as you probably know, Emmara Tandris turned out to be... well... underwhelming and dissapointing for many players, to say the least.
Since then, I've seen several different versions of Emmara, some of them quite good. I'd like to try a limited YMTC run on fixing her collectively - to create a version, on which as many players as possible will agree.
Please join the experiment if you'd like a Selesnya champion that people will care about.
I'd say that a XGW Legendary Elf Shaman is our starting point.
I have several different steps to go through in my mind but let's keep it slow. My first question is:
Should Emmara stay at 5GW?
Options are:
yes
no - should cost less
no - should cost more (to be complete here
To which I vote: yes. I'm quite sure 5/7 won't stay but I'd stick to the original casting cost to make it interesting.
Please discuss and cast your vote.
EDIT:
Behold, this thread produced a new Emmara:
Emmara Tandris5WG Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman
Emmara Tandris costs 1 less to cast for each creature token you control.
When Emmara Tandris enters the battlefield, if you control 3 or more creature tokens, put a green and white Elemental creature token onto the battlefield with "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control."
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to creature tokens you control. 2/5
I'm new here, so maybe this is an established process that I don't know about, but it seems strange to determine the casting cost first.
If you want to keep her at 5GW, you must have some drastically different abilities in mind. A seven drop that protects your tokens is always going to be terrible, because if your tokens are still alive by the time she hits play you don't need her. I don't know that creating an entirely different card qualifies as a "fix," and I think it will be challenging to think of abilities to justify 5GW that won't push the card into Mythic rarity.
Assuming we're restricted by the design philosophy of Rare, I have to say Less.
I'm new here, so maybe this is an established process that I don't know about, but it seems strange to determine the casting cost first.
My idea was to fix Emmara rather than to create a completely new GW champion. Personally, I can imagine many ways how to make her much more appealing, flavorful, and playable at 7 mana mainly because I was never aiming for her to be Standard-viable. Even if her current incarnation is just so flawed and hollow, I don't think that the casting cost is the biggest problem.
You see, her rules, for example, could read "Emmara Tandris costs 1 less to play for each two creature tokens you control."
If you want to keep her at 5GW, you must have some drastically different abilities in mind. A seven drop that protects your tokens is always going to be terrible, because if your tokens are still alive by the time she hits play you don't need her. I don't know that creating an entirely different card qualifies as a "fix," and I think it will be challenging to think of abilities to justify 5GW that won't push the card into Mythic rarity.
Actually, I had a few ideas but nothing set in stone. That's why I'm trying this experiment to re-create her collectivelly so that there's at least a small group of players that can agree on a more, let's say, adequate card for Emmara's character.
We'll see how this goes but I don't think that giving her different abilities at 5GW implies Mythic rarity at all. Look at Teysa, she's got 4 abilities without being all too impressive as a whole...
Assuming we're restricted by the design philosophy of Rare, I have to say Less.
Oh well, I seem to be losing this vote but that's okay
Big picture. If you redesign Emmara Tandris with a lower cmc, do you need to redesign another champion to fill her 7 cmc slot?
Thank you for the argument supporting 5WG I was kind of aware of it but not enough to bring it up at the beginning.
While this thread is about fixing Emmara specifically, there should be consequences if we change the casting cost. I already have some ideas how to tweak other champions, especially Melek, Mirko, or Vorel to make the whole cycle consistent but I understand if people want to see lower casting cost on Emmara too.
I say, let's discuss the casting cost a little more and collect more votes and if necessary, let's adjust the champion cycle the YMTC way afterwards. Remember, before this vote is closed, anybody can change their mind
the philosophy of YMTC doesn't work here. YMTC narrows the criteria until it is specific enough to open the gates for design suggestions. we ALREADY have the criteria. deciding the mana cost first (and whatever the next few polls will be) only limits the ideas that people will have to fix emmara.
assuming her rules text is going to significantly change, there's no reason not to just open up the floor for suggestions on what her new rules text will be. deciding the mana cost first and then squeezing in abilities to fit that cost is bad design, unless you're trying to fill a specific hole in a set.
assuming that we are trying to make the GW champion as good as it can be, we should just start designing her with the criteria we already know:
why limit ourselves to things like "she MUST cost less than 7" when we know playable 7 drops exist? and again, depending on what the future polls will be, does it really help to add stuff like "she must cost 2GW", "she must have the word populate in her text", "she must have 2 activated abilities", etc.
