So, I've decided to tackle the oldest card design challenge in the book: 4-color cards.
MaRo said that 4 color cards are more often defined by what they aren't instead of what they are, and due to that it's hard to design them because they can't portray the absence of something in a card.
Well, here's my tackle on it: What if there was a cycle of Legends that removed something from the game? And by that I mean swapped or gimped one of the basic aspects of the game into something completely different, severely hindering the "off-color" in the process? Thus, I devised a cycle of Abolishers, cards whose effects alter something from the core of the game. To start with, I designed what I wanted removed or gimped from the game. Here's what I got:
Of these 5, the only one I couldn't crack was the Anti-W one. I'm also not too happy with the Anti-G one. I'm pretty confident about the other 3 tho. Anyway, here's the incomplete cycle:
Lahatma, Abolisher of ThoughtWBRG
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Players can't draw cards.
Players must play with the top cards of their libraries revealed.
Players may play cards from the top of their libraries. 1: Each player shuffles their library. Any player may activate this ability, but only during their own turn.
5/5
Lahatma, Abolisher of ThoughtWBRG(Thanks IcariiFA!)
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Players can't draw cards.
Players must play with the top cards of their libraries revealed.
Players may play cards from the top of their libraries. 2: Each player puts the top card of their library in their graveyards. Any player may activate this ability, but only during their own turn.
5/5
Mahyne, Abolisher of EmotionWUBG(Tweaked numbers - Thanks void_nothing!)
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
If a creature or player would be dealt damage, instead put that many dream counters on it.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player returns all creatures he or she controls with 5 3 or more dream counters to his hand.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player sends X cards from the top of their library to the graveyard, where X is the number of dream counters he has.
5/5
Jeshia, Abolisher of PainWURG(Updated text - Thanks void_nothing!)
Legendary Creature - Incarnation If a permanent would be destroyed, instead regenerate it and its controller draws three cards.
At the end of each player's turn, if that player has seven or more cards in his or her hand, that player exiles his or her hand and all nonland permanents he or she controls, then draws three cards.
5/5
Amanir, Abolisher of LifeWUBR
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Amanir, Abolisher of Life enters the battlefield with a mana counter on it.
If a land would produce colored mana, it produces colorless mana instead.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a mana counter on Amanir.
At the beginning of each player's precombat main phase, that player adds X mana of any combination of colors to his or her mana pool, where X is the number of mana counters on Amanir.
5/5
Amanir, Abolisher of LifeWUBR
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player draws an additional card.
Rather than paying the mana to cast spells, players must discard any number of cards whose combined converted mana cost are equal to or higher than the casted card's converted mana cost. 2, discard a land card: Each player draws a card. Any player may activate this ability.
5/5
Thoughts? Comments? Ideas on how to crack the Anti-W one?
Lahtama - So instead of drawing cards normally, anyone can draw a theoretically infinite number of cards in practice by chaining plays? Interesting and swingy as anything. Not necessarily unfun though. Except for the shuffling, that could get annoying - needs to be a once-per-turn thing so no one can spend 10 to force everyone to do ten shuffles or something dumb like that.
Mahyne - This seems bothersome to track. The dream counter threshold to bounce maybe ought to be lower.
Jeshia - Eeeeesh, that's risky to use. Also needs to be "If a permanent would be destroyed, instead regenerate it and its controller draws three cards", otherwise SBEs mean the first one to get a lethally-damaged creature dies by milling.
Amanir - ...Huh. Seems like it'd hurt you - the four-color player - the most assuming everyone else were playing fewer colors, which they most likely would be.
Balnicharr, Abolisher of ArmiesUBRG
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Players can't cast creature spells. X, Discard a creature card with power X: Balnicharr, Abolisher of Armies deals X damage to target creature or player. Any player may activate this ability.
5/5
Lahatma -- the cost should increase. At 1, this will potentially delay the game. It should cost so much that even shuffling once a turn is going to be a difficult thing to do, because even once a turn is going to be unacceptable in the long run.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Jeshia - Eeeeesh, that's risky to use. Also needs to be "If a permanent would be destroyed, instead regenerate it and its controller draws three cards", otherwise SBEs mean the first one to get a lethally-damaged creature dies by milling.
Yeah, it's meant to be risky. Both for the one killing and the one getting their creatures killed. On second thought, however, maybe three cards is a bit too much? I think two would work better... hmm.
