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| Mechanics | Skeleton | Common Breakdown Ref | All commons for playtesting |
Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2025-12-19 17:42:10)
As an alternative to just having "Flying, vigilance", we could give this cycle Enlighten abilities, which would help us get more Enlighten at common. The problem is, the simplest phrasing is:
> Enlighten - Whenever you draw a card, you may have ~ gain vigilance UEOT.
Problem is, you draw a card on every one of your turns, and your turn after your draw step is the only time that vigilance is relevant. There's no difference to this over just "Flying, vigilance".
We could make it "...you may pay
. If you do, ~ gains vigilance UEOT". But that might feel unnecessarily harsh. It also makes this fairly simple cycle start getting pretty wordy.
remove code
remove code
was:
, discard: add 
. Now: 
, discard: add 
, draw a card
Nice solid simple common. Only thing is you might feel a bit bad to have to tap it for mana, like Lotus Guardian.
Some variation on Wood Elves seems sensible for the set, certainly.
I think the original version was "Whenever you tap a land for mana, ~ gets +1/+1 UEOT."
Either variation is quite nifty. Potentially very strong, but only potentially; and rather better as an attacker than a blocker, as you have to save your mana for the opponent's turn to block on her. Still remains useful even without a spell to spend the mana on. So I think I like it.
Ironically, I think this version ("tap a creature for mana") is less suitable for common, because many draft decks won't have any mana creatures in. So maybe I overreacted before, and the other version is actually more suitable for common? Costing about 5 to cast.
Inspired me to wonder if we might want cards like Sunseed Hedgerow.
A possible idea if we do end up going with the "amount of mana in your mana pool" idea.
Yikes. Quite hard to use. Can't ever kill something on-curve when you're on the draw (i.e., if the opponent casts a 5-drop artifact on turn 5, you can't kill it with this even if you've hit all 5 land drops. Well, unless you've been accelerating.)
I don't exactly object to this, but I'm not sure I'd like to see more of them. I don't think it's a great choice for a major mechanic. Although Vitenka is famously outspoken, in this case I think his objections would be shared by a significant number of people.
I think I'd prefer to make this a 1/1 for
with the Llanowar Sentinel ability, rather than nerf the self-search ability as Jack suggests.
Oh, you're right, sorry, I'd not realised I'd ended up with both in the skeleton. We should only have one or the other. Icy Tempest is a lot simpler, but has a greater chance of not doing much. I'll probably switch in another potential common in place of one of them, and then wait and see which version of red overrun works best in playtesting.
Hm. I'd assumed it would be "Fungus as well as existing types", but I'd not really thought about it. Either could be good for flavour. It might be a bad idea if turning your own creatures into Fungus turns off their tribal abilities, won't that make people feel bad?
I think we had a general theme of "putting +1/+1 counters on turning creatures into fungus" but hadn't decided how to template it -- should that be part of the effect that adds the counter, a static ability on a card that adds the counter, a static ability on a card that cares about Fungus, a consistent "Fungus creatures and creatures with +1/+1 counters on get BLAH" templating, or something else?
I think we should assume it works somehow and wait to decide that until we see what combination of cards we end up with -- at that point it will hopefully be obvious which version is least intrusive and verbiagy :)
How about making it a death trigger and searching the card to hand?
I'm not proposing this as "yes, we should definitely make this card", I'm trying to brainstorm possible mechanics that would care about mana production. I'm sorry I didn't make that a lot more explicit. I was happy with the fungus theme, but I wanted to see the possibilities for "care about mana production" -- I like the idea, but wasn't sure whether or not there would be good mechanical space.
There's no suggestion this is a good idea if this is the ONLY card that cares about tapping a land for mana, I was wondering, "is this comprehensible if this is a mechanical theme"?
I don't think it needs to be this trigger together with hexproof, it was just the first combination that came to mind. I was wondering what effects might possibly matter on a "when you tap a land for mana" trigger. Most effects either (a) effects that seem pointless since you'll always be able to activate them on your turn or (b) effects that are massively too strong for common if they happen 5 times a turn (eg. +1/+1). That's why I suggested this.
This card is essentially the same as "G: ~ gains hexproof UEOF" because you have to leave the mana open to get the effect, and you can usually use the mana later, since your opponent won't usually try to target it. I tried this alternative version because it was relevant to the theme: I agree the simpler version is better by default.
I agree "gains hexproof" is an obvious alternative, but I didn't think it was an interesting card, since it'll basically be always on during your turn, since you will normally tap some mana at some point, and it's basically "Sacred Wolf, except if you don't leave mana up it loses hexproof on your opponent's turn."
In terms of the P/T, as I say, this was just a suggestion for a mechanic, we can put that on whatever creature we like. I don't think these are particularly correct. But the reason I gave it 3/2 is that I thought of Sacred Wolf (2G 3/1 Hexproof) and to avoid making this card strictly worse (it's more complicated, but basically "hexproof most of the time") I gave it an extra point of toughness. After all, G gets 2G 3/3 and GGG 4/5.
"Hard to..."? It's the most common thing ever, since they printed the guild dual-lands.
I dunno - it is a theme, and caring about making a lot of mana is a very green thing; and getting to effectively use your mana more than once "Ok, I have 6 in pool, this activates, that activates, I'll use one up and now funnel the rest through this, then use the 5 I still have to cast this other thing.." It's very green.
It's just fiddly, compared to the usual (and now legal) "I cast this, uh, tap these 5 land to do it"
So your saying fiddly in the same sense as cards that cause you to shuffle your library a lot, or cards that make you needlessly track a lot of counters for minimum profit. I could also see this as being hidden information. "Yes, my creature gained trample this turn. After all, I played a spell earlier." Though, I admit, it's hard to get tapped land off the battlefield, even that could end up happening.
What's other people's take on this?
Fiddly, irritating.
"Amount of mana in mana pool" is an odd side case, it's only really there for the occasional thing that gives you more than one mana at once - stuff like "Ok, get mana from it, now sac it to put this into play, from which I get another mana..." I think needs to go away, not be encouraged.
Hmm. What about it is fiddly? What is your take on Glissa Sunseeker?
Well, assuming it's a pun on shrinking violet; it's shrinking in the sense of ducking away from danger.
I'm not sure I like the whole "Cares about mana in your pool" mechanic. It's fiddly.
Incredibly good. Llanowar's one point of power is almost irrelevant, and they could start printing 0/1s that tap to make
in the next set, if they wanted to.
It's very easy to look at one casting cost of a scaleable card and make it look fair. After all, Braingeyser only draws you two cards for
. It's better to compare this card to current mana accelerators. Would you play this, as printed, over Llanowar Elves? Absolutely. Not even a question. Now consider that Llanowar Elves has a rating of 4.385 on Gatherer.
That's a very confusing ability. It should definitely come up to uncommon. I like the idea that it gains hexproof, but then it only needs to trigger once to protect itself. About the name: is it supposed to be the adjective "Violent" as in violence or the noun "Violet" as in the flower? Also, how is it shrinking?
Incredibly good? Really? It's
for, effectively, a 0/2 that taps for 
.
I mean, that's nice (and in an emergency you can drop it for 
which is VERY nice.) but for 
you get two lands of any colour; and for 
you get Sachi who makes half your creatures tap for 
(and the other half get tougher)
Seems about the right cost to me. It does open up quadruple green costs, but you have to be double already so it's not all that splashable. Now, if there was more "Search for a creature" in the set, I'd worry; but as it is it seems fair.