So I'm hoping some of you that used to post in the other thread and give me valuable feedback are still around - or that there's some new people around that like Magic and want to give me even more feedback!
I should emphasize that this set has been designed to be balanced with itself, rather than with the rest of Magic - it's not intended to be played with cards from other sets, but at the same time, costs and stuff should of course be comparable to what they'd be in real Magic, and obviously things should not be horribly broken or woefully underpowered for what they are if they, theoretically, were to be played together with... Modern, I guess.
Hello, that's me, I suppose. It's been a while since I've
played a reasonable amount of Magic, but I've been keeping up with someone who streams it a lot so I think I still have a decent idea of good card design and, at least, a solid understanding of how the game mechanics work together.
Modern (well, constructed play in general, honestly) is a notable hole in my knowledge, though. As I go through each card, I'll be judging things through the eyes of a Limited player.
3/3 for 4 with pro black and an extremely powerful ability that will never happen. I'd pick it.
Writing out "Reimu Hakurei" each time makes the ability a bit of a mouthful. I think, because she's legendary, you can use her given name instead, if you don't like "it"? I'd probably also stitch the second sentence back in to the first just to make it clearer to any insufferable rules lawyers out there that both things have to happen at the same time. Something like "[...] counters from Reimu and Reimu gets +7/+7 until [...]".
Ah, a Constructed-only card. That's fine.
Well, I say that, but even as a player used to writing off "5 mana do-nothing enchantments", the payoff on this is pretty alright. I'd maybe pick it if I could really trust the set to give me the lifegain I need in later picks.
Also, while I'm here, does
every card need flavour text, even the ones which already have three paragraphs of rules text? This one at least fits the card's mechanics well though, instead of merely just fitting the knowledge I already have as a Touhou fan, like some of the later cards.
Holy
moly! This card is nutso!
It seems like pretty excellent removal, even in the context of Constructed. In the context of drafting, this card is set-defining. I have a huge reason to want to play white if there's going to be 5-6 of these going around the table.
Also, can I entwine off a spellcard-discard? Not to say that the other three ways to play it aren't already good enough...
Immortal.
Well, it's difficult to judge
Immortal (and therefore also Eirin, who's all about it) right now... it seems extremely powerful, but there are weaknesses that the set could be designed to exploit. I mean, I was just finished with a card that deals with two immortal creatures quite handily. I'll be back for you.
and the only thing I'm on the fence about now is if the combined drawbacks of only triggering on damage and also coming back with summoning sickness makes it too weak
I mean, those are the only two things stopping it from being functionally identical to "Indestructible" - you can't fly too close to that sun if you want to put the keyword on more than a couple of cards. Without playing with it myself, I think Immortal is already fine as is, my worry would be that it might need to get scaled
back.
So, either way, here's the rest of the white immortals.
Kaguya's fine. Well, maybe there's a way to make her break Constructed over your knee, but it's too conditional for me to worry about.
Junko's nutso-busto but very hard to cast. Unlike Fantasy Nature, where I'm not sure if I'd first-pick it and build around it, I'd definitely do so for Junko - any game I can play her in is a won game.
Futo and Seiga are both astonishingly powerful on defense. Futo is one extra mana for your already-great Kitchen Finks, but with two major upsides (triggers on all creatures, comes back more than once) and Seiga is a cheapish (pseudo-)invincible blocker who pulls off the ol' block-and-tap real good for you. 3 huge creatures blocked every 2 turns, no questions asked*.
Tenshi's a 5 mana 6/5. Good start! She's pseudo-invincible. Okay!? She tells the red player that their time to win the game ends the next time you untap your lands. Yeah??
Miko is a potentially big beefy creature for a moderatly high price. Her ability is extremely powerful, but a bit tricky to trigger. She will never beat any of these other creatures (without enlisting help from the other creatures in your deck, anyway) because she doesn't have evasion or trample.
*MY HUGE POST MUST LITERALLY BE PERFECT EDIT: whoops, actually it's only one per turn, but you can forgo one to get two on the next turn
So this is what I mean by "Immortal is maybe too strong, also the power level of your set is higher than normal". It's still early days, so maybe your set is perfectly balanced with itself, but any one of these creatures would be a force of nature (Miko and Kaguya would merely be worrying) if I saw them in the average Limited game.
At this point, I should mention that save for a handful of Artifact creatures, all creatures in the set have the supertype Human or Youkai. That... hasn't ended up being as important as I envisioned it to be originally, though.
Actually, yeah... if it's not serving a gameplay purpose, then you should probably change it. Most of these characters aren't really "human", right?
