todo: Flavor

What's the goal of having deceive? What makes it a good mechanic to have aside prowess?

Deceive was inspired by water servant type cards and is an attempt at creating a simpler variant of the ability for keywording. Further, Deceive is part of the plan of experimenting with large numbers of modal effects. Deceive creatures are ultimately just modal bodied creatures. The more I design with it the more boring my designs feel and the more limited the mechanic seems to be.

For now, I'm trying to push my way through the commons so that I can do a common playtest. When I do, I will see how deceive plays. If it plays poorly, I'll drop it and find something else to fill its slot. If it plays well, I'll keep it even though it feels a little boring.

Deceive and prowess don't feel like competing mechanics to me. The keywords do different things.

I like the mechanic a lot. There's a lot of triggers you can throw on the stack so limited to once per turn is a very smooth ceiling.

Edit: it wouldn't fit your setting but I would call this ability alter