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CardName: The Ur-Dragon Cost: {2G}{2W}{2U}{2B}R Type: Planeswalker - Ur-Dragon Pow/Tgh: /4 Rules Text: [+1] Your life total becomes 10. Until your next turn, creatures without flying can't attack you. [-1] The Ur-Dragon deals 5 damage to target creature or player. [-2] Search your library for a dragon permanent card and put it onto the battlefield. Shuffle your library. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Multiverse Design Challenge None |
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For Challenge # 075 based on Scion of the Ur-Dragon
I wanted to hit iconic dragon abilities, so we have form of the dragon, generic 5 damage, and dragonstorm-lite. I considered dragonstorm-classic as a bigger ultimate, but decided it was more fun if you constantly got to choose which dragon was most useful, rather than having an "I win" button.
I don't like "clever" mana costs, but I wanted to keep the CMC at 5, yet obviously "play any dragon" needs to cost more than that and I wanted it to go off multiple times. So I reverted to 5-colour rather than 4R. And yet, it seemed unfair that this was only good in 5 colour decks, when dragons are normally so red.
Yikes. Seems very powerful, though it is five colors...
symbol as 
, mainly because of Reaper King.
Also, remember that the CMC is actually 9. This just happens to be castable for anything between 5 and 9 mana.
EDIT: I automatically read the
Huh. The Ultimate alone is well-worth the price of admission. It's pretty broken, to be honest. I've been trying to find the proper analogy for it, but my ability to compare it to something else is kind of shot, since Ur-Dragon cheats, both tutoring and failing to be influenced by a tempo set back. I really can only compare it to Tinker, which is considerably cheaper, but does roughly the same thing. The fact that you're probably going to get another Tinker to go off next turn, and two-card combo win (May I suggest Kokusho, the Evening Star followed by Kokusho, the Evening Star) is pretty sick.
The proper analogy seemed to be dragonstorm for bogardan hellkite :) But if RGWUB is about equivalent to 7-8 mana, getting dragonstorm over two turns doesn't seem implausible for a mythic.
OTOH, yeah, I chose these costs to try to reflect Scion, but they probably need to change. Any suggestions for mana/loyalty costs?
Mmm... I get the idea that 'one is as difficult to achieve as the other'.... kind of. Honestly, I think WUBRG is probably about as hard as 7, which is very different than 8. Child of Alara seems like a solid wubrg, but it's no Akroma, Angel of Fury. There's also the question of "Is Dragonstorm a fair card?" I get the impression that many Wizards employees are sorry they reprinted that card... and it costs 9. Would it have been fair at 10? Who knows. What a tough nut.
But how to fix the costs? I see your problem. These do seem to be the most fun costs for this Planeswalker... they're just all a little too much.
seems more fair to me, but I don't know if you find that appealing (
?). Alternatively, perhaps the [-1] could also be a [+1], and the ultimate could be a [-5]? That way you have to at least wait a turn before it goes off? It kind of brings up the problem of having a Planeswalker that Lava Axes every turn if left unchecked... but it already did that. Left alone, this card will clock someone for 20 damage in four turns. I don't really think it matters much if the counters go up or down in the process.
I agree the bottom ability shouldn't be able to fire the turn you cast it if you can cast it for five mana. The middle ability being Explosive Impact is also really rather cheap for -1; compare how much the middle "kill a creature" abilities cost in loyalty even on the 7- and 8-mana walkers Karn Liberated and Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker.
I think just upping the cost (I like
) is a good start, but some tweaking to the costs may be needed too.