Click through to see the requirements for your design test, due by Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. I encourage you all to revise your designs at least once in response to feedback. I will review the most recent submission from each designer.
Wraiths
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jay!
DeleteRelentless Wraith {2}{B}{B}
ReplyDeleteCreature—Wraith (unc)
Sacrifice a Swamp: Return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.
3/3
You beat me to it! I had the exact same thing at 3B 3/2.
DeleteI think it's a great idea to expand Wraith's identity to caring about Swamps in a more general sense as opposed to only Swampwalking.
DeleteI could see this costed {4}{B} too for a little more flexibility in limited, as its ability already encourages you to have a lot of Swamps.
I worry about sacrificing lands as a cost, given how poorly that sometimes plays, but this would be used late enough (usually) that it should play fine. This is a natural extension of Wraiths' design space, and a fitting one!
DeleteAh, another worry: This might be getting a bit too close to Skeletons' identity?
DeleteEerie Wraith
ReplyDelete3B
Creature - Wraith - common
~ has menace if Swamps are the only basic land type among lands you control.
3/3
Seems like a cool new way to have potential evasion that cares about Swamps.
DeleteDo think it's difficult to template this in such a way that it can be done at common though. Perhaps something like "~ has menace if you control four or more Swamps"?
"As long as you have four or more Swamps" would reward the same commitment with fewer prohibitions.
DeleteLike it! Good suggestion Isao. :)
DeleteYeah, I agree with the suggestion of counting a Swamp. You could also go with something like Harbor Serpent's condition, though that does play worse, since it can keep opponents from playing lands; but it also does preserve a bit of the "Swampwalk" flavor by also caring about your opponent.
DeleteBut "four or more Swamps" is probably best!
Hmm. I think I want to play around with the wraith concept of occasional unblockability without swampwalk or making it seem blue.
ReplyDeleteMurkwhisper Wraith BB
Creature--Wraith (Uncommon)
Whenever an opponent discards a card, put a +1/+1 counter on ~. It cannot be blocked this turn.
2/1
Elegant design and a fine solution to Swampwalk I think. It could snowball pretty quick with multi-discard spells or against cycling. Thoughts on +1/+1 until EOT versus +1/+1 counters?
DeleteOkay, yeah I thought it was +1/+1 until end of turn, also +1/+1 counters feels more rare than uncommon.
DeleteYeah, I like that Wraiths have two spaces to go into: conditional black-feeling unblockability, and Swamps. I think this is a great push towards a new identity for Wraiths.
DeleteThis does seem a little scary at uncommon. Discarding also doesn't happen too frequently in Limited, so it might be 'dead space' at uncommon, if that makes sense?
Flavorwise, I had an image of my head of the wraith consuming "madness" the way a vampire consumes blood, thus I went with the counters.
DeleteBecause of the parasitic nature of its ability, I wanted to make sure it felt rewarding. Unlike the River Sneak, it's going to be hard to trigger, so I wanted the bonus to stay. But the unblockable is only until end of turn, so there are lots of weaknesses in its defenses to take it out.
I worried about it as a dead draw in limited, but I think making it rare would make the problem even worse. Make it uncommon helps signal it as a build-around. If I were to make it rare, I'd probably want to bump up the power/toughness of it so that it's at least playable if you can't build the combo.
(As for cycling, I think that the opponent has to decide whether to trigger the wraith's bonus in order to get the benefit of the cycling is a nice very-black bonus that only gets out of hand if the opponent makes poor choices.)
Otherworldly Vizier BBUW
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith Advisor (R)
Vigilance, Deathtouch
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card and you draw a card.
1/5
How badly does this need to have WU and vigilance?
DeleteI think it needs U for the card draw.
DeleteI actually started with the mana cost and designed to that (two black abilities, one blue, one white), but I suppose your point is that there's a still-interesting cleaner design available. Would that card still be a rare?
Where by 'that card' I mean without the UW, vigilance, or draw.
DeleteThis feels far more like a Specter than a Wraith to me.
DeleteI also agree it seems a little overdesigned. It's a "Chinese menu" design, and could do with a touch more elegance.
I do like that you tried to do something very fitting to the art with these colors, though! :)
DeleteI'm not in love with the mechanical implementation of wraiths, so I feel okay breaking with that. And Specters in Magic have a solid tradition of flying, so it's a little hard to fit there either.
