That's a very valid concern, but don't worry, as far as I know the abilities and themes are spread pretty evenly. The one breeding card in red is a placeholder for now, since R is also a breeding colour, but it won't have an actual one in the final version, just obvious support.
Landfall and Basic Mana is in every colour.
You can look at all the cards, every card is online, just not formatted yet. I'm just going down the list of all the cards adding pictures and correcting them, then I will put them into a skeleton.
That's quite a lot of different things! And four have keywords.
I've not looked at the other colours, since you haven't done much with them yet. Black gets witches (kill wounded things) and pump, I know that.
Sure, the mechanics tie together well - no objection there - but to properly support each (if other colours get as large a spread) you need a thousand cards in your set.
I fear you may have fallen for the trap of "Throw all my good ideas in at once!" You would probably be better served by moving some of them out to a future set, and strengthening a few more-core ideas here. Apex seems iconic, if you can make it less fiddly.
(Grrr formatting of lists. Sod it, I hate markdown.)
This looks like a build-around-me card? Or what do you mean with "build-hint"?
Basically it's a sideboard card if you notice that your opponent got all the good multicolour lands and is playing goodstuff, this should help even the odds. Also a reprint, which every set needs :)
This ties in into "Primeval", which cares about if you got 7+ basic lands. You might want to destroy a basic land instead of the UC/Rare one if it disables Primeval. That mechanic was also the reason why we added LD into the set, without it a land threshold mechanic would have been untouchable.
It may still be cluttered, have to check up on it, but I think this is a reserve card.
Red specifically doesn't have more themes than others, the only colour that is a little troubling is Blue, since it is also one of the Feast colours but that mechanic is hard to implement in Blue.
I fear 3-colour absolutely requires a high density of funny-lands. Which I guess lets this card live; but seems to punish the basic-land-cards. Still... I suppose they don't care which basic land they use. As long as they're mainly rather than you can get away with it.
We'll have to see how it works out.
This just feels... odd. Maybe not every uncommon needs to be a build-hint. It just feels like this wants to be, and misses.
I understand that, I really do. A hard number threshold like with Formidable is also a possibility, but personally I donot like such mechanics all to much. Unless you have a way of successfully interacting with your opponents creatures, it's either always on or not. Granted, mechanics that your opponents can interact with are also tricky.
You got the flavour right, it's top of the foodchain, and unless you are the very best you get nothing!
If it proves to be too hard to understand I will change it to be only for activated abilities of permanents, like Formidable is.
A swap of the effects would also be possible, this giving first strike and if you have Apex the creature gets +3/+1 too.
But my main objection here isn't specific to this card, it's just down to red having acquired rather a lot of different themes on the cards we've seen. Can some be moved to other colours? Or is this set just overly cluttered and some need removing?
Yes, there is only a very, very minor land sac theme which you could run in a draft if you get the right cards. Admittedly, we kinda came up with it because we first had a card that liked if a land goes to the GY and partly due to the unfinished lore, which had to do with moving landmasses and such. Hence land destruction, land sac and creatures which like that.
Bear in mind that neither the Lore nor the factions have been posted yet, gonna do that as soon as I'm finished updating the cards.
Exactly @Alex, Imperiosaur and its little brother Majestosaur are part of Muraganda, hence the basic lands theme. However, all the abilites are, like in Khans, spread over Shard coloured factions, which means you are encouraged to play some nonbasic lands if you want to, since you can even run all 3 colours, like in Khans. Just be aware that there are (few) cards who will punish you for that. Same as with the basic vanilla creature theme of Muraganda Petroglyphs and other cards.
By the way, just look in the cardlist if you want to see the rest of the cards, I'm not posting new cards, just tagging mechanics, adding the artworks and fixing some mistakes either we made or the MSE exporter, which is an awesome feature btw!
Um, no, V, you're misreading. This card says "If a land was put into YOUR graveyard from the battlefield this turn". Land sacrifice, not land destruction. Land destruction is utterly irrelevant to this card. (Well... unless you really really need to kill an x/3, so much so that you'd point your LD at your own land and get a 1-for-3, I suppose.)
Now admittedly, land sacrifice is also a dangerous theme to be playing with at common - the awful set Prophecy tried that and it was a disaster. But I don't think it's completely inherently unusable. Just needs to be given careful consideration how you'll prevent people from screwing themselves by sacrificing too many of their lands so they can't play their spells.