Also, yeah, will add the regeneration clause, thank you.
Quote from void_nothing » »
Amanir - ...Huh. Seems like it'd hurt you - the four-color player - the most assuming everyone else were playing fewer colors, which they most likely would be.
I really don't dig Amanir myself. He barely if even hoses G 'cuz Green can circumvent its restriction. I tried lots of things. the first design was something like Æther Vial but it made lands worthless and was tricky to balance - make it enter with few counters, and Amanir could lay waste of the board before anyone could afford to cast removal. Give it too many counters, and it would be totally pointless.
My best design was something like a Dream Halls in which you had to add up to the CMC of the spell, but that still didn't solved the land problem and quickly proved to be a bit too crazy even for me.
On second thouhgt, however, it's still better than the current one. Here's my best (new?) Amanir design:
Amanir, Abolisher of Life 2.0WUBR
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player draws an additional card.
Rather than paying the mana to cast spells, players must discard any number of cards whose combined converted mana cost are equal or higher than the casted card.
5/5
Quote from void_nothing » »
Balnicharr, Abolisher of ArmiesUBRG
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Players can't cast creature spells. X, Discard a creature card with power X: Balnicharr, Abolisher of Armies deals X damage to target creature or player. Any player may activate this ability.
5/5
It looks fine power-wise but it loads the game on the "unfun" side. My main gripe with the Anti-W is exactly this - I made something similar before (in my first Anti-W design, creatures couldn't attack but had "T: Deals damage equal to power to target creature or player") but it dumbed down the game too much to sheer numbers. I personally think it works but I'm not sure if it would be good design. What do you guys think?
Anti green could make artifacts, enchantment, and lands indestructible. Since green blows them up the best, or could shrink creatures since green is big. Make pump spells have the reverse effect? Automatically regenerate flying creatures? Destroy all green guys once your opponents devotion reaches a certain level? Since green is all about making dudes.
Basically hosing mana feels more green since it gets a good bit of land destruction in it's own right. If you want to hose mana just make lands not untap regularly. Winter orb style or just on next untap step. That hoses their mana production.
Amanir, Abolisher of Decay WUBR
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Creature Artifacts, Enchantments, and Lands you control have indestructible.
Creatures you control with flying have hexproof.
5/5
Can't really think of anything with white just yet. Leaning towards anti board wipes and combat preventing. But that seems like something white does. Maybe prevent life gain and damage prevention? Humm
Animus, Abolisher of Life GRUB
Legendary creature - Avatar
If damage would be prevented the damage is not prevent and and the sources control takes twice the damage that would have been prevented instead.
5/5
A four-color legendary creature should not be a complicated color hoser. Rather than try to stop what the missing color does best, it should try to do things that the missing color can't. Reactive vs proactive. It is more fun to be doing things that you can build a deck around rather than to conditionally stopping things that might not matter anyway. For example, green does not do flying, so a WUBR creature could be something like Thunderclap Wyvern+Luminous Angel, which could serve a strong build-around starting point for a deck.
Anti green could make artifacts, enchantment, and lands indestructible. Since green blows them up the best, or could shrink creatures since green is big. Make pump spells have the reverse effect? Automatically regenerate flying creatures? Destroy all green guys once your opponents devotion reaches a certain level? Since green is all about making dudes.
Basically hosing mana feels more green since it gets a good bit of land destruction in it's own right. If you want to hose mana just make lands not untap regularly. Winter orb style or just on next untap step. That hoses their mana production.
Amanir, Abolisher of Decay WUBR
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Creature Artifacts, Enchantments, and Lands you control have indestructible.
Creatures you control with flying have hexproof.
5/5
Can't really think of anything with white just yet. Leaning towards anti board wipes and combat preventing. But that seems like something white does. Maybe prevent life gain and damage prevention? Humm
Animus, Abolisher of Life GRUB
Legendary creature - Avatar
If damage would be prevented the damage is not prevent and and the sources control takes twice the damage that would have been prevented instead.
5/5
Both are just too narrow. The point of the Arbitrers is to remove a basic aspect of the game. Decay Amanir's first effect is alright, but Anti-Destruction is conveyed better in Anti-B rather than Anti-G. Hexproof to fliers is just random.
