Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath are a (notorious) partial cycle from Theros Beyond Death. Imagine the cycle is being extended in a future Theros set, and design one of the new cards for that cycle. Symmetry calls for a 6/6 Elder Giant with an "enters the battlefield or attacks" trigger, but escape isn't in this set so you'll need something different there. Also, for bonus points, make it a card that Play Design could easily tune for Constructed.
Good luck and have fun!
I have drifted out of touch with the balance of modern sets, thinking mythic rares which are interesting and in line with what wizards prints, and not just too weak or grossly broken, is really hard.
ReplyDeleteI was mulling possible alternatives to "escape" (although it might be reprinted?) I guess another Theros set might deal with more underworld escapes, possibly some sort of Ragnarok/Titanomachy if that isn't a theme in the viking set, where underworld denizens run riot trashing the world and fighting the gods.
I considered something like "dash" to represent "escaping from the underworld and running amok" because it would interact with the same "ETB or attack" ability trigger in a different way. But with all those triggers it wanted to be more of an upside than a cheaper-but-earlier option, but then it felt like it would just end up "pay the mana cost every turn to get the ETB+attack, until you win or lose" and remove any chance for future actions.
And I didn't get round to brainstorming any actual individual giants :)
IMO I could definitely see the return of escape in a future thermos set, but the challenge specifically calls for it to not be included. Which makes this challenge a tad bit harder IMO. Escape is such a good tuning knob for balancing graveyard cards.
DeleteOh yeah. I was assuming that most likely there'd be a mechanic for the new set that was used on new elder titans but that they would mirror the existing titans somehow. Most likely being a unifying mechanic for each titan in the new set. I thought it was likely it would synergise with an "enter and attack" ability, but it could be something else that is just useful (like the god mechanics).
DeleteAlthough even those assumptions are already creating potential difficulties :) If I understand right, the existing two titans are one ally pair, one enemy pair, so they can't build towards a traditional five-colour cycle. Possibly there could be a different cycle (basically a cycle of colour pairs round a different number of colours or different order of colours than the traditional cycle). Or possibly new titans need to assume they need to fit into a full ten-colour-pair cycle. It's probably too unbalanced to have two with one common ability and eight with another common ability, so probably the new titan would have a first ability in common with some but not all other future elder titans (whether they're all in the same set or later sets), and it would be good to have some idea what might come later to avoid making implicit promises about further titans that might not be the right thing for future theros sets.
I know I don't have to figure out all that for this card (one single elder titan design could fit into most of those patterns), but I went down a rabbit hole thinking about it :)
As V said about the GDS challenges, a lot of the challenge there is to be quick, to choose good right answers quick ENOUGH, even if they can't all be your best work. Which is exactly what I didn't do here because this challenge isn't as important.
well, i guess it's monday, not "weekend", but here is a card that i thought up:
ReplyDeleteGangrief, titan of forgotten futures | UB
Legendary Creature -- Elder Giant
Whenever CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if it didn't enter from your graveyard, sacrifice it.
Whenever CARDNAME enters the battlefield or attacks, each player mills 3 cards and target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
Unearth UUBB
i think i could prolly do the entire rest of the titan cycle if i were allowed to use escape, but oh well. no use in crying over hypothetical milk
Unearth is interesting with the "ETB, sac" trigger because it makes this less of a creature and more of a flashback spell like Increasing Confusion: you get the trigger once on the front end, twice on the back end (plus a single attack with a 6/6). I'm not sure that's enough to justify the "ETB or attacks" wording". (Partly this is my bad for implying that the designs should have the "ETB, sac" ability Uro and Kroxa have.) The trigger effect is well chosen but I'd like to see something different, and more likely to leave you with a usable creature, in place of the first ability and the unearth.
DeleteThis challenge was very hard, since I wanted to know a bit more about the lore.
ReplyDeleteEngeladus, Titan of Sisms RRGG
Legendary Creature -- Elder Giant
When ~ enters the battlefield, if it didn't enter from exile, exile it under target land you control. That land gains {R}{R}{G}{G},{T}: put ~ into play.
When ~ ETB or attacks it deals damage equal to the number of tapped lands you control to target creature.
6/6
Cool concept! I would suggest 1RG for the up-front cost since that adds suspense to activating the land. Also, a total cost of 1RRRRGGGG to get this out is quite steep compared to, say, Inferno Titan, even allowing for the ETB extra trigger it provides. Other than that I like this a lot-- it's flavorful both in how it enters and what it does, and it looks like it would create exciting gameplay.
DeleteYou are correct! I was focused on getting the flavor right, since this is a top down design based on an actual ancient greek myth.
DeleteTherefore I think the cost could be shifted around by play design.
ReplyDelete