Big picture. If you redesign Emmara Tandris with a lower cmc, do you need to redesign another champion to fill her 7 cmc slot?
I... didn't even notice this. I almost kind of wonder if these are the pairings we can expect for the guilds (if this hasn't already been revealed), though not a lot of them seem that reasonable.
I still maintain that it should either be cheaper or with a very powerful ability/stats.
the philosophy of YMTC doesn't work here. YMTC narrows the criteria until it is specific enough to open the gates for design suggestions. we ALREADY have the criteria. deciding the mana cost first (and whatever the next few polls will be) only limits the ideas that people will have to fix emmara.
assuming her rules text is going to significantly change, there's no reason not to just open up the floor for suggestions on what her new rules text will be. deciding the mana cost first and then squeezing in abilities to fit that cost is bad design, unless you're trying to fill a specific hole in a set.
assuming that we are trying to make the GW champion as good as it can be, we should just start designing her with the criteria we already know:
why limit ourselves to things like "she MUST cost less than 7" when we know playable 7 drops exist? and again, depending on what the future polls will be, does it really help to add stuff like "she must cost 2GW", "she must have the word populate in her text", "she must have 2 activated abilities", etc.
Thank you for your input. This is obviously not a traditional YMTC, it's more like YFTC (You Fix the Card). It's a reaction to a really poor piece of job Wizards produced in the opinion of many, regarding Emmara specifically.
I know, posibilities are always endless but in this case I voluntarily decided to limit the choices based on the points of reference we already have.
You listed some of them: GW Legendary Selesnya Elf Shaman
Another point is the big picture of the champion cycle mentioned above.
Finally, I personally take into account the original idea for the card as well.
Even with this limited scope, I believe there is plenty of space to play with and I also believe less is sometimes more. I would also prefer for this experiment to last shorter time than a regular YMTC run.
Moreover, in this round, we are only deciding, if Emmara will be the original 5GW or less, nothing more. I wouldn't want to fix the mana cost right away if it's not the original one.
Finally, I am quite aware that I cannot please everyone with the approach I chose.
I hope that you join us even if the procedure might not be the best of them all. I am trying this for the first time, so please bear with me
Why? There isn't a mandate that say "We MUST have 2 guild champions at each CMC!"
That is just the point of reference presented to us by the reality of the Dragon's Maze. We don't have to take it into account but once we are finished with Emmara, we just as well might and continue this experiment tweaking another champion...
Unless Emmara gets a seriously splashy ability, I'd say she should cost less.
That is the second hedging vote so far. We can give Emmara abilities that would justify 5GW. At the same time, we are reacting to Wizards' design and many people find it unacceptable for Emmara to cost 7 mana.
I personally don't have a problem with the high CMC and would gladly work to make the fixed version part of the original cycle, CMC-wise.
Big picture. If you redesign Emmara Tandris with a lower cmc, do you need to redesign another champion to fill her 7 cmc slot?
It intriguing that each pairing has both a GTC and a RTR guild champion and each one shares a colour. The paranoid obsessive in me says it can't be a coincidence.
Quote from Kollaps »
I... didn't even notice this. I almost kind of wonder if these are the pairings we can expect for the guilds (if this hasn't already been revealed), though not a lot of them seem that reasonable.
If it were a sign of pairs then Teysa and Emmara work well together by creating a load 1/1 flying spirits that have their damage prevented. Varolz and Vorel; Tajic and Exava; even Mirko Vosk and Lavinia have some synergy. Alas Ruric and Melek are awful together, a sign that Izzet/Gruul are doomed in Dragon's Maze
So, obsession with symmetry á la "See what we did there?" has ruined Emmara Tandris?
