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 07:24:36)
This is now a sorcery.
Probably around the same cost as Xenagos, God of Revels - like
or 
.
It's kind of top-down. The original design started as "Whenever a creature you control enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control with a higher converted mana cost. I wanted to keep that and this ended up being less "this completely screws up how I play my curve out" and more "hey nice bonus for drafting tiny dudes and one big guy". I wanted to represent this fairly important concept on a card, but it was more "I guess I can do stuff with lesser/higher CMC with this name."
How much would this cost without the last eight words? It seems... overly complicated. Is this a top-down design?
Flavor doesn't quite match up (the creature you're targeting is the one being respected), but hopefully it's there.
The original design was on creature ETB (which encouraged you to play with reflex, as those creatures were usually lower CMC than what you already had out), but it didn't feel like it would play well nearly as much as this design.
I would lose the other ability unless you make it relevant to the rest mechanically e. g. "Each spell [...] costs
more to cast unless its controller has card with the same name in their hand."
Flavor text edit. "Dojo" is not Chinese, but "Guan" is such uncommonly used in English that I'll just use "building" instead.
Given how important combat tricks are in the format, I suspect this will be a lot better than it should. If so, I might remove the protection clause.
If I ever change the name, it will lose Ally as creature type might as well meet expectations even when they don't matter.
Yeva's Forcemage that does a mediocre impression of Briarpack Alpha.
See here for information about the inspiration.
I wanted something like Shellephant but I figure it'd be a pain to keep track of and not play nearly as well as this does.
Costed similarly to Chitinous Cloak. -1 mana cost because it doesn't actually provide +2/+2 (though it does a good imitation for it), but it also gives vigilance.
Yeah. I figure the Pyrewild Shaman ability is more useful for
anyway, due to discard shenanigans that it likes to pull. Which I'm sorely lacking in this set, but now that Sequence triggers off of any spell, this is useful as a Sequence enabler as well that you just suicide attack into things.
As for not documenting any changes... I try my best, but sometimes it just slips my mind :p
It is intentional, or it's rather a result of the design I went with to get the desired effect I want. Given the fact that this set will mostly be played on Cockatrice, I'm not too worried about it creating a gazillion triggers if the ability is activated multiple times.
Though I'm not sure how you would word if you only wanted players to be able to draw a single card per spell regardless of how many activations there were. It'd just be "Activate this ability only once per turn.", right? Way too much text on an already pushing-it text box.
It had
> "When ~ becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, return ~ to its owner's hand."
Other cards that have or provide the ability are: Cloud Cover (has 'opponent controls' but also has 'may'), Mirozel, and the aforementioned Cowardice.
Petrahydrox is interesting. It's from the very early days of hybrid mana. I can't find any discussion about it other than one random guy noting it as an example of Wotc "seemed to struggle even with the earliest hybrid cards".
I wonder what this creature's forme rules text was and whether bringing up Petrahydrox is useful at all.
If people just documented their changes properly...
Also rreturning a noncreature card that you can cast for other stuff seems to be nice.
I just want to point out that since the activated ability creates a delayed triggered ability, the effects of multiple activations stack. Considering the first comment on this card it does not seem like that's intentional.
Perhaps my search for a uniquely annoying
creature is a little misguided then.
I'll modify this to be a tiny version of Pyrewild Shaman then.
Hm. I can buy
. Pulse of Murasa was quite a good card though, so it's tempting to add a rider... I'll test it at 
and if green needs a little more of a push I'll bump it down to 
. Given that Grapple with the Past exists, I'm not particularly interested in a "creature or land" version.
I like to think that Squee was remade as Mortus Strider. This is an ability that has been suggested for the elusive
creature keyword a couple of times - without the "you control" part. Self-bounce is also associated with 
. Also, 
bounce has been suggested to be "opponent's only" and this would blur that focus.
I guess it could work though
hardly seems like the first choice for this ability.
A bit risqué for my tastes. Perhaps
? You could also go along the lines of Pulse of Murasa for this one.
Changed slot. 2/3 -> 3/3.
-> 
. 
has a bit too many things going on at 4 mana.
-> 
.
Trying out a new ability. Might feel a little better in
due to Cowardice, but I think I like it in 
since 
has been getting more emotion-related stuff lately (plus flavor-wise, we have Zurgo Bellstriker), so I figure it can exist in red, especially since this is closer to Squee, Goblin Nabob or Norin the Wary (which is from Time Spiral, but still).
New ability. Less like hexproof and more like Norin, the Wary. Or Pearl Lake Ancient.
-> 
Slightly different version of Jhessian Thief. 1/3 is better than 2/2? Personally I think 1/3 is better because it makes less risky attacks.
-> 
.