Damage prevention is only part of W's (and sometimes G) color pie, so Animus just hoses. Once again, not the point.
A four-color legendary creature should not be a complicated color hoser. Rather than try to stop what the missing color does best, it should try to do things that the missing color can't. Reactive vs proactive. It is more fun to be doing things that you can build a deck around rather than to conditionally stopping things that might not matter anyway. For example, green does not do flying, so a WUBR creature could be something like Thunderclap Wyvern+Luminous Angel, which could serve a strong build-around starting point for a deck.
I don't think you got the idea.
4-color cards, as defined by MaRo, have "too many colors" for normal design, and can't be defined by what they are, but instead what they aren't. The trick for designing 4-color cards is, then, defining the absence of a color in a card. Problem is, it's very very hard to convey the "absence of color" since colors aren't unidimensional. There are often two ways to portray absence in a card:
The obvious way would be direct hosing, sure, but that wouldn't be nothing new nor good design. Color hosers are as old as Magic, and making a card that heavily hoses a single color makes it both unexciting (in the case the opponent doesn't uses that color) or unfun (in case he does). Either way, this is nothing worth making a 4c Legend around.
The second way is to take what the color doesn't does and make a card around it (Which is your idea). However, it's impossible to work with this because this kind of contrast is already naturally present in the color pie, usually visible in color pairs. For example, making an anti-G that cares about evasion is useless because U already has "evasion matters" to contrast with G. An anti-R could do card advantage or control over enchantments, two things R can't do, but in the same vein, this color contrast is already present in R versus U (for card advantage) and in R versus W/G (for enchantments).
My solution is pretty off-the-walls, but at the same time simple: How about a hoser that doesn't blocks the color mechanically, but thematically? That's the basis of my design for the Arbitrers. Instead of direct hosing, the Arbitrer just picks a single aspect of the game where a color usually excels at and distorts it into something new. It is a form of hosing, but only in a more abstract sense. Yes, Anti-B can hose decks that excel at killing creatures, but those are not necessarily B and even B can benefit out of Jeshia if he plans accordingly.
Lastly, your card idea is mono-W, possibly WU, and it does not conveys the absence of G any better than the absence of R or B. Heck, it could even be WUG and it would make more sense.
MaRo said that 4 color cards are more often defined by what they aren't instead of what they are, and due to that it's hard to design them because they can't portray the absence of something in a card.
Well, here's my tackle on it: What if there was a cycle of Legends that removed something from the game? And by that I mean swapped or gimped one of the basic aspects of the game into something completely different, severely hindering the "off-color" in the process? Thus, I devised a cycle of Abolishers, cards whose effects alter something from the core of the game. To start with, I designed what I wanted removed or gimped from the game. Here's what I got:
Anti-W: Removes combat
Anti-U: Removes card drawing
Anti-B: Removes destruction
Anti-R: Removes damage
Anti-G: Removes mana
Of these 5, the only one I couldn't crack was the Anti-W one. I'm also not too happy with the Anti-G one. I'm pretty confident about the other 3 tho. Anyway, here's the incomplete cycle:
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Players can't draw cards.
Players must play with the top cards of their libraries revealed.
Players may play cards from the top of their libraries.
1: Each player shuffles their library. Any player may activate this ability, but only during their own turn.
5/5
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Players can't draw cards.
Players must play with the top cards of their libraries revealed.
Players may play cards from the top of their libraries.
2: Each player puts the top card of their library in their graveyards. Any player may activate this ability, but only during their own turn.
5/5
Mahyne, Abolisher of Emotion WUBG (Tweaked numbers - Thanks void_nothing!)
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
If a creature or player would be dealt damage, instead put that many dream counters on it.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player returns all creatures he or she controls with
53 or more dream counters to his hand.At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player sends X cards from the top of their library to the graveyard, where X is the number of dream counters he has.
5/5
Jeshia, Abolisher of Pain WURG (Updated text - Thanks void_nothing!)
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
If a permanent would be destroyed, instead regenerate it and its controller draws three cards.
At the end of each player's turn, if that player has seven or more cards in his or her hand, that player exiles his or her hand and all nonland permanents he or she controls, then draws three cards.
5/5
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Amanir, Abolisher of Life enters the battlefield with a mana counter on it.
If a land would produce colored mana, it produces colorless mana instead.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a mana counter on Amanir.
