These feel similar to rhystic spells so I doubt that they would be that popular. I mean, these "any may activate" abilities are all drawbacks. I don't see how the Talisman type adds anything to the game and the cards that specifically refer to them (Mage of the Five Stars) irritate me in their seemingly unnecessary parasitism.

Also, this is a strictly worse Guard Duty.

I mostly don't intend these to be that popular - the main intent with these talismans are for them to be cheap, anti-aggression spells that don't feel too punishing for the opponent. I'm not so sure about adding anything to the game as a whole, especally since most of these are at the same cost or slightly undercosted for their original effect, but I feel like they will do a good job in letting players pick up removal late if they feel like their deck is lacking some - something I feel is always a bad feeling for newer/medium experience drafters, where they like to pick bigger creatures early and get annoyed when they don't get any good removal on Pack 3. This should also help out sealed a bit in finding removal since there's more per-pack "removal" for slower decks.

I feel like it's usually okay if there are a couple of parasitic cards that specifically reference mechanics in the set (Grim Captain's Call, Smoke Teller/Secret Plans), so I made Mage of the Five Stars specifically reference Talismans, since they're the ones that are going to be leaving the battlefield the most in lieu of most Aura spells. To make it more backwards compatible and consistent though, I'll change "Talisman" to "Aura".

In regards to this card in particular, I'm pretty concerned about the dominance of aggro in the set even when I shouldn't be, so I removed the usual Pacifism text in lieu of something that is better on blocks. I'll give it some extra functionality.

I've made this common cycle to demonstrate an idea that came to my mind when thinking about talismans / seals:

­Talisman of Earth, Talisman of Fire, Talisman of Metal, Talisman of Water, and Talisman of Wood.

Unfortunately, "seals" are already a thing in MTG so... Eh, well, these do play into that concept though.

The main thing to take away from this is the concept of enchantment tokens that IMO would really well convey the idea of the talismans / seals as they've been depicted in the sources I've seen.

Ie. like

> Talisman (符 fú) – sometimes translated as a Seal. A strip of paper with mystical diagrams & calligraphy drawn on it. In these novels, they're essentially consumable spells. (When activated, they cast a spell and will disintegrate once their magic is depleted.)

Yeah, Talismans are pretty catch-all in terms of magical properties; in games such as Nioh or anime (the first one that comes to mine is Hyou from Ushio to Tora), they're treated as consumable spells, but in a lot of Chinese contexts, I'm more familiar with them being enchantments that can be ripped off if necessary - paper seals, like those that reanimate Jiangshi or seal off areas from evil.

In regards to enchantment tokens, I haven't really thought about them in applying them to this concept, since they'd either need to have a single unifying effect once sacrificed (like Clues), or almost every card that creates them would have to have another ability that benefits from sacrificing/creating them. I wasn't a big fan of Energy for that reason - any additional "resource" that's built into the game will need a way to utilize the resource in individual cards' rule text, which will make the mechanic itself feel very insular unless the cards are built to be usable on its own (which has a whole other set of problems, as Energy's current dominance in standard demonstrates). I like the similarity your design has to the Seals in current Magic, but it's not the direction I can see myself taking Talismans in. Partly due to this reason, and partly because I'm avoiding tokens at common.

Fair enough.

I was actually thinking of those paper seals myself as well, but now that you mentioned it, they do kinda work in "reverse" instead.

I made that cycle almost immediately after posting on this card the first time in an attempt to think of a way how I would see a new noncreature subtype being justified. As I noticed them being flawed (among other things, the whole ": Sac this" looks admittedly rather forced at fist glance), I almost refrained posting them altogether, but recalled their existence once more as I was looking through this set.

I can see how insularity (linearity?) and tokens at common can be seen as problematic, but to me that just expresses how every design choice has a cost.

Where you see the linearity of them being problematic, and to an extend I agree with that, I felt that having a somewhat superfluous subtype with no "real" mechanical connection is more erroneous. While these (your current designs) are backed up by flavor to some extent, IMO it's not as powerful as that of Curses for example and as such, fails to justify it's existence... but I could see myself siding on the other side given the right circumstance.

In the other news, given designs like (((Pacification Fu))), would Pithing Needle be a good reprint?

I totally could see a "Master of Talismans" that has "Activated abilities of Talismans you control can't be activated." or "Auras you control are indestructible." (depending on how modular it is supposed to be).

Re: Tahazzar, I totally see what you mean about mechanical connections. The fact that the defining trait of the subtype is a downside is a pretty big one (much like how Maro has expressed that he doesn't like that "Legendary" type is purely downside). Though I find the best way to justify a type's existence (as with Clues, Curses, and other noncreature, block-specific subtypes) is to make sure there are cards that care about the types' existence (Bitterheart Witch, Trail of Evidence), and for there to be a strong flavor & mechanical link to the type. So expect cards that care about Talismans to pop up here and there in designs.

Re: Secret, I have an uncommon in the set that is specifically for Talisman decks in the guise of a hoser card - (((Inaction Through Action))).

Pithing Needle seems like a fine reprint, though pretty narrow when it comes to hosing enchantments. The current design of Inaction Through Action is really, really strong when it comes to hosing things right now though, so I might turn it into an enchantment with "Counter target activated ability" at a cost.

"Auras you control are indestructible" is a pretty out of the box way for destroying enchantments, though. I might put something of that sort on a White rare creature.

I'm curious about the "creatures activating their abilities"... Is this an oversight or a conscious choice?

> Enchanted creature can't attack and its activated abilities can't be activated.

Obviously I approve of the keyworded version of seal. Going "future sight" with it I came up

> ((C89622)) & Sealed Ravager

... though maybe for a name "banish" or the like would be more appropriate. These don't seem that compatible here - maybe something akin to them in the future sets of the block?

I have a larger pool of creatures with activated abilities than most sets, so I could say it was a conscious choice, but it's not. It's mostly an oversight on my part.

But I kind of like it because it saves words.

I plan on dropping this keyword for the second set of the block, actually, mostly because I don't want to un-tie it to Seals. I might make a couple of seals with on-destruction abilities though, as a sort of time-delay bomb that you can avoid by getting the creature it's enchanting killed first.