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I would have liked a third ability, but I felt her static was too wordy.
Paulina was a human(?) that through magic turned herself into a phoenix-angel hybrid, a being that's near-close to immortal.
Originally this had a CMC of 6, starting loyalty 4, and the activated abilities were -2 and -4 respectively.
See Readied Goalkeep.
Languish is
. Attaching the body did trouble me with developing the cost.
The design space is boring, and the difference from "Morbid- Alternate cost of cast" isn't great, that's true.
Hm... Not a huge fan of this mechanic, it's just more limited Morbid, in my opinion.
Also, four
seems way too undercosted for the effect (even on a mythic with a condition)... but, I might be wrong.
You don't need the bit about flash. "You may cast this spell" always means "right now"
"The +1/+1 counter in this case was to help remind players a creature became a Maestro"
That's actually a pretty good reason to include one.
In my haste I forgot to include that there is a parameter in the reminder text. The +1/+1 counter in this case was to help remind players a creature became a Maestro. This was from feedback I received from another mechanic that I had been testing out before. If this were a digital cardgame, then absolutely I would not worry about having to include the +1/+1 counter to remind players though.
This seems really cool.
Big problem though, neither of these cards work. Right now, Maestro has a parameter, but nowhere does it say you need to pay that cost. So why is it there? Did you mean to include that you have to pay the cost, or does Maestro not have a cost?
I agree it would be nice to cut down on space in the reminder, I'd suggest removing the +1/+1 counter. If cards care about being Maestro's, you don't need to also care about having counters. Also, it means you don't have to print all your creates under-curve if they have cheap Maestro costs, which could get awkward and limit design space.
So, maybe something like, (Whenever this creatures becomes the target of a spell or ability, if it's not a Maestro, you may pay PARAM1. If you do, it becomes a Maestro.)
Still long, but not as long.
Just an FYI, this triggers on any spell or ability that targets it, including your own. I assume that was intentional, though.
Edit: If you didn't mean to include a parameter, then the wording would be, ("Whenever this creatures becomes the target of a spell or ability, if it's not a Maestro, it becomes a Maestro.")
See The Best Butcher. I like this iteration more, but it's eats up a lot of the text box. Current ideas regarding Maestro are that cards can care about Maestros.
Maestro test #1 - based on monstrosity and renown. Immediately discarded the idea, but will use to further explore the concept.
That reasoning is definitely flavor-oriented rather than mechanic-oriented, but it's definitely very sound when I look at it that way.
Honestly, if you don't plan on reusing the same condition too many times, most of the problems I listed above won't matter too much.
After all, 'this has the lowest power' and 'you control most creatures' are such different abilities, that they don't really fight in the same space.
So, this mechanic is probably balanced. It's still a bit weird to make it an ability word, but since ability words don't technically mean anything (they can't be referenced on cards for ex.), it works ruleswise.
Also, I'm really excited for the flavor of some of these cards, it's not often we get a magic mechanic about something so mundane as 'performance arts' :)
Also, not to be a bother, but here's a few wording fixes I'd recommend for some of these cards:
Baited Aullihorn should say "most creature cards" rather than "most creatures"
Imposing Storyteller should end with "among creatures on the battlefield" to clarify how it's ability works.
Carnivale Security should say "control" instead of "have" and "endstep" is actually two words.
Wilderness's Advocate has a weird name, it might not be grammatically correct. I'd just change it to Wilderness Advocate rather than worry about apostrophes. It should say "the most" instead of just "most" and you should search for a "land card" not just a "land".
Also, another space is normally put before the hyphen when formatting these cards. This may have been a conscious choice or a mistake, but the general consensus is that it looks better to format it like this:
Ability Word Name - [Text...]
Also, I presume you might be using this mechanic again in Libelone (if that's the name you've settled on :P)? I definitely think it would work well, there.
I thank you for your input Froggychum.
Unfortunantely, I don't believe checking the same type of thing per card is line with what I want this mechanic to symbolize, which was an artist or performer at the top of their craft. The best actor wouldn't be judged by the same output and requirements as the best sculptor. The differing superlatives would need to be necessary to convey this flavor.
For what it's worth, the mechanic wasn't envisioned as something that decks would necessarily want to have different creatures with spotlight, but instead maybe a (single playset of a) creature or two with spotlight whose spotlight matched up with what the deck wanted to do.