DeleteTrying to be less Chinese-menu-y while keeping the colour identity:
Otherworldly Vizier BBUW
Creature - Wraith Advisor (R)
Deathtouch
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, choose one:
- That player discards a card
- You may cast target nonland card in that player's graveyard without paying its mana cost
1/5
Maybe this could be mono-black? I think white lets you cast enchantments and blue gets you instants and sorceries. That was clearer in my intermediate version where it returned things from your graveyard to your hand. But working off the opponent's graveyard fits better with the discard ability.
That's a good point about the flying.
DeleteI love this new implementation, very cool. I agree with your assessment as well, that this needs blue and white to really 'fit'. Blue also justifies the 'cheating out' that this does.
Nice final iteration.
(I still think it doesn't feel quite Wraith-y enough, but you're right, we do have to decide what to keep and what to abandon... still, why is this a Wraith instead of a Spirit?)
Boundary Wraith 1BB
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith (R)
Menace
Whenever Boundary Wraith deals combat damage to a creature, exile that creature. For as long as it remains exiled, it has "Discard a card: Return this card from exile to your hand."
3/3
Intentional that lethal damage kills opposing creatures before the exile ability resolves?
DeleteInteresting how, like Gonti, Lord of Luxury, the exile effect is written to persist even after your wraith leaves the battlefield. I like that as a good way to contrast black exile effects from white ones.
DeleteI'm not sure about the menace though. I realize that the wraith creates a nice, nasty trap when an opponent double-blocks, but at that point, the punishment is so high that I think the opponent is just going to treat it as unblockable.
No, that's not intentional. It's a cool concept to be that way, but probably too confusing. The wording should probably be:
DeleteIf Boundary Wraith would deal combat damage to a creature, exile that creature instead.
As for menace, I'm not sure if there's as much of a downside as you think, since players in the late game will probably have excess lands they'll be happy to discard in return for their creatures. I suppose that if after playtesting, it is observed that no one ever blocks it, menace could be removed or replaced.
I really, really like this take on conditional exile. It actually feels like it could be hybrid white and black.
DeleteI think it'd be more interesting gameplay if blocks happened more often, so I'd also suggest removing menace, to encourage that 'minigame' to come into play more. Does that make sense? Still, you're right that this makes it trigger 'twice' if it happens at all... interesting call. It depends on how often it gets killed with the first block, I guess.
Great design. Very intriguing.
I do get your point, and it's a very legitimate concern. Without menace, though, Boundary Wraith's ability becomes more of a downside than upside, since it would only trade for the worst card in the opponent's hand (assuming they have a creature that's 3/3 or bigger).
DeleteWell, it's handy that black gets powerful, undercosted creatures with downsides, then. :)
DeleteAlso, I forgot to note that I like Menace taking the place of Swampwalk here. That's nice, and gives it additional value.
Presager of Death 2B
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith
2/2
~ can't be blocked unless defending player pays X where X is the number of swamps you control.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, if ~ attacked this turn, you may put a +1/+1 counter on it.
The first ability I wanted something that could be used on wraiths in place of swampwalk. The second one, I wanted something that caught the "anticipate the moment of death" idea of wraiths.
I think your first ability is great. Pseudo-unblockability that cares about Swamps feels very wraithy and reads well enough.
DeleteI think the second ability is unnecessary however. It seems stapled on, and detracts from the core of the design in my opinion.
To expand on that a bit: I understand wanting to go for the death aspect, but then I'd go for only that and drop the first one. The abilities don't synergize. In fact, they seem a bit of a nonbo: Your opponent has to pay to block, and a common way to have a creature on your opponent's side die is by trading in combat.
DeleteA combat damage trigger would make their connection feel more natural.
DeleteI agree that the second ability doesn't feel like it connects to the first ability enough. I like the first ability well enough, but I'm not sure it feels very black beyond caring about Swamps. That kind of taxing is a bit unusual, but seems solidly blue to me, maybe white. Its only precedent seems to be Awesome Presence, which is very old. Still, it isn't a break in black by any means.
DeleteCorrupting Wraith (Uncommon)
ReplyDelete{4}{B}
Creature - Wraith
3/3
Swampwalk
Sacrifice a creature: Target land becomes a Swamp until end of turn.
--
Do you think this could be a common?
Unfortunately, Swampwalk has been retired. That's the catch to this challenge. :)
DeleteYou could replicate a lot of this card's functionality with "Sacrifice a creature: Target land becomes a Swamp until end of turn. CARDNAME can't be blocked this turn."
