So we have all card images for all planeswalkers in WAR, right? Set cards, Planeswalker Deck cards, Mythic Edition cards, BAB promo, and... that's it, right?
I don't think I've missed anything, but let me know if I have. I just don't think we've gotten cards for two of the mysterious planeswalker arts used in the poster from a while back (Liliana and Karn). Were there any others? do we think this could mean more unique promos coming?
If any of us ever posted anything like this card in CCC, we'd get shot down for it being too good and heinously undercosted. I mean, Merlin's pants! They didn't push this card, they spartan kicked it off a cliff!
There doesn't seem to be any problem with the mechanic itself, but its name could be better.
"Whenever ~'s power increases,,," presents some tricky questions in specific situations. Bonuses you get from this trigger should be carefully chosen and balanced. Maybe a 2cmc creature that draw a card on this trigger is a might too good.
On the name situation, I want to try to understand the problem. Basically, the focus of the mechanic appears to be on the -1/-1 counters, rather than the act of removing them. I think it looks like more of a downside than it is.
The idea is that any other old creature pretty much has stats determined by their mana cost (a 2cmc 2/2, for example), whereas an empowered creature has the potential to start there, but grow to something much more impressive. Empowerment is all about giving a person the ability to thrive, and encouraging them to do so. Actually achieving that potential means recognizing what's in the way and working to overcome those obstacles. I think my keyword represents that idea perfectly.
That said, if it takes a paragraph worth of explaining for the name to make sense, I guess the name doesn't work. How about something like "Overcome?"
Frankly, if you're going to introduce a new trigger condition such as this power increase idea, then the impetus is on you to think it through. All the way through. Punting it off with "however it is most intuitive" is a bad look. Anthems aren't the most complex interaction for this trigger; the cleanup step is. Every temporary power reduction is going to trigger these kinds of abilities during the cleanup step, which has its own rules regarding triggered abilities that many player do not encounter is most games.
That is a good point. I didn't think about temporary debuff effects. I'll have to be careful how those are used if I decide to continue with the "whenever this creature's power increases" subtheme. How do you feel about this as a compromise:
Sweat Seer1G
Creature - Warrior
3/2
Empower 1
At the beginning of your end step, if ~'s power has increased this turn, draw a card.
I don't understand this comparison, unless you are comparing exclusively their p/t, which makes no sense. Even the most generous of comparison, has Kraul Harpooner being a +1 card advantage under the scenario of killing a flying creature and not dying in the fight leaving you with a 3/2 body, as compared to +1 card advantage from drawing a card and leaving behind a 3/2. Claiming card advantage under extremely narrow circumstances is equal to blatant card advantage is ridiculous. Sweat Seer is more closely compared to a card like Fathom Mage, they each have a built in way of triggering their card draw but their are easier ways of triggering them in spells that interact favorably with their ability. Fathom Mage is easier to trigger the second, and third time but its harder to say which is easier after that as it requires playing larger and larger creatures while Seer requires more pump of any kind which is easier to have.
I have a question about your intent with the "whenever ~'s power increases..." is it meant to trigger on ETB if you have an anthem or a way for creatures to enter with +1/+1 counters? I could see either option being correct but want to know your intent. Also how do you expect this effect to handle removing or adding multiple counters? Does breaking Barriers first mode trigger 3 times while its second mode only triggers once?
The mechanic looks interesting but the name is a miss. My "empowered" creatures enter weaker than printed which seems all kinds of wrong. Because you are going with a flavor of struggling and overcoming weakness you should use a word that matches that struggle.
Your individual cards are cool but mostly undercosted. Your seer should cost a minimum of 3 and depending on the set 4. Reality check is also undercosted. While Infest is fine, temporary - is drastically different from counters. Struggling Disciple is actually rather weak, droping to costing 1 life would make it fair when compared to similar cards. Surge of confidence is a problem simply because it's cheap instant planeswalker removal, it's hard to say what to change about it to fix. Break Barrier is the most interesting and balanced of the cards.
"Whenever this creature's power increases..." should work however is most intuitive. In the case of creatures entering with +1/+1 counters, I would say that it does not trigger. For multiple counters being added removed at once, that will trigger the ability only once, since they modify power at one time. That's how I intend for it to work, anyway.
As for the name, I'll respectfully disagree. I think there have been "misses" much more severe than this one in the past. I think "Empower" does the job well enough.
And, of course, balancing mana costs will happen down the line. I just prefer to err toward more exciting designs. I will say that I intend for this set to have a generally higher power level than the typical standard set, so I'm okay with cards being a bit more pushed than usual. And anyway, Comparing Sweat Seer to Kraul Harpooner, for example, tells me that these are within the realm of realism.
Empower N (This creature enters the battlefield with N -1/-1 counters on it. Remove one whenever it attacks.)
Following up on a series of threads I made a while ago. I'm working on an enemy-pair faction set. Each faction has its own mechanic and a few goals:
1. Use simple but deep mechanics.
2. Be synergistic with adjacent color pairs. (BG should play well with WB and GU, but not the others.)
3. Have distinct mechanical identities to previous factions of the same colors. This BG faction should avoid playing too much like Golgari.