And given Spell circle, every basic mechanic needs to come in Aura form as well, so:
Seems like a weird thing to put on an aura, even in an aura-centered set. This is basically just a 3 mana enchant-aura that says "No effect. Totem Armor." because it falls off when you revive them.
Well, if there was some way to put it back on each time (and good luck finding the rules wording for that) then this card would be fine and perhaps even weak. The keyword is strong, but the drawbacks of immortal are even stronger when the silver bullets that get you get two cards off the table instead of just one.
I mean, this card is great, but now my sense of value has been shifted so much higher and I've seen the immortal blockers she'll be running in to every turn, so I dunno.
Also, spell circle and immortal just do not play nicely together. And with this card in particular, it feels really bad. You want to throw her in to combat every single turn, but you just can't because the auras will fall off when she dies. Luckily she's still okay on her own, so you probably wouldn't suit her up in them to begin with.
Designed to be a mirrored pair with Junko, but I don't actually know what Chang'e's ability is supposed to do yet. Taking suggestions.
Who?
Well, Junko is nutso-busto, like I said, so if you want something that good and mirrored with Junko's ability, it'd be "Make a X/1 with haste and maybe even trample that dies at end of turn and you may deal X damage to a creature". I'm not sure if making ball lightning creatures and blasting dudes is what Chang'e does, though.
Split second was another keyword I expanded recently. Kaguya used to only have Flash, but Split second wasn't featured on enough cards
Just stepping in to say "hell yeah".
I like Aya and Hatate. I think Aya might be the slightly better of the two? I like hitting people in the face with my fliers.
Illusionary Dominance is hard to evaluate. Instant first strike is a dangerous place to start with your combat trick, but then it's pretty expensive and doesn't pump up the numbers at all. Even so, this might be too good on defense?
Huh. A plain old flying lifelinker feels like a breath of fresh air after exploring this alien set.
Well, this card is powerful. Anyone with shrines and white mana would want to pick it in Limited. But it dies when it's killed, which seems like a downside these days.
Oh, all of these are balanced. Weird.
I particularly like Merlin as the card that a Limited player will see and think "Ah, a 2/3 for 3 mana with no text. That's fine." and Sunny as two nice things for cheap (flying attacker, tapper) barely held together on a tiny body. A card that will feel great when you manage to squeeze tiny bits of value out of it.
Whoop, the breath of fresh air's over, time to get strange again.
Rage Trilithon - The second Constructed-only card, it seems. Both Silence and Proliferate don't seem like effects I'm going to want frequently enough to include this card in my deck.
Life Spring Infinity - Seems... bad? Am I this desperate for life gain?
Virupaksa's Eyes - Hard to evaluate. Cards usually don't do this kind of thing any more these days.
Saint:The +1 is good. I bet the -2 won't be used very often. (+1 makes you unblockable, -2 can't be used on reaction, so it's not even
that great)
Should the +1 say "You may"? I'm not sure what happens if you try to use a planeswalker ability with no valid targets.
Her ultimate is at the usual "doesn't quite win the game" power level. The fact that it only takes three turns to do it is slightly worrying, but she costs 5 mana and can't defend herself, so it's probably fine.
Monk:Oh, the tribes are starting to matter after all.
These abilities are... dangerous. The +1 is balanced for one youkai, the -3 is fine up until I discard some huge youkai-griselbrand to a spellcard and then it's a Vintage Reanimator plan, and the ultimate... oh wait the ultimate is only lifegain. Lifegain never hurt anyone.
I hesitate to just call it broken, though. It's strong and exciting. The +1 seems like it might be backbreaking in Limited but that's kind of just what happens if you get lucky with a planeswalker that fits your deck in Limited.
I like Konngara and Unzan. Unzan joins the delightful ranks of cards that say "I can't block" only for the response to be "I wasn't planning on that, actually"
The two auras... hm. Good auras always seem so inconsistent. You're either beating your opponent to death with your ludicrous unblockable monstrosity, or they laugh and blast your creature as the aura's being placed on them, or even afterwards sometimes. These cards are good auras, for all the good that does them.
I like Miracle Fruit and Ghost Clifford.
Whew, I really lost myself in this! Man, set design is so much more fun when I don't have to do any of the work.
So looking back on my post, I said I'd be back for what I think about Immortal, and it seems I think it's stronger than you do. All the immortal creatures were very powerful (e.g. Futo, who would be playable if she only came back once!) and the other cards have not yet convinced me that there's going to be plenty of answers to them to go around.
The mechanics you've chosen are all ones that I kind of like as well*, but all of them in addition to the spellcard-discarding-auras trick is a bit much, maybe?
Designing a set around auras... well, I brought it up earlier. It's hard. But this set seems alright so far. Don't give up, skeleton.
*
bring back Storm (don't, though)