I think only partly. At least half of the cycle turned out okay but I think there was a major glitch in the R&D process at WotC.
Both 7-mana champions are non-warrior women that ended up with bigger bodies that most other champions. On top of that, Emmara only got one ability, which seems to be lazy and unappealing if we ignore the fact that it is also unplayable in every major format including EDH. Emmara has been compared to Avacyn numerous times and justifiably so.
I vote for less. I think a good cost should be between 4-6. Unless we giving her a flashy and powerful ability.
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If it were a sign of pairs then Teysa and Emmara work well together by creating a load 1/1 flying spirits that have their damage prevented. Varolz and Vorel; Tajic and Exava; even Mirko Vosk and Lavinia have some synergy. Alas Ruric and Melek are awful together, a sign that Izzet/Gruul are doomed in Dragon's Maze
Yeah, there is also that. But hey, would you expect Izzet and Gruul to get along, anyway? I mean, even Boros/Rakdos kind of works, even though you might be expecting Boros and Rakdos to be butting heads, since the Rakdos are primarily laborers. Also, I think that Azorius and Dimir worked together before in storyline.
Not really sure of much else. But with that new cleric, a Selesnya/Orzhov pair sounds better and better as we go along.
I personally would have no problems with Emmara being that 1/1 girl that makes three different tokens. The ability certainly feels rare to me, and if most people disagree, we could keep the damage prevention ability on her. It would create cool situations where you have to kill the weakest creature out of the four first to do anything to the others.
Unfortunately, what you just described seems to match perfectly this uncommon:
He meant Trostani's Summoner. He wouldn't mind if Emmara was the 1/1 girl that makes three tokens, but keep the damage prevention ability on Emmara to make her feel more mythic. He just didn't know the name of Trostani's Summoner. (So the uncommon slot with Trostani's Summoner would be filled with something else.)
In that case I agree. If Emmara just summoned 3 tokens and maybe gave all tokens on your side vigilance or even invulnerability, she would be much more appealing even at 5GW and without being tournament-viable.
But Trostani's Summoner exists so we should accept it and fix Emmara a different way.
We have 8 votes so far. And while lower CMC is technically winning, 3 votes plus mine are on the fence, in the sense that if the abilities are good enough, the CMC actually might be as high as 7.
Let's give it a couple of days more and then I will introduce the first round of polling about Emmara's abilities.
1/1
Hexproof
0: Put a 3/3 green Centaur creature token onto the battlefield. Emmara loses Hexproof until end of turn. Play this ability only once each turn.
Verdant Force redone. Summoner has more initial oomph but this can get really out of hand if it survives.
It seems like we're trying to redesign the card as it originally was.
Yes, I actually have the link in my draft for the first round of polling about abilities
But whether we end up with Emmara summoning the */* token is still very much in question. To be sure, there are many many other ways to reinvent her, even with taking into account the known information.
Plus, we don't know anything about those "massages"
Emmara Tandris5GW Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman (R)
When CARDNAME enters the field, put a green white Elemental creature token onto the field with “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control.”
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to creature tokens you control.
1/3 or 2/4
(And it is a good example of where a double use of the longer "battlefield" can crowd the text and cause it to drop down several sizes.)
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as you probably know, Emmara Tandris turned out to be... well... underwhelming and dissapointing for many players, to say the least.
Since then, I've seen several different versions of Emmara, some of them quite good. I'd like to try a limited YMTC run on fixing her collectively - to create a version, on which as many players as possible will agree.
Please join the experiment if you'd like a Selesnya champion that people will care about.
I'd say that a XGW Legendary Elf Shaman is our starting point.
I have several different steps to go through in my mind but let's keep it slow. My first question is:
Should Emmara stay at 5GW?
Options are:
To which I vote: yes. I'm quite sure 5/7 won't stay but I'd stick to the original casting cost to make it interesting.
Please discuss and cast your vote.
EDIT:
Behold, this thread produced a new Emmara:
Emmara Tandris 5WG
Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman
Emmara Tandris costs 1 less to cast for each creature token you control.
