Apotheosis and Vile Vampirisim - This is an attempt to provide white colour with viable life-gaining strategies. Inspiration in Defiant Bloodlord and Sanguine Bond and Vizkopa Guildmage.
Forgotten Ideas - white Goryo's Vengeance for instants and sorceries. Cause I would really like white to have a powerful card for graveyard shenenigans.
Celestial Imposition - blue has so many 1mana and 2manacantrips (sleight of hand, opt, remand, serum visions). Red gets 1 mana cantrip in every expansion recently: Crash Through , Expedite, Warlord's Fury. What does white get that could be powerful enough to use in modern. Revitalize? Ok. Howabout a 1mana instant that prohibits an opponent from drawing cards for a turn.
Hi, from time to time, an inspiration strikes me so I invent cards. Usually for modern. So, without much talk I'll just post them here. Please, comment constructively.
The non-red cards or my take on non-red lightning bolts that I think could be modern viable. In the presence of Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize, Rot seems like an overkill although it has more flexibility: player can target himself to discard. Divine Light is sth I really want to see in modern.
Searing Vision is my attempt to provide burn decks with edgy and viable card draw but I guess it could be used in other decks as well
Some of my new suggestions for white cards in modern. Apotheosis is here to encourage life-gaining strategies that can be present in Abzan and Selesnya CoCo Chord decks. I see there is a tendency to remove black from coco chord shell and to make it just about walking balista dealing damage to opponent. Life-gaining element is not needed any more and Murderous Redcap was probably t0o expensive. Altough I like the speed and novelty in new iterations I don't want old flavours to go out of play.
Vile Vampirism was inspired by cards like Defiant Bloodlord and Sanguine Bond and Vizkopa Guildmage. All are great cards but cannot be used in modern because their CMC is too high (or sth else). So I decided to make a 1mana black instant that copies those effects for a turn only. The play around this card is to make decks that can gain sufficient bursts of life to snuff out the opponent with this kind a spell. Let's make Soul Sisters a bit faster and edgy. Imagine this with lets say Life goes on. It fits into Abzan Coco Chord as well instead of redcap. Small army of lifelinking craetures can be quite dangerous all of a sudden.
Celestial Imposition - Well it's basically an anti-cantrip for opponents. If WotC don't want to print 1mana white cantrips howabout a spell that prevents opponents from getting extra cards. This works even agains draw step.
Impose Temporal Limits - A card that buys time by taking away opponent's time or to be precise it's turn.
Forgotten Ideas - basically a white Goryo's Vengeance for instants and sorceries. I wanted to provide white colour with a powerfull card that revolves around graveyards. What would you do if you could cast any instant or sorcery from your graveyard but you pay only 2 mana?
Resplendent Angel - It might have been inspired somewhat by my Guardian of the Meek
Isolate - No, I didn't invent it but I was complaining about black colour gaining Fatal push and bunch of other 2mana destroy spells and how little love white colour got in 1mana spell department and then WotC print this beauty! Thank you!!!
Revitalize - I believe you can find my "Insight from Beyond" here: If Wizards did see and use my card as an inspiration I just want to say thank you first and I hope that in future there will be a single white mana cantrip similar to this one (for modern purposes ofcourse)
I was thinking about changing the description rules for Mysticism to.
Mysticism - If you control more enchantments than any opponent, ...
I would like this ability to be playable in commander too. I am not sure if I got the wording right. The ability should be able to detect at any moment are you the player who controls the biggest number of enchantments. For example: you control 4 enchantments, second player controls 3 enchantments and yet another player controls 2 enchantments. Together they control 5 but the ability would not calculate it that way but takes into account only one player and his or her enchantments separately.
I recently invented some new mechanics meant only for white spells.
Ideal (You may cast this spell from your graveyard or top of your library if it is revealed. If you do, exile it instead of putting it into your graveyard.) The point is that ideals/ideas don't day and are omnipresent so you could cast a spell almost from anywhere.
Virtue (As you cast this spell, if you have more life than target opponent, you may copy this spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.) Opposite of what black color does in a sense that it pays life for getting something like card advantage (Dark Confidant orPhyrexian Arena). Virtue rewards player for keeping his life high and not trading it for other stuff.
Aspiration (As you cast this spell, if you have less life than target opponent, you may copy this spell as it resolves and cast it immediately without paying it's mana cost.)
