Silmarillion: The War of the Jewels: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Silmarillion: The War of the Jewels: (Generated at 2025-08-02 22:05:10)
Yes.
The card text begins with the phrase "Until end of turn," so as to make it clear that it applies to everything that comes after it. Apparently it isn't working that well? How does being an instant make it any less clear? It's not like this is a "at the beginning of the next end step" instant you can pop on their end step to reap the rewards on your turn or anything like that.
I posted this on NGA forums where it got some feedback.
http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=18579
This would likely be the wording I would go with if I choose not to have the "sleeping" state
> When ~ enters the battlefield, for each creature, tap it. It doesn't untap during its controller's untap step until its untapped or ~ leaves the battlefield.
While 5 is a reasonable CMC for a wrath, I'm extremely wary about giving such a card to blue. It's also worth of note that if you untap your own creatures, this becomes closer to an one-sided wrath.
I would argue that there are no memory issues with this card since you could just pile all the "sleeping" creature near or under this card until something affects them. They're pretty much "out of the picture" as far as the battlefield goes until this leaves or an effect untaps them.
There are couple of others cards as well in the set that also are doing what could be said to be "reusing the same flavor concept". I don't really find it that concerning when it only happens with a couple of cards. While the sleeping concept here may seem similar, this and Hallowed Dormancy still refer to two different moments in the story. In the next set there's likely to be a Sleep reprint :) Silmarillion features a lot of sleeping.
Random thought about blue in general -
I haven't gone through the other colors yet, but it seems like Blue has a lot of effects that bounce things back to your hand. Is this a specific archetype? I am looking at cards like Tideling of Turmoil, but I can only find the blue planeswalker as a payoff for that archetype. Furthermore, Proclaim lends itself to a slower playstyle and larger hand, and you have a lot of card draw in the set. Maybe you can have a discard or hand size archetype in
? Or perhaps shuffle proclaim out of green and make an etb/ltb flash archetype in 
?
That's true. I designed this card for that reason once:
> Out in the Open
more to cast.
> Sorcery (uncommon)
> Target opponent reveals their hand. Until your next turn, spells they cast
> "Behold the sins of the infidel!"
Flavor/name was "something along those lines" - I can't remember it exactly. Anyway, that doesn't help with this card. Adding reveal would make it a tad more complex + it's already something that Eagles of Taniquetil does. I'm a fan of white causing stuff to be revealed btw.
This design seems awkward, especially because Hallowed Dormancy exists at common, which has a similar effect (and even evokes a similar flavor due to the art and name), but doesn't make creatures go to bed. As much as I dislike counters specific to one card, I feel like this card can benefit from putting sleep counters on creatures, with a clause saying that sleepy creatures don't untap.
Throwing an idea for an alternate wording for this effect out there:
"When ~ enters the battlefield, tap all creatures. Those creatures don't untap during their controller's untap step until they're untapped. (They must be untapped by a spell or ability.)"
Same memory issues that this one has (keeping track of which creatures are sleeping), but worded differently so that you don't have to use sleepy/woke states. Wording might be a little confusing, though.
As for mana cost, this can probably be costed similar to a wrath at
. It is slightly weaker than one.
One thing I have noticed is that you're giving cards that traditionally cost
costs that are 
. Was this a conscious decision to move these effects further away from hard Blue?
For reference, I'm referring to this card (not necessarily a full hard counter like Cancel and Dismiss, but it seems close enough outside the context of this set), and Call of the Sea. Might be a good opportunity to diversify costs.
And on another note, given the now-evergreenness of Scry, I think you can arguably remove the reminder text when necessary. Compare texts for Dissolve and Jace's Defeat. On Commons, while Kaladesh commons had scry reminder text, Magma Jet in MM3 didn't, though it may be because its a Masters set.
Is Proclaim an action word or a keyword? Seems like both due to the existence of this card. Bureaucracy-wise, it may be prudent to use one or the other, but not both. Right now there's no confusion about the grokkability of the effect but it seems odd to introduce a new keyword/action word just because of this uncommon effect.
Thats true, I imagine the effect won't seem as strong most of the time. One major complaint that I have with the ability is that I can't tell if it did anything worthwhile about 50% of the time. Say it's turn 2 and I play this. Next turn, the opponent untaps, plays his 3rd land drop, and plays another 2 drop to his board. Did I force him to make a suboptimal play by delaying his 3 drop, or did he not have a 3 drop to begin with? I can't tell.
Granted that's an issue with a lot of cards I come up with too.
Okay, I see. So basically the effect is "Any black mana generated for the rest of this turn won't empty until you spend it."? Because it's an instant, it seems a little unclear to me which effect ends "until end of turn".
That's what I call a good mirror matchup card.
More or less surprisingly, this can be a quite a blowout in limited since many of the strong (rare) cards in the set are enchantments and enchantment creatures. So I'm considering having it exile only one enchantment.
Eh, maybe, idk. It did see play in one game at least. It didn't get that many complaints since it doesn't do that much. For comparison, Ulmo, Lord of Waters's second loyalty ability got instant complaints when it was still an ability with variable -X loyalty cost that targeted X creatures.