When Emmara Tandris enters the battlefield, if you control 3 or more creature tokens, put a green and white Elemental creature token onto the battlefield with "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control."
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to creature tokens you control.
2/5
ETA Sep 2, 2018: And this is how Wizards decided to fix Emmara: http://mythicspoiler.com/grn/cards/emmarasouloftheaccord.html
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I want to be happy to first-pick any of the guild champions in a draft and at seven I'll never do that unless there's nothing else in the pack.
Ultimoron, read the thread.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
If you want to keep her at 5GW, you must have some drastically different abilities in mind. A seven drop that protects your tokens is always going to be terrible, because if your tokens are still alive by the time she hits play you don't need her. I don't know that creating an entirely different card qualifies as a "fix," and I think it will be challenging to think of abilities to justify 5GW that won't push the card into Mythic rarity.
Assuming we're restricted by the design philosophy of Rare, I have to say Less.
My idea was to fix Emmara rather than to create a completely new GW champion. Personally, I can imagine many ways how to make her much more appealing, flavorful, and playable at 7 mana mainly because I was never aiming for her to be Standard-viable. Even if her current incarnation is just so flawed and hollow, I don't think that the casting cost is the biggest problem.
You see, her rules, for example, could read "Emmara Tandris costs 1 less to play for each two creature tokens you control."
Actually, I had a few ideas but nothing set in stone. That's why I'm trying this experiment to re-create her collectivelly so that there's at least a small group of players that can agree on a more, let's say, adequate card for Emmara's character.
We'll see how this goes but I don't think that giving her different abilities at 5GW implies Mythic rarity at all. Look at Teysa, she's got 4 abilities without being all too impressive as a whole...
Oh well, I seem to be losing this vote but that's okay
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3) 1GU
4) 2BR
4) 2RW
5) 3WU
5) 3UB
6) 4RG
6) 4UR
7) 5GW
7) 5WB
Big picture. If you redesign Emmara Tandris with a lower cmc, do you need to redesign another champion to fill her 7 cmc slot?
Thank you for the argument supporting 5WG I was kind of aware of it but not enough to bring it up at the beginning.
While this thread is about fixing Emmara specifically, there should be consequences if we change the casting cost. I already have some ideas how to tweak other champions, especially Melek, Mirko, or Vorel to make the whole cycle consistent but I understand if people want to see lower casting cost on Emmara too.
I say, let's discuss the casting cost a little more and collect more votes and if necessary, let's adjust the champion cycle the YMTC way afterwards. Remember, before this vote is closed, anybody can change their mind
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assuming her rules text is going to significantly change, there's no reason not to just open up the floor for suggestions on what her new rules text will be. deciding the mana cost first and then squeezing in abilities to fit that cost is bad design, unless you're trying to fill a specific hole in a set.
assuming that we are trying to make the GW champion as good as it can be, we should just start designing her with the criteria we already know:
1) GW
2) legendary elf druid
3) fits selesnya theme: tokens, populate, etc
why limit ourselves to things like "she MUST cost less than 7" when we know playable 7 drops exist? and again, depending on what the future polls will be, does it really help to add stuff like "she must cost 2GW", "she must have the word populate in her text", "she must have 2 activated abilities", etc.
I... didn't even notice this. I almost kind of wonder if these are the pairings we can expect for the guilds (if this hasn't already been revealed), though not a lot of them seem that reasonable.
I still maintain that it should either be cheaper or with a very powerful ability/stats.
Thank you for your input. This is obviously not a traditional YMTC, it's more like YFTC (You Fix the Card). It's a reaction to a really poor piece of job Wizards produced in the opinion of many, regarding Emmara specifically.
I know, posibilities are always endless but in this case I voluntarily decided to limit the choices based on the points of reference we already have.
Even with this limited scope, I believe there is plenty of space to play with and I also believe less is sometimes more. I would also prefer for this experiment to last shorter time than a regular YMTC run.
