Saleh, Prophet of Noor2W
Legendary Creature- Human Monk [MR]
Vigilance
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control exactly seven nontoken, nonland permanents, you win the game.
2/3
Cresho, Mystical MagusWUBRG
Legendary Creature- Human Wizard [MR]
Flash
Whenever you cast a multicolored spell, choose one:
- Draw a card.
- Gain 4 life.
- Target multicolored permanent gains hexproof until end of turn.
3/4
Kijn, Negotiator Extraordinaire1BGW
Legendary Creature - Elf Advisor [MR]
Deathtouch, Reach, Vigilance
Whenever Kijn, Negotiator Extraordinaire enters the battlefield or attacks, return target permanent card with a converted mana cost of 2 or less of an opponent's choice from your graveyard to the battlefield.
3/4
Saleh's win con seems dangerously easy to fulfill for her CMC and for a "you win if ___" card in general. Exactly seven nontoken, nonland perms at upkeep doesn't seem like much by way of hoops to jump through.
Cresho is strong, definitely, but probably not overboard. The cantrip mode is probably the most valuable one.
Kijn Maybe a bit text soupy for the cost/body/effect all at once? Might be worth picking a keyword to drop here. The recursion ability is wildly political and should produce a lot of cute interactions in a decently friendly pod.
Saleh - Interesting. I think you're probably better off doing a The Cheese Stands Alone variant... or maybe making it 7 of a specific permanent (Enchantments, for example).
With tweaking this is good.
Cresho, Mystical Magus -
1. Why does it have flash?
2. Why is it five colors?
3. I've never been a fan of multicolor v monocolor benefits, but if you are... sure?
4. Why do you give options here?
5. The hexproof thing is basically "counter target spell that targets a creature you control." so the current text is misleading.
6. Why is this a 3/4?
I genuinely don't know what the flavor behind this is, or why it's so mechanically dense.
Kijn -
1. Why is this 3 colors? The keywords are clearly here to correspond to a color, but don't help it's actual ability.
2. Why not give it haste and remove the "whenever this comes into play" part of it's ability? Haste is black, after all.
How about:
Haste, Trample, First Strike
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, you may return... blah blah.
Haste means he attacks the turn he comes into play; trample means he can get combat damage in, and first strike means his ability triggers before other creatures deal combat damage, allowing for more tricks?
If he has to deal combat damage, it lets you increase his p/t and/or lower his cost.
However, as is his keywords clearly make him too powerful. And don't give me "Is he legacy playable?", because the clear fact is he's got a well designed engine on him, just not a well-costed engine. If your contention is that he's fair unless he's the final member of the power 10, that's ridiculous.
To recap:
1st one is good; might need tweaking.
2nd one is nonsense.
3rd one is interesting, but with "keywords for keywords sake" and inelegant text (when x or y, do z as opposed to when x, do z).
Saleh, Prophet of Noor perhaps is too easy win with, but I'm not so sure. I don't think it necessary is though because you have to keep exactly 7 nonland permanents on the board which is already a lot, but you have to keep them on the board for a full turn. I think in EDH this wouldn't be tremendously easy with all the board wipes and removal. You could run a bunch of janky small things with indestructible like Darksteel Relic, but then you are forced to run a bunch of junk in your deck if Saleh, Prophet of Noor is removed. If it is too easy to enable, I may make Saleh, Prophet of Noor more powerful with the same ability but have her mana cost something like 4WW
Cresho is 5 colors because it is a design intended for five color commander decks and because he is a "multicolored" matters design, having access to all colors increases the diversity of spells that can be played. He has flash because a lot of legendary wizards have flash and he's a 3/4 for 5 mana and 5 colors so it can be pushed (being able to flash him at end of turn means on your turn you can play multicolored spells and get benefits). He's a 3/4 because wizards are almost never bigger than that and the most iconic and powerful wizards in the game tend to be 3/4 (Teferi, Arcanis, etc.). The options make him an interesting commander. The hexproof option can be used to grant hexproof to planeswalkers and enchantments in addition to creatures provided they were multicolor. Originally, the ability granted hexproof to a creature, but it seemed too good and with this ability it encourages you to play more multicolored spells.
Kijn might have too many keywords but he's designed for commander (that is why he is three colors). Giving him haste an interesting idea for sure.
Re: Cresho:
"I want it to be 5 colors so I can run it in a 5 color commander deck" is not a flavor or mechanical reason why it's those 5 colors. A player should be able to look at a card and understand why it's 5 colors. Why is Sliver Queen five colors? Because slivers are 5 colors.