"Saccing" a nonland permanent is also arguably worse than causing to sac a creature: you can keep your creatures if you keep chucking useless artifacts, auras or enchantments on the board.
Yes, the ability is a static effect.
> "Do you mean that any excess black mana is carried over to your opponent's next upkeep"
I don't know what this means... What in the card's wording lead you into considering that was the intent?
This uses the "updated" mana wording where mana pool is no longer referenced: mana just is and since there's no other place for it to be, it's pointless to mention where it is ie. to have a name for the place it is other than maybe in the comprehensive rules.
> "Heavenly" screams flying to me and "Host" indicates 3+ dudes.
I agree and that's how it was initially. Some other factors in the set's design pushed it into this, and later on I deactivated it. I would consider returning it to the set with its original form, but I think it would be too similar to Moon Dew.
While I might also think so, a similar mechanic called "obstruct" was said to be underpowered in many cases:
> Obstruct X. (Spells your opponents cast cost
more to cast until your next turn.)
> Legend (mtg salvation): "Obstruct has already been through three successful real life tournaments. This is the third iteration of its mechanic suite. Believe it or not, Obstruct has actually been powered up a little bit because it was underwhelming. Of all the criticisms I was given, the one that surprised me the most was that Obstruct wasn't effective enough. I was convinced that it would be complained about more than anything."
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/custom-card-creation/777982-gdw-white-commons-revisited-and-revised
> "chaining like 2 or 3 of these with an enchantment or two out sounds pretty miserable"
This sounds a bit too much like a christmas land scenario. The double
also makes it so that you really have to be dedicated to that plan. Plus setting two enchantments makes it so that you could only do that at turns 3/4+ so it's hardly overwhelming IMO.
This too has been deactivated: I just don't think it's a fun design irregardless of its mana cost.
That's because this is a replacement for that card. Hence the "deactivated" status on it. I removed the art from it so it isn't a distraction.
I am a bit confused by this card. Do you mean that any excess black mana is carried over to your opponent's next upkeep, or does it remain in your mana pool until the end of your turn? Is the second clause a static effect that is applied whenever SBAs are checked for the rest of this turn, or is it a one shot effect during resolution. If it's the latter, it seems relatively easy to avoid the issue by just not adding mana to your mana pool until you need it.
Doesn't this wreck monocolor decks, especially White or Black ones? I guess an uninteractable The Abyss every other turn doesn't sound that bad, but its more about the principle of it dying if anything.
The chant deck wants this (though most white decks will be happy to have this), but it feels like Anti-Chant tech. Not sure how or if I will change this, but the best possible situation in which I want this card is when somebody else is doing the chanting.
At worst its a bear. At best its Silence bear. I think this design in general is something that shouldn't be in the set, just because it sounds unfun for the other player. At common, chaining like 2 or 3 of these with an enchantment or two out sounds pretty miserable if you have a 3 drop and were on the draw. If it must exist, it should be Uncommon or Rare. It's a card that I will play, but it's not a card that I would feel good about playing - not because its bad or boring, its just because it doesn't feel fun.
This uses the same art as Midst Innumerable Stars.
Might need to modify the name a bit to make it more evocative of the current effect. "Heavenly" screams flying to me and "Host" indicates 3+ dudes.
Was an overabundance of enchantment creatures the reason why the enchantment type was removed from the tokens?
Going through your cardlist.
Any reason for the single
mana cost? At 6 mana, this feels pretty powerful to my inner timmy, since its so easily splashed. Although its not an 8/8 Flying Vigilance Indestructible beater, I feel like it'd sit more comfortably at 
or 
., especially because there isn't a nonwhite common card that can get rid of it.
Well, yes and no. The flavor (text) might not be clear on this, but in this case the fear/emotion is driving him to rush toward his father. So yes, it's a negative emotion in a sense, fear - though you could think of it as love as well - but no, it's not supposed to inspire inaction but action. Some concept names were "Overtaking by Feeling", "Compelled to Action", Peril/Distress/Restlesness what have you. The grief is compelling him to flee and leave the battlefield so that he would have to be summoned again. Lifeloss is the "sting of regret": he had hoped to be there to protect his father though this doesn't come off the flavor text, however, I think we can agree that the flavor text is long enough as it already. The untapped clause doesn't 100 % match the flavor IMO albeit you could see it as _"I just can't be sitting here doing nothing!" This is where a name containing a word like "Restless(ness)" would fit it in.
It's good to hear that there are willing playtesters available. At some point in the future I do need to start checking how that Cockatrice exporting was done again for custom sets. For now though, there are 4+ crucial cards that need to be conceptualized at least before I can call the set mostly done design wise - oh, and the missing archetypes probably need to some supporting changes.
The mechanical and flavor restrictions I've set upon myself are quite harsh and I also need to check up that following sets in the block are in somewhat of an acceptable state and not in conflict with anything done in this set. There are around 80 "finished" designs spread between those two future sets, but I've set them to private for now as to not to flood the "Recent updates" feed.
Art change.