Does this feel at all like an "aura" creature, or not?

Honestly, it wouldn't have occurred to me. Especially since it isn't tied to one creature in particular.

I just wrote a paragraph about how making an Aura-Creature is probably a bad idea, and it included the word "Drawback" a couple of times, but screw it. It's probably unwise to go around telling people the kind of cards they should design, and instead focus on what they did design.

I suppose the takeaway is: Cards with drawbacks on them are going to be heavily scrutinized. So make them rock.

I dislike cards with drawbacks and don't often play them unless they're quite good. I just designed this as an exercise.

For Aura creatures, how about something closer to this:

When ~ enters the battlefield, choose another creature. That creature gains +1/+2 and gets First Strike as long as ~ remains in play. When that creature leaves play, sacrifice ~.
0/5

I don't know... something about helping the base creature be a much better card seems less like a drawback. Since, as long as your 5/6 First Striking Serra Angel is dead, all you would have had left was an expensive 0/5.

Like I said, it was just a concept, not necessarily something we need to carry out. Besides, I think Aegis Angel is a great "aura" creature.

I like this. But I think it doesn't need the first sentence. The sac trigger will do just as much in 99% of cases, won't it?

Pretty much. In fact 99% of the time was probably a liberal estimation. Edited.

Hey, speaking of making creatures feel a little alien and adding temporary exiling, how about this creature exiles itself and waits for another creature to enter the battlefield? It wouldn't feel so terrible to lose your creature, either... he'd just be waiting for later. That, and you could play the thing on round 1 and just let it sit there until you get another creature up.

I'm not sure if exiling and coming back is a good idea, but I like it, it feels appropriately alien. I almost want to say "~ is phased out as long as you control no other creatures", although I don't recommend it :)

I've been thinking about this. The odd part is the wording. "Whenever there are no other creatures in play, exile ~." Causes a game draw. Here, I'll explain this in BASIC terms:

10 Start
20 If "other creatures", Then Goto 50
30 Goto 10
40 Run Exile
50 End

Does "As long as there are no other creatures, exile ~" work? It's kind of odd. You don't really get to respond to that...

Ah, fortunately the rules don't quite work as you mention. So-called "state-triggered abilities" (which watch for a game state rather than a specific event) don't re-trigger until all instances of them have already left the stack.

Thank God. I thought I was going crazy there for a second.

Jack's comment is a bit confusing, but I assume he's saying "Go for it". To get the simplest execution of this ability, I made it come back from exile whether or not it was exiled using it's own ability. That's really strong... but probably not at the limited level, so it still seems fine as a common. It's also nice to notice that this white creature is really resillient to white's tricks in the set, not really caring too much about temp. exile.

Should this be "when you control no other enchantments"? I like the idea of acting like an aura, but I don't think it really comes through unless we find a way of making it more obvious, but "caring about enchantments" is an obvious on-theme tweak.

Should the ability be "When you control no other X, exile ~. Return it to play when an X enters the battlefield under your control?" Returning from exiling is interesting, but possibly should be on a rare card somewhere and all being one ability is possibly more straightforward for this?

I like the first suggestion, and have no qualms with the second one. Since no one argued against it, I'm changing it over. That gives us an enchantment matters card that also plays with exile in common. Good news.

Annoying aside. Two Woven Lifes probably doesn't do what most people think they will do. In fact, I think they cause an infinite loop of entering the battlefield, triggering the other one to enter the battlefield, then, while waiting for the other one to enter play, noticing that there are no other enchantments are on the battlefield, and leaving play, continuing the cycle.

Yikes. That is quite annoying.

This is quite interesting now. It's a bit like a white Orcish Conscripts or Scarred Puma: you cast it on turn 1, and it sits there unusable until you get another creature out, when it comes back.

The infinite loop is a problem though. What do we want to rule for playtesting purposes? I think we should pretend it's worded such that that doesn't happen, but how should we pretend it works instead?

I changed the 'when' trigger to an 'if' trigger. I got to admit that I'm not certain that that does the trick. The idea now is that the ability triggers, goes on the stack, then when it resolves, continues to look at what's in play. If there's no other enchantment in play, nothing happens and it remains in exile. Is that... is that right?

Mmm... it's not a legal triggered ability because it doesn't use "when", "whenever" or "at".

One option would be to make it a triggered ability with an intervening if clause, which would do what you describe, but look pretty bizarre:

> Whenever you control an enchantment, if you control an enchantment, return ~ from exile to the battlefield.

Perhaps the way to do it is to alter the trigger condition from 1 to 2. It may still be possible to hit the infinite loop, but rather harder:

> Whenever you control two or more enchantments, if ~ is exiled, return ~ to the battlefield.