1.Healing Grace is a way to go, but is weak and I don't think it will impact modern alot. It is both effects of Healing salve in one card.
2.Firesong and Sunspeaker has the effect I would like to see as an archtype in modern but it's CMC is preventing that from happening. I assume its 4-6 since the P/T is 4/6
3.Merfolk Trickster is yet another proof of just how much love merfolks are getting recently. Don't know why. They were a great deck even before going green.
4.Lyra Dawnbringer. Very similar to Baneslayer angel, not very innovative.
5.I love Dauntless Bodyguard.
5.Seal Away...I think it should be a great addition to modern. Hopefully. There isn't much mainboard enchantment hate, it has flash, 2cmc and a full creature exile. It's good.
6.Squee, the immortal. I understand how the story of this guy works well with the mechanic of the card and it's flavor but I basically dislike that such effect is given to the red color. Similar color to this is Misthollow Griffin which is blue. To be able to cast cards from exile really hurts white color and reduces the value of PtE. I wanted to suggest that white color gets the ability to return spells and cast spells from exile as it's thing. I think it is flavorful to white in general, as it's thing. It exiles criminals and pardons them back...
7.Steal-leaf champion makes Leatherback Baloth obsolete. Why didn't the wizards make him more nuanced or a bit more situational. Now, there will never be a reason to play Leatherback at all since you can play this guy.
8.Benalish Marshal.....this is one of the problems..3 pure white mana for MC...why? That kind of mana cost makes this creature exclusive to white color. I undestand that Glorious Anthem also has CMC 3...but that was in 10th edition and modern evolved. One colorless mana in stead of one white mana wouldn't harm.
Perhaps I haven't explained my thoughts well so I'll try again.
White color is about:
- small creatures (mostly)
- negation strategies, taxing the opponent,
- best sideboard hate
- life gain effects
- providing greater value with a single card
- if there are any other, please add them
This we have concluded togeter in this discussion.
So here is my problem with white color in modern:
- small creatures make a wheenie deck but they usually don't appear in any other type of deck
- creatures that do taxes and negate the opponent are usually in the sideboard but if they are in the mainboard then they usually appear only in death and taxes archetype and not anywhere else
What I'm saying with this is that white creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter are exclusive creatures, creatures around which you cannot build various decks, creatures that don't spin your head with the question:"Oh, my God, the possibilities that can be done with this creature." I compare them to creatures like Delver and Tarmogoyf because Delver of Secrets doesn't have just one single blue deck that plays it. This card is so inclusive! You can have a UR Grixis, Jeskai or Temur Delver. They are all tempo decks built to utilize it. It is a flagship of tempo decks. Take Tarmogoyf for example. People think about what colours to add to green to make most use of Tarmogoyf or can their build be better if they splash green for Tarmogoyf. With Thalia all you have is a continuoum of "death&taxes to wheenie" strategies. WHAT I'M SAYING IS THAT WHITE COLOR LACKS A COLOR-FRIENDLY CREATURE AROUND WHICH somehow different colored decks or archtypes could be created.
To move on, white color is the one that revolves around life gaining strategies but there aren't powerful life-gaining strategies. Soul-sisters is a modern deck but I don't think it was ever Tier 1 and it is especially not so now. Modern is becoming faster meaning that decks can reduce opponent's life total even faster than before and more often so. That means that life's value has decreased so old methods of gaining life lost value. If GAIINING LIFE LOST POWER, then WHITE COLOR IN GENERAL LOST POWER, too. One would say that black's and green's ability to gain life lost power too but less so then in white and I believe black and green got more love recently than white.
To remedy this, I suggest that Wizards print new white cards for gaining life that would be viable in modern and would both improve Soul-sisters strategies and also make players want splash white to other archtypes more often because of these effects.
and it received Collected Company that re-enabled Birthing Pod decks and enabled Bant Spirits e.g. and many others.
This means that GREEN TOOK A PIECE OF "COLOR-PIE" FROM THE WHITE COLOR.
Black recently got Fatal Push which is direct hit to white color and its Path to Exile because they are both equal in CMC and roughly equal in power. For years black had other single-target-destroy-creature which I mentioned in previous posts. That made black color more versatile than white but white had the best single-target removal. Now, even that is debatable. With Fatal Push being printed, Wizards pushed PtE to the edge.