Giving him flash because "a lot of legendary wizards" have flash isn't a reason. Lots of wizards are blue, and blue gets flash. Flash allows you to play a control game, or lets you ambush. This does neither, so it's got more in common with fugitive wizard than Zealous Guardian.
A UWGRB creature can be 7/7 with decent abilities. This still isn't flavorfully 5 colors, but assuming you could come up with a justification for it's 5-colorness, it's p/t is arbitrary. It's bigger than a HillGiant... is it a giant wizard? Making it a giant wizard would allow it to be a thematically 4/4 or 5/5 easy.
Re: Hexproof - my point is that it's "hexproof as counterspell", which is not very interesting design space. Green and blue both get this, but if the thing is blue, using counterspell language is cleaner.
Again, this is a mess. It's a commander those theme is "I want you to play multicolor"; but we've got lots of cards that already do this and aren't 5 colors. Look at Lorwyn's "If you play C, do X. If you play D, do y." cards.
Consider: GuyUWGRB
LC - Giant Wizard
Whenever you play a R spell, ~ deals 2 damage to target creature.
Whenever you play a B spell, exile target creature card in a graveyard. If you do create a 2/2 black zombie.
Whenever you play a U spell, draw a card.
Whenever you play a W spell, ~ gains lifelink and vigilance until end of turn.
Whenever you play a G spell, ~ gains hexproof and trample.
5/5
I don't like this design. But it does something cogent.
Finally, "designed for commander" is not a flavor/mechanic reason. You wanted him to be those 3 colors so you could build a commander deck in those 3 colors with him in the commander. That's a fact ABOUT YOU, not a fact about the card.
Lightning Bolt is red because red is #1 at direct damage (flavorly, mechanically). It's not red because Richard Garfield's favorite color is red.
@entombedhydra Lightning Bolt is Red because Richard designed it to be the red defining spell. He could have made it green and defined it like that. Flavor to mechanic is not the only good way to design a card. Giving a creature hexproof and countering a Spell or ability that targets it are 2 different things and not in a small way. Still like your version as well.
My point is that before designing the card, he had an idea of what red was and designed the card to show this off. He didn't throw a dart while imagining a lightning bolt, then say "Oh, I guess red is the color of this D+D mechanic." There's a reason why we get B from swamps and not tundras. Flavor maps onto mechanics, and color is part of the flavor.
@Kamino_Taka, Not that I'm doubting or disagreeing, but can you provide an "easy" way to play 6 additional permanents that can protect themselves in mono white plus Saleh, Prophet of Noor. Could be something I'm missing (I don't play a lot of mono white), but it doesn't seem super easy.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest was designed by Wizards because they wanted a Sultai colored commander for Tiny Leaders.
If you want another reason for why Cresho, Mystical Magus is five colors, it's because multicolored spells are available in all colors (as are wizards, and he's a very powerful wizard with access to different types of magic). Cresho, Mystical Magus is a bottom up design and that's fine. Cresho, Mystical Magus is a mulitcolored legendary creature that encourages/rewards players for playing multiple colors. A five color design doesn't have to be Chinese menu style to be cogent.
Wizards has come out to say that designing 4 color cards is rather hard to do. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice is no one's choice for a well designed card. I mean, I'll give you that MAYBE Proliferate is GWUB (it's certainly GWU, and black does get counter-manioulation), but those keywords... are just rather random.
You can do it right, or you can ignore design and just throw something out there. 3 keywords correspond to w; 1 to u, maybe 2 to g, and 2 to b. It's just so... random. Is the idea that black gets lifelink, green gets deathtouch, white gets vigilance, and flying is blue's contribution? But you could swap g and b w/o going wrong; and vigilance is like the stupidest keyword for white to give it...
@Kamino_Taka, if someone in a mono colored white EDH deck can get all 7 of those cards on the battlefield at the same time, they deserve to win. It certainly isn't an easy thing to accomplish. After all, there are numerous two card combos or three card combos that win the game and involve legendary creatures
@entombedhydra, The point is wizards frequently designs cards as bottom up designs based on color identity. This is especially common for EDH designs where decks and generals generally a series of colors or color combinations. If you want to call a recent design that happens to be one of the most popular commanders of all time (Atraxa, Praetors' Voice) a bad design because it's a bottom up design based on color, go for it. If you look at many cards strictly from a mechanical/color pie perspective they don't make sense but that doesn't mean they are poor designs. Why is Child of Alara a five color design, is it a bad design? Is Reaper King a bad design? Should Chromanticore not be 5 colored because it could be a GW design?
