Archester: Frontier of Steam: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Archester: Frontier of Steam: (Generated at 2025-09-04 13:07:45)
i think 2ww is fine. reusable pump like ajani goldmane and gavony township is only 4 and 5 CMC. life gain is not worth 2 mana. meadowboon and others, you get a creature, equivalent to lifegain.
p.s. reminds me of Fame // Fortune
One problem with the current wording is that if Sword of Forge and Furnace is the only artifact on the battlefield, you either destroy it or the artifact it's returning. "Cheating" artifacts into play may not be necessary, since if you swing you might have an open board of lands to cast that artifact you're returning. My suggested wording, based on the wording/power level of Sword of Light and Shadow:
"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, you may destroy target artifact and you may return up to one target artifact card from your graveyard to your hand."
The problem with it adding only colorless mana to your mana pool is that when you cast it on your opponent's turn, you're highly unlikely to have another instant speed spell or ability to make use of that mana. For spells, there's only the cycle of instant speed ones that cost hybrid colorless mana, like Buckshot. Holding onto this spell just to try and fire off one of those spells on the same turn doesn't seem efficient. You have to work too hard, when building the deck and when playing, just to get that added benefit.
If you make the opponent gain the mana, it creates interesting decisions for the player. 'If I cast it, will he be able to use it towards a different spell? Do I counter a 1 mana spell, knowing it could ramp him for the turn?' This is why Swan Song, Swords to Plowshares, and Path to Exile are popular cards.
I have Aristocrats in the artwork of some of the blue spells. I can probably squeeze in an Aristocrat into a different card at some point too. However, 2U at common for a 2/2 that can't be blocked is too powerful, and Pirates in their skyships fly better than Aristocrats do.
I have probably plenty of Aristocrat artwork that can be featured in future sets, if that's a concern.
Distributing counters is what makes Vastoowd Hydra a rare as opposed to say an uncommon, and as it stands now Cogbound Hydra is just a Vanilla Modular creature. Personally I think Vastwood Hydra is overcosted for what it does. If you have to cast Cogbound for colorless, it would cost the same as Vastwood Hydra does. If you're in green, you get that bit of a boost; an incentive to play that color. Also, Vastwood Hydra does not have any limitations on where it spreads the counters; Cogbound can only distribute to artifact creatures. Just a key difference that I think needs testing.
Distributing counters is what makes Vastoowd Hydra a rare as opposed to say an uncommon, and as it stands now Cogbound Hydra is just a Vanilla Modular creature. Personally I think Vastwood Hydra is overcosted for what it does. If you have to cast Cogbound for colorless, it would cost the same as Vastwood Hydra does. If you're in green, you get that bit of a boost; an incentive to play that color. Also, Vastwood Hydra does not have any limitations on where it spreads the counters; Cogbound can only distribute to artifact creatures. Just a key difference that I think needs testing.
Steam-powere dis a keyword, and probably does need to be first. The revision I suggested does match an actual card that does want to be doing the exact same thing- search and put in hand normal, instead search and put into play if kicked- and the card's oracle wording has not changed, so my gut feeling is that it's the best way to phrase it. Some of the Steam-owered cards are tricky, like the one you can cast with flash, but I feel like the wording I recommended fits the best.
"Steampowered - If only colorless was spent to cast this, put two artifacts from your hand onto the battlefield." might be confusing since opponents might assume that you can't search for two artifacts first.
With this card, since Steam-powered's effect is doing the same thing as Kicker, it can't hrut to use the exact same wording as a previously existing card with Kicker.
The reason I ask is that I have two new artwork pieces selected for her. One as young adult, and the artwork looks like she's mind controlling a dragon; the other is a younger looking person, and she probably looks more like an outlaw with guns and all. My preference is the first because the artwork is stunning and the character is GORGEOUS, but I'm probably biased because she's a redhead. I'll upload both versions in the creative thread.
Mara could be described as an empath. And I'd hate to lose the little girl aspect, especially since Tecksa Rend already fills the young adult area.
The long short of it is that Mara was trapped in a manufactory fire that ignited (ba dum tis) her spark. She has strong emotion magic she uses to manipulate people. Seeking revenge on the people who caused the death of her family and friends, she quickly returns to archester and uses her new found powers to sway bands of outlaws to her cause.
That's why I said "kinda" similar. The ability to cast it for colorless (and just a single
as opposed to the hydra's 
) means it should probably have less utility.
I feel like this should actually just be worded like tooth and nail:
Search for two artifacts, reveal them and put them into your hand. then shuffle.
Steampowered - If only colorless was spent to cast this, put two artifacts from your hand onto the battlefield.
From a flavor perspective, this doesn't make sense shutting down enchantments. From a mechanical perspective, I think this works better not being able to turn off important artifacts. Personally, this just feels like white's answer to Hero's Downfall.
Increased mana cost from 2ww to 4ww, fixed flavor text typo
Fixed wording
I'm not sure I like the flavor change considering we have at least one other pirate card, but no other aristocrat cards.
I could see this being changed to flying.
Also, I'd just like to point out that Tromokratis, the new leviathan from Born of the Gods, basically has this ability. Good job us!
Perhaps we could bump this up to adding
mana?
I believe the ability is worded like that because if you blinked something it would not be a valid target to be blinked again.
What has the world come to when "colossal" is not interesting.
Fixed name typo
I'm not going to lie, it could totally be overpowered. It's the kind of thing we'd find out in testing.
You can probably model the +, -, and starting Loyalty after Domri Rade and you'd be good. +1, -2, starting loyalty 3, ultimate -7.
Also, is Mara an empath? Can I get some back story on her? And I might have found the perfect picture, is it awful if she's in her 20's rather than a young kid?
A key difference is that Vastwood Hydra distributes its counters when it dies; Modular only puts the counters on one creature. X
"Cogbound Hydra enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it.
When Cogbound Hydra dies, you may distribute a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on Cogbound Hydra among any number of artifact creatures you control."
There are 17 cards in the set that either have Flying or grant Flying, but only one card that has Reach. That probably needs to be fixed somehow.
Should probably read: "Steam-powered — Search your library for up to two artifact cards, reveal them, and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library. If only colorless mana was spent to cast this spell, instead search your library for up to two artifact cards, put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library."
Steam Powered is kind of like Kicker... the player needs to know fully what to do before seeing the if clause if they happen to not have the spell be steam powered. See Primal Growth for a perfect example involving searching and shuffling of libraries.
Also, Faith's Fetters uses this wording:
"Enchanted permanent’s activated abilities can’t be activated unless they’re mana abilities. If enchanted permanent is a creature, it can’t attack or block."
There's only two planeswalkers in the set. Can't we make it like Faith's Fetters and target nonland permanents?
There's only two planeswalkers in the set. Can't we make it like Faith's Fetters and target nonland permanents?
4 mana seems way too good. Compare Meadowboon and Titania's Boon are both 4 mana, and neither provide the lifegain. I'd even consider making it 6 mana, since that lifegain will be huge if you have a lot of Modular creatures in play.
Also, I don't know if Willard is supposed to be spelled without the d.