To showcase how life is not even that important, and is certainly less important then time (meaning card draw advantage for example), player's often exchange life for some other benefit. Fetchlands and shocklands absolutely prove this. Then there is phyrexian mana to prove the point. Black color's flavor is about exchanging life for card advantage: Dark Confidant and aa....Phyrexian Arena and.....Painful Truths and many others.
At this point I have to comment spoilers of new set: Dominaria.
These are my suggestions to Wizards:
- white colour needs at least one single creature emblamatic for white colour around which many different colours and strategies could be made. Green has tarmogoyf, black has death shadow, blue has snapcaster and delver. White has none. Thalia is too narrow.
- more powerfull life-gaining cards and exile cards
- new flavors and themes and mechanics that would be associated mostly with white colour
Forecast is an excellent mechanic that could be made powerful in modern if the forecast cost would be 3CMC and lower and forecast effect modern relevant.
Also, if black colour can use life so "disrespectfuly" to gain card advantage or any other advantage then white could take an opposite approach. By preserving the life, it gains some kind of advantage. That's the flavor and the mechanic could be: "If you have more life than target opponent"....you can draw extra cards or get free creature tokens or something else.
Anyways, I really hope Wizards will show more love for white color.
Enchanter's Blast - The idea is that Enchanter draws energy (mana) from all the enchantments he created and uses to for burst of damage. The enchantments are still there but not functioning (hence, exile), they just need some time to draw mana from surrounding space and then they are on again (hence, they return to battlefield after some time, at the begining of the end step on the nex turn.) Combinig this with explosive ward, flamfury eidolon, hive avenger...
Flamefury Eidolon is basically my improvement of Forgeborn Oreads, a card I love so much but is useless anywhere.
Some of the multicolored enchantments I've created so far.
Belligerent Peacekeeper - for boros burn type enchantment decks. Would go well with Explosive Ward and Flamefury Eidolon.
Blistercoil Elemental - an ode to Counterbalance. I think it's a broad card that can fit into any kind of Izzet, Grixis, Jeskai, Temur strategies
Pyretic Tomb-Keeeper - some similarity to Grim Lavamancer but is more explosive and requires to built deck around creatures instead of other cards. Could go well into 5C humans decks
Frost-rune Lampade and Springflow Dryad - imagine them with Cathartic reuion...
I love enchantments! It's like they're giving you a constant passive boon as long as they're on the battlefield. The bad thing about them is they're not a body to protect you. Which is why I just love creature – enchantments.
Theros block was full of creature-enchantments which is why I'll always find it appealing. Unfortunately it did not provide any modern deck that was based on enchantments or enchantment creatures.
A quick comparison of modern artifact and enchantment decks:
Artifacts:
- affinity: it's an artifact-creature based deck with one of the most powerful mechanisms in modern that make it a tier 1 deck from the begining. It was so powerful that all artifact-lands were banned.
- Equipment Storm: utilizes bunch of equipment cards which are big combo piece
- Equipment Toolbox decks
- Lanter of Insight: contains a lot of artifacts for control
Enchantments:
- no enchantment-creature based deck
- Boggle: synergy of hexproof creature and bunch of auras to make it big
- no pure enchantment based deck
But unfortunately Theros block did NOT yield a non-aura enchantment based deck for competitive modern play. When one looks at the mechanisms of Theros block they are just not inherenently strong nor were they powered by numbers to be efficient in modern:
Constellation - For me it has a great flavor and it is just an ETB effect based on enchantments. I haven't seen a single card in competitive modern with this mechanism. ETB effects are easily shut down with Torbor Orb, Hushwing griphin or Tocatly Honour Guard. Bestow – an alternative mana cost and a clunky aura mechanism that could have been made powerful for modern only by substantially reducing its mana costs. That didn't happen. Personally, I wouldn't use it for modern either. Inspired – a slow mechanism dependent on passing of turns. Would not like to see it in modern.
By comparing artifacts and enchantments in general, many artifacts have a huge advantage of being colorless so they can be played in any deck and payed for with any mana. Affinity as a mechanism could have been created because of that. Enchantments don't have that advantage.
I have been inventing enchantment cards for MtG on MtG Cardsmith for probably 1-2 years. In this thread, I would like to present my cards to the community. Please provide a valuable feedback and if anyone wants to join me in creating similar cards, mechanisms, art for it, feel free to do so.