Moreover, in this round, we are only deciding, if Emmara will be the original 5GW or less, nothing more. I wouldn't want to fix the mana cost right away if it's not the original one.
Finally, I am quite aware that I cannot please everyone with the approach I chose.
I hope that you join us even if the procedure might not be the best of them all. I am trying this for the first time, so please bear with me
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Why? There isn't a mandate that say "We MUST have 2 guild champions at each CMC!"
Unless Emmara gets a seriously splashy ability, I'd say she should cost less.
Thanks to Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery Signatures!
That is just the point of reference presented to us by the reality of the Dragon's Maze. We don't have to take it into account but once we are finished with Emmara, we just as well might and continue this experiment tweaking another champion...
That is the second hedging vote so far. We can give Emmara abilities that would justify 5GW. At the same time, we are reacting to Wizards' design and many people find it unacceptable for Emmara to cost 7 mana.
I personally don't have a problem with the high CMC and would gladly work to make the fixed version part of the original cycle, CMC-wise.
But I'll try to factor these votes in.
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It intriguing that each pairing has both a GTC and a RTR guild champion and each one shares a colour. The paranoid obsessive in me says it can't be a coincidence.
If it were a sign of pairs then Teysa and Emmara work well together by creating a load 1/1 flying spirits that have their damage prevented. Varolz and Vorel; Tajic and Exava; even Mirko Vosk and Lavinia have some synergy. Alas Ruric and Melek are awful together, a sign that Izzet/Gruul are doomed in Dragon's Maze
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
I think only partly. At least half of the cycle turned out okay but I think there was a major glitch in the R&D process at WotC.
Both 7-mana champions are non-warrior women that ended up with bigger bodies that most other champions. On top of that, Emmara only got one ability, which seems to be lazy and unappealing if we ignore the fact that it is also unplayable in every major format including EDH. Emmara has been compared to Avacyn numerous times and justifiably so.
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"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Yeah, there is also that. But hey, would you expect Izzet and Gruul to get along, anyway? I mean, even Boros/Rakdos kind of works, even though you might be expecting Boros and Rakdos to be butting heads, since the Rakdos are primarily laborers. Also, I think that Azorius and Dimir worked together before in storyline.
Not really sure of much else. But with that new cleric, a Selesnya/Orzhov pair sounds better and better as we go along.
Unfortunately, what you just described seems to match perfectly this uncommon:
Trostani's Summoner
Therefore, we should take a different avenue in our effort to fix Emmara. But I take it you are open to design the fixed version around 5GW mana cost?
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In that case I agree. If Emmara just summoned 3 tokens and maybe gave all tokens on your side vigilance or even invulnerability, she would be much more appealing even at 5GW and without being tournament-viable.
But Trostani's Summoner exists so we should accept it and fix Emmara a different way.
We have 8 votes so far. And while lower CMC is technically winning, 3 votes plus mine are on the fence, in the sense that if the abilities are good enough, the CMC actually might be as high as 7.
Let's give it a couple of days more and then I will introduce the first round of polling about Emmara's abilities.
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1/1
Hexproof
0: Put a 3/3 green Centaur creature token onto the battlefield. Emmara loses Hexproof until end of turn. Play this ability only once each turn.
Verdant Force redone. Summoner has more initial oomph but this can get really out of hand if it survives.
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/48288088338/i-would-just-like-to-say-that-im-very-happy-that-you
It seems like we're trying to redesign the card as it originally was.
Yes, I actually have the link in my draft for the first round of polling about abilities
But whether we end up with Emmara summoning the */* token is still very much in question. To be sure, there are many many other ways to reinvent her, even with taking into account the known information.
Plus, we don't know anything about those "massages"
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Legendary Creature - Elf Shaman (R)
When CARDNAME enters the field, put a green white Elemental creature token onto the field with “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of creatures you control.”
Prevent all damage that would be dealt to creature tokens you control.
1/3 or 2/4
(And it is a good example of where a double use of the longer "battlefield" can crowd the text and cause it to drop down several sizes.)