- Location
- Shibuya, UG
@Wukong @Walker of the Yellow Path Wow! Thank you for the feedback on the cards! I don't want to derail this thread from Shadell's awesome story too much, so Tl;Dr I basically put flavor over everything when making the cards. My goal was never to make playable MTG cards, but rather to focus on trying to express how much this story inspired me! I think there's a lot of way to do a little vice MTG, but this was an idea I couldn't stop thinking about.
That said, there are a couple of things I'll try and reply to:
Hilariously enough, my main reason for not having two cards for Gula and then Temperance is based on the Avaritia specialize into white. I really like the idea that Avaritia, showing her charity, can cast both Gula and Invidia for free. Gula being really powerful is also kinda intentional in that in the story, my personal headcannon is that Temperance chose to join the Angelic Saints despite knowing it would make her weaker.
The other option was to try and make a Temperantia front with Gula back, but 1) it would mean Gula wouldn't be tutorable and 2) it doesn't really represent Temperance's character arc imo.
Firstly, I totally missed that magic cards don't have three sides... Whoops! The text for Invidia mostly came from Vesuvan Shapeshifter, and I really wanted a repeatable morph effect.
In terms of what Walker wrote, I agree that the morph cost should be blue. But that was a flavor sacrifice in that it felt just plain wrong for Invidia Bat to not have green mana for her abilities.
Lastly, the WUBRG activated ability on the full res ability intentionally includes black mana believe it or not. Humanitas mentions in chapter 17 that she still has her seed. In my reading of the story, I believe part of C's transition to being an Angelic Saint involved them accepting their envy and forgiving themselves for it. That's why the ability has black mana!
Honestly, I decided for specialize for Avaritia because e's such a versatile character. Plus, I really wanted to get a White/Black/Red version of Avaritia to represent eir charity. Also, e's a freaking badass who can take on three saints at once so I wanted to make the card reflect eir awesomeness.
Superbia... I did a bad job designing balance wise on purpose tbh. Something that I changed last minute, and might not have made it into the pictures I posted - Superbia can only curse allies and can only make enemies monstrous. Toxic masculinity dragon does not get the ability to help allies. Also, the transformation prevention was very much designed with the idea in mind that Gula and Avaritia cannot transform unless its your turn. Thus, the transformation prevention only stops Superbia's allies from achieving their true form.
The only exception to this is Chiro as Humanitas can transform at instant speed after she stops pretending to be another creature. Furthermore, Invidia Bat // Humanitas is the only card that doesn't care if she's been cursed! Cursing doesn't cause you to lose abilities, it only makes you weaker... unless you're already a 1/1!
That said, there are a couple of things I'll try and reply to:
I am not sure how I feel about the transform mechanic on Gula Shark. If I was designing a set as a whole I would either make two cards to represent her before and after becoming a magical girl, or make a story spotlight sorcery card or something to represent her shifting sides. Whenever I design transforming cards it can be really easy to overegg them and write too much on them so I try to avoid them where possible myself.
Gula is a really powerful control card that will generate huge amounts of value over the game. Honestly you never want to flip her because your opponent discarding a random card each turn is huge. Even though you have correctly templated it as an upkeep effect it is far too cheap for a recurring effect that will grind out value. Not to mention the ability to get lucky and strip someone's lands away making them incapable of playing the game. It will be oppressive to be on the other side of, plus she comes down on turn two to get started on ripping through hands right away so even if your opponent uses removal on her you are still gaining tempo and advantage. She would make for the most miserable counterplay imaginable.
Hilariously enough, my main reason for not having two cards for Gula and then Temperance is based on the Avaritia specialize into white. I really like the idea that Avaritia, showing her charity, can cast both Gula and Invidia for free. Gula being really powerful is also kinda intentional in that in the story, my personal headcannon is that Temperance chose to join the Angelic Saints despite knowing it would make her weaker.
The other option was to try and make a Temperantia front with Gula back, but 1) it would mean Gula wouldn't be tutorable and 2) it doesn't really represent Temperance's character arc imo.
