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CardName: Ain, Optimistic Vedalken Cost: u Type: Planeswalker - Ain Pow/Tgh: /2 Rules Text: [-1] Draw a card, then discard a card. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: "The Vanishing Point" Common

Ain, Optimistic Vedalken
{u}
 
 C 
Planeswalker – Ain
-1 Draw a card, then discard a card.
2
Updated on 06 May 2018 by simonnoble

Code: CU01

History: [-]

2018-05-05 20:04:24: simonnoble created the card Ain, Optimistic Vedalken

So delayed Careful Study with higher mana cost that can be attacked as well? Seems quite bad though it's certainly possible that there will be enough cards that care about 'walkers in general to make it more powerful by the mere virtue of being 'walker alone. Ignoring that, I would either drop this card's mana cost to a single {u}, or make the ability just draw a card, since it would be quite close to a Divination.

On the concept of common 'walkers, making them small and with a single minus ability is the general way of doing them, and is the one you see most attempts at this idea indeed doing. I also started that way, and while it's certainly mechanically possibly, it demotes 'walkers into mere batteries of energy and essentially they become enchantments / artifacts with charge counters that can be attacked. What makes the 'walker type cool is nigh completely lost in translation, and downgrading them to common is already doing a lot to that, so I would avoid doing any more of that 'damage'.


I would imagine you aware of my "Zion" set, which is under development, but I'll link it here just to be sure. Actually this MTG Salvation thread might be better to get to the point - and this reddit thread as well. The main reason for this plug-in of my stuff is that I think this is a pretty good place to bring up some of the ideas behind that common cycle and to give an example implementation of the said concept.

Perhaps the most notable thing to note in my common 'walker cycle is their mana cost. They all have a cost of 2-hybrid mana. Hybrid mana is something that hasn't appeared on a 'walker as of yet. Especially at the CMC of 2 it would be really hard to design a mythic 'walker with hybrid cost since the abilities would need to make sense in two colors, yet be weak enough to fit into said CMC of 2. Also the number of decks it can be played in increases dramatically so one would have to take into account that it can be played in each of those decks while doing development testing. However, IMO for a common 'walker all of these are a boon rather than a hindrance.

Cost of hybrid 2 plays well in the mind as well since the cards are of two color and have exactly two abilities. It's also fitting that while they are splashable because of hybrid, they aren't that splahasble in 2+ colored decks that contain colors other than what the 'walkers mana cost contains. This helps to keep them contained in their respective colors (also in their respective two-colored archetypes), while still enabling them to be splashed if you have one of their color. However, I think splashing them entirely to your off-color deck would be quite hard since their costs contain two colored mana symbols.

One thing to remember is that being a 'walker instead of a creature has some serious drawbacks. The main thing being that essentially all your opponents' creatures have pseudo-provoke when it comes to your 'walkers. For this reason, I think it should be reasonable that a 2 CMC 'walker could have a loyalty ability of [0]: that is equivalent of a 2 CMC creature's {t} ability if all other things are roughly equal. With a [0]: ability we can have those 'walkers do something each turn, which will retain much of their identity and enable to work as the 'toolboxes' they generally are. By including a second ability, you retain the 'walkers nature of their abilities using counters as a resource and making choices between different options, which is huge. With those design choices, they will still feel like 'walkers.

Obviously these will cost a lot of the set's complexity quota, but given that one is going with a set that has 'walkers at common, it makes sense that making players familiar with the said type is where the central focus of the set will be.


Being a common also has some flavor implications so that's why I opted to make them nonlegendary and also built the flavor of the set around them so that they all have the same 'walker subtype. Doing legendaries at common is somewhat unreasonable for multiple other reasons as well besides flavor - one of them being that their main drawback is that you can't have multiple copies of them in play, and it really is pronounced at common while it also can hardly be either since the rarity restrict heavily how impactful any singular card can be.

WotC decided against the whole concept and kept legendaries at (lowered in rarity only to) uncommon as seen in the recent 'Dominaria' as well as in 'Kamigawa'. I have some experience on that idea as well as, as another my (completed) set, "Silmarillion: The War of the Jewels", has a legendary focus and an archetype. The 'trick' there that I used was a keyword used with a specific design pattern that imitates and evokes legendary status while not explicitly being legendary (such as in Estranged Bride). This means that it alleviates some of the requirements that being (a named) legendary comes with, but still enabling to have these 'pseudo' legendaries at common. However, at least I don't see these concepts of distinguished / 'pseudo' legendaries and common 'walkers being compatible.

2018-05-06 13:42:46: simonnoble edited Ain, Optimistic Vedalken
2018-05-06 13:43:23: simonnoble edited Ain, Optimistic Vedalken:

changed {1}{u} to {u}

I have changed the cmc to {u}, which now that I look at it, it seems much more fitting. I will also take away the "legendary" part of common and some uncommon walkers so that you can have multiples of them, though it might be a bit tricky with later development.

I was originally going to have no multicolour cards in the cardset, but as I look at your "Zion" set, I realize that the multicolour or hybrid walkers are much easier to make instead of my initial idea.

This cardset will be changed greatly as the production continues, I don't even know what other mechanics I want in here. It is also going to be a pretty small set, maybe just around 120 cards, but it will be a standalone set so that it can only interact with other cards in the set, unless you're chaos drafting with it or something fun like that.

Concerning the creature part of your comment, I won't have any direct creatures in this set, as I am going for something quirky and unpredictable with walkers being in place of creatures, but I have implemented a custom mechanic called "Humanity" which makes walkers into creatures in addition to their other types. I'm excited to see how this set turns out, and thank you so much for putting in the time to help me with this.

(Also can I just say that I LOVE your sets and cards and I think you did such an amazing job with them just wow they're really great)

2018-05-06 14:17:31: simonnoble edited Ain, Optimistic Vedalken

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