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| Mechanics | Skeleton | Common Breakdown Ref | All commons for playtesting |
Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2025-12-16 05:45:53)
I guess Soulcapture Lance is more complex than ideal for a common. (Sadly.) We even have Enchantment Digger sitting around to reactivate if we wanted.
It's true, we have plenty of answers.
Was there a reason this went via exile rather than the graveyard? I'm sure there was but I don't remember it. It seems like this should just have the ability from Enchantment Digger?
I know I made this, but I can't help but feel like it's not really
. I feel like we should either make it mill a player, or have it be "...draw a card, then each player discards a card." Or is that way too effective for common?
I like those suggestions, Alex. Flash on Loretower Warden is a good call. Somehow I missed including flash in my analysis. I vote for a regeneration cost of
on Follower of the Dark Cloud, because we might as well try it first at its most effective possible cost and see if it's too much.
I think this is interesting but fiddly. And I think two removal spells plus a tapper may be too much in 13 common cards. I suggest making this Pacifism, which fits the set perfectly, moving Soulcapture Lance to uncommon, and moving the "recur an enchantment from the graveyard" onto a creature.
ETA: (I know I suggested putting recursion on this card in the first place.)
Opinions?
Oops, sorry. I meant "I wanted this to be simpler, so I changed it from activated to triggered"
I looked in the current skeleton for common answers to fliers, and we certainly seem well supplied:
I really like this idea as a second common manafixer for the gold deck (Aeran Sunrise being the first). Great suggestion two years ago, jmgariepy!
Er. I don't think we wanted to go for full old-style islandhome. I think we were happy with the more modern style, just the attacking restriction, as seen on Serpent of the Endless Sea and others.
Are you saying "I wanted this to be simpler, so I changed it from activated to triggered", or "Even after changing this from activated to triggered, I'd still like to simplify this further"?
templating
Prefer this to be simpler.
Changed activated to triggered
added "under your control"
Gathering all the suggested gold uncommons together:
creatures: Ascended Lawmage, Observation Specialist, Nightwatch Officer
noncreatures: Unassailable Heights, Study of the Unknown, Ambassador's Proposal, Stasis Field, Aer Citizenship
creatures: Lecturing Senator
noncreatures: Spiral of Ascension, ((C23033)), Dwindle Into Nothingness, Grasp of Notions
creatures: Makeup Artist, Cloudcover Phoenix, Conceited Soloist, Capricious Turncoat 
noncreatures: Apococlasm, Masofreude, Anatomy Test, Unslip the Soul
creatures: Firelily Gardener 
noncreatures: Infighting, Architectural Re-Imagining, Cloud Aria
creatures: Aven Seer, Cloudbeast of Burden, Lofty Sanctifier, Serra Aerngel, University Doctor
noncreatures: Truthsayer's Hymn, Dangerous Observation
creatures: Brightcloud Lightbringer 
noncreatures: Denounce the Great 
creatures: Dubious Librarian, Psychomancer 
noncreatures: Aer Conscription, Steam Leak, Brain Shot 
creatures: Refertilizer
noncreatures: Unslip the Soul 
creatures: Fles Eria Marshall
noncreatures: Spin with the Attack, Ember Mists, Squabble in the Ranks, Cut the Knot
creatures: Aer Mechanist 
noncreatures: Snakefoil, ((C12997)), Eminent Domain, Traverse the Shoals
creatures with 
activation: Bright-Cloud Advocate, Nightwatch Jailer, Daywatch Guardian, Aeran Netmaster 
creatures with 
activation: Loretower Archivist, Butler Manufacturer, Glutton for Absolution 
creatures with 
activation: Cloudcover Drake, Rhim District Senator, Viashino Fetishist, Curio Hustler 
creatures with 
activation: City Planning Official, Firelily Pests, Arc Witch, Aeran Opportunist 
creatures with 
activation: Senate Magnifier, Dancing Master, Communal Protector, Morgan Charger
Having been staring at the skeleton for the 20 gold commons, I've been musing quite a bit about what multicolour uncommon needs. Here are my thoughts.
Any other ideas about what we'll need in gold uncommons? The discussion over on Uncommon Design wasn't conclusive, but we may have either 15 or 10 slots to work with.
A proposal was made to have some tri-colour cards at uncommon. Personally I don't think that's a good idea unless they're gold-hybrid like Messenger Falcons, given the monocolour cards in decks will be quite heavily monocolour in some cases. Leave the tri-colour cards for rare.