No, it can't grant first strike after the creature got +3/+1. Unless I misinterpret some rules, it would need a "THEN" at the beginning of the apex ruling to function that way. Right now, everything happens simultaniously.
Creature gets +3/+1, and if you had Apex before that, it gets first strike too. The whole cards effect is on the stack, you can't just resolve the first part of it and then the second without some sort of timing written on it. Like Hunt the Weak for example. That card NEEDS the "THEN" because otherwise it wouldn't work as intended. Without the then you can also assume that you can use the effects right after the other, but that's wrong. Without a "THEN", no chaining of effects.
But yes, it can be confusing, I might change Apex after all, even if I really love it :/
Why is it wrong? It should be the same as with Formidable, which (for triggered "if" abilities) checks if the ability will trigger, then again if it resolves.
How could the 3 cards behave differently? As long as the card didn't resolve, a creature would not be dealt 3 damage, destroyed or get -3/-3. When it resolves, it applies whatever the card says if it checks out. You can't get in between the two effects.
Yes; but there's a difference between "Play basic lands because they are better for you" and "Punish your opponent for having the temerity to run non-basic lands"
The former is most of this set. This card is the latter. It just doesn't feel like a sensible uncommon for this set.
Rare, sure. And even then, there'd better be some really nice non-basics to tempt people. (There should be anyway, just with the first feel, if everything says "Play basic" well, we do that then, duh. If most things say it, and some say "Come to the non-basic side, we have cookies"... much more interesting.)
Yeah, but even as a minor theme, if this is uncommon then you want to have 3-4 land-destruction cards at common red; and probably a couple in other colours too. Which is a heck of a lot of land destruction for a modern set.
If it's just a one-shot throwaway interesting card; I'd suggest pushing it up to rare and making the damage more exciting. 2/5 maybe.
Note: Gustostückerl's comment is wrong. Apex doesn't check on casting and resolution. At the moment it checks partway through resolution only. Which means that the following three cards would all behave differently:
> ~ deals 3 damage to target creature. Apex - ~ deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
> Destroy target creature with toughness 3 or less. Apex - ~ deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
> Target creature gets -3/-3 UEOT. Apex - ~ deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
I fear that level of timing subtlety is going to make this mechanic really problematic for casual players.
Specifically, if you didn't have Apex before the +3/+1 but you do now, does this grant first strike? I know the answer, but it's pretty subtle, and it'll confuse a lot of people.
Are we allowed to count exodus as a proper set? :)
Anyway - that WAS back in the days where "Why would I ever play basic land?" was a real thing. So yeah, not seeing the point of it in this set. Was it just the name?
Admittedly, it is pretty good, and can feel pretty unfair given the situation. Once a staple in standard sideboards. Now Legacy has better things to do.
Um. While I'm all in favour of Blood Moon this is a bit much of a hoser. It's the kind of blunt force "Oh crap, we accidentally reprinted the alpha dual lands, nuke them!" response.
It's also odd to see this at uncommon - since you can't really build around it. I'd have pushed it to rare; but then; I haven't seen this sets non-basics yet. Maybe they really do need nuking that hard. Though, uh, if that's the case, you could sort that out instead and save yourself a card slot.
Unless your intention really was to make a game-winning burn spell that is playable in vintage? In which case, make it mythic and laugh all the way to the pretend bank :)
Ugh. This kind of timing worry shouldn't exist at common.
Which is a shame; I quite like this implementation of a cowardly creature that nips in to harry the opponent when it knows it has an army backing it up.
That's a very valid concern, but don't worry, as far as I know the abilities and themes are spread pretty evenly. The one breeding card in red is a placeholder for now, since R is also a breeding colour, but it won't have an actual one in the final version, just obvious support. Landfall and Basic Mana is in every colour.
You can look at all the cards, every card is online, just not formatted yet. I'm just going down the list of all the cards adding pictures and correcting them, then I will put them into a skeleton.
So far, red has gotten:
That's quite a lot of different things! And four have keywords.
I've not looked at the other colours, since you haven't done much with them yet. Black gets witches (kill wounded things) and pump, I know that.