Ah right, cheers. As far as I recall, landwalking was not used anymore because it felt too binary (opponent has a swamp and the ability is super strong, or they don't and it's useless), so I tried to improve on that aspect.
DeleteHm, the wording you suggested achieves the same effect, but feels less organic to me (the evasion doesn't seem tied to turning lands into Swamps as much anymore).
Time to think of something else
Someone should grab "Whenever you play a Swamp, [effect]…"
DeleteOh that's an interesting angle too Jay, thanks :)
DeleteHm, maybe this is too cute, but I wanted to play around with the evasion a bit. ('Whenever you play a Swamp, can't be blocked ueot' is ok but a bit obvious)
Deathmoor Wraith (Uncommon)
4B
Creature - Wraith
3/3
Whenever a Swamp enters the battlefield under your control, CARDNAME gains deathtouch and indestructible until end of turn.
I really like this card, especially in a set with evolving wilds.
DeleteYeah, that's a real fun design. I love the twist on normal Wraiths here. Very nice. Agreed with Doug, too, that this gets very fun with instant-speed ways to get lands onto the battlefield!
DeleteInsomnia Wraith (uncommon)
ReplyDelete3B
Creature -- Spirit
1/4
When ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent puts the top card of their library into their graveyard for each Swamp you control.
Whenever another creature dies, return ~ from your graveyard to your hand.
--
It's hard to fall asleep when you're staring at the last thing you'll ever see.
Creature -- Wraith. Whoops!
DeleteCan you find a way to connect the two abilities?
DeleteThe connection in the first iteration is the re-usable ETB ability. The simplest adjustment to make it more connected would be to go from "each opponent" to "each player" or "target player," so that you could mill more copies of your own Wraith.
DeleteMaybe the more satisfying connection would be to bring out the condition of the first ability so it matters in the latter. Maybe this version:
Insomnia Wraith
4B
2/2
When Insomnia Wraith dies, target player puts the top card of their library into their graveyard for each Swamp you control.
Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, return Insomnia Wraith and up to one target Swamp card from your graveyard to your hand.
Shifted to a 2/2 because it's a death trigger now. I think uncommon is still the proper place for this one, since it's not terribly splashy, it's good in multiples, and it could be a fun clunky draft build-around.
Apparently, I'm constitutionally incapable of remembering to put "Creature -- Wraith" on there.
DeleteThat definitely feels a lot more connected, but it's super wordy, with seven lines of text. I think just bringing the triggers closer together was good enough; bringing back a Swamp with itself is also very interesting, but doesn't feel needed for this design. (I think it'd make a fine design on its own, actually.)
DeleteI agree it's too wordy. I like that the card fuels itself -- I think the least interesting part of the card that's taking up a lot of real estate is the recursion clause, which actually feels less Wraithlike to me.
DeleteHow about this:
Insomnia Wraith (uncommon)
3{B}
Creature -- Wraith
1/4
Whenever you play a Swamp, target player puts the top three cards of their library into their graveyard, then you may return target Swamp card from your graveyard to your hand.
Wraith of Demise-R(W/B)U Rare
ReplyDeleteCreature-Wraith
4/4
Flying, haste
Fading 2 (his creature enters the battlefield with two fade counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a fade counter from it. If you can't, sacrifice it)
Whenever a creature dies add a fade counter to CARDNAME.
I think the coolest part about this card is the Lathnu Hellion / Soultether Golem game of trying to keep your undercosted creature on the battlefield. Fading (or Vanishing, which is more up-to-date and, for my money, fits better flavorfully anyway) is a fitting mechanic to put on a Wraith.
DeleteThe execution right now (three-color, haste, flying, wanting creatures to die) feels more Demon-like (i.e. Butcher of the Horde) than Wraith-like to me. Also regarding the casting cost: Mark Rosewater has mentioned that the mixture of hybrid mana symbols with regular mana symbols in Alara Reborn went over poorly. Is there space this card can or should be exploring that can make it easier to grok? It may be too much for one card to accomplish.
I just did not like the current representation of Wraiths. We probably can drop the white and have this be RBU, white was included because of the color schema. There was fun space where you could remove counters to get effects. Not sure if removing a counter to give lifelink might be interesting, lose the ability to stay longer.
DeleteI quite like the flavor of Fading here, mainly because fade counters sounds more Wraith-like than time counters.