Agreed that Saleh is way too easy to win with. The permanents don't really even need to protect themselves since Saleh, simply by virtue of being a commander, is difficult to deal with. If they need to kill your Felidar Sovereign once in a game, that's not so bad. If they have to kill your Saleh on five separate occasions, that's OP.
Frankly I think any sort of "you win" ability would be unfun from the command zone, and Saleh will be an unfun card for opponents (if the ability is easy to activate) or unfun for the player (if the ability is so hard to activate that Saleh is essentially a 2/3 vigilance for 3). What would be a lot more fun is an absurdly powerful (for the mana cost) off/on ability for when you have 7 or more other nonland, nontoken permanents, sort of like Emeria or Valakut. Or perhaps 3 or more enchantments? A white monk that likes enchantments does seem quite appropriate.
Maybe "As long as you control 3 or more enchantments, prevent all damage that would be dealt to you or permanents you control" or "As long as you control 6 or more other nonland, nontoken permanents, Saleh gets +5/+5, flying, and indestructible". Something like that.
I will also agree that Cresho does not capture the feel of a 5-color creature. "Multicolor matters" is primarily a green mechanic, but is not particularly limited to any color. Cards like Soldier of the Pantheon, Gloryscale Viashino, and Cloven casting aren't five colors, but all care about multicolor spells. He feels more WUG to me, as-written, because all of his effects fit within those colors (heck, he could even just be WU).
Kijn is fine power-wise, and could be in basically any combination of white and/or black, since even mono-white likes returning small creatures. WBG doesn't feel "wrong" for the main effect, though, so the colors are fine. The 'reach' keyword feels especially strange here (on an advisor!), and you don't necessarily need a keyword for each color (Atraxa pulls it off by being an Angel, a creature type already known for getting lots of keywords). I am also very confused by the "advisor" creature type; this feels like a cleric.
If Cresho was UW, it wouldn't be a very good or interesting commander because there are way fewer multicolored spells that are UW than any color combination. I still don't see why a five color design has to take all aspects of all five colors. I said it before and I'll say it again, Why is Child of Alara a five color design, is it a bad design? Is Reaper King a bad design? Should Chromanticore not be 5 colored because it could be a GW design?
I'll also ask, if I wanted Cresh to be WUBRG, but still have the same concept of rewarding players for playing multicolored spells, how would you recommend changing the design?
When I thought about the lore behind Kijn, I thought of him in giant throne/chair to justify the reach. Originally he had Trample, but I felt the design was too strong and Trample and Deathtouch seldom happens together on a card.
I don't have any problem with Cresho as a design. It seems fine to me. 5 color is basically never justified from a flavor perspective and 5 color makes sense from a mechanical perspective. Design feels good. Here is an infinite lines of text sollution if people think it really needs to be UW for some reason....
Cresho, Mystical Magus 2WU
Legendary Creature- Human Wizard [MR]
Activated abilities of Cresho can only be activated if you have cast a multicolored spell. W : Create a 1/1 white Human creature token. U : Draw a card. B : target player discards a card. R : Deal 1 damage to a creature or player. G : Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature.
3/4
...I'm not in love with all of these abilities and I spent basically zero time trying to balance the costs as I don't think Cresho needs fixing, but you could go with something like it.
Private Mod Note
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
@entombedhydra, The point is wizards frequently designs cards as bottom up designs based on color identity. This is especially common for EDH designs where decks and generals generally a series of colors or color combinations. If you want to call a recent design that happens to be one of the most popular commanders of all time (Atraxa, Praetors' Voice) a bad design because it's a bottom up design based on color, go for it. If you look at many cards strictly from a mechanical/color pie perspective they don't make sense but that doesn't mean they are poor designs. Why is Child of Alara a five color design, is it a bad design? Is Reaper King a bad design? Should Chromanticore not be 5 colored because it could be a GW design?
Chromanticore was "5 mana for giving 1 keyword of each color"; that's a unique design. Sure, there's some overlap in color keywords there. Reaper King is a scarecrow king, right? What colors are scarecrows? It's pretty much just "odd Sliver Queen" Child of Alara is FLAVOR. Alara is 5 colors, right? I seem to remember that being flavor-relevant.