Sure, the mechanics tie together well - no objection there - but to properly support each (if other colours get as large a spread) you need a thousand cards in your set.
I fear you may have fallen for the trap of "Throw all my good ideas in at once!" You would probably be better served by moving some of them out to a future set, and strengthening a few more-core ideas here. Apex seems iconic, if you can make it less fiddly.
(Grrr formatting of lists. Sod it, I hate markdown.)
Basically that, yes.
If you want it to be a sideboard-only card; stuff it up at rare where it won't clog up draft :)
Lizards are in all colours and get mostly all the abilities, mostly.
The "shards are as follows"
: Humans-Wizards-Archaeology : Humans-Clerics-Feast : Saurid-Warriors-Apex : Humans-Druids-Breeding : Elves-Shamans-Primeval
Yes it is derived of the Sengir ability, just more narrow since it triggers at the end of combat.
This looks like a build-around-me card? Or what do you mean with "build-hint"? Basically it's a sideboard card if you notice that your opponent got all the good multicolour lands and is playing goodstuff, this should help even the odds. Also a reprint, which every set needs :)
This ties in into "Primeval", which cares about if you got 7+ basic lands. You might want to destroy a basic land instead of the UC/Rare one if it disables Primeval. That mechanic was also the reason why we added LD into the set, without it a land threshold mechanic would have been untouchable.
It may still be cluttered, have to check up on it, but I think this is a reserve card. Red specifically doesn't have more themes than others, the only colour that is a little troubling is Blue, since it is also one of the Feast colours but that mechanic is hard to implement in Blue.
I fear 3-colour absolutely requires a high density of funny-lands. Which I guess lets this card live; but seems to punish the basic-land-cards. Still... I suppose they don't care which basic land they use. As long as they're mainly rather than you can get away with it.
We'll have to see how it works out.
This just feels... odd. Maybe not every uncommon needs to be a build-hint. It just feels like this wants to be, and misses.
I understand that, I really do. A hard number threshold like with Formidable is also a possibility, but personally I donot like such mechanics all to much. Unless you have a way of successfully interacting with your opponents creatures, it's either always on or not. Granted, mechanics that your opponents can interact with are also tricky.
You got the flavour right, it's top of the foodchain, and unless you are the very best you get nothing!
If it proves to be too hard to understand I will change it to be only for activated abilities of permanents, like Formidable is.
A swap of the effects would also be possible, this giving first strike and if you have Apex the creature gets +3/+1 too.
Ohh; right; ok, misread, ignore me :)
But my main objection here isn't specific to this card, it's just down to red having acquired rather a lot of different themes on the cards we've seen. Can some be moved to other colours? Or is this set just overly cluttered and some need removing?
Yes, there is only a very, very minor land sac theme which you could run in a draft if you get the right cards. Admittedly, we kinda came up with it because we first had a card that liked if a land goes to the GY and partly due to the unfinished lore, which had to do with moving landmasses and such. Hence land destruction, land sac and creatures which like that. Bear in mind that neither the Lore nor the factions have been posted yet, gonna do that as soon as I'm finished updating the cards.
Exactly @Alex, Imperiosaur and its little brother Majestosaur are part of Muraganda, hence the basic lands theme. However, all the abilites are, like in Khans, spread over Shard coloured factions, which means you are encouraged to play some nonbasic lands if you want to, since you can even run all 3 colours, like in Khans. Just be aware that there are (few) cards who will punish you for that. Same as with the basic vanilla creature theme of Muraganda Petroglyphs and other cards.
By the way, just look in the cardlist if you want to see the rest of the cards, I'm not posting new cards, just tagging mechanics, adding the artworks and fixing some mistakes either we made or the MSE exporter, which is an awesome feature btw!
Um, no, V, you're misreading. This card says "If a land was put into YOUR graveyard from the battlefield this turn". Land sacrifice, not land destruction. Land destruction is utterly irrelevant to this card. (Well... unless you really really need to kill an x/3, so much so that you'd point your LD at your own land and get a 1-for-3, I suppose.)
Now admittedly, land sacrifice is also a dangerous theme to be playing with at common - the awful set Prophecy tried that and it was a disaster. But I don't think it's completely inherently unusable. Just needs to be given careful consideration how you'll prevent people from screwing themselves by sacrificing too many of their lands so they can't play their spells.
