yeah this happens to me a lot, you just gotta take bits away from the card that aren't critical to the flavour or function. but to do that you generally have to make choices about what the core flavour and function are. i'll give it a crack, but it's not my card so i could be wrong

Unending , vigilance

If there are less than seven artifacts in your graveyard, ~ is not a creature.

­: Discard a card, then draw a card. ~ deals damage equal to the discarded card's CMC to target creature.

this is similarly wordy to the theros gods, so i think it's acceptable. i figure animating the god can be the payoff for getting artifacts in your yard, and between that and vigilance the untap ability becomes less necessary. as a result, i amped up the tap ability accordingly

There's a couple of problems with that, unfortunately, but I like where you're going.

1)I'm trying to avoid putting abilities on it that only function when it's a creature, such as Vigilance (You'll notice that this is also the case with the Theros gods). While you're right about Vigilance making the untap unnecessary, I'd have to put that on all of the gods, and I'm not sure how well that would work for, say, the UR or UB Gods. It's a good start though. Maybe have a condition to untap it, instead?

2)I want to have the same animation clause for each god, and while most of them care about graveyards, Aturakh is the only one to care about artifacts specifically -- artifacts are RW's mechanical theme in the set.

3)I want the tap and untap abilities to both be RW; looting then damage is mono-red (I guess it could deal damage only to attacking creatures?). Of course, if we get rid of the untap ability, we can just make the second ability the only one.

Yeah, you can kind of see why I'm having trouble with this here: there's more limitations on these designs than I'd like, more than is apparent from just this one card. Definitely on the right track though; you've already thought of things I never would have.

So, with that in mind... any ideas? The "vigilance in colors that shouldn't get it" problem seems like the big one. Solving that would let us implement the first part of your idea, which would drastically simplify the design.

That said, all of that is just restrictions on this particular approach to the design. Ultimately, there are only two real restrictions on how the gods can be done:

1) It needs to feel like a God, in the Theros sense. This means that it's an under-the curve huge creature, that isn't a creature until a certain condition is met. Unending is there to match the Indestructible on Therosian Gods, but technically isn't a part of this.

2) It needs to feel like an artifact. This means that, in my opinion at least, it needs to have a tap ability, and needs to be playable -- at least partially -- with only colorless mana. It's fine for it to have abilities that require colored mana, so long as you can cast it and at least get some value from it without being in it's colors.

So long as it meets those criteria in some way, I'd be perfectly fine with scrapping these designs and replacing them with entirely different ones.

1) yeah i thought this might be an issue, you're right that vigilance on a UR/UB god looks really weird. i mean it's not crazy - i got the impression that the gods were kind of like statues that animated when the condition was met? statues having vigilance makes sense - but it's not on-colour either and you've gotta spend your weirdness points wisely.

as far as i can tell, the core problem when compared to the theros gods is this: artifacts typically tap to activate, enchantments don't. if the cards ability is a tap one, then it can't attack and use the ability on the same turn. is that about right?

2) personally i'd reconsider that. making the animation clause relate to the mechanical focus takes words off the card while keeping the synergies intact. you're not in danger of the gods seeming disjointed IMO; there's still a lot of functional and thematic unity and the players will see that. as long as that box is ticked, everything else should be negotiable

3) yeah the ability i put in is very red, you're right. how about "Discard a card, then draw a card. If an artifact is discarded this way, put a 3/1 red and white Phoenix creature token with flying onto the battlefield."?

1)They're actually supposed to be Sarcophagi -- "dead" gods that "awaken" when the conditions are met. It's kind of hard to get across without pictures though, and them being statues actually makes more sense so I may just go with that instead. Would only require me to change the flavor text on a single card.

And yeah, that's about right.

2)I'll think about it. Really, the reanimation clause is the part that effects the rest of the design the least -- since we'll likely be making some serious overhauls to the rest of it, maybe we should leave that until we know what the rest will be looking like?

3)Sounds decent enough. Something about it doesn't quite sit right with me, but I'm not really sure why. Definitely works for the card though, so we can go with it if we don't come up with anything else.

Also, in case you missed it -- I did have a follow-up comment to the one you replied to. A bad habit of mine, I'm afraid.

no worries

in terms of being playable as a colourless card, i think you could make a case that the self-animation aspect gives you that (see: Rusted Relic). up to you whether or not you think that's good enough, but if you do then the tap ability can cost either or and you're all good on that front

if you think the ability still hews too red, here's another take:

", , Discard a card: Draw a card and gain life equal to the discarded card's CMC. If the discarded card was an artifact, put a 3/1 red Phoenix creature token with flying onto the battlefield."

made the Phoenix red only to save on space, may/may not be worth the extra word count to add it back in

Maybe something more like this would work?

Edit: Also, I think I'll be adding artifact creatures to rarities below mythic, to help white support an artifact theme if nothing else.