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice is one of the most popular commanders because (1) It's fun to build around (proliferate), (2) its stats w/ keywords make it even more competitive.
It's poorly color-aligned. People like the card, and *I GUESS* some commander players like it being 4 colors so they can run those 4 colors... but that doesn't mean it was designed right. I suppose this is a subtle distinction, but I think you've confused game-play-element-goals ("I need a 4 color commander") with good card design ("This card needs to be 4 colors for flavor/function/etc. reasons").
I'm open to the possibility that "need for a final member of a cycle" and "very poor flavor/function options" might yield a situation where a card might be printed in a color-identity that it need not be. But this isn't that.
What we're talking about here is a card whose attributes (by assumption) do not mean the colors associated with it, and there is no flavor reason to make it five colors. Reaper King, in contrast, feels epic, and it's cost is epic. It's also NOT just UWGRB, which might have once been epic but is now associated with many, many cards; most of which feel 5 colors for one reason or another.
If his contention is that he thinks "focus on multicolor feels epic" and gave him the most epic mana cost he could think of, which was boring old mana]uwgrb[/mana]... okay? I understand that rationale, but I don't agree with the conclusion. His card isn't epic; it's boring. There have been entire sets dedicated to rewarding you for playing multicolor spells (and in less messy ways). So the concept in question is not epic, so giving it a mana cost because the cost is epic/special is not a fit.
I don't think it's boring. I think it's exciting! It's a 5 color general that encourages you to spell sling and that's never been done before. There has never been a legendary creature that rewards you for playing mulicolored spells and I feel it is interesting design space. I built the design as a bottom up card, but I am sure there are ways to justify it in a flavor/lore way.
Wait - what do you think is exciting; it's cost or it's effect? Because you've just conflated the two here.
Is it special because it is 5 colors, or is it special because it encourages you to play multicolor spells? I think a quick gatherer search will show that neither is special and both have been done before. If your contention is that it's exciting because it's never been done together before... I realize in some sense that most card designs are combinations of preexisting mechanics... but no one looks at Abrade as an exciting design; rather it's noteworthy for being constructed playable.
The big problem here, of course, is that you haven't stapled two preexisting mechanics together; you've stapled a tired old mechanic (with 3 arbitrary options because you couldn't bother to decide on one!) to a mana cost. You're taking game text and assigning it a cost. That's like taking Savannah Lions's cost and Dark Confident's effect and stapling them together because it hasn't been done before.
If you genuinely think this is one of your best designs ever; there's nothing I can say or do to convince you otherwise. But I cannot interpret you as holding this stance due to the blandness, clunkiness, and self-admitted lack of flavor.
My suggestion? Find a flavor that works, then redesign the card accordingly. It'd be easy to do this - it's a "mythic 5 color dragon" that does "dragon things" when you play multicolor spells. No draw, no hexproof, no life gain nonsense; DRAGON-STUFF. Mind you, I'd prefer a cycle of 2 color epic feeling" cards that triggered off of playing colored spells in each of their colors, giving you two on-color effects (see Lorwyn... for lots of examples).
If Cresho was UW, it wouldn't be a very good or interesting commander because there are way fewer multicolored spells that are UW than any color combination.
That's fair about WU
Frankly, colors are a bit arbitrary. They don't need to exhibit all the aspects mechanically so much as they need to feel like they belong in all colors.
I still don't see why a five color design has to take all aspects of all five colors. I said it before and I'll say it again, Why is Child of Alara a five color design, is it a bad design? Is Reaper King a bad design? Should Chromanticore not be 5 colored because it could be a GW design?[/c]
Child of Alara is an avatar (a creature type established in all 5 colors), and does one big thing (plus trample). It probably would have been some combination of WGB in another set, but that particular set was also very focused on multicolor stuff which I think influenced it towards being 5C. Reaper King is the tribal king of a color-matters artifact tribe, which is why he is all colors (he enables Fang Skulkin et. al.) and has the hybrid mana costs (he's still an 'artifact'). The vindicate-on-cast thing is definitely WB or BG, but that's an added goodie, it's not central to his theme. Chromanticore is notable for having exactly 5 keywords, which aligns with having 5 colors (flying=blue, first strike=red, vigilance=white, trample=green, lifelink=black, even though they could all be white except trample; having one for each color just 'feels right'). A 'keyword elemental' is considered to more or less be lazy 5C design, but they were able to combine it with a block mechanic to create something that is even more novel because of all its keywords.
