm sure I'll come back eventually once my flame is reignited x)
It seems like cockatrice is very picky when it comes to punctuation, and the few cards with apostrophes that I made weren't showing up, and when I copied the exact apostrophe from the xml file into the card image names, the card images showed up. Comparing the two apostrophes side by side, they seemed to be slightly different, and as a result, they weren't showing up. I assume the same thing is happening with commas as well.
If you look closely enough, the two apostrophes are slightly different. I believe the apostrophe on the left is the one that cockatrice looks for and completely ignores the one on the right.
Also, in order to remove a set from cockatrice, all that you need to do is to remove the xml file from the "custom sets" folder. Removing older versions of card images is done in the "custom image" folder.