I'd just like to say that I definitely disagree with Camruth on this point. I think horsemanship is definitely best left as the Comp Rules currently have it. For one thing, Sun Quan, Lord of Wu is getting reprinted in the FTV Legends expansion, and it'd be a horrendous nerf to his power to let flyers block horsemanship creatures. It's a bigger functional change than has been made outside of the two big rules changes (6th Edition and M10) as far as I can remember. Plus it takes away a lot of the appeal of horsemanship: currently people like it in casual because it's close to unblockable, like shadow.
I think it's fine. I think it'd be fine even if you stuck with horsemanship the way it actually works; it's just a straight port of Suntail Hawk / Lantern Kami, after all.
This card is now a simple enabler for effects that care about snow permanents. I'm not sure if the effect is too powerful for its cost - I was going to have it cost , : but decided I'd try it out in this simpler form first.
I see no reason not to have both - Tempest Block had Flying and Shadow and it worked fine. Historically in Magic if WotC want to do a 'mounted warrior' the most common ways have been either First Strike, Trample, Haste or Power Boosting; Horsemanship allows you to add a new dimension to all the Knights/Riders/Cavalry/etc flavourwise - they're too fast for ground troops to stop.
Shrugs There's a number of evasion abilities in blue, and I'd assume you'd use a couple of them. But what I was getting at is that this gives a designer the opportunity to stretch his mental muscles. Not giving blue any evasion is a bit of a challenge.
This does raise a couple of interesting questions. Should you even have any flying creatures in the set? Portal: 3 Kingdoms doesn't bother, since it's based on historical events and most people don't fly. But, if blue doesn't have evasion, how would you make your blue creatures comparable to the rest of the creatures in your set?
As it stands, blue's creatures have poor stats, but often get flying for next to nothing. See: Armored Cancrix vs. Sky Ruin Drake. I would think that if blue didn't have flying for next to nothing, that they should get something else for next to nothing. Some ideas off the top of my head would be stunning creatures like Orochi Ranger, luring creatures like Alluring Siren or stat copying creatures like Sentinel.
I think that if Wizards ever decided to bring horsemanship back in a set that also had flying, it would make sense to have Horsemanship creatures able to be blocked by flying creatures. It also makes it more its own mechanic rather than just a rename of flying - Its evasion but not as evasive as Flying.
I have considered a new mechanic namd React for now that would basically be Reach for Horsemanship. Elite Pikemen is a react creature without the keyword.
I kinda feel that you could make them blockable by Flying creatures as well which would differentiate it more from Flying (which it was basically created to be with a different name) without it losing too much in power.
(It still feels strange to me that flying can't block horsemanship, but admittedly that would be a blow to horsemanship. OTOH, it would make it less like "unblockable" out of set.)
This just seems worse than Sea Gate Oracle.
I'd just like to say that I definitely disagree with Camruth on this point. I think horsemanship is definitely best left as the Comp Rules currently have it. For one thing, Sun Quan, Lord of Wu is getting reprinted in the FTV Legends expansion, and it'd be a horrendous nerf to his power to let flyers block horsemanship creatures. It's a bigger functional change than has been made outside of the two big rules changes (6th Edition and M10) as far as I can remember. Plus it takes away a lot of the appeal of horsemanship: currently people like it in casual because it's close to unblockable, like shadow.
I think it's fine. I think it'd be fine even if you stuck with horsemanship the way it actually works; it's just a straight port of Suntail Hawk / Lantern Kami, after all.
This card is now a simple enabler for effects that care about snow permanents.
I'm not sure if the effect is too powerful for its cost - I was going to have it cost , : but decided I'd try it out in this simpler form first.
Pulling this and replacing it with something else.
May need to make this cost as it may be a little strong at just .
I see no reason not to have both - Tempest Block had Flying and Shadow and it worked fine. Historically in Magic if WotC want to do a 'mounted warrior' the most common ways have been either First Strike, Trample, Haste or Power Boosting; Horsemanship allows you to add a new dimension to all the Knights/Riders/Cavalry/etc flavourwise - they're too fast for ground troops to stop.
Shrugs There's a number of evasion abilities in blue, and I'd assume you'd use a couple of them. But what I was getting at is that this gives a designer the opportunity to stretch his mental muscles. Not giving blue any evasion is a bit of a challenge.
I like the idea of having both, but it you do want an alternative, blue already has unblockable.
This does raise a couple of interesting questions. Should you even have any flying creatures in the set? Portal: 3 Kingdoms doesn't bother, since it's based on historical events and most people don't fly. But, if blue doesn't have evasion, how would you make your blue creatures comparable to the rest of the creatures in your set?
As it stands, blue's creatures have poor stats, but often get flying for next to nothing. See: Armored Cancrix vs. Sky Ruin Drake. I would think that if blue didn't have flying for next to nothing, that they should get something else for next to nothing. Some ideas off the top of my head would be stunning creatures like Orochi Ranger, luring creatures like Alluring Siren or stat copying creatures like Sentinel.
I think that if Wizards ever decided to bring horsemanship back in a set that also had flying, it would make sense to have Horsemanship creatures able to be blocked by flying creatures. It also makes it more its own mechanic rather than just a rename of flying - Its evasion but not as evasive as Flying.
I have considered a new mechanic namd React for now that would basically be Reach for Horsemanship. Elite Pikemen is a react creature without the keyword.
I kinda feel that you could make them blockable by Flying creatures as well which would differentiate it more from Flying (which it was basically created to be with a different name) without it losing too much in power.
correct
That mix of colours sounds good to me.
(It still feels strange to me that flying can't block horsemanship, but admittedly that would be a blow to horsemanship. OTOH, it would make it less like "unblockable" out of set.)
This would be the mirror of UW01 Order of the Light Renewed.
Heh, so it is. Nice name homage :)