^That's...pretty flavourful! I wish it had some flavour text to give it some more context. The text is fine, but I don't know how often I'd use that ability out of constructed. Huh, actually, that's all kinds of nice potential uses, as long as a player lucks out on what he discards.
Hammer of Orlon3
Legendary Artifact - Equipment [R]
Equip 4
Equipped creature gets +3/+0.
Hammer of Orlon's equip ability can't target token creatures, and costs 3 less to activate if it targets a creature with 2 or less power.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls deals damage to you, that creature fights the equipped creature.
If the intent of the second effect is to give it a weakness in a weenie deck, then it's an interesting way to do it, but I don't understand why a loxodon is giving my opponent plant tokens at the same time. Is he defending the player from encroaching wild plants? Why is he sacrificed if you choose not to give the opponent a plant? I wish the flavour made more sense, because otherwise it's an intriguing card that provides good early power in exchange for free chump-blockers. What kind of deck would run this, I wonder?
The wording on this one definitely needs help:
Surelai, Font of Wisdom
Legendary Land Creature - Elemental Island [MR] (T: Add U to your mana pool.)
At the end of each turn, if you had cast any spell this turn, put a flood counter on ~.
~ can't attack or block as long as any player has more cards in his or her hand than the number of flood counters on the battlefield.
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, draw cards equal to the number of flood counters on the battlefield.
10/10
EDIT: Reworded the clause.
@ Ashiok's Blessing: When am I playing this? Do I fill my deck with self-cycling jank or Misthollow Griffins so I can play one guilt-free and mana-free Demon/Leviathan? Why does Ashiok care about cheating cards into play? If I'm expected to get rid of the stuff I don't need to win the game, why is Elspeth so gloomy about it in the flavour text? Nothing curse-in-disguise-like about a turn-six Emrakul.
Blue does give a lot more draw options, but I think I'm already past max capacity here, so splashing another color without the requisite amount of color fixing sounds dangerous to me. And I'm already out of space, seeing as I've had to cut out Memnites.
Looks like Autochthon Wurm just got trounced as the mother of all wurms.
Not saying the Dryad's bad, but it's pretty squishy, and I doubt there isn't going to be some sort of "T: Deal 1 damage to target creature" in this whole set. Also, kinda limits your own deck from running flashback, dredge or the rest, right?
Him attacking and getting through to a player should activate his static ability. Giving him double strike will let him do so twice. Mage Slayer adds a third activation. And that's with just one attack phase.
Sword of Feast and Famine lets you use your lands again for another round of pinging, if you can get him across. There's probably other ways to flood your mana pool too
the way Overload is worded, there's design to include alternate costs instead of mana costs. Discarding cards, dealing damage, etc
This. I also find the idea of cheaper Overload costs alluring to design space.
Another interesting idea I just thought of - the way it's worded, can't a permanent have an Overload cost, which allows you to change the text of an activated or static ability?
Edit: Unrefined and probably imbalanced example just to demonstrate:
Zapper Elemental1RR
Creature - Elemental ,t: Deal 1 damage to target creature an opponent controls
Overload 4RR
1/1
I'm content to just wait and see what they've got in store for us, though.
Huh. I toyed around the idea of land creatures a lot in a custom set before Zendikar showed up and proved you didn't need them to make a land-based set. I do have some cents to add:
Back to the cards: I think the keywords are too much and the creature types don't make any sense. Flavor is incredibly important here. Dryads are tree nymphs so it makes sense for them to be connected with Forests. The next best flavor to fit alongside Dryad Arbor would be in blue:
Turtle Isle • Land Creature - Island Turtle (U) (CARDNAME is blue, it isn't a spell, it's affected by summoning sickness, and it has "T: Add U to your mana pool.")
0/3 ... or maybe 0/4
Leviathans also make good Islands, though understandably they'll have to be pretty rare. As for the other land types:
For Plains, the best I could come up with was either Rays (as in, giant flying stingrays. Yeah, you'd have to make up that creature type) or Elementals. You could technically reuse Turtle again, maybe, or perhaps Beast if you want some gigantic wide creature.