I'll also ask, if I wanted Cresh to be WUBRG, but still have the same concept of rewarding players for playing multicolored spells, how would you recommend changing the design?
Cresho is a wizard, which is mainly a blue tribe, and only gives three options. As a player I expect 5 options: one for each color. That would 'feel' right. It doesn't matter if several of the options all could fall under fewer than 5 colors, as long as there are 5 and I am able to attribute 1 to each color.
Sadly, 5 abilities is a bit hard to fit onto the card. One idea is "for each of that spell's colors, do (single thing)" or "for each color of mana spent, do (single thing)"; that gives him an explicitly multicolor feel and sneaks in under the "by our powers combined, 1 big thing" umbrella that Child of Alara uses. The thing that it does per color should be something that does not feel strongly single-color. Alternatively if you get rid of any other abilities (mostly to save text space, rather than for balance reasons) you could just have a list of "if you cast a spell and paid (color) do (small color-related thing)".
When I thought about the lore behind Kijn, I thought of him in giant throne/chair to justify the reach. Originally he had Trample, but I felt the design was too strong and Trample and Deathtouch seldom happens together on a card.
That makes some sense, but I would change his creature type(s) if you really want the reach.
Wait - what do you think is exciting; it's cost or it's effect? Because you've just conflated the two here.
Is it special because it is 5 colors, or is it special because it encourages you to play multicolor spells? I think a quick gatherer search will show that neither is special and both have been done before.
When has a legendary creature ever encouraged or rewarded players for playing multicolored spells? The design is for commander.
I think Atraxa's flavor is perfect for her colors, and not just box checking. Taken from the article previously linked in this thread-
"Creatively, Atraxa is an Angel created by four of the Praetors of New Phyrexia. Urabrask, the red praetor, doesn't cooperate with the others, so he wasn't involved in the process. Atraxa was created to be the perfect envoy."
We already knew the Praetors didnt work well with Urabrask so this doesnt feel shoehorned to me, instead it is justifying the colors well through the story.
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Legendary Creature- Human Monk [MR]
Vigilance
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control exactly seven nontoken, nonland permanents, you win the game.
2/3
Cresho, Mystical Magus WUBRG
Legendary Creature- Human Wizard [MR]
Flash
Whenever you cast a multicolored spell, choose one:
- Draw a card.
- Gain 4 life.
- Target multicolored permanent gains hexproof until end of turn.
3/4
Kijn, Negotiator Extraordinaire 1BGW
Legendary Creature - Elf Advisor [MR]
Deathtouch, Reach, Vigilance
Whenever Kijn, Negotiator Extraordinaire enters the battlefield or attacks, return target permanent card with a converted mana cost of 2 or less of an opponent's choice from your graveyard to the battlefield.
3/4
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Cresho is strong, definitely, but probably not overboard. The cantrip mode is probably the most valuable one.
Kijn Maybe a bit text soupy for the cost/body/effect all at once? Might be worth picking a keyword to drop here. The recursion ability is wildly political and should produce a lot of cute interactions in a decently friendly pod.
Most Used (of many dozens) EDH Decks:
Brago, King Eternal - Stax
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - Aggro Combo
Wort, the Raidmother - Spellslinger Swarm Control
Animar, Soul of Elements - Tempo Combo
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Spellslinger
Exodia the Forbidden One:
Oona, Queen of the Fae - Combowins.dec
With tweaking this is good.
Cresho, Mystical Magus -
1. Why does it have flash?
2. Why is it five colors?
3. I've never been a fan of multicolor v monocolor benefits, but if you are... sure?
4. Why do you give options here?
5. The hexproof thing is basically "counter target spell that targets a creature you control." so the current text is misleading.
6. Why is this a 3/4?
I genuinely don't know what the flavor behind this is, or why it's so mechanically dense.
Kijn -
1. Why is this 3 colors? The keywords are clearly here to correspond to a color, but don't help it's actual ability.
2. Why not give it haste and remove the "whenever this comes into play" part of it's ability? Haste is black, after all.
How about:
Haste, Trample, First Strike
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, you may return... blah blah.
Haste means he attacks the turn he comes into play; trample means he can get combat damage in, and first strike means his ability triggers before other creatures deal combat damage, allowing for more tricks?
If he has to deal combat damage, it lets you increase his p/t and/or lower his cost.
However, as is his keywords clearly make him too powerful. And don't give me "Is he legacy playable?", because the clear fact is he's got a well designed engine on him, just not a well-costed engine. If your contention is that he's fair unless he's the final member of the power 10, that's ridiculous.