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Creature – enchantment based decks for modern
In order for these decks to be affective, my guess is that the following cards should be banned:
- Back to Nature
- Cleansfall
- Paraselene
- Patrician's Scorn
- Tempest of Light
- Spring Cleaning
- Primeval Light
These are all cards with CMC less than 4 in modern that destroy all enchantments with a notable exception of Primeval Light which selectively destroys enhcantments of a single player. When you look at the cards that destroy all artifacts on the battlefield they always cost 4 or more mana.
Mechanism: Mysticism – If you control 2 or more enchantments, something happens.
Mysticism in inspired by Metalcraft ofcourse. Metalcraft has the advantage of artifacts being really cheap, like 0 mana, so I reduced the number from 3 to 2 for enchantment based metalcraft I called mysticism. Naturally, I want to make powerful enchantments with 1-2-3 CMC since in modern nothin lasts long on the Alchemy – For each color among the permanents you control, something happens.
Alchemy is a reflection of my love for multicolored decks. It is not a powerful mechanims per se since modern is full of removal, so I will tend to make it extremely rewarding.
Constellation - Whenever this or another enchantment enters (or leaves) the battlefield under your control, something happens.
I think this mechanims from Theros holds a lot of potential hidden in numbers. I think it could also contain LTB effects.
With this edition I'm trying to do several things:
- create single-colored and a lot of multicolored enchantment-creature and enchantment cards that can be used to create competitive 2- or 3- colored modern decks. That means I have to create cards that can be used in 20 different color combinations: Golgari, Rakdos, Dimir, Orzhova, Gruul, Simic, Selesnya, Izzet, Boros, Azorious, Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, Naya, Abzan, Jeskai, Mardu, Sultai, Temur.
- create cards that can be effective for already existing modern decks
I've seen the rules for this thread and card creation. However, I prefer providing images that I download from my MtG account. Humans are visually creatures. I hope that is ok with the moderators, if not, please let me know and I will change that.
Please note, that the pictures I use and names for the card are less important. Wizards have artist at their disposal, I don't. The mechanims are important to me and if the art depicts it well, that's fine.
I would not allow blue to have exile capabilities what so ever. I think Imprison should be a single white mana and a Wall should be 0/4 or 1/4 defender (without flying. Or you can make the mana cost one blue and one white. The only important thing is that there must be a single white mana absolutely needed in mana cost
Forgotten Ideas - white Goryo's Vengeance for instants and sorceries. Cause I would really like white to have a powerful card for graveyard shenenigans.
Celestial Imposition - blue has so many 1mana and 2manacantrips (sleight of hand, opt, remand, serum visions). Red gets 1 mana cantrip in every expansion recently: Crash Through , Expedite, Warlord's Fury. What does white get that could be powerful enough to use in modern. Revitalize? Ok. Howabout a 1mana instant that prohibits an opponent from drawing cards for a turn.
The non-red cards or my take on non-red lightning bolts that I think could be modern viable. In the presence of Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize, Rot seems like an overkill although it has more flexibility: player can target himself to discard. Divine Light is sth I really want to see in modern.
Searing Vision is my attempt to provide burn decks with edgy and viable card draw but I guess it could be used in other decks as well
Apotheosis is here to encourage life-gaining strategies that can be present in Abzan and Selesnya CoCo Chord decks. I see there is a tendency to remove black from coco chord shell and to make it just about walking balista dealing damage to opponent. Life-gaining element is not needed any more and Murderous Redcap was probably t0o expensive. Altough I like the speed and novelty in new iterations I don't want old flavours to go out of play.
Vile Vampirism was inspired by cards like Defiant Bloodlord and Sanguine Bond and Vizkopa Guildmage. All are great cards but cannot be used in modern because their CMC is too high (or sth else). So I decided to make a 1mana black instant that copies those effects for a turn only. The play around this card is to make decks that can gain sufficient bursts of life to snuff out the opponent with this kind a spell. Let's make Soul Sisters a bit faster and edgy. Imagine this with lets say Life goes on. It fits into Abzan Coco Chord as well instead of redcap. Small army of lifelinking craetures can be quite dangerous all of a sudden.
Celestial Imposition - Well it's basically an anti-cantrip for opponents. If WotC don't want to print 1mana white cantrips howabout a spell that prevents opponents from getting extra cards. This works even agains draw step.
Impose Temporal Limits - A card that buys time by taking away opponent's time or to be precise it's turn.