At the beginning of each player's precombat main phase, that player adds X mana of any combination of colors to his or her mana pool, where X is the number of mana counters on Amanir.
5/5
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player draws an additional card.
Rather than paying the mana to cast spells, players must discard any number of cards whose combined converted mana cost are equal to or higher than the casted card's converted mana cost.
2, discard a land card: Each player draws a card. Any player may activate this ability.
5/5
Thoughts? Comments? Ideas on how to crack the Anti-W one?
Mahyne - This seems bothersome to track. The dream counter threshold to bounce maybe ought to be lower.
Jeshia - Eeeeesh, that's risky to use. Also needs to be "If a permanent would be destroyed, instead regenerate it and its controller draws three cards", otherwise SBEs mean the first one to get a lethally-damaged creature dies by milling.
Amanir - ...Huh. Seems like it'd hurt you - the four-color player - the most assuming everyone else were playing fewer colors, which they most likely would be.
Balnicharr, Abolisher of Armies UBRG
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
Players can't cast creature spells.
X, Discard a creature card with power X: Balnicharr, Abolisher of Armies deals X damage to target creature or player. Any player may activate this ability.
5/5
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Also, yeah, will add the regeneration clause, thank you.
I really don't dig Amanir myself. He barely if even hoses G 'cuz Green can circumvent its restriction. I tried lots of things. the first design was something like Æther Vial but it made lands worthless and was tricky to balance - make it enter with few counters, and Amanir could lay waste of the board before anyone could afford to cast removal. Give it too many counters, and it would be totally pointless.
My best design was something like a Dream Halls in which you had to add up to the CMC of the spell, but that still didn't solved the land problem and quickly proved to be a bit too crazy even for me.
On second thouhgt, however, it's still better than the current one. Here's my best (new?) Amanir design:
Amanir, Abolisher of Life 2.0 WUBR
Legendary Creature - Incarnation
At the beginning of each player's draw step, that player draws an additional card.
Rather than paying the mana to cast spells, players must discard any number of cards whose combined converted mana cost are equal or higher than the casted card.
5/5
It looks fine power-wise but it loads the game on the "unfun" side. My main gripe with the Anti-W is exactly this - I made something similar before (in my first Anti-W design, creatures couldn't attack but had "T: Deals damage equal to power to target creature or player") but it dumbed down the game too much to sheer numbers. I personally think it works but I'm not sure if it would be good design. What do you guys think?
Yeah, that makes sense. I think sending top to grave would make it even simpler. Thanks!
Basically hosing mana feels more green since it gets a good bit of land destruction in it's own right. If you want to hose mana just make lands not untap regularly. Winter orb style or just on next untap step. That hoses their mana production.
Amanir, Abolisher of Decay WUBR
Legendary Creature - Avatar
Creature Artifacts, Enchantments, and Lands you control have indestructible.
Creatures you control with flying have hexproof.
5/5
Can't really think of anything with white just yet. Leaning towards anti board wipes and combat preventing. But that seems like something white does. Maybe prevent life gain and damage prevention? Humm
Animus, Abolisher of Life GRUB
Legendary creature - Avatar
If damage would be prevented the damage is not prevent and and the sources control takes twice the damage that would have been prevented instead.
5/5
Damage prevention is only part of W's (and sometimes G) color pie, so Animus just hoses. Once again, not the point.
I don't think you got the idea.
4-color cards, as defined by MaRo, have "too many colors" for normal design, and can't be defined by what they are, but instead what they aren't. The trick for designing 4-color cards is, then, defining the absence of a color in a card. Problem is, it's very very hard to convey the "absence of color" since colors aren't unidimensional. There are often two ways to portray absence in a card:
My solution is pretty off-the-walls, but at the same time simple: How about a hoser that doesn't blocks the color mechanically, but thematically? That's the basis of my design for the Arbitrers. Instead of direct hosing, the Arbitrer just picks a single aspect of the game where a color usually excels at and distorts it into something new. It is a form of hosing, but only in a more abstract sense. Yes, Anti-B can hose decks that excel at killing creatures, but those are not necessarily B and even B can benefit out of Jeshia if he plans accordingly.
Lastly, your card idea is mono-W, possibly WU, and it does not conveys the absence of G any better than the absence of R or B. Heck, it could even be WUG and it would make more sense.