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Mechanics | Skeleton | Ulaqat Map | Cards that actually have a flavor reference |
Recent updates to Ulaqat: (Generated at 2024-05-19 14:50:24)
"Wandering" implies movement, while "torpor" and entering tapped do not. I don't feel the theme.
Stalemates are fun?
It's weird that this implies you want to bounce your own creature. Is that a theme in this set?
There's no flavor this. I just had to a blue instant and decided to use Avalanche.
Two of these back-to-back might be brutal. Maybe cost at ?
Forgot card name. Also, I may change the creature type in the future. I picked one for the setting arbitrarily.
Following advice on torpor. I feel this is versatile, setting up to either get bigger or letting you use an ETB ability a second time.
Oh, and since it's hard to print these cards at cheap costs, I would also think about doing some wonky riders that makes attacking and blocking a problem. "When this creature attacks or blocks, lose life equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on it" is a real stinker (which I would never use at common) but it works.
I'm surprised Vigean Hydropon's trick of "can't attack or block" was never used again. It seems really useful for making big creatures that care about power/toughness or +1/+1 counters, without breaking combat.
There's plenty more to play with... I'm just scratching the surface over here.
I really like Vitenka's suggestion of making all/many of the torpor creatures enter the battlefield tapped. It not only gets the party started, but also gives the creature a drawback that's underated to help make up for a powerful ability that's going to be underated. It will probably make the creature more powerful in a number of cases... But sometimes it won't, like when you print torpor on an evasive creature. So there's a sort of balance going on.
Personally, I don't think there's anything 'wrong' with torpor that isn't also wrong with outlast (assuming there's some way to tap torpor creatures.) I just think they're tricky to cost in a way that's fair, but also looks appealing. Horned Guardian, for example, might be more correctly costed as a 0/1 for that enters the battlefield tapped. It sounds horrible, but it's probably a secret super-strong round 2 drop. Attacking with your 5/6 every turn starting round 7 is no joke. (In contrast, a card like Ainok Bond-Kin had an efficient body because it cost an incredible amount of mana over time. A 5/4 first striker would end up costing .)
I would find more ways to tap your creatures, though, so you can get the ball rolling again. Lorwyn has a handful of these effects to play with Merfolk, so it makes for a good set to base the numbers on. You don't need a lot. Lorwyn isn't brimming with them. You also want most of them to be mediocre cards... if they get first draft picked before the torpor decks gets their hands on them, then they aren't doing their job.
You just need a built in tap ability. Or go full tension and add "~ may etb tapped". But its a very slow lot of decisions type of mechanic. You need a set that supports it. Lots of sets the existence of (b) and(r) would flatten it before it going.
Te obvious thing to do would be link the abilities. "(t): up to torrpor creatures become blocked."
Do you think Torpor is salvageable? I've admittedly leaned towards swinginess with most of my mechanics that have involved +1/+1 counters, and Torpor is completely within the player's control, and only drawback is being potentially left open.
Huh. I went peeking in your cardlist to see if there are a lot of ways to tap your own creatures in this set. But that doesn't seem to be a thing.
Torpor seems like a good variation on Outlast. But swinging with your Squire on turn three... man that's rough. Making up for that problem lends toward swinginess.
That is, unless the creature doesn't need to be tapped for Torpor to trigger. I'm not quite sure which way this mechanic is supposed to go. But if that's the case, then this mechanic might be surprisingly better than it looks. Let's pretend this card existed in Timespiral:
Horned Guardian
Creature - Minotaur Warrior
Suspend 3 -
Horned Guardian can block an additional creature each combat.
4/5
It compares favorably to Errant Ephemeron who was considered a first draft pick. Granted suspend is different, there's a round of haste, and creature creep. But imagine if you could stop the suspend on Errant Ephemeron whenever you wanted. And you could restart it whenever you wanted. That card would have been pretty bonkers.
This was a pretty wonky idea to translate to a card. I dabbled with X, allowing the player to tap multiple creatures to "protect" multiple creatures instead. For a while, I wanted to include that the target creature have less power or toughness than the creature the player tapped for Guard Circle, but just didn't look good. I gave up on that end, and just let the player choose any creature. I then added that should damage be dealt by an attacking creature, that the attacking creature would be dealt 3 damage. I'm not sure if I need to say what deals that damage (is it Guard Circle? I think it should be Guard Circle if it's not).
Not sure of what to cost this. Currently I copied Nissa, Vital Force since the draw aspect is based off of her ultimate, which can be reached after one turn.
The original concept was more enchantressy, but I wanted to utilize snow and not end up a clone of Enchantress's Presence.
Letting the snow lands tap for any color felt right at the moment of card creation. I guess that was a way to represent the colors of the Aurora Borealis, but wasn't very exciting as a card, as it'd be a bad Chromatic Lantern.
Now activation requires sacrifice of two snow lands.
Yeah, some sacrifice, whether of a card or a creature or a land or something, would make this much more "Oh, ok, that's situationally powerful" rather than "Oh crap, that's EVERY TURN"
> I do want a repeatable Fog effect though. Could that be done at a price? Sacrificing a snow land or two sounds steep. Would that balance the card?
Sacrificing card advantage would be the expected price. The issue with Fog-effects is that they already Time Walk an opponent to a degree. If they don't cost you a card, they are board stalls incarnate.
Think about the play pattern of a TurboFog deck and what getting the effect for a pure mana investment would mean for that deck. Is that something you want to promote?
It can be done. I just fear it'll be as horrid as shadow. Worse, even.
I tried to make the ability more snow-mana intensive, but that's probably not going to stop this card much. I do want a repeatable Fog effect though. Could that be done at a price? Sacrificing a snow land or two sounds steep. Would that balance the card?
That's the on-sided bit. Your creatures will all be snow; your opponentif you didn't swap this out to sideboard; then your opponents creatures are not. It's devastating being able to have this once - every turn? Ouch.
Better than Fog, since Sub-Zero Shaman (and any other snow creatures you might have) are still dealing combat damage. Works well while attacking, too.
Repeatable one-sided fog? OUCH.