Other possibilities, none of which I like:

• Have the exile happen at end of turn
• Have the return-from-exile happen at upkeep
• "Whenever you control an enchantment, if you do, ..." :)
• Have the restriction be "phased out"/"can't attack or block"/"is treated as exiled" or similar
• Have "another enchantment" directly or indirectly exclude other copies of this.

I think most of the obvious ways in the rules lead to two of this staying exiled. I think it would be more fun if two of these could support each other, although we need to go with what works in the rules.

When this returns it will have summoning sickness. Will that be confusing?

You know, I've got one more option up my sleeve, which includes a line like "Whenever you attack with an enchantment creature". Right now, though, I personally prefer the when/if clause, even if it is awkward. Most people miss the stray 'if' anyway... it bugs the designers more than the players. Keep an eye on this card, though. That's not a final decision.

I think that's pretty unprintable, but it's at least well-defined in the rules, which is good enough for playtesting. It'll have to change before we declare the set done, but it's an okay state to leave the card in for first playtest. I guess.

The exile clause is confusing (even without the wording issues to solve "what if we have two of these"). In the sample deck, since ALL white permanents are enchantments, it's seemed almost always on, but that's probably about right, given that previous "need a creature" creatures have often been crippled on turns 2 and 3 if you can't play a second creature or it gets traded.

I'm giving serious consideration to "can't attack or block" instead of exile. That's less interesting, but more straightforward. (Alternatively, it could return to hand at end of turn if you control no enchantments, or something.)

"Can't attack or block" does indeed seem very sensible.

Alternatively we could make this a straight "s/artifact/enchantment/" on Court Homunculus. That's a little boring but does at least keep it straightforward. (OTGH, it's simpler in a different way if the printed P/T is the P/T that actually applies most of the time, which this design has and Court Homunculus doesn't.)

Oh yeah, the first card I ever thought of for white was "Enchantment Court Homunculus". It's a bit obvious, but very apt. It would be a great shame to lose the interesting variations with the exiling (I loved exiling this turn 1, then returning it to gain 1 life with aura soother), but it's very good to know there's a simpler place we can go if we want.

FWIW I never found the power on Court Homunculus a problem: once I'd seen it, I assumed it was almost always a 2/2.

'Can't attack or block' feels a bit more red to me, while returning to your hand... feels white to me... though I can't see why, since it should probably feel blue. I like white self-bouncing, though.

Either way, this card is stuck in one of many unfortunate choices to get do what it needs to do. A shame. I really like the fact that this silly little creature walked around O-Ring effects like they didn't matter.

It is possible that we have enough complexity points for this. How do complexity points work, anyways? Can we have one strange card in each color? I wish to quantify an abstract.

"'Can't attack or block' feels a bit more red to me, while returning to your hand... feels white to me..."

I agree. (I think self-bounce is white, and self-bounce and enemy-boune are both blue?) I don't like "can't attack or block" is right, just a reasonable placeholder until we decide what mechanically appropriate effect has the effect we'd like.

Noted. Am I writing in "Can't attack or block" on this card for now, or are people okay with the ability as stands for now?

I think "can't attack or block" is fine, and self-bouncing is pretty odd especially for a common.

In play this turned out to be fiddly and easy to forget.

Oh, one last suggestion before I remind Jack that he's editing these cards now. How about "As long as you control another enchantment, ~ becomes a 2/2 Creature-Construct. It's still an enchantment."

That works much more sanely, I feel.

Oh, the Rusted Relic approach. Yes, very sensible.

Construct is not an enchantment subtype; you'll need to spell this out in the rules text.

Construct was always just a placeholder. I suggest it be changed. I just ran out of creature classes that was appropriate for a 2/2 for . Does Enchantment Creature - Cat work? Enchantment Creature - Soldier seems so boring... there must be something besides Wizards, Soldiers, Knights, Clerics and Archers in White...

Cmeister's objection isn't to the creature type, but to the fact that you can't have something with this thing's current type line "Enchantment - Construct"; the "Construct" type can only apply to Creatures or Tribals.

As for the choice of type: Cat is kinda fun, but I think Soldier would be fine. Advisor would be an intriguing type to include on some raceless Enchantment Creatures, but not really this one.

We should remove the subtype, as it makes no sense.
Also, does anyone else think we could borrow Theros God tech and have this be an enchantment creature with "~ isn't a creature unless you control another creature?"

Temporarily removed creature type. We can add one later if we get a better idea of flavour for white.

We should probably either bring white enchantment theme more into line with theros, or move it away. "As long as you control another creature" would be reasonable, but I'm not sure it's better than "as long as you control another enchantment".

I sort of like that this sneaks past Essence Scatter type effects.