This is a continuation of card designs by Nich Grayson, where he discusses cards he wished to see in Avacyn Restored. (The first part is here.) He originally posted it on his facebook page, but by reposting it here I hope it can inspire more cards or spark off some discussion.
Post by Nich Grayson:
Innistrad had both Witchbane Orb and Bitterheart Witch, so I was expecting to see a number of witches later in the block. It’s strange that WotC didn’t make any given the top down possibilities of the trope. They could have included good witches and bad witches and created a WB archetype for limited. Good witches could have newly introduced Blessing cards and bad witches could make use of the Curse cards found in Innistrad and Dark Ascension. This design is completely derivative of Bitterheart Witch, but I only wanted to demonstrate what could have been done. Blessing of Contentment would have been awesome with Miracles though.
Blessing of Contentment 4U (Uncommon)
Enchantment – Aura Blessing
Flash
Enchant player
At the beginning of your end step, draw two cards, then put a card from your hand on top of your library.
String of Curses B (Uncommon)
Sorcery
Search your library for a number of Curse cards equal to the Curses you control plus one. Revel them, put them into your hand, then shuffle your library.
Witch’s Broom 1 (Common)4) Devil Lord
Artifact – Equipment
Equipped creature has flying.
As long as equipped creature is a Human it gets +1/+1 for each Curse and/or Blessing you control.
Equip 3
There were a lot of devils in Innistrad and Dark Ascension, but nothing tying the tribe together. The result was that they felt like goblin filler. Avacyn Restored could have had more of a heaven versus hell concept if the devils had something to build on. Plus, Ravnica is the next block and the Rakados Guild has devils in it. A little cross block synergy would have been nice. A Devil Lord would have been an awesome addition. Specifically, what I did was marry Devils and Humans a bit by saying the Lord is equally motivated to cause damage whether one of his goons or a victim come into play. This supports the Red/White Human limited play. Imagine Chief Tormentor plus Thatcher Revolt!
What a departure Avacyn Restored is from the rest of the Block in terms of top-down designs. Are there any? I can’t think of any. I can think of many from Innistrad and Dark Ascension. What happened? There need to be way, way more top down designs. Some new horror tropes, and some biblical rapture tropes.
Turn Undead W (Uncommon)
Exile target Zombie. If you do, put a 1/1 white Human creature token onto the battlefield.
Shock of Gray Hair 1W (Common)
Enchantment – Aura
Flash
Enchant creature
When Shock of Gray Hair enters the battlefield, prevent all damage that would be dealt to enchanted creature this turn.
When enchanted creature dies, its controller puts a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying onto the battlefield.
Scare to Death 1B (Uncommon)6) A green Curse
Instant
Reveal your hand. Scare to Death deals damage to target creature or player equal to the number of Demon, Devil, Spirit, Vampire, Werewolf, and/or Zombie cards you revealed in this way.
Another oversight from the first two sets in the block that Maro talked about in his State of the Union was the missing Green Curse. He had meant for one, but there was a miscommunication , and Development changed his card from Green to Red. The following card is one I suggested in a contest to be included in Innistrad.
Curse of Bestial Paws G (Common)
Enchantment - Aura Curse
Enchant player
At the beginning of enchanted player's end step, that player unattaches an equipment he or she controls.
I'll respectfully disagree about witches. They do not strike me as a typical feature of gothic horror so much as fairytales (cf. Shadowmoor/Eventide's Hags), so their absence makes total sense to me.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very polite rebuttal. The two cards I mentioned already being in Innistrad are what gave me the expectation. And, I would say R&D was sufficiently flexible in their use of themes for the block that they could have done some straight-up Macbeth style gothic witches for the set. But others must have seen it as you do, so here we are. Anyway, I don't know if Witches would have even worked without including more Curses in the set to accompany them, (I really see that as a part of their design,) and R&D had pretty tapped out on Curses.
DeleteGood witches tend to fit African or Native American lore more than Eastern European. I'm glad they stuck with bad witches and curses so that they can bust out more of those as well as the good witches and blessings (awesome dichotomy) when they make another block with one of those themes.
DeleteI think we want to avoid effects that care who controls a curse because