New Mirrodin: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to New Mirrodin: (Generated at 2026-04-14 18:16:30)
Page 1 - Older activity
Page 1 - Older activity
Was trying to figure out how to make a similar spell to this one work in Homelands Restored. You know, what with this clearly being a Blue-Black spell, but should theoretically be cheaper than Diabolic Edict.
I stumbled upon the 'must have a Swamp and an Island' thing and thought that was a good way to pull together multicolor cards that only cost one mana. But not in Homelands Restored. Would have shipped this to Cards with no Home, but it makes a lot of sense in New Mirrodin, what with all the 'tangled mana' issues of this set.
So I'm just tossing the idea here for when I get back to the set later. Probably wouldn't run five modal spells, though. Or maybe I would in the set's expansion? I just know that "you must control a Plains and a Forest" would be far easier to digest on a 2/3 for
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No it isn't. Corrected, and thanks for the catch, visitor.
This card references bond of community instead of itself for "this creature must be blocked if able", is that intentional?
Still bugs me, though. I wish I could come up with a word that means the same as 'sacrifice from the Command Zone'. But that just sounds like I'm creating words for the sake of creating words...
need to capitalise Avatar, otherwise only real issue is the one you've already identified with sacrificing the emblems. but emblems are a very new part of the game, they can be explored to some extent. this feels fine, it's the lightest form of interaction you could really give them
See also Everburning Pine Avatar and Shrubwoods Avatar.
That's a good point. That said, and for comparison purposes only, Magic 2015 includes the word 'Trample' on 12 cards. The Ionic cycles are the only place where trample appears in New Mirrodin.
So I'm not afraid of over-using any keywords. If anything, I'm under-using them (with the obvious exception of flying, which needs more than 9 'potential' flyers.) The real problem you're alluding to is that Trample isn't all that exciting. And I agree. I'm more than happy to switch out trample... I just got to come up with another green ability that takes up no more than 7 or so words. And isn't reiterative. I don't really mind extra green ion counters stacking up, but it doesn't do it on the other creatures, so it would be weird to make the green ability 'Bushido 1', for example.
Hmm... think, think, think...
Hmm. That's a lot of cycles granting the same keywords. Black won't mind lots of opportunities to gain lifelink (and blue and white are certainly happy with lots of flying and first strike), but green might get a bit bored of lots of chances to gain trample.
Sorry to give the impression that this only appears on two cards. The actual number of cards in set where "must be blocked, if able." is currently 10. The two previously mentioned, the Viashino's Black-Red partner, Ionized Nameless One, Three of the 'pick twos': Ursilodon, Sciurtilia and Lycolupidae, two global enchantments: Bond of Ferocity and Bond of Malignity, and two Ionized rares: Troglolanche and Dream Fevers. For what it's worth, the cards are all part of 4 separate five card cycles. When I first decided to add the ability, I just assumed it would be on a few cards for spice. 10 cards, though, sounds like a keyword.
how many cards have this ability? two doesn't seem like enough to justify keywording it.
Meh, I convinced myself. This used to be Haste, now it's 'theoretically worse than Provoke'. I'll need to come up with a keyword later.
First pass at a mechanic. Titan cycles tend to have 'stickiness', making them good even if your opponent has a ready Doom Blade. I tried making them hard to kill, but it seems like there's no easy way to make a cylce of that. Abilities like "The first spell that targets ~ is countered" clearly belongs to some colors and not to others. I suppose gold let's me get away with a few things, but I'd rather do something else.
Instead, I figured the "It's Coming!" mechanic could use more support in a Mythic cycle, so I whipped up this instead. At first, these things were supposed to get their own unique creature type... but playing other avatars into these abilities shouldn't be a real problem. (This ability seems particularly relevant with Essence of the Wild. Fair enough.)
The part that kind of bugs me, though, is the whole "sacrifice this emblem" thingy. Emblems are supposed to be untouchable. Most of the time, that means they should be permanent. Feels really weird to get rid of them. I did think about not sacrificing them, and just letting the emblems do their thing whenever an Avatar entered, or re-entered the battlefield... but that messes with the numbers quite a bit... I can't make the activation cheap if the ability is permanent...
Yeah, I've thought about that. It seems like a Brand decision... instead of making clean cycles, we focus on 15 individual cards because they are the sexiest/most fun.
There is generally at least one cycle in the mythic slot for core sets, though (I think.) And the Mirrans are rather loose to really recognize the cycle. I'm just going to have to buckle and make some titans for set identity. The other three slots are allocated for two artifacts and a land... but it's a good reminder that they could just be colored cards. I don't really need to force that.
FWIW, you may want to recall that Wizards don't make their mythics consistent across the colours. Most cards will have some colours with 1 mythic and some with 2. Personally this policy of theirs is anathema to me, but it is the way they do it, so it might provide an alternate for you. It seems likely that the way they do it is, except for front-page cycles like the Titans or Praetors, they just submit the set with N+M rares and only afterwards promote 10-15 of them to mythic.
all good
That sounds like a good idea, except I'm pretty close to finishing it, so I think I'd like to just get that done first. Feedback is always appreciated, though. I'll make sure to make a primer after I finish the last 10 or so cards.
have you considered putting together a quick summary of this set and how it interacts? wouldn't mind giving some feedback on the set as a whole but it's hard to figure out by going through the cardlist.