To recap:
1st one is good; might need tweaking.
2nd one is nonsense.
3rd one is interesting, but with "keywords for keywords sake" and inelegant text (when x or y, do z as opposed to when x, do z).
Cresho is 5 colors because it is a design intended for five color commander decks and because he is a "multicolored" matters design, having access to all colors increases the diversity of spells that can be played. He has flash because a lot of legendary wizards have flash and he's a 3/4 for 5 mana and 5 colors so it can be pushed (being able to flash him at end of turn means on your turn you can play multicolored spells and get benefits). He's a 3/4 because wizards are almost never bigger than that and the most iconic and powerful wizards in the game tend to be 3/4 (Teferi, Arcanis, etc.). The options make him an interesting commander. The hexproof option can be used to grant hexproof to planeswalkers and enchantments in addition to creatures provided they were multicolor. Originally, the ability granted hexproof to a creature, but it seemed too good and with this ability it encourages you to play more multicolored spells.
Kijn might have too many keywords but he's designed for commander (that is why he is three colors). Giving him haste an interesting idea for sure.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
"I want it to be 5 colors so I can run it in a 5 color commander deck" is not a flavor or mechanical reason why it's those 5 colors. A player should be able to look at a card and understand why it's 5 colors. Why is Sliver Queen five colors? Because slivers are 5 colors.
Giving him flash because "a lot of legendary wizards" have flash isn't a reason. Lots of wizards are blue, and blue gets flash. Flash allows you to play a control game, or lets you ambush. This does neither, so it's got more in common with fugitive wizard than Zealous Guardian.
A UWGRB creature can be 7/7 with decent abilities. This still isn't flavorfully 5 colors, but assuming you could come up with a justification for it's 5-colorness, it's p/t is arbitrary. It's bigger than a HillGiant... is it a giant wizard? Making it a giant wizard would allow it to be a thematically 4/4 or 5/5 easy.
Re: Hexproof - my point is that it's "hexproof as counterspell", which is not very interesting design space. Green and blue both get this, but if the thing is blue, using counterspell language is cleaner.
Again, this is a mess. It's a commander those theme is "I want you to play multicolor"; but we've got lots of cards that already do this and aren't 5 colors. Look at Lorwyn's "If you play C, do X. If you play D, do y." cards.
Consider:
Guy UWGRB
LC - Giant Wizard
Whenever you play a R spell, ~ deals 2 damage to target creature.
Whenever you play a B spell, exile target creature card in a graveyard. If you do create a 2/2 black zombie.
Whenever you play a U spell, draw a card.
Whenever you play a W spell, ~ gains lifelink and vigilance until end of turn.
Whenever you play a G spell, ~ gains hexproof and trample.
5/5
I don't like this design. But it does something cogent.
Finally, "designed for commander" is not a flavor/mechanic reason. You wanted him to be those 3 colors so you could build a commander deck in those 3 colors with him in the commander. That's a fact ABOUT YOU, not a fact about the card.
Lightning Bolt is red because red is #1 at direct damage (flavorly, mechanically). It's not red because Richard Garfield's favorite color is red.
My point is that before designing the card, he had an idea of what red was and designed the card to show this off. He didn't throw a dart while imagining a lightning bolt, then say "Oh, I guess red is the color of this D+D mechanic." There's a reason why we get B from swamps and not tundras. Flavor maps onto mechanics, and color is part of the flavor.
@Kamino_Taka, Not that I'm doubting or disagreeing, but can you provide an "easy" way to play 6 additional permanents that can protect themselves in mono white plus Saleh, Prophet of Noor. Could be something I'm missing (I don't play a lot of mono white), but it doesn't seem super easy.
@entombedhydra: Why is Atraxa, Praetors' Voice color identity GWUB?
Leovold, Emissary of Trest was designed by Wizards because they wanted a Sultai colored commander for Tiny Leaders.
If you want another reason for why Cresho, Mystical Magus is five colors, it's because multicolored spells are available in all colors (as are wizards, and he's a very powerful wizard with access to different types of magic). Cresho, Mystical Magus is a bottom up design and that's fine. Cresho, Mystical Magus is a mulitcolored legendary creature that encourages/rewards players for playing multiple colors. A five color design doesn't have to be Chinese menu style to be cogent.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Wizards has come out to say that designing 4 color cards is rather hard to do. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice is no one's choice for a well designed card. I mean, I'll give you that MAYBE Proliferate is GWUB (it's certainly GWU, and black does get counter-manioulation), but those keywords... are just rather random.