Swamps is easy: Oozes! Lots and lots of starving black piles of gunk. Good luck differentiating them, though. You could try using Horrors and Nightmares too, they kind of fit the idea of murky terrain being more alive than it seems.
Mountains boils down to Elementals, which sounds like the easy way out yet pretty much is the only thing that fits the idea of humongous rock creatures pretending to be land formations. Maybe Giant could be used too, or perhaps Wurm or Dragon for an extra-special case.
Dryad's not the only creature to fit with Forests. Treefolk and Plants also serve this role pretty well, and bring a lot of variety to the table as well. You could even use a Beast or two for some particular behemoths.
Pushing both of you back a turn in a 5 CMC slot isn't very efficient when you could have just hardcast a time warp. And once a titan is resolved, its going to poop all over her- sun will o-ring her, prime will pop ink & run, grave will have 4 untapped power on the board. And thats just titans. The other control finishers we're seeing don't exactly keep over. Someones rite's a griselbrand? Tap him all you want, they have 7-14 chances to answer that. Heck, rites mrs norn and run you down with souls for all it matters
Heres the real gripe with her. She's a 3UU Icy Manipulator in practice. Yet at 4UU, you get an Icy Manipulator with a 6/6 body. I can't even imagine the silliness behind the blue control player who stalls the game with board wipes and tapsdowns, in order to finally pull off Tamiyo's ultimate, which he uses to recur a bunch of thought scours or whatever, and dig his deck and fill his hand, so he can finally play his finisher frost titan. At which point my head collides with my keyboard with an exasperated bloody thump
I must say, I'm a bit confused. You seem to implying that:
A) Tamiyo is somehow playing in a deck with zero answers to all those threats you mentioned
B) Aforementioned deck didn't do anything on the Titan-free T6 (such as plop their own titan)
C) People will be using her primarily to pop her ultimate rather than support their own decks, which is what planeswalkers are (correct me if I'm wrong) usually supposed to be good at
D) Her second ability is useless and unable to be built around
Eh. Bruna is okay-ish, should make some Johnnys quite excited.
What's with this about Tamiyo (who I think is awesome for suddenly pulling out Kamigawa in this day and age) losing to titans? If I'm reading this right, her first ability taps permanents, including lands. Can't I just tap an opponent's land when I send her out and let my other cards deal with opponent's creatures, thus pushing back the expected titan to T7, at which point I'd have better board advantage?
Come to think of it, she disables Kessig Wolf Run and such as well...
Dismember seems like it'd fit that need. Another idea, you could splash green and go for the whole unkillable thing with Unlife and Melira, Sylvok Outcast. Also, Leyline in the deck makes me sad, because that makes it not Standard (not that there's anything wrong with it, just takes it out of my knowledge zone).
I dunno, I feel like entire Melira + Unlife decks have already been made that wouldn't even need fateful hour's interactions. Leyline is just for the sake of not having to cast it sometimes; I can easily replace it with Witchbane Orb, which can be protected by Apostle's Blessing. Dismember sounds like it'd do well, though I can't use it late-game, can I?
Hammer of Orlon 3
Legendary Artifact - Equipment [R]
Equip 4
Equipped creature gets +3/+0.
Hammer of Orlon's equip ability can't target token creatures, and costs 3 less to activate if it targets a creature with 2 or less power.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls deals damage to you, that creature fights the equipped creature.
The wording on this one definitely needs help:
Surelai, Font of Wisdom
Legendary Land Creature - Elemental Island [MR]
(T: Add U to your mana pool.)
At the end of each turn, if you had cast any spell this turn, put a flood counter on ~.
~ can't attack or block as long as any player has more cards in his or her hand than the number of flood counters on the battlefield.
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, draw cards equal to the number of flood counters on the battlefield.
10/10
EDIT: Reworded the clause.