Sorry. As I said, I do think it's salvagable. The general feel of "top of the foodchain, I rule!" is great.
But the implementation right now is just too fiddly and easy to get wrong.
No, it can't grant first strike after the creature got +3/+1. Unless I misinterpret some rules, it would need a "THEN" at the beginning of the apex ruling to function that way. Right now, everything happens simultaniously. Creature gets +3/+1, and if you had Apex before that, it gets first strike too. The whole cards effect is on the stack, you can't just resolve the first part of it and then the second without some sort of timing written on it. Like Hunt the Weak for example. That card NEEDS the "THEN" because otherwise it wouldn't work as intended. Without the then you can also assume that you can use the effects right after the other, but that's wrong. Without a "THEN", no chaining of effects. But yes, it can be confusing, I might change Apex after all, even if I really love it :/
Why is it wrong? It should be the same as with Formidable, which (for triggered "if" abilities) checks if the ability will trigger, then again if it resolves. How could the 3 cards behave differently? As long as the card didn't resolve, a creature would not be dealt 3 damage, destroyed or get -3/-3. When it resolves, it applies whatever the card says if it checks out. You can't get in between the two effects.
Yes; but there's a difference between "Play basic lands because they are better for you" and "Punish your opponent for having the temerity to run non-basic lands"
The former is most of this set. This card is the latter. It just doesn't feel like a sensible uncommon for this set.
Rare, sure. And even then, there'd better be some really nice non-basics to tempt people. (There should be anyway, just with the first feel, if everything says "Play basic" well, we do that then, duh. If most things say it, and some say "Come to the non-basic side, we have cookies"... much more interesting.)
Yeah, but even as a minor theme, if this is uncommon then you want to have 3-4 land-destruction cards at common red; and probably a couple in other colours too. Which is a heck of a lot of land destruction for a modern set.
If it's just a one-shot throwaway interesting card; I'd suggest pushing it up to rare and making the damage more exciting. 2/5 maybe.
V: Uhh... Did you not notice that this set in general has a massive "basic lands are better" theme?
That derives straight from its original inspiration, Imperiosaur?
This seems a very natural reprint for the set.
V: You designed a set with "sacrificing your own lands" as a theme, as I recall. There's nothing to say this is a "major" theme.
This looks fine. Again, better in limited than in constructed.
This ability is traditionally black, but I think it can work fine in red.
Note: Gustostückerl's comment is wrong. Apex doesn't check on casting and resolution. At the moment it checks partway through resolution only. Which means that the following three cards would all behave differently:
> ~ deals 3 damage to target creature. Apex - ~ deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
> Destroy target creature with toughness 3 or less. Apex - ~ deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
> Target creature gets -3/-3 UEOT. Apex - ~ deals 3 damage to that creature's controller.
I fear that level of timing subtlety is going to make this mechanic really problematic for casual players.
Specifically, if you didn't have Apex before the +3/+1 but you do now, does this grant first strike? I know the answer, but it's pretty subtle, and it'll confuse a lot of people.
This is extremely highly pickable in draft, yes. But, interestingly, much less good in constructed, which is a nifty achievement.
Are we allowed to count exodus as a proper set? :)
Anyway - that WAS back in the days where "Why would I ever play basic land?" was a real thing. So yeah, not seeing the point of it in this set. Was it just the name?
Psst. Vitenka. Price of Progress is a reprint.
Admittedly, it is pretty good, and can feel pretty unfair given the situation. Once a staple in standard sideboards. Now Legacy has better things to do.
Um. While I'm all in favour of Blood Moon this is a bit much of a hoser. It's the kind of blunt force "Oh crap, we accidentally reprinted the alpha dual lands, nuke them!" response.
It's also odd to see this at uncommon - since you can't really build around it. I'd have pushed it to rare; but then; I haven't seen this sets non-basics yet. Maybe they really do need nuking that hard. Though, uh, if that's the case, you could sort that out instead and save yourself a card slot.
Unless your intention really was to make a game-winning burn spell that is playable in vintage? In which case, make it mythic and laugh all the way to the pretend bank :)
Ugh. This kind of timing worry shouldn't exist at common.
Which is a shame; I quite like this implementation of a cowardly creature that nips in to harry the opponent when it knows it has an army backing it up.