This mechanic is my current contender for the BG mechanic. I wanted to avoid anything to do with the graveyard when thinking about this faction's identity, as Golgari pretty much has a monopoly on it. Mechanically, I was coming up dry, so I decided to approach it from the flavor instead.
What I came up with is a faction who's all about self-empowerment. Green is the color of acceptance and growth. Black is the color of self-service and ambition. Together, they form a philosophy of recognizing one's hidden potential and striving to achieve it.
Looking at Amonkhet, I found a good way to mechanically represent that concept: creatures which enter with -1/-1 counters (which represent weakness or obstacles), and then losing those counters over time (which represents growth and empowerment). I decided not to use +1/+1 counters because I liked the idea of having an eventual cap, allowing me to cost it a bit more aggressively. It also allows me to explore -1/-1 counter design space throughout the rest of the cards in the set.
My original version of this mechanic looked more like this:
Empower N — M (This creature enters the battlefield with N -1/-1 counters on it. M: Remove a -1/-1 counter from this creature.)
That version was a bit wordy and had some messy rules quirks. I wanted to use it because I liked the idea of getting bonuses "whenever you empower this creature," but found it to be too ugly. Even the simpler bonuses caused some awkward questions to come up. "What happens when I empower this creature when it has no counters?" was chief among them.
I transitioned to a version that removed a counter on attacks and blocks, which was less versatile in gameplay, but more engaging. I then dropped the block trigger to lean more into the aggro plan and make balancing a bit easier.
I like this version because it's simple, concise, and has enough knobs that balancing should be fairly easy.
I mentioned that I want to use this opportunity to explore -1/-1 counter space even outside this faction, but this faction will still be the core color pair for it.
Anyway, here are some designs I came up with. I found that this mechanic lends itself to a very aggressive playstyle, so that's where most of the power will be.
Siphoner of WeaknessBG
Creature - Warrior U
5/5
Empower 3
Whenever ~'s power increases, you may put a -1/-1 counter on another target creature.
This is the first example of one of the more interesting subthemes of the faction: "Whenever this creature's power increases..." I just love the way it rolls off the tongue, and it fits so very well within BG. It's also really open-ended, triggering off of things like combat tricks, empower, etc., which opens up some interesting deck-building opportunities.
Side-note, I do realize that this mechanic and these subthemes could work really well outside of BG, but I'm not concerned with that right now. For the purposes of this set, I'm only concerned with filling out one faction at a time. It's worth noting that, while aggro strategies tend to work best in color pairs centered in red and white as well as black, I plan on looking at less conventional identities for those color pairs, which means I'll be steering them away from aggro.
Anyway, next:
Sweat Seer1G
Creature - Druid
3/2
Empower 1
Whenever ~'s power increases, draw a card.
Struggling DiscipleB
Creature - Rogue
2/2
Empower 1
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, put a -1/-1 counter on ~.
And here are some designs that just mess around with -1/-1 counters:
Reality Check1BB
Sorcery
Put two -1/-1 counters on each creature.
Break BarriersG
Instant
Choose one -
-Remove up to three -1/-1 counters from target creature.
-Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Surge of Confidence1B
Instant
Remove all counters from target permanent. That permanent's controller gains 1 life for each of those counters.
For context, the only mechanic I have down so far that's adjacent to this one is GU's mechanic:
DuplicateM(When this creature enters the battlefield, if you cast it for its duplicate cost, create a token that's a copy of it.)
On the surface, the only point of synergy is that they're both creature-centric mechanics that contribute to the total power you have on-board. Individual card designs will make up the difference.
I do not currently have an idea for the WB mechanic.
Did they change the rules about spell fizzling? I was fairly sure that even if only one of its targets disappears, the whole spell fizzles. Isn't that why spells with multiple targets are generally risky?
I don't think I've missed anything, but let me know if I have. I just don't think we've gotten cards for two of the mysterious planeswalker arts used in the poster from a while back (Liliana and Karn). Were there any others? do we think this could mean more unique promos coming?
Seriously though, wrong forum.
There doesn't seem to be any problem with the mechanic itself, but its name could be better.
"Whenever ~'s power increases,,," presents some tricky questions in specific situations. Bonuses you get from this trigger should be carefully chosen and balanced. Maybe a 2cmc creature that draw a card on this trigger is a might too good.
The cards I posted need balancing.
Kraul Harpooner was not the best point of comparison.
On the name situation, I want to try to understand the problem. Basically, the focus of the mechanic appears to be on the -1/-1 counters, rather than the act of removing them. I think it looks like more of a downside than it is.
The idea is that any other old creature pretty much has stats determined by their mana cost (a 2cmc 2/2, for example), whereas an empowered creature has the potential to start there, but grow to something much more impressive. Empowerment is all about giving a person the ability to thrive, and encouraging them to do so. Actually achieving that potential means recognizing what's in the way and working to overcome those obstacles. I think my keyword represents that idea perfectly.