DeleteBut I would agree that the color identity gets complex with being hybrid and gold, which sort of draws focus away from the cool effect (even though it fits the art's colors). I like your idea to make this just Grixis to cast. The flavor is really nice in Grixis too.
Wraith of Demise-RBU (Rare)
DeleteCreature-Wraith
Flying, Haste
Fading 2( (This creature enters the battlefield with two fade counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a fade counter from it. If you can't, sacrifice it)
Whenever a creature dies add a fade counter to CARDNAME.
Yeah actually I just chose one, but fading counters definitely sounds better than time counters. Do people think fading 2 is a good number? I think since the creature has haste that 2 seemed like a good number.
Fading was replaced with Vanishing because Fading was always played like Vanishing. Fading might be more flavorful, but it isn't better gameplay.
DeleteWhere does the {U} or {R} come into play with this design? Black gets flying and haste.
It was more for the color schema of the artwork and being secondary in those abilities, also fading doesn't really have a defined color.
DeleteGuardant Wraith 1B
ReplyDeleteCreature Wraith (U)
As long as Guardant Wraith is attacking, it gets +2/+0.
Pay 4 life: Guardant Wraith gains indestructible until end of turn.
1/1
Cheeky. 😃
DeleteA pretty solid color-swap!
Ha, cute! A 3/1 feels a lot more white than black to me, though.
DeleteWood Wraith G
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith (c)
Wood Wraith gets +0/+2 as long as you control an Island.
Wood Wraith gets +2/-1 as long as you control a Swamp.
0/2
I know this would probably be better as a cleaner Wild Nacatl, but Kumena's Speaker made me want to try something slightly more ambitious.
My eyes! O the math of it.
DeleteCan we switch it to +1/+1 and +2/+0, so we do get that 3/3 Nacatl situation but can still have a 2/2 just with an overgrown tomb?
DeleteYeah, yeah, the math is a lot. The easiest answer that's not just a nacatl mirror is:
DeleteCreature - Wraith
~ gets +0/+2 as long as you control an Island.
~ gets +2/+0 as long as you control a Swamp.
1/1
Consider that my submission, I was getting too tricksy.
Didn't like my switch? a 3/1 for 1 is that too strong? I think this would play well but not sure if it reads wraith.
DeleteYeah, I like the mirroring of this new design. Interesting seeing a green Wraith.
DeleteThe name probably wants a change, in my opinion; Wood doesn't imply Islands or Swamps.
Stalking Wraith (uncommon)
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith
Deathtouch
CARDNAME gets +1/+0 and has menace if an opponent controls or is enchanted by a black permanent.
2/2
I like the enchanted clause. It feels better to have some control over the bonus, and it fits nicely with Curses.
DeleteShould this cost 1B? I'm thinking of the Knight from Dominaria.
Yeah, what's the cost of this one?
DeleteI love how this plays nicely with curses and captures the feel of Swampwalk. It's not as 'easy' to make it go off yourself as the Knights from Dominaria, but it's still possible in the right deck. Lovely.
Ah, I always forgot something.. I was thinking 2B to mimic Wasteland Scorpion in off-mode and make it more of a sideboard card or something that gets around to the player drafting curses.
DeleteSeacreep Wraith 1(U/B)(U/B)
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith (U)
Flying
Whenever ~ attacks, all creatures become black and all lands become Swamps until end of turn.
2/2
Do you intend for this to work like Blood Moon or like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth? Either one could be neat, but the former can potentially lock you out of spells in your second main phase and I'm not sure it's 100% in blue+black's color pie.
DeleteI want it to work exactly like Nightcreep from Dissension, to set up your Corrupts, enable your Swampwalk wraiths, and prevent the opponent from responding with nonblack spells. (Granted, that is a pretty old card.)
DeleteI made it hybrid because the art looked blue-ish. I know blue can change lands to any type and creatures to any color. But maybe doing it at large should make this a rare.
I'm not sure about the name...
DeleteWraith of the Night Sea
Sea Wraith
Nightcreep Wraith
but I wanted the flavor of, this guy brings the darkness with him, possibly haunting some sailors or something.
This is pretty cool! Very weird/not sure how useful it is but certainly feels epic! Could you make this into a rare or mythic by bumping up the stats or ability a little more?
DeleteThanks. It is pretty niche and I am not sure how Wraith-like it is (especially since Swampwalk is the one unifying trait of Wraiths in Magic).
DeleteBecause of how niche it is, maybe it should already be rare outside of a color / land types matter setting.