HOWEVER. This annoyingly doesn't work under current magic rules as dual faced cards cannot morph as they are always considered face up unless transformed via their own effect. You have accidentally created a triple faced card (which mark rosewater did design for duel masters but shush). I am going to ignore that for the rest of this review though because the design is fucking awesome otherwise. And it works fine if you play with sleeves. Just not according to the comprehensive rules
The flipside I think needs some adjustments, mainly I think the activated ability should be WURG as magical girls should be defined as not having black as part of their colour identity. Also her static ability I think should be reworked because its a little confusing, magic doesn't often describe abilities like that outside of some weird green creatures, and it wont work on herself as she is a 1/1 which will confuse some players for sure. If you want my design, her flipside should on transform return all angelic saints to the battlefield from the bin and give them indestructable + hexproof until end of turn. Make her a one shot rez that you can hold in reserve until the critical moment when you transform her to save the day.
I love Invidia Bat's copying ability. However, her morph ability should cost blue mana, since you can't get creature copying outside of blue, and with how Morph works that means a deck with no blue mana could cast her and copy creatures. In addition, she should cost about 4 mana, which is the standard rate for clone effects. Humanitas is perfect, no changes needed though. I would run her as my Commander.
Firstly, I totally missed that magic cards don't have three sides... Whoops! The text for Invidia mostly came from Vesuvan Shapeshifter, and I really wanted a repeatable morph effect.
In terms of what Walker wrote, I agree that the morph cost should be blue. But that was a flavor sacrifice in that it felt just plain wrong for Invidia Bat to not have green mana for her abilities.
Lastly, the WUBRG activated ability on the full res ability intentionally includes black mana believe it or not. Humanitas mentions in chapter 17 that she still has her seed. In my reading of the story, I believe part of C's transition to being an Angelic Saint involved them accepting their envy and forgiving themselves for it. That's why the ability has black mana!
Avarita I don't want to review because I have a personal bone to pick with specialize, its like six cards in one, and also I dont play mtg arena so the mechanic can smeg off XD.
Honestly, I have no notes on Avarita and eir forms. Specialize really made sure ey stayed balanced cost wise. I really like em.
Honestly, I decided for specialize for Avaritia because e's such a versatile character. Plus, I really wanted to get a White/Black/Red version of Avaritia to represent eir charity. Also, e's a freaking badass who can take on three saints at once so I wanted to make the card reflect eir awesomeness.
Superbia is a very cool design, very flavourful, and I like it a lot. Extremely extremely powerful mind you, I would definitely look to add some more restrictions on it because a 13/13 flying first strike is going to end games without a serious kind of drawback to hold it back. As it stands there is no incentive to block with Superbia which means you play it and next turn dome your opponent for 13 which is kinda good in just about any format. Even at 6 mana. The roles are cool as hell and a great way to represent what he has been doing to people in the story but Cursed is going to get out of hand real fast. Two mana to effectively neuter a blocker or attacker at instant speed and it's repeatable! Danger zone for sure. This card has very little counterplay and will win games with very little prompting. Giving roles and taking damage in the form of -1/-1 counters are the core of this card, I would look to reworking it while keeping those two aspects in mind as those are the core of what makes Superbia such a flavour win.
Superbia is also pretty good. I kinda wish he had some white in there to represent the light based powers he seemed to use in the battle, but that's unimportant. Preventing transforming or specializing is very niche, only really going to shut down werewolf decks. Still, it's mostly a flavor win. My big thing is that a 13/13 with Flying and First Strike is really oppressive vs creature based decks, even with the draw back. In a lot of games, if the opponent didn't bring a bunch of removal, or flying chump blockers, he will end the game on raw stats alone.
The Monster Role and Cursed Roles are good ways to represent Resinners, but I think the Monster Role should have been just GG instead of BG. Makes it read better, took me three reads to realize that he has green anywhere in him. (Plus the Cursed role really makes it easy for him to disable all your opponents best creatures with little trouble.)
Superbia... I did a bad job designing balance wise on purpose tbh. Something that I changed last minute, and might not have made it into the pictures I posted - Superbia can only curse allies and can only make enemies monstrous. Toxic masculinity dragon does not get the ability to help allies. Also, the transformation prevention was very much designed with the idea in mind that Gula and Avaritia cannot transform unless its your turn. Thus, the transformation prevention only stops Superbia's allies from achieving their true form.
The only exception to this is Chiro as Humanitas can transform at instant speed after she stops pretending to be another creature. Furthermore, Invidia Bat // Humanitas is the only card that doesn't care if she's been cursed! Cursing doesn't cause you to lose abilities, it only makes you weaker... unless you're already a 1/1!
... ngl I was lowkey really depressed when I heard we only have an epilogue left... Cour 3 never hurts!
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