Forgotten Ideas - basically a white Goryo's Vengeance for instants and sorceries. I wanted to provide white colour with a powerfull card that revolves around graveyards. What would you do if you could cast any instant or sorcery from your graveyard but you pay only 2 mana?
Isolate - No, I didn't invent it but I was complaining about black colour gaining Fatal push and bunch of other 2mana destroy spells and how little love white colour got in 1mana spell department and then WotC print this beauty! Thank you!!!
Revitalize - I believe you can find my "Insight from Beyond" here: If Wizards did see and use my card as an inspiration I just want to say thank you first and I hope that in future there will be a single white mana cantrip similar to this one (for modern purposes ofcourse)
Mysticism - If you control more enchantments than any opponent, ...
I would like this ability to be playable in commander too. I am not sure if I got the wording right. The ability should be able to detect at any moment are you the player who controls the biggest number of enchantments. For example: you control 4 enchantments, second player controls 3 enchantments and yet another player controls 2 enchantments. Together they control 5 but the ability would not calculate it that way but takes into account only one player and his or her enchantments separately.
Ideal (You may cast this spell from your graveyard or top of your library if it is revealed. If you do, exile it instead of putting it into your graveyard.)
The point is that ideals/ideas don't day and are omnipresent so you could cast a spell almost from anywhere.
Virtue (As you cast this spell, if you have more life than target opponent, you may copy this spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.)
Opposite of what black color does in a sense that it pays life for getting something like card advantage (Dark Confidant or Phyrexian Arena). Virtue rewards player for keeping his life high and not trading it for other stuff.
Aspiration (As you cast this spell, if you have less life than target opponent, you may copy this spell as it resolves and cast it immediately without paying it's mana cost.)
1.Healing Grace is a way to go, but is weak and I don't think it will impact modern alot. It is both effects of Healing salve in one card.
2.Firesong and Sunspeaker has the effect I would like to see as an archtype in modern but it's CMC is preventing that from happening. I assume its 4-6 since the P/T is 4/6
3.Merfolk Trickster is yet another proof of just how much love merfolks are getting recently. Don't know why. They were a great deck even before going green.
4.Lyra Dawnbringer. Very similar to Baneslayer angel, not very innovative.
5.I love Dauntless Bodyguard.
5.Seal Away...I think it should be a great addition to modern. Hopefully. There isn't much mainboard enchantment hate, it has flash, 2cmc and a full creature exile. It's good.
6.Squee, the immortal. I understand how the story of this guy works well with the mechanic of the card and it's flavor but I basically dislike that such effect is given to the red color. Similar color to this is Misthollow Griffin which is blue. To be able to cast cards from exile really hurts white color and reduces the value of PtE. I wanted to suggest that white color gets the ability to return spells and cast spells from exile as it's thing. I think it is flavorful to white in general, as it's thing. It exiles criminals and pardons them back...
7.Steal-leaf champion makes Leatherback Baloth obsolete. Why didn't the wizards make him more nuanced or a bit more situational. Now, there will never be a reason to play Leatherback at all since you can play this guy.
8.Benalish Marshal.....this is one of the problems..3 pure white mana for MC...why? That kind of mana cost makes this creature exclusive to white color. I undestand that Glorious Anthem also has CMC 3...but that was in 10th edition and modern evolved. One colorless mana in stead of one white mana wouldn't harm.
White color is about:
- small creatures (mostly)
- negation strategies, taxing the opponent,
- best sideboard hate
- life gain effects
- providing greater value with a single card
- if there are any other, please add them
This we have concluded togeter in this discussion.
So here is my problem with white color in modern:
- small creatures make a wheenie deck but they usually don't appear in any other type of deck
- creatures that do taxes and negate the opponent are usually in the sideboard but if they are in the mainboard then they usually appear only in death and taxes archetype and not anywhere else
What I'm saying with this is that white creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter are exclusive creatures, creatures around which you cannot build various decks, creatures that don't spin your head with the question:"Oh, my God, the possibilities that can be done with this creature." I compare them to creatures like Delver and Tarmogoyf because Delver of Secrets doesn't have just one single blue deck that plays it. This card is so inclusive! You can have a UR Grixis, Jeskai or Temur Delver. They are all tempo decks built to utilize it. It is a flagship of tempo decks. Take Tarmogoyf for example. People think about what colours to add to green to make most use of Tarmogoyf or can their build be better if they splash green for Tarmogoyf. With Thalia all you have is a continuoum of "death&taxes to wheenie" strategies. WHAT I'M SAYING IS THAT WHITE COLOR LACKS A COLOR-FRIENDLY CREATURE AROUND WHICH somehow different colored decks or archtypes could be created.