How about this:
Darktide Wraith (U/B)(U/B)(U/B)
Creature - Wraith (R)
Flying
Whenever ~ attacks, all creatures become black and all lands become Swamps until end of turn.
3/1
Still can't settle on a name... =)
This just doesn't feel blue to me. I know it technically can be, but the effect is just so solidly black. The art is blue-ish, yeah, but it doesn't need to be blue.
DeleteI love the design, though. Great space for Wraiths. Very old-school but in a fun, new-school way.
Very true. It needs a weird environment like Torment to feel right in blue. Thanks for the feedback.
DeleteBarrow Wraith BB
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith
Barrow Wraith can't block.
Whenever another creature dies, you may pay BB. If you do, return Barrow Wraith from your graveyard to the battlefield.
According to some brief research, wraiths are often seen around the time of death, so a death trigger made sense. Wraiths are often depicted as wisp-like and ephemeral, so can't block made some sense. Combining these together led me here, and the heavy black costs felt similar to 'cares about swamps'.
Yeah no idea how wraiths just became swampwalkers in Magic? P/T of the creature 3/2?
DeleteOops, I accidentally closed out of the page and had to rewrite it. I was bouncing between 2/2 and 3/2. 2/2 feels more aesthetically pleasing for me, and is probably safer.
Delete3/2 feels more like scrapheap scrounger and cards like this, but that is just me.
DeleteI didn't want it to be quite as ubiquitous as Scrapheap has been, and was thinking of it more along the lines of Nether Spirit or Bloodghast. However, I think it's minutia and the design doesn't really rely much on that detail.
DeleteA solid design, though I must admit I'd like to see a Wraith with a bit more continuity to previous Wraiths. Still, this works!
DeleteA bit more continuity to previous wraiths? I guess I must have mistaken the intent of the challenge. All previous wraiths have swampwalk, but that's not a thing anymore, so they need a new thing. Isn't the whole point that direct thematic continuity isn't viable anymore?
DeleteMy card doesn't explicitly mention "swamp" anywhere, so that makes it off-theme? I don't think the word "swamp" is really a theme that's worth holding onto. The problem with all these 'when you do something with a swamp' abilities is that the original swampwalk ability actually doesn't care when *you* have a swamp, but when your opponent has a swamp. Is that a specific theme we should be working towards as well? I think it's important to know when to take a step back from a concept and re-evaluate its value.
If it's more according to the theme of wraiths, it could have been 'sacrifice a swamp' instead of 'pay BB'. But that's a fundamentally different (and scarier) card, and the thematic difference between 'cares about swamps' and 'cares about black' is so meager.
If this ability had read "Whenever another creature dies, if you control a swamp, you may pay BB..." would that have made it more thematic? We're dealing with such a small subset of creatures that had very little theme going for them already. Is it worth holding on to the word "swamp" that strongly?
I think it's worth holding onto linking wraiths with swamps and/or giving them some kind of evasion. A lot of the fun of Magic is establishing these rules metaphors - what IS a wraith in the world of Magic?
DeleteI also really like the idea of saccing a swamp to bring it back to the battlefield. It's truly a really scary cost, but leaves space for a bigger effect, too. Frex:
Barrow Guardian
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
Sac a swamp: Return ~ to the battlefield from your yard and return another creature card from your yard to your hand.
"It's not protecting them from you, it's protecting you from THEM."
Not a great card (feels more skeleton/shambler, doesn't reference evasion), but just an example of how a wraith might use a swamp for a necromantic effect. Feels like a whole new kind of suicide black!
"I think it's important to know when to take a step back from a concept and re-evaluate its value."
DeleteAgreed. This is frankly why Wraiths haven't shown up lately; I think Wizards just decided that with Spectres, Spirits, and Shades, they didn't need Wraiths any more.
However, I think it is important that if a Wraith were to come back, it feels like 'kin' to the previous Wraiths that came before. To me, this card just makes me wonder, "Why is this a Wraith? Why isn't this a Skeleton (mechanically) or a Spirit (flavorfully)?" That's the 'invisible' challenge I've set: you have to justify the presence of the Wraith creature type over other black-undead creature types.
I agree with cosmossexiestmanever that I think a hint of evasion and a dash of 'they are good with Swamps' are the key. Yes, old Wraiths cared about enemy swamps, but we've seen that nostalgia factor retranslated on cards like Glacial Crasher, and the Knights from Dominaria.
