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Recent updates to Xianlu: (Generated at 2025-05-01 11:04:03)
Changing the card in this slot. Now similar to Sinuous Vermin, but significantly weaker. Feels a little blue.
Might change to
cast, 
activate but right now it shouldn't be too crazy and shouldn't activate more than once per turn in most cases.
Now uncommon. Replacing with a weak tapper.
Good points. Now much better. Pretty unwilling to change the tax to
, but I feel like it's the next step if drawing a card is too strong.
Of note: Stymied Hopes is strictly worse than Condescend in two ways.
This is a weaker and more complicated version of the absolutely awful Stymied Hopes. It’s stone unplayable.
—CF
Pretty basic design. 2/1 Flying is a lot better than 2/2 on the ground (Auramancer), so the cost has been made a little tougher to cast to boot.
Not sure how strong this will be, but I'm entirely willing to bump this up to
if it's a strong pick. Also not sure if it should be common or uncommon, since it has some unusual wording but should be fairly easy to understand.
Thanks to Tahazzar for convincing me that tapped bounce could be used in Red.
Need a looter at common for helping against dead draws. Moving activated hexproof to green.
Druid of the Cowl with one less toughness for the lifegain bonus.
Ahh, yes, you're correct.
Murder, not Edict.
—CF
Probably okay at
, but playing it safe for now.
This one is rare mostly for psychological concerns over power level concerns. Either it's a possibly multi-turn Silence if they really like their creature, or it's a Murder. I think it's at the power level where I can bump it down to uncommon, but the effects it makes on early game aggro decisions might put this better at Rare.
Rare Mind Control. Pretty underwhelming to open, but it's at a better rate than most Mind Control effects lately. The high destruction cost usually means you'll get some use out of the creature when you cast it, even late game (or at the most just force them to spend 7 mana to get their best creature back). It's also at 4 mana so you can't get it back with Three Curses, for Constructed power level concerns. Not sure if that's necessary though, I'm tempted to change it to
for cast and 
for destruction.
A bit of a confusing effect, one that I'm not sure will make it into a final set. Basically, other creatures have a
Ghostly Prison tax. So the idea is to stick this on some sort of inconsequential mana dork and have a temporary Ghostly Prison effect. Given how backbreaking and unfun it is, I've only made the mana cost - destruction cost difference 2 mana, so they won't have to deal with it for long if they don't want to.
Relatively simple design for a legendary rare. Given how powerful and relatively confusing this Bequeath ability will be, I think I'm fine with it at rare. I'm still not 100% convinced that stackable or self-referencing abilities are the way to go with Bequeath, so I'll see how the reception and testing on this card is. This ability can go in either Green or White, but since it's about "improving oneself", I'm putting it in green for now.
As for the character himself, he's the final member of the protagonist party trying to reclaim his birthright on the throne of evil kingdom's capital. While his motivations are a bit close to White, I find that Green's traditionalism is severely underplayed in modern Magic, relegated only to "MAGIC IS AN ABOMINATION" and "TECHNOLOGY SUCKS" (probably due to its closeness with White ideals of order). With the central theme of Bequeath in the set, I'm including flavoring more green cards to play up self-improvement, determinism, and traditionalism, since they're closely aligned with Confucianism. Wuxia and Xianxia usually draw upon Taoist and Buddhist philosophy, but I'd like to cover all ancient Chinese philosophies.
Main character of the set. Monkey King expy. Supposed to be on a journey to slay as many demons as possible so he can be Monkey King.
Another 4-mana Monkey Warrior. Will need to shuffle some types or something around to make way. Note that I've been a bit more liberal with the use of prowess in the set, due to the slight increase in noncreature spells in the skeleton.
I'll probably be tweaking the power level on this a couple times. Note that the extra combat step taps all other creatures you control, leaving you vulnerable for an alpha strike back if you don't untap them somehow. Might be a little underwhelming for a mythic, so I might give an extra bonus for the combat step - a power boost or something.
Smaller version of Twilight Shepherd. Or Faith's Reward for creatures only on a stick. Both are part of my favorite cards list. Hopefully this shouldn't be too powerful at 3 mana, since it's sorcery speed. It should be costed similarly to how it's costed on Twilight Shepherd.
Character-wise, she is supposed to be a celestial emissary (hence the resurrection bit). She is supposed to have slight synergy with the other member of the protagonist party, a green two-drop with Bequeath.
The main villain of the set. Since he's intended to be a necromancer and deals with demons a lot, I wanted to give him something demon-like (sacrificing creatures for power) and something necromancer-like (Eternal Witnessing something). I'm writing off the +1/+1 counter flavor as part of his shtick of replacing his organs with organs of younger people for longer life as well.
I expect this to go through many tweaks before it's actually ready to go. My initial design had him at
with three +1/+1 counters and sacrifice two creatures for one +1/+1 counter, but I feel like this is a little easier to understand. The 
on the Sacrifice ability is mostly for power level concerns, but I feel like he's on the weaker side right now.
Pretty good as a goodstuff commander though. You can build him pretty much however you want.
Why is this Black and not Blue or White? This is another one of those "bends" I'm seeing if the reception is good on or not. It's intended as a semi-mirror to Three Dreams, which is one the cards on my "really jank but also kinda fun" list.
Bit of a mouthful of an effect; mostly needs these riders to make it feel "Black" (being only able to attach them to opponents and their creatures, which usually means you're limited to stuff like Stab Wound, Curses, or Talismans), and to prevent any crazy shenanigans with three Mind Controls or some combination of those huge curses from coming out of nowhere. You can still get Threads of Disloyalty with it, but I'm not too concerned about that. In draft, this is intended to get three Talismans onto your opponents creatures for various effects, or just to stall for a bit more.
Pretty generic dragon design for now. Spent most of a period without internet trying to come up with Rares that didn't necessarily adhere to set themes.