OK. I propose:
That gets rid of all the duplication, except for first strike still on this Tel Eria Guardian and also Viashino Scalewing. However a 1/1 haste first strike flier for
seems a sufficiently different spot from a 2/2 first strike flier at 
, so I'm inclined to leave them both as they are.
We can save lifelink and trample for higher rarities and/or monocolour (Heavy Plant), and tapping for mana as well.
Added the rest of islandhome
jmg: Oh, certainly. We've already got looting in there; regeneration isn't technically a keyword ability; tapping for mana is a fine idea as well (if we can distance it a bit from Steward of Valeron).
If we're still having a problem, I think it's okay to replace French Vanilla with abilities that feel like French Vanilla: We see them so often, they might as well have keywords. You know, like how Vigilance used to be spelled out. So, for example, if the G/W one tapped to add
mana, I don't think it would bother too many people.
I sort of like that this sneaks past Essence Scatter type effects.
Temporarily removed creature type. We can add one later if we get a better idea of flavour for white.
We should probably either bring white enchantment theme more into line with theros, or move it away. "As long as you control another creature" would be reasonable, but I'm not sure it's better than "as long as you control another enchantment".
@Alex That generally sounds good.
I'm not sure of the right approach with the multicoloured creatures, whether to try to choose an ability that fits in either colour (but there's not enough of them), or that each colour is clearly contributing, or for something that fits the "feel" of the colour pairing, or something else.
Or to try to have a 5-card cycle (or 10 card cycle??) with each colour contributing the same keyword or effect to each card it's in, but that's probably an uncommon cycle if anything.
We should remove the subtype, as it makes no sense.
Also, does anyone else think we could borrow Theros God tech and have this be an enchantment creature with "~ isn't a creature unless you control another creature?"
I think we should drop a keyword from Viashino Scalewing because it's got so much going on. With three first-strikers, that seems like the sensible choice.
. 
can be good at that... though those are both uncommon.
We could have Aeran Intelligencer mill instead of looting, since that isn't represented by the creatures yet and is very
Since we have two vigilance flying creatures, we could drop vigilance from Aeran Elf and make it cantrip. Wall of Omens and Wall of Blossoms tell me that
Loretower Warden could easily have hexproof instead of first strike, since we don't have a hexproof common creature yet.
Lifelink is already quasi-represented by Aeran Priest, but we have two instances of deathtouch and no real lifelink. Either deathtoucher could theoretically have lifelink, but as much as I like it how it is, i Think Follower of the Dark Cloud might be a better option. Of course, it would be a good candidate for a regenerator, too, in those colors.
try jmgariepy's idea
Okay. Trying to deal with the issue of duplication between the common flying creatures that was mentioned here. Here are the relevant lines from the skeleton:
And here's the list of common creature keywords (based on Mark Rosewater's article from a few years ago and updated from memory):
White: Double strike, First Strike, Flash, Flying, Protection, Vigilance, Lifelink
Blue: Flash, Flying, Islandwalk, Protection, Hexproof
Black: Deathtouch, Intimidate, Flying, Haste, Lifelink, Swampwalk, Regeneration
Red: Double strike, First Strike, Intimidate, Haste, Mountainwalk, Trample
Green: Deathtouch, Flash, Forestwalk, Regeneration, Trample, Hexproof, Vigilance, Reach
I think we leave out landwalk and intimidate because flying is already an evasion ability (perhaps except for one blue-black card? Or maybe save that for uncommon, like Phobian Phantasm.) Reach obviously gets left out. Double strike on a flyer I think is best left for uncommon and above (Skyhunter Skirmisher) - though we could perhaps have an enlighten ability to gain double strike UEOT? A similar thing was done at common with Springjack Knight.
So that leaves:
White: First Strike, Flash, Protection, Vigilance, Lifelink
Blue: Flash, Protection, Hexproof
Black: Deathtouch, Haste, Lifelink, Regeneration
Red: First Strike, Haste, Trample
Green: Deathtouch, Flash, Regeneration, Trample, Hexproof, Vigilance
There ought to be room for 15 sufficiently-distinct common gold flying creatures using that lot, even with the additional restrictions that the allied-colour ones all cost 2 or 6.
The current distribution, with the duplicates in bold and otherwise-problematic ones in italic:
ETB looting is problematic in UB because looting has basically moved to primary red. First strike and haste on the BR 2-drop isn't necessarily a problem but it is using up instances of both keywords, which is an additional constraint.
I'll see if I can rearrange things, and in particular consider lifelink, trample, flash and regeneration, to get 15 nice distinct flyers.
Then, of course, we'll still have the issue of making sure the uncommons are different enough from all these commons...