To move on, white color is the one that revolves around life gaining strategies but there aren't powerful life-gaining strategies. Soul-sisters is a modern deck but I don't think it was ever Tier 1 and it is especially not so now. Modern is becoming faster meaning that decks can reduce opponent's life total even faster than before and more often so. That means that life's value has decreased so old methods of gaining life lost value. If GAIINING LIFE LOST POWER, then WHITE COLOR IN GENERAL LOST POWER, too. One would say that black's and green's ability to gain life lost power too but less so then in white and I believe black and green got more love recently than white.
To remedy this, I suggest that Wizards print new white cards for gaining life that would be viable in modern and would both improve Soul-sisters strategies and also make players want splash white to other archtypes more often because of these effects.
Green color has recently gained a lot of creatures that provide more value like:
- Ramunap Excavator
- Wayward Swordtooth
- Tireless Tracker
and it received Collected Company that re-enabled Birthing Pod decks and enabled Bant Spirits e.g. and many others.
This means that GREEN TOOK A PIECE OF "COLOR-PIE" FROM THE WHITE COLOR.
Black recently got Fatal Push which is direct hit to white color and its Path to Exile because they are both equal in CMC and roughly equal in power. For years black had other single-target-destroy-creature which I mentioned in previous posts. That made black color more versatile than white but white had the best single-target removal. Now, even that is debatable. With Fatal Push being printed, Wizards pushed PtE to the edge.
To showcase how life is not even that important, and is certainly less important then time (meaning card draw advantage for example), player's often exchange life for some other benefit. Fetchlands and shocklands absolutely prove this. Then there is phyrexian mana to prove the point. Black color's flavor is about exchanging life for card advantage: Dark Confidant and aa....Phyrexian Arena and.....Painful Truths and many others.
At this point I have to comment spoilers of new set: Dominaria.
These are my suggestions to Wizards:
- white colour needs at least one single creature emblamatic for white colour around which many different colours and strategies could be made. Green has tarmogoyf, black has death shadow, blue has snapcaster and delver. White has none. Thalia is too narrow.
- more powerfull life-gaining cards and exile cards
- new flavors and themes and mechanics that would be associated mostly with white colour
Forecast is an excellent mechanic that could be made powerful in modern if the forecast cost would be 3CMC and lower and forecast effect modern relevant.
Also, if black colour can use life so "disrespectfuly" to gain card advantage or any other advantage then white could take an opposite approach. By preserving the life, it gains some kind of advantage. That's the flavor and the mechanic could be: "If you have more life than target opponent"....you can draw extra cards or get free creature tokens or something else.
Anyways, I really hope Wizards will show more love for white color.
Enchanter's Blast - The idea is that Enchanter draws energy (mana) from all the enchantments he created and uses to for burst of damage. The enchantments are still there but not functioning (hence, exile), they just need some time to draw mana from surrounding space and then they are on again (hence, they return to battlefield after some time, at the begining of the end step on the nex turn.) Combinig this with explosive ward, flamfury eidolon, hive avenger...
Flamefury Eidolon is basically my improvement of Forgeborn Oreads, a card I love so much but is useless anywhere.
Belligerent Peacekeeper - for boros burn type enchantment decks. Would go well with Explosive Ward and Flamefury Eidolon.
Blistercoil Elemental - an ode to Counterbalance. I think it's a broad card that can fit into any kind of Izzet, Grixis, Jeskai, Temur strategies
Pyretic Tomb-Keeeper - some similarity to Grim Lavamancer but is more explosive and requires to built deck around creatures instead of other cards. Could go well into 5C humans decks
Frost-rune Lampade and Springflow Dryad - imagine them with Cathartic reuion...
Theros block was full of creature-enchantments which is why I'll always find it appealing. Unfortunately it did not provide any modern deck that was based on enchantments or enchantment creatures.
A quick comparison of modern artifact and enchantment decks:
Artifacts:
- affinity: it's an artifact-creature based deck with one of the most powerful mechanisms in modern that make it a tier 1 deck from the begining. It was so powerful that all artifact-lands were banned.