You can do it right, or you can ignore design and just throw something out there. 3 keywords correspond to w; 1 to u, maybe 2 to g, and 2 to b. It's just so... random. Is the idea that black gets lifelink, green gets deathtouch, white gets vigilance, and flying is blue's contribution? But you could swap g and b w/o going wrong; and vigilance is like the stupidest keyword for white to give it...
@entombedhydra, The point is wizards frequently designs cards as bottom up designs based on color identity. This is especially common for EDH designs where decks and generals generally a series of colors or color combinations. If you want to call a recent design that happens to be one of the most popular commanders of all time (Atraxa, Praetors' Voice) a bad design because it's a bottom up design based on color, go for it. If you look at many cards strictly from a mechanical/color pie perspective they don't make sense but that doesn't mean they are poor designs. Why is Child of Alara a five color design, is it a bad design? Is Reaper King a bad design? Should Chromanticore not be 5 colored because it could be a GW design?
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
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Frankly I think any sort of "you win" ability would be unfun from the command zone, and Saleh will be an unfun card for opponents (if the ability is easy to activate) or unfun for the player (if the ability is so hard to activate that Saleh is essentially a 2/3 vigilance for 3). What would be a lot more fun is an absurdly powerful (for the mana cost) off/on ability for when you have 7 or more other nonland, nontoken permanents, sort of like Emeria or Valakut. Or perhaps 3 or more enchantments? A white monk that likes enchantments does seem quite appropriate.
Maybe "As long as you control 3 or more enchantments, prevent all damage that would be dealt to you or permanents you control" or "As long as you control 6 or more other nonland, nontoken permanents, Saleh gets +5/+5, flying, and indestructible". Something like that.
I will also agree that Cresho does not capture the feel of a 5-color creature. "Multicolor matters" is primarily a green mechanic, but is not particularly limited to any color. Cards like Soldier of the Pantheon, Gloryscale Viashino, and Cloven casting aren't five colors, but all care about multicolor spells. He feels more WUG to me, as-written, because all of his effects fit within those colors (heck, he could even just be WU).
Kijn is fine power-wise, and could be in basically any combination of white and/or black, since even mono-white likes returning small creatures. WBG doesn't feel "wrong" for the main effect, though, so the colors are fine. The 'reach' keyword feels especially strange here (on an advisor!), and you don't necessarily need a keyword for each color (Atraxa pulls it off by being an Angel, a creature type already known for getting lots of keywords). I am also very confused by the "advisor" creature type; this feels like a cleric.
- Rabid Wombat
I'll also ask, if I wanted Cresh to be WUBRG, but still have the same concept of rewarding players for playing multicolored spells, how would you recommend changing the design?
When I thought about the lore behind Kijn, I thought of him in giant throne/chair to justify the reach. Originally he had Trample, but I felt the design was too strong and Trample and Deathtouch seldom happens together on a card.
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Cresho, Mystical Magus 2WU
Legendary Creature- Human Wizard [MR]
Activated abilities of Cresho can only be activated if you have cast a multicolored spell.
W : Create a 1/1 white Human creature token.
U : Draw a card.
B : target player discards a card.
R : Deal 1 damage to a creature or player.
G : Put a +1/+1 counter on a creature.
3/4
...I'm not in love with all of these abilities and I spent basically zero time trying to balance the costs as I don't think Cresho needs fixing, but you could go with something like it.
- Manite
Chromanticore was "5 mana for giving 1 keyword of each color"; that's a unique design. Sure, there's some overlap in color keywords there.
Reaper King is a scarecrow king, right? What colors are scarecrows? It's pretty much just "odd Sliver Queen"
Child of Alara is FLAVOR. Alara is 5 colors, right? I seem to remember that being flavor-relevant.
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice is one of the most popular commanders because (1) It's fun to build around (proliferate), (2) its stats w/ keywords make it even more competitive.
Read their article on the subject: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-preview/designing-commander-2016-edition-2016-10-24
It's poorly color-aligned. People like the card, and *I GUESS* some commander players like it being 4 colors so they can run those 4 colors... but that doesn't mean it was designed right. I suppose this is a subtle distinction, but I think you've confused game-play-element-goals ("I need a 4 color commander") with good card design ("This card needs to be 4 colors for flavor/function/etc. reasons").
