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Recent updates to Trivium: (Generated at 2025-05-01 12:16:08)
| Trivium: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics | Design Goals | Worldbuilding | Skeleton | Draft Archetypes |
Recent updates to Trivium: (Generated at 2025-05-01 12:16:08)
Lots of Citizens and Soldiers in White. Maybe WB can be High Class Citizen tribal? Just getting a lot of these basic designs out of the way.
Blinkable version of Captain's Call. Staple board flood stuff.
Am I missing something? I thought Cancel was always printed at common. I didn't think counterspell was that strong in limited.
Well, it's not Counterspell, but common? I'm pretty sure the rational response to this is the gentleman's agreement: "If you draft blue, I will cut you."
Blue and Black will receive the most instant speed responses at common, which is to say, slightly less than usual.
It definitely is a strong common, but needing a creature to be cast and entering tapped is a big enough drawback that I think it can exist without too much issue.
As for making the creature deal the damage, it is something I considered but I ultimately went with a simpler version.
I am not too sure why a temporary effect that humiliates a creature temporarily needs to be costed similarly to removal. I costed it similarly to Martial Law, which I believe is comparable - the 1/1 can still attack and block if needed as a chump block, but it also loses all abilities.
The Maro comment was meant to be more in line with (the person) Maro's design philosophy about cards needing to do intuitive things (one of the reasons why they changed the Oblivion Ring wording to Banishing Light's wording, to remove the not-so-corner case of blinking the card to exile something completely). Furthermore, every effect that removes abilities in the past has set a power and toughness, and I am loathe to eschew tradition like that.
The point about pingers is valid, but repeatable pingers are relatively rare these days, and I am fine with that being a hidden "interaction" that requires three colors and two cards to run. It's not like Wizards is hesitant to design cards that give deathtouch to creatures because pingers might exist. I'll keep it in mind as I design the set since it's an interaction that is important to be aware of.
The day WotC decides to run with some kind of "silence" variant from Heartstone and all the custom designers on various sites jump on that bandwagon at moment's notice without batting a eye, I'll be rolling my eyes sooooo hard.
Seriously though, what Maro creature are you hesitant to hose? There's around 70 of them in modern, and this wouldn't kill Tarmo which is probably the most prolific of them. Standard has 5 Maros currently. There's like, what, 0 to 2 Maros per set?
Actually with this could you could push one or more Maros deliberately (since shame would act as a hose mechanic keeping them on check) and possibly have they have the "undefined number is zero" reminder text. Or you could just exclude all Maros from the set - it's not like they are a "must-have" for each set/block.
Setting p/t (to 1/1) means that you need to cost this pretty much at removal rates - since even if you get a single pinger this just starts shooting guys down fast. Also shame eliminates the creature as a threatful attacker and/or blocker. There's a crap ton of abilities which are meaningful enough on their own that this ability would still be plenty useful IMO. Plus you can likely pronounce the usefulness of this ability in the environment with minor adjustments.
> "Create a tapped 1/1 white Soldier creature token. It deals 2 damage to up to one target creature."
?
Also this is powerful (at common). Compare to Sparkmage Apprentice, Forge Devil, and Blisterstick Shaman. Along the lines of Fire Imp.
Unlike Greece and Carthage, Samnium
plays less of a role in Roman and European history. So I've retained some basic qualities of the Samnites while kind of sprinkling in some cultural flavor from the Britons and Germania.
Samnium shared a lot of its culture with Roman culture, so I plan on flavoring them as a more savage version of not-Roman religious sects. To mark this sharing of culture, White Reach and Green Vigilance will move from tertiary to secondary. I have decided that
will counter 
by keying off of how many creatures the opponent controls, since all White archetypes involve flooding the board. It feels a bit White since it's a catch-up mechanic, but there is similar precedent in cards like Scourge of Geier Reach and Primeval Protector. Testing it out for now, but will probably need a name for it that sounds less White. Settled on 3 for now since 3 is the magic number this set.
Other ideas for mechanics involved giving your opponent 1/1s for big bonuses (like the Hunted cycle), or disrupting lands by freezing them. Settled on this for now since this seems safe and straightforward.
Not-Samnium
will primarily be composed of Leonin, Boars, and Beasts.
Greeks
were the inspiration for the societal structure of the Romans, so White's influence on Blue is strong even amongst those that oppose it. They get some symmetrical effects while opposing a lot of the restrictions (blockers) that White puts out via evasive creatures. This tries to loosely mirror the Grecian politics during the Macedonian Wars.
The Not-Greeks in this set will primarily be Aven and Vedalken. For simplicity's sake, there will only be two not-Greek City States represented in
.
Is this a strong enough drawback for an anthem? Not sure about the timing on the shame trigger but I wanted to prevent a megablowout by removing the creature its equipped to preblocks.
This is basically Silence, except somewhat worse and somewhat better. Not sure if it deserves a spot but it's a design that can go in the set. Pretty anti-fun.
Anthem that lets you change your oaths if necessary. Debated giving it flash as well for rapid fire plays but the upside seems minimal for this mechanic.
Note that if you cheat this out and you haven't made any oaths yet, you can't use its last ability, you godless heathen.
Testing it at 3/3 to see if its too powerful. Pseudovigilance and a +2/+2 mininum power boost for battalion seems somewhat comparable to Firemane Avenger, and making it a 2/2 by default seems a bit weak.
Testing out a relatively simple ability. The anti-W abilities should hopefully keep the bookkeeping to a minimum since they are in direct opposition to not-Rome.
The idea behind this mechanic is that it not only lends itself to pillowforts in WU and WB (in that it can be used as a beater that has a deterrent in its removal), but it also protects itself from defensive board states and White's plethora of targetted removal.
Fairly mediocre common designed to provide some minor pressure against certain decks.