- Equipment Storm: utilizes bunch of equipment cards which are big combo piece
- Equipment Toolbox decks
- Lanter of Insight: contains a lot of artifacts for control
Enchantments:
- no enchantment-creature based deck
- Boggle: synergy of hexproof creature and bunch of auras to make it big
- no pure enchantment based deck
In my opinion, Theros block offered some interesting cards for modern play:
- Eidolon of Great Revel (a staple in burn decks)
- Courser of Kruphix
- Thoughtseize (just a reprint)
- Master of Waves (addition to Merfolk decks, yet another lord for blue decks which totally doesn't make sense to me)
- Anger of the Gods (a good sweeper)
- Mana Confluence and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
- Destructive Revelry (sideboard hate against enchantments and artifacts)
- Swan Song
- Eidolon of Rhetoric (sideboard hate against storm decks)
- Springleaf Drum (a reprint)
- Spirit of the Labyrinth (for Death and Taxes)
But unfortunately Theros block did NOT yield a non-aura enchantment based deck for competitive modern play. When one looks at the mechanisms of Theros block they are just not inherenently strong nor were they powered by numbers to be efficient in modern:
Constellation - For me it has a great flavor and it is just an ETB effect based on enchantments. I haven't seen a single card in competitive modern with this mechanism. ETB effects are easily shut down with Torbor Orb, Hushwing griphin or Tocatly Honour Guard.
Bestow – an alternative mana cost and a clunky aura mechanism that could have been made powerful for modern only by substantially reducing its mana costs. That didn't happen. Personally, I wouldn't use it for modern either.
Inspired – a slow mechanism dependent on passing of turns. Would not like to see it in modern.
By comparing artifacts and enchantments in general, many artifacts have a huge advantage of being colorless so they can be played in any deck and payed for with any mana. Affinity as a mechanism could have been created because of that. Enchantments don't have that advantage.
I have been inventing enchantment cards for MtG on MtG Cardsmith for probably 1-2 years. In this thread, I would like to present my cards to the community. Please provide a valuable feedback and if anyone wants to join me in creating similar cards, mechanisms, art for it, feel free to do so.
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Creature – enchantment based decks for modern
In order for these decks to be affective, my guess is that the following cards should be banned:
- Back to Nature
- Cleansfall
- Paraselene
- Patrician's Scorn
- Tempest of Light
- Spring Cleaning
- Primeval Light
These are all cards with CMC less than 4 in modern that destroy all enchantments with a notable exception of Primeval Light which selectively destroys enhcantments of a single player. When you look at the cards that destroy all artifacts on the battlefield they always cost 4 or more mana.
Mechanism:
Mysticism – If you control 2 or more enchantments, something happens.
Mysticism in inspired by Metalcraft ofcourse. Metalcraft has the advantage of artifacts being really cheap, like 0 mana, so I reduced the number from 3 to 2 for enchantment based metalcraft I called mysticism. Naturally, I want to make powerful enchantments with 1-2-3 CMC since in modern nothin lasts long on the
Alchemy – For each color among the permanents you control, something happens.
Alchemy is a reflection of my love for multicolored decks. It is not a powerful mechanims per se since modern is full of removal, so I will tend to make it extremely rewarding.
Constellation - Whenever this or another enchantment enters (or leaves) the battlefield under your control, something happens.
I think this mechanims from Theros holds a lot of potential hidden in numbers. I think it could also contain LTB effects.
With this edition I'm trying to do several things:
- create single-colored and a lot of multicolored enchantment-creature and enchantment cards that can be used to create competitive 2- or 3- colored modern decks. That means I have to create cards that can be used in 20 different color combinations: Golgari, Rakdos, Dimir, Orzhova, Gruul, Simic, Selesnya, Izzet, Boros, Azorious, Bant, Esper, Grixis, Jund, Naya, Abzan, Jeskai, Mardu, Sultai, Temur.
- create cards that can be effective for already existing modern decks
I've seen the rules for this thread and card creation. However, I prefer providing images that I download from my MtG account. Humans are visually creatures. I hope that is ok with the moderators, if not, please let me know and I will change that.
Please note, that the pictures I use and names for the card are less important. Wizards have artist at their disposal, I don't. The mechanims are important to me and if the art depicts it well, that's fine.