"Is the variety of places that Spotlight can check a problem"
Mechanically, there is a lot of design space present here, so running out of ideas isn't an issue.
The huge issue with this mechanic is that it's WAY too nonspecific to be an ability word. I mean, ability words aren't as specific as keywords, but they still have a focus.
The difference between two spotlight conditions is so vast, that you'd be better off either not using an ability word or narrowing your designs into a tighter theme.
For example, 'having the lowest power' and 'having the most creature cards in your graveayard' are ENTIRELY different themes. Also, the former doesn't have much design space, but the latter definitely does.
I'd suggest narrowing it down to something else. Maybe, "If you control the most creatures" or "If you control the most permanents" or "If you have the most cards in your graveyard".
If you want this to be a five-color mechanic, then you'll have a hard time, because it's hard to design a mechanic that can work in all five colors.
I personally think, "If you control the most permanents" could definitely fit into all five colors.
However, this superlative-style ability has another huge issue: Only one player can benefit from it in a match-up. For example, if this mechanic has a lot of cards (as a five color theme would have in a set), then the chances somebody is playing it is pretty high. That means, that in games with more than one spotlight-player even if those decks are vastly different, the games will always be far less fun for all but one player.
Perhaps, if you made two separate mechanics or two variations of Spotlight, one that reads, "If you control the most permanents" and "If an opponent controls more permanents than you", then players would be able to have more opportunities to have success from their opponent's success, instead of having 90% of their cards do nothing because their opponent got to play first.
That still wouldn't stop 'mirror-matches' (games where more than one player are each playing Spotlight decks), but it would add some diversity to the meta.
Honestly, this mechanic just isn't advisable. Could still be fun, though.
Is the variety of places that Spotlight can check a problem? From my perspective, the amount of things that could be cared about in a single zone is small, and if cards want to be the most (or least) or something, they would want to look at different areas so as not to compete with each other. My brain, thus thought it logical for finding design space to use, that Spotlight not have limits to zones or items that can be checked.
See Brutal Boxer. Eye tokens are now 0/1 instead of 1/1.
Instead of giving Eyes abilities outright, I thought of Eyes adding abilities to instant and/or sorcery spells.
Creatures that interact with Eye tokens would be in all five colors.
Is this concept viable for a "mechanic"?
I think sometimes being a trigger and sometimes being a static effect is fine. See how Wizards used morbid, for example. The bigger concern I have is that spotlight just means "you have the superlative" right now, rather than having the same condition each time. It's chroma vs devotion, if you know what I mean
Fair enough. Do you think the format I used for Spotlight here and on Imposing Storyteller can coexist with Carnivale Security and Wilderness's Advocate?
followed dude1818's advice.
Maybe this should prevent damage to itself while in the spotlight? Otherwise it would be annoying to have to track damage just in case it loses indestructible each turn
See Imposing Storyteller.
One concept I have is that creature native to this plane has the potential to awaken an "eye." These eyes are supposed to function as cameras. This was the first attempt trying to showcase this, but I do not believe this makes the camera theme clear.
could tap to copy an instant or a sorcery, but that didn't feel like right being in all colors or appearing at common.
I consider that all eye tokens were identical and for
There are decent odds of this set introducing athlete as a creature type.
See Carnivale Security. Here Spotlight is constantly checked. Does this spotlight's method of existence conflict with the Spotlight of Carnivale Security and Wilderness's Advocate or can they coexist without causing problems?
So I realized it may be hard to have things to count that the creature or other permanent itself did. I kept the word spotlight, but expanded its area, so that spotlight can care if you have the most of something, rather than just the permanent itself.
For this and Wilderness's Advocate I chose endstep because it was just likely to occur first and benefit the player. Should I consider other phases (I was mainly thinking about upkeep) where Spotlight could be checked, or should I stick to only the endstep to appease players who would not remember which Spotlights are upkeep and which spotlights and endstep. Upkeep would be better for anything that might want to be done during an opponent's turn, but I suspect the majority of applications would be easier to check at endstep. Alternatively, I will make another card proposing a different method for Spotlight.
If Spotlight may be ill-favored because of the Story Spotlight cards, I could Limelight as an alternative name.