Mechanically, skeletons come back on their own. Spirits also like mechanically linking 1-to-1 on the creature that died, while this is more of a creature that lingers around death. Of course, trying to make a flavor distinction between spirits and wraiths is difficult, because they're just two different words for the same thing.
DeleteI described the flavor connections I was trying to make, which is that wraiths are often seen around the time of death. If you wanted to flavor them more like D&D wraiths, then you might focus on the life-draining aspect. But that doesn't fit with previous wraith themes in Magic.
Yeah, you can break down "swampwalk" into "swamp" and "walk" and use that as the defining factor of wraiths feels overly simple. We haven't seen wraiths for almost 10 years - so they're clearly not a widely loved tribe. We've also only even seen 5 wraiths, so they're not exactly well-defined.
So why should we lean on the dull, ill-defined design of wraiths from Magic's past instead of drawing from any other source? I'd much rather redefine wraiths as something cool and memorable instead of continuing with the inspired theme of 'they live in swamps'.
Yeah, I understood the flavor connection you were going for here. I was just worried about the discontinuity with previous wraiths. There are some fans of wraiths out there... perhaps you might even be talking to one right now... :P
DeleteI personally am pretty happy with Wraiths being "Swamps matter", since that's a nice space for black that doesn't have a creature type to call its own, and Wraiths could do that well. In my eyes, the flavor of this was strong; Wraiths would be uniquely tied to the lands they died on, and perhaps we could capture your flavor too, in that life and death in that land summons them from their slumber or increases their power, or whatnot.
However, I do understand the argument that if wraiths come back, you want to give them a more exciting theme. Personally, I like the flavor of them currently, but I can understand it not being cool to others.
The Brackenwisp Hazewraith
ReplyDelete1BBB
Legendary Creature - Wraith (uncommon)
Deathtouch
Whenever ~ becomes untapped the first time each turn, until end of turn, whenever you tap a Swamp for mana, add B to your mana pool.
2/2
Flavor text:
DeleteMy eyes! O, the math of it-
To damn a good man's heart to icy doom
And thus oppose its wicked ambulations,
Or bring to wretched fens unsightly bloom
And risk its Master's fatal recreations?
Can we give it inspired?
DeleteThat's a set-specific ability word. I don't see why it belongs here. What would that add besides a Theros callback? Wouldn't it confuse newer players? It doesn't currently fit the flavor of the card, and while you could change the flavor to fit the ability word, you'd also have to change the art. (It'd be cool with creature type Wraith Cleric, for example. But the the creature depicted is too generic for that.)
DeleteWhy would giving it inspired be beneficial?
I think the Theros throwback would help players be like ooh I know this ability, but inspired was not well received. I guess I was just saying this is inspired, right?
DeleteOh, yeah, it's totally the same thing. I think they use ability words to illustrate themes in a block, though. So if this was in a block that had a lot of creatures that did stuff when untapped it would totally make sense, and the card would be flavored appropriately. The only block that uses inspired so far is Theros, and I don't see the connection between this card and Theros. So, to me, adding inspired would just feel like an extra word on the card.
DeleteI would guess the cost/benefit analysis of adding ability words is something that's been focused grouped to death, but I don't know what Maro's said specifically about it. I just wanted to know if you knew something I didn't.
I personally get annoyed when they don't, but understand the reasons they don't and people don't want every set to be FutureSight.
DeleteThis isn't exactly the same as Inspired, since it only triggers the first time each turn.
DeleteThe ability would make for a nice identity for Wraiths. We've seen it on a Spirit and on a Shade, but maybe Wraiths could call this their new home?
Is this okay at uncommon? I have no idea, really, and just guessed and thought the new uncommon legends were cool. (If they haven't done it yet, the official EDH rules should give every uncommon legendary the partner ability. That's kinda where I was coming from with this.)
DeleteIt's a bit scary at uncommon at this price, actually. I hadn't noticed the rarity, my bad.
DeleteCabal Wraith BBB
ReplyDeleteCreature - Wraith (R)
TAP: Add B to your mana pool for each swamp you control.
BBB: Target creature gains menace until end of turn.
3/3
Nightmare Wraith
ReplyDelete3B
Creature - Wraith (uncommon)
~ enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each tapped Swamp you control.
0/0
My first idea was this, but I think I like the above better:
Nightmare Wraith
3B
Creature - Wraith (uncommon)
~ enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each Swamp tapped to produce mana to cast it.
0/0