That said, if it takes a paragraph worth of explaining for the name to make sense, I guess the name doesn't work. How about something like "Overcome?"
That is a good point. I didn't think about temporary debuff effects. I'll have to be careful how those are used if I decide to continue with the "whenever this creature's power increases" subtheme. How do you feel about this as a compromise:
Sweat Seer 1G
Creature - Warrior
3/2
Empower 1
At the beginning of your end step, if ~'s power has increased this turn, draw a card.
That at least dodges the cleanup step problem.
As for the name, I'll respectfully disagree. I think there have been "misses" much more severe than this one in the past. I think "Empower" does the job well enough.
And, of course, balancing mana costs will happen down the line. I just prefer to err toward more exciting designs. I will say that I intend for this set to have a generally higher power level than the typical standard set, so I'm okay with cards being a bit more pushed than usual. And anyway, Comparing Sweat Seer to Kraul Harpooner, for example, tells me that these are within the realm of realism.
Following up on a series of threads I made a while ago. I'm working on an enemy-pair faction set. Each faction has its own mechanic and a few goals:
1. Use simple but deep mechanics.
2. Be synergistic with adjacent color pairs. (BG should play well with WB and GU, but not the others.)
3. Have distinct mechanical identities to previous factions of the same colors. This BG faction should avoid playing too much like Golgari.
This mechanic is my current contender for the BG mechanic. I wanted to avoid anything to do with the graveyard when thinking about this faction's identity, as Golgari pretty much has a monopoly on it. Mechanically, I was coming up dry, so I decided to approach it from the flavor instead.
What I came up with is a faction who's all about self-empowerment. Green is the color of acceptance and growth. Black is the color of self-service and ambition. Together, they form a philosophy of recognizing one's hidden potential and striving to achieve it.
Looking at Amonkhet, I found a good way to mechanically represent that concept: creatures which enter with -1/-1 counters (which represent weakness or obstacles), and then losing those counters over time (which represents growth and empowerment). I decided not to use +1/+1 counters because I liked the idea of having an eventual cap, allowing me to cost it a bit more aggressively. It also allows me to explore -1/-1 counter design space throughout the rest of the cards in the set.
My original version of this mechanic looked more like this:
Empower N — M (This creature enters the battlefield with N -1/-1 counters on it. M: Remove a -1/-1 counter from this creature.)
That version was a bit wordy and had some messy rules quirks. I wanted to use it because I liked the idea of getting bonuses "whenever you empower this creature," but found it to be too ugly. Even the simpler bonuses caused some awkward questions to come up. "What happens when I empower this creature when it has no counters?" was chief among them.
I transitioned to a version that removed a counter on attacks and blocks, which was less versatile in gameplay, but more engaging. I then dropped the block trigger to lean more into the aggro plan and make balancing a bit easier.
I like this version because it's simple, concise, and has enough knobs that balancing should be fairly easy.
I mentioned that I want to use this opportunity to explore -1/-1 counter space even outside this faction, but this faction will still be the core color pair for it.
Anyway, here are some designs I came up with. I found that this mechanic lends itself to a very aggressive playstyle, so that's where most of the power will be.
Siphoner of Weakness BG
Creature - Warrior U
5/5
Empower 3
Whenever ~'s power increases, you may put a -1/-1 counter on another target creature.
This is the first example of one of the more interesting subthemes of the faction: "Whenever this creature's power increases..." I just love the way it rolls off the tongue, and it fits so very well within BG. It's also really open-ended, triggering off of things like combat tricks, empower, etc., which opens up some interesting deck-building opportunities.
Side-note, I do realize that this mechanic and these subthemes could work really well outside of BG, but I'm not concerned with that right now. For the purposes of this set, I'm only concerned with filling out one faction at a time. It's worth noting that, while aggro strategies tend to work best in color pairs centered in red and white as well as black, I plan on looking at less conventional identities for those color pairs, which means I'll be steering them away from aggro.
Anyway, next:
Sweat Seer 1G
Creature - Druid
3/2
Empower 1
Whenever ~'s power increases, draw a card.
Struggling Disciple B
Creature - Rogue
2/2
Empower 1
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 2 life. If you don't, put a -1/-1 counter on ~.
And here are some designs that just mess around with -1/-1 counters:
Reality Check 1BB
Sorcery
Put two -1/-1 counters on each creature.
Break Barriers G
Instant
Choose one -
-Remove up to three -1/-1 counters from target creature.
-Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Surge of Confidence 1B
Instant
Remove all counters from target permanent. That permanent's controller gains 1 life for each of those counters.
For context, the only mechanic I have down so far that's adjacent to this one is GU's mechanic:
Duplicate M (When this creature enters the battlefield, if you cast it for its duplicate cost, create a token that's a copy of it.)
On the surface, the only point of synergy is that they're both creature-centric mechanics that contribute to the total power you have on-board. Individual card designs will make up the difference.
I do not currently have an idea for the WB mechanic.
So what do you guys think?