See Challenge # 073. I was given the challenge to design a rare from Dragon's Maze (Challenge # 070) that was an entire new card type (Challenge # 031). Well, restrictions breed creativity. I first wondered what would happen if Maze itself became a new type, but I couldn't come up with anything distinct enough from Terrain or Enchantment.

So then I thought about the ten Maze Runners from Dragon's Maze. What if those ten had been the marquee introduction of a new type? I borrowed a bit of technology from Conspiracy here based on Sentinel Dispatch and friends, but champions are permanents on the battlefield, not invulnerable abstract entities in the command zone. They need to be, because they can turn into creatures when you meet their intervene condition.

So a Champion is a bit like a Leyline (in this case very similar to Leyline of the Meek). It's easier to ensure because you can always choose to have your Champion available; you don't have to rely on drawing her. To make up for this, they'll all have an Intervene condition which goes together in some way with their main ability and turns them into a creature. This reads like an advantage - free creature! - but it does also make them a lot more dealable-with.

Obviously they'd have some flashy variation on the card frame. I don't know quite what that'd be like, so I'm using the token frame as a placeholder here.

Does the type need some more balance? Perhaps if you choose to have a champion out you start with one fewer card in hand, similar to a Leyline?

I like the idea quite a bit!

Ooh, yes, this works very well for a very hard combination of challenges to fulfil! I think it does need some more tweaking, but I'm not sure what would work best.

Vanguards like Hanna were my other inspiration. Those have several numbers you can tweak; perhaps these would need something similar.

One problem with these is that if they get bounced, or killed as a creature then returned with Eternal Witness or whatever, you can't cast them. I thought it'd be better to keep the mana cost field empty as a cue that you don't need to cast this, but it does mean there's no benefit at all to having multiple Champions, which is perhaps a problem financially (from Wizards' POV) and leads to feel-bad moments in Sealed when you open two or three of them.

I think this can be developed a lot more. If you think of this as an anthem, it's super busted to start with it. Plus, it becomes a creature itself! Now, sure, when it does, it becomes much more vulnerable, but that is really not a way to balance it. If I start with a Phantom General, it's an insane tempo advantage, even starting with one with "suspend-Expected number of turns to get 4 tokens" is too much.

And I'm not even talking about the implications of having every single player for almost any format have to buy one of these, nor the fact that because there are only 10, this would severely aid some decks much more than others. At least during Lorwyn if no planeswalker fit your deck, you didn't have to play it, and the ones that did would be paying mana and a card to do so.

I'm pretty sure a lot of the above can be solved in a number of ways, hopefully involving mana or making you start with one less card in hand, and I like the idea overall, including the fact that it becomes a creature.

Last thing: for now, since it becomes a creature and is more vulnerable that way, it creates a weird tension between wanting to maximize this and not wanting it to be wrathed along with your team.

Certainly agreed on the need for development in general. I certainly think there needs to be some reason for /not/ everyone to want to start with one. Even starting one card down might not be enough.

But I would say that "If you think of this as an anthem, it's super busted to start with it" I think is a criticism that applies just as much to Leyline of the Meek. It's not a full anthem, and to get any benefit from it at all requires a significant restriction on the kind of cards in your deck (token-makers).

The big difference is that the Leyline kinda sucks as a card (it's a bit overcosted) if it's not in the opening hand, while this is guaranteed to be there and never take the space of another card.

I was also thinking about Maro's "This card is awful but you get to start with it in your hand if you want to" mechanic. This might make things more perfect-draw-y and lead to repetitive gameplay, although it obviously helps that it's a narrow effect. But if you ever look for the solution, try combining it with some variance, too.

Maximum hand size reduced by 1 would solve a lot of these issues. Though it wouldn't solve the "I always play this on round one" problem. Don't know if that's really a problem, though. I love playing Isamaru on round one every game in Commander.

MaRo's mini-story titled The Message In The Mirror is rather firmly against this kind of mechanic. (Just in case we needed any more reasons to think it was a bad idea.)