What we're talking about here is a card whose attributes (by assumption) do not mean the colors associated with it, and there is no flavor reason to make it five colors. Reaper King, in contrast, feels epic, and it's cost is epic. It's also NOT just UWGRB, which might have once been epic but is now associated with many, many cards; most of which feel 5 colors for one reason or another.
If his contention is that he thinks "focus on multicolor feels epic" and gave him the most epic mana cost he could think of, which was boring old mana]uwgrb[/mana]... okay? I understand that rationale, but I don't agree with the conclusion. His card isn't epic; it's boring. There have been entire sets dedicated to rewarding you for playing multicolor spells (and in less messy ways). So the concept in question is not epic, so giving it a mana cost because the cost is epic/special is not a fit.
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Is it special because it is 5 colors, or is it special because it encourages you to play multicolor spells? I think a quick gatherer search will show that neither is special and both have been done before. If your contention is that it's exciting because it's never been done together before... I realize in some sense that most card designs are combinations of preexisting mechanics... but no one looks at Abrade as an exciting design; rather it's noteworthy for being constructed playable.
The big problem here, of course, is that you haven't stapled two preexisting mechanics together; you've stapled a tired old mechanic (with 3 arbitrary options because you couldn't bother to decide on one!) to a mana cost. You're taking game text and assigning it a cost. That's like taking Savannah Lions's cost and Dark Confident's effect and stapling them together because it hasn't been done before.
If you genuinely think this is one of your best designs ever; there's nothing I can say or do to convince you otherwise. But I cannot interpret you as holding this stance due to the blandness, clunkiness, and self-admitted lack of flavor.
My suggestion? Find a flavor that works, then redesign the card accordingly. It'd be easy to do this - it's a "mythic 5 color dragon" that does "dragon things" when you play multicolor spells. No draw, no hexproof, no life gain nonsense; DRAGON-STUFF. Mind you, I'd prefer a cycle of 2 color epic feeling" cards that triggered off of playing colored spells in each of their colors, giving you two on-color effects (see Lorwyn... for lots of examples).
That's fair about WU
Frankly, colors are a bit arbitrary. They don't need to exhibit all the aspects mechanically so much as they need to feel like they belong in all colors.
Child of Alara is an avatar (a creature type established in all 5 colors), and does one big thing (plus trample). It probably would have been some combination of WGB in another set, but that particular set was also very focused on multicolor stuff which I think influenced it towards being 5C.
Reaper King is the tribal king of a color-matters artifact tribe, which is why he is all colors (he enables Fang Skulkin et. al.) and has the hybrid mana costs (he's still an 'artifact'). The vindicate-on-cast thing is definitely WB or BG, but that's an added goodie, it's not central to his theme.
Chromanticore is notable for having exactly 5 keywords, which aligns with having 5 colors (flying=blue, first strike=red, vigilance=white, trample=green, lifelink=black, even though they could all be white except trample; having one for each color just 'feels right'). A 'keyword elemental' is considered to more or less be lazy 5C design, but they were able to combine it with a block mechanic to create something that is even more novel because of all its keywords.
Cresho is a wizard, which is mainly a blue tribe, and only gives three options. As a player I expect 5 options: one for each color. That would 'feel' right. It doesn't matter if several of the options all could fall under fewer than 5 colors, as long as there are 5 and I am able to attribute 1 to each color.
Sadly, 5 abilities is a bit hard to fit onto the card. One idea is "for each of that spell's colors, do (single thing)" or "for each color of mana spent, do (single thing)"; that gives him an explicitly multicolor feel and sneaks in under the "by our powers combined, 1 big thing" umbrella that Child of Alara uses. The thing that it does per color should be something that does not feel strongly single-color. Alternatively if you get rid of any other abilities (mostly to save text space, rather than for balance reasons) you could just have a list of "if you cast a spell and paid (color) do (small color-related thing)".
That makes some sense, but I would change his creature type(s) if you really want the reach.
- Rabid Wombat
When has a legendary creature ever encouraged or rewarded players for playing multicolored spells? The design is for commander.
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"Creatively, Atraxa is an Angel created by four of the Praetors of New Phyrexia. Urabrask, the red praetor, doesn't cooperate with the others, so he wasn't involved in the process. Atraxa was created to be the perfect envoy."
We already knew the Praetors didnt work well with Urabrask so this doesnt feel shoehorned to me, instead it is justifying the colors well through the story.
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