Xianlu: Recent Activity
| Xianlu: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics | Skeleton | Bequeath Abilities | Flavor & Plot | Intro Pack Decklists | Draft Archetypes |
Recent updates to Xianlu: (Generated at 2025-05-01 14:26:44)
Flavorful implementation of Houyi, the guy who shot down 9 out of 10 sunbirds because his waifu complained about the heat.
Flavorfully, he'd be better served in White, Red, or Green, but given that I couldn't get the mechanics for him just right in those colors, I opted for Black (with optional Red) instead. Costed similarly to other pingers but with an enhanced butt so he can survive blocks.
Note that he doesn't search their libraries, unlike other similar cards. No real reason for it other than space reasons. He originally had Deathtouch too (to make it similar to Graveblade Marauder), but I decided against that as well. So, in light of the text I couldn't fit, I bumped him down from Mythic to Rare.
Avoided saying "Each opponent" so that it doesn't get worse in EDH, unlike Empty Fort Ploy. Since it only returns your graveyard, I set the baseline for this type of effect at 7 mana, then debated shaving off 1 mana for not getting your best creature. Decided for it for now, but may prove to be way too strong in testing.
One of the few tokens in the set. Doesn't have flying so its a little closer to Zombie Giant than typical Demon.
Sacrifice isn't part of the cost due to interactions with Bequeath, and flavor reasoning. Plus I am debating making another death-related mechanic maybe in the hypothetical second set.
Costed more similarly to Cackling Counterpart rather than Mercurial Pretender. Note that it only copies creatures you control. The upside is much worse in limited than constructed for the most part, due to a number of Spirits in the set. It also doesn't copy {+} abilities due to rule 706.2.
Not sure about the design on this for a common. Might be better to just go with Verdant Haven instead.
Still not a fan of this card having two targets, but I like the play patterns it encourages.
Added flavor text to better reference a Shoryuken.
Functional reprint of Driver of the Dead. No Vampires in this set (Jiangshi are kind of like vampires, but I classify them more as zombies), so need a different name and creature type.
Most of the Talismans are designed with a get-out clause - in essence, these are B or C-level picks that are designed to be tempo cards. Since there's a lack of strong go-wide strategies and I want to encourage voltronning, strong removal mostly occurs at CMCs 4 or above, or is sorcery speed. So Talismans are mostly designed as 22nd/23rd cards in most decks that decks can use if they're lacking on removal (since they'll be picked up so late), or as cards that dedicated control decks can mostly count on wheeling. As for why this one in particular has the get-out clause, I agree it's not massively overpowered. This one is designed for more aggressive decks to stick on opposing blockers; however, I'm being pretty wary of the power of aggressive decks with all of the evasion abilities getting handed around with bequeath, as well as other cheap common cards that can remove blockers easily. I might adjust the destruction ability to be
instead of 
depending on how strong aggressive decks end up being.
And yeah, "Fu" is just a term used for paper talismans in Chinese. It takes up less space than "Talisman", so I decided to use it.
Oh, fu. Not flu. "Empathy flu" seemed like a great name for a black card :)
Why the get-out clause though? It doesn't seem massively overpowered without it.
Might be a little complex for a common removal spell. Oddly, this name hasn't been used yet.
So a more flexible but sorcery speed and colorshifted Acrobatic Maneuver.
I wanted another "soft removal" card, and this is a good way to deal with Talisman'd creatures you control, Bequeath and Monstrous creatures your opponents control, and more. It's probably a little overcosted, especially since you're going to be Reflex'ing it most of the time, but I feel like that's okay.
General use draw spell. I kind of wanted this to be similar to Mystic Meditation for enchantments, but my aim is to keep a majority of blue and red noncreature spells under 3 CMC for Sequence antics.
Um.
It's a very daring and original design, I know, but I'm pretty sure I can make it work at common. :^)