Risen Empires: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Risen Empires: (Generated at 2026-04-29 15:53:45)
| Risen Empires: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
Recent updates to Risen Empires: (Generated at 2026-04-29 15:53:45)
Tourach's Gate
So uh... wow. A rare enchant land. That's going to make people oh so very happy.
But wait, there's more! It does let you pump your creatures (by, uh, setting them on fire, but ok, whatever) and it lasts... up to three turns.
Yeah; this one's a stinker. Re-concepting from scratch.
Tourach's other card is about making people lose their mind. Opening his gate should make you crazy.
So, tap land, discard a card. That's a Psychic Venom variant; nice and black, hardly a winning card though.
I could make it less rare - but the name wants to be legendary if anything. I really want to have some kind of opener/closer vote mechanic and stuff here. (I dunno - vote "opener" or "closer". If opener wins, closers sacrifice all creatures they control; if closer wins, openers discard their hands - maybe?) But that seems a stretch. And loses the 'enchant land' bit which, um... well, ok, isn't vital.
Black doesn't get mana production at all at all, so it's hard to think what upside I could give this. (And I DO want to tempt you into using the land, or putting it on your own lands)
I... guess we could presage the phy-mana mechanic? Or give the land infect? That's kinda limited use in a set with no man-lands, though (And not to great even with them).
Ah heck, leave it as the venom, with Sinkhole as bad justification.
Artifact removal isn't really pie-breaking. There's been a steady trickle of it in recent years: Moonglove Extract, Blazing Torch, Flamecast Wheel, as well as Viridian Longbow, Hankyu and Heavy Arbalest. Several of those are commons too (Blazing Torch was common in Innistrad), so moving this to common is absolutely the right choice.
Moonglove Extract also indicates that the price for artifact creature-damage is still 3 mana, impressively: Aeolipile was right on target. (Blazing Torch confirms this too, if you count tapping a creature as somewhat equivalent to 1 mana.)
So I don't think this really needs the cantrip option. (But at the same time there's no problem with it.)
Remove "Or player", which is just cheesy. And add cantrip slow/cycle instead; more obviously a spellbomb now.
Aeolipile
Well, it's a spellbomb. and the set does have a lot of toughness 2 in it.
Colour pie breaking; but, well, Rod of Ruin pops up occasionally.
This is probably fine - the only thing wrong is it shouldn't be rare. If this is supposed to be "Ah crap, I need answers" for limited, it should be much more common. Maybe even pushed to common - which is.. quite a statement.
But I was saying that the set lacked creature removal; maybe this should just become it.
I've played Thrull Champion and Amoeboid Changeling in the same deck before. It's quite hard to make it work, but funny when it does. I don't think the mana cost on the ability is particularly needed, but I guess it doesn't do any harm either.
Thrull Champion
Well, a thrull lord is a sensible thing. Not sure why the hypnotic gaze effect is there, though - maybe because this was before lords only affecting your stuff.
Let's pump this by one as well as building its self-effect in.
And... sure, why not, black vampires get the effect, I don't see why thrulls can't. Needs a wizard or something to turn things into thrulls to be really good, but still;, let's add a mana cost just in case.
Heh. Thunder Spirit -> Sky Spirit -> this :)
Vodalian Knights
I liked these back in the day. But yeah, overpriced. And first strike in blue - gets there because this is the blue knight, to go with the black and white ones.
Dropping islandhome and... yeah, let's leave the mysterious first strike.
Wizards didn't know the next block was going to be tribal. They wanted to mix things up and were then caught with their pants down. MaRo has said they regret putting the two blocks next to each other.
Oh yes, the Nantuko were all throughout Odyssey block. For some reason. I think because Wizards wanted to avoid using the normal tribes so as to not set up too much synergy with the tribal block coming after it, so green got Insects and Centaurs instead of Elves, red got Dwarves instead of Goblins, white got Nomads instead of Soldiers, and blue got Cephalids instead of Merfolk. Black was still allowed Zombies though.
Oh right, Thelonite druid is ALSO in FE. Humm.
I was erroneously thinking of the race of mantis-men druids... Nantuko?
Thelonite Druid is probably the thing you're remembering, but it's in Fallen Empires just like this.
Sensible change: stays true to the original card while making it more useful / playable.
Thelonite Monk
Creature Jazz Musician?
Anyway - this became an order of druids in a later set, I think?
Anyhow; this is a fine effect - but kinda costly. I thnk I'll pump the creature a bit rather than remove the sac part.
Yeah, this is a fun little engine card. It was given a homage in Lorwyn, with Weirding Shaman.
"All your creatures have first strike" is very good when blocking. But when attacking, defending player gets to choose where to multi-block, and they're the one who gets to throw several creatures in the way. A 2/2 with first strike attacking into several 2/2s just trades with one of them; several 2/2s with first strike attacking into several 2/2s just trade at a one-to-one ratio.
But yes, I think this change is good.
Goblin Warrens
Hmmm.
Well, making swarms is now white's thing, not red.
But blowing up goblins to inefficiently make stuff is a red thing.
Using up goblins who're already on their way out is a pretty powerful effect. This plus, say, Goblin Pyromancer is insane.
So if anything; this wants powering down very slightly, or shifting to white. White's token maker is the town - so if I do that swap, this becomes a sorcery that dumps some goblins into play.
That's not an implausible change. but for right now, I think I'll leave it as printed.
Really? I guess that I rate "All your creatures have frist strike" more highly. Let's make this a meaty sized critter then, white needs one.
Chieftain en-Dal suggests this could be cheaper and bigger. A 1/1 for 4 doesn't really count as "good".
Icatian Skirmishers
Eep. Banding. Not just banding, but "This band has first strike"
I think just "When ~ attacks, attacking creatures gain first strike" is quite powerful enough, without brining banding into the equation, thank you.
Gosh; how did I forget that FE has some actually GOOD cards? Ok, it's 4 mana for a 1/1 which limits it to 'splash a couple in' but still.
It's really just the supporting base of midsize vanilla cards that the set truly lacks.
Icatian Lieutenant
Well, this aint NWO safe, but that's fine, it's rare. More oddly - it's giving your tribe +power which white does less often. White more normally does healing on a lord of this sort.
It also costs a surprising amount for a pump; though it can at least pump itself.
I dunno. I kinda want it to grant +1/+2 for 3. Keep as printed, for now.
Goblin Flotilla
I'd forgotten there was an actual official card with last-strike.
There's... really no need for that. Even if it does make the card kinda silly and funny in a "You can see them coming a mile off" way.
Since I'm making the river merfolk no longer mountain walk, I should make these no longer island walk.
I don't wanna give them prot blue though. Red gets flying, which is kinda sane? I could make these just an up-powered Goblin Balloon Brigade? Yeah, let's do this. Downcost a bit, to match, too.
Oh yeah; in-set this is definitely intended to continue working as it always did; to boost all your existing thallids.
There's few other counters in the set (storage lands, though, which is a nice green combo)
It just makes it a lot more exciting - boost ALL your thallids; while also allowing it to exist beyond the set.
I was thinking maybe
to cast, still 
to activate. Not much of an increase; and I reckon I'd still want to run it.
It really doesn't. I've got a deck that does the Viral Drake trick with Gemstone Array, Pentad Prism, Morselhoarder, and lands like Calciform Pools. It's not that bad.
Once again, I think you should keep the traditional Fungus ability - it's got a long pedigree now. If you really want to boost it then make all Thallids either Sporesower Thallids or Sporoloth Ancients.
Yeah, it is potentially infinite; might need a slight upcost.
"Just wait 'til I get this down along with three copies from among any of Pentad Prism, Gemstone Array, Druids' Repository, or Morselhoarder that still have charges left, or a non-summoning-sick Devoted Druid that's been charged with a +1/+1 counter somehow..."
(Hey, the existing Viral Drake can also work with a couple other options like Workhorse, but then you need five copies!)
Fungal Bloom
Spore counters. Need to decide what to doooo with those. Really do.
This is the "Make it linear" rare; but... the whole thing already was pretty linear. Meh. You know what; let's let anything bloom.
Much more exciting!
Protection from enemy colour is a lot less common nowadays, though.
Protection from red is fine in blue. All colors can get protection from their enemies.
I guess I could give it hexproof. I just don't LIKE hexproof.
Islandwalk, of course, completely misses the flavour.
White is a more normal colour for prot-red (Kor Firewalker, Burrenton Forge-Tender). But for the purposes of this set I'd say it's fine on blue as well. (Bizarrely, it's most recently been seen in blue - Master of Waves - and red - Vulshok Refugee.)
FWIW the other common blue evergreen keywords are hexproof and... islandwalk! Merfolk Spy, Lurking Crocodile, etc.