Wordier than Reaver, but that old one was crap design anyway.

Does this stomp on color pie?

Mmm... a little bit. Not too bad.

I fear this feels even less Reaverlike than the last version.

I still dislike charge counters on creatures; and would prefer it be a +1/+1 counter, but that's a minor niggle.

It is a bit pie-stretching; but white gets to do stuff to lands sometimes so it's probably ok.

I could easily rename them as psi counters or something, but I don't want to introduce new counter types if necessary. I thought about using +1/+1 counters as well, but my non creature permanents were already using charge counters. Oh well.

On the subject of the reaver itself, though, does anyone have an alternate design they can suggest? :(

My suggestions on counters is pretty much purely from fifth-dawn era, which was quite happy to have cards that did "+1/+1 counter on an artifact creature, or charge counter on a non-creature artifact"; wordy as heck, but certainly seemed to equate the two.

Still; if you've got other things putting charge counters on already, I can see your reasoning.

For gameplay? "Reave target creature"? No idea; no starcraft knowledge at all.

Let's see. Ok, it's a metal insect thing; it waddles along and fires little drones at stuff. ... Triskelion?

Well, my old Starcraft set (which is hideously old and embarrassing in several places) had these two ideas for the Reaver:

> Reaver, 4WW
> Artifact Creature - Protoss, 2/3
> Shield 2 (Prevent the first 2 of any damage that would be dealt to this)
> (1): Reaver deals 1 damage to target creature blocking or blocked by Reaver. Activate this ability no more than 8 times per turn.
(or)
> Artifact Creature - Protoss, 0/3
> Shield 2 (Prevent the first 2 of any damage that would be dealt to this)
> (1): Reaver gets +1/+0 UEOT. Activate this ability no more than 8 times per turn.
> Splash 3 (When this creature deals non-splash damage to a creature, you may have it deal 3 damage to another target creature.)

Convert the "shield 2" into +3 toughness and you have... firstest strike if you pay mana; or a white firebreathing, which isn't great colour-pie-wise. Unfortunately the former is only any good against creatures, which is kinda the opposite of the Reaver's siege weapon role.

Other ideas, inspired by Vitenka's comment:

> : Put a 1/1 Scarab creature token onto the battlefield. Exile it at end of turn. Activate this ability only during (your/any player's) upkeep.

> 6/6, 3WW
> Whenever ~ attacks or blocks, tap it and it doesn't untap during your next untap step.

This unit is probably the one that causes the most "huh, i don't get the flavor" responses, now I copied Alex's second reaver. Hopefully now it feels like the unit.

Playtest results: The big bad tank. Having no trample feels weird from a gameplay perspective, but having trample feels weird from a color pie perspective. (Plus it's just OP). It's quite hard to remember to make a scarab at end of turn though.

Hm. Curious change. Admittedly I've not playtested (though I'd love to) but that leaves this looking pretty bad. I mean, okay, a Steel Wall is good for 1 and would be fine for 2 mana, and an Angelfire Crusader is fine for 4 mana. A Steel Wall that can activate a total of twice ever (modulo blinks)? Doesn't look inspiring. If it's in my deck I'd play it as a wall, and try to find occasions to use it as a Scorching Missile, but it doesn't look like a card I'd like to put in my deck.

Thanks, will take note of that comment. But between two Vortex, (((Mass Recall))) (which is INSANELY good, btw), Arbiter, and Archon, and Recharge's new ability (and also now that it adds two psi counters), there wasn't a game where you didn't get mileage out of this as a 4/4 or more. Let me reconsider, maybe I could just put it back as an extra mana sink.

I do play it as a wall, btw, just like most of the Protoss pseudo-walls Stalker; (((Phoenix))), which only becomes more powerful offensively as your enemy keeps attacking you; and (((Corsair))). It's very effective for scaring people away.

Gimme a few days, I'll give you both the pdfs for printout and cockatrice set. It's what we're using to playtest, see?

All it really needs is 1 power and this design would be fantastic, though that does take away from the feeling of a reaver with no scarabs left.

How about entering with Psionic 5 instead and having "Remove a psi counter: +1/+0 until end of turn"? So, no cost to activate it?

This card is mechanically not white. White doesn't do firebreathing. It doesn't even do self-pump.

GAH, I am so close to destroying this damn creature for color pie violations. Haha.

Currently testing:

Reaver
Artifact Creature - Protoss [U]
Psionic 2
­, Remove a psi counter from ~: ~ gets +2/+2 and gains Vigilance until end of turn.
0/3

Still not perfect, but this is ok, I guess.

Before:

Reaver
Artifact Creature - Protoss [u]
­: Put a psi counter on ~.
­, Remove a psi counter from ~: ~ gets +2/+0 and gains first strike until end of turn.
0/3

• Now a shield user.
• solves the non-color pie issue of having +2/+0.

flagged for being too strong as an instant mana sink and increasing board complexity. Testing sorcery speed

shield should be +0/+1 for all units. and 3 colorless for +2 until end of turn (use any time)