@ Ashiok's Blessing: When am I playing this? Do I fill my deck with self-cycling jank or Misthollow Griffins so I can play one guilt-free and mana-free Demon/Leviathan? Why does Ashiok care about cheating cards into play? If I'm expected to get rid of the stuff I don't need to win the game, why is Elspeth so gloomy about it in the flavour text? Nothing curse-in-disguise-like about a turn-six Emrakul.
4 Generator Servant
4 Dragonlord's Servant
3 Dragon Egg
3 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Scourge of Valkas
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
1 Hellkite Charger
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Furyborn Hellkite
1 Utvara Hellkite
4 Dragon Tempest
4 Geosurge
4 Draconic Roar
2 Sarkhan’s Triumph
1 Descent of the Dragons
4 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
(no I don't know what I'm doing. More removal? More aggressive 1-3 drops? Different dragons?)
Artifact lands are banned on our table -_-
Blue does give a lot more draw options, but I think I'm already past max capacity here, so splashing another color without the requisite amount of color fixing sounds dangerous to me. And I'm already out of space, seeing as I've had to cut out Memnites.
4 Salvage Slasher
3 Perilous Myr
4 Myr Retriever
2 Arcbound Ravager
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Shrapnel Blast
3 Faithless Looting
4 Chromatic Star
3 Ichor Wellspring
3 Executioner's Capsule
2 Veinfire Borderpost
7 Mountain
7 Swamp
Strategy: Churn through the deck and dump artifacts into the graveyard, feeding everything that loves artifacts being in the graveyard.
Edited for wholeness. Thoughts?
Not saying the Dryad's bad, but it's pretty squishy, and I doubt there isn't going to be some sort of "T: Deal 1 damage to target creature" in this whole set. Also, kinda limits your own deck from running flashback, dredge or the rest, right?
This. I also find the idea of cheaper Overload costs alluring to design space.
Another interesting idea I just thought of - the way it's worded, can't a permanent have an Overload cost, which allows you to change the text of an activated or static ability?
Edit: Unrefined and probably imbalanced example just to demonstrate:
Zapper Elemental 1RR
Creature - Elemental
,t: Deal 1 damage to target creature an opponent controls
Overload 4RR
1/1
I'm content to just wait and see what they've got in store for us, though.
Yup, even they know who the best character in this whole plane is.
Leviathans also make good Islands, though understandably they'll have to be pretty rare. As for the other land types:
For Plains, the best I could come up with was either Rays (as in, giant flying stingrays. Yeah, you'd have to make up that creature type) or Elementals. You could technically reuse Turtle again, maybe, or perhaps Beast if you want some gigantic wide creature.
Swamps is easy: Oozes! Lots and lots of starving black piles of gunk. Good luck differentiating them, though. You could try using Horrors and Nightmares too, they kind of fit the idea of murky terrain being more alive than it seems.
Mountains boils down to Elementals, which sounds like the easy way out yet pretty much is the only thing that fits the idea of humongous rock creatures pretending to be land formations. Maybe Giant could be used too, or perhaps Wurm or Dragon for an extra-special case.
Dryad's not the only creature to fit with Forests. Treefolk and Plants also serve this role pretty well, and bring a lot of variety to the table as well. You could even use a Beast or two for some particular behemoths.
I must say, I'm a bit confused. You seem to implying that:
A) Tamiyo is somehow playing in a deck with zero answers to all those threats you mentioned
B) Aforementioned deck didn't do anything on the Titan-free T6 (such as plop their own titan)
C) People will be using her primarily to pop her ultimate rather than support their own decks, which is what planeswalkers are (correct me if I'm wrong) usually supposed to be good at
D) Her second ability is useless and unable to be built around
Eh. Bruna is okay-ish, should make some Johnnys quite excited.
Come to think of it, she disables Kessig Wolf Run and such as well...
I dunno, I feel like entire Melira + Unlife decks have already been made that wouldn't even need fateful hour's interactions. Leyline is just for the sake of not having to cast it sometimes; I can easily replace it with Witchbane Orb, which can be protected by Apostle's Blessing. Dismember sounds like it'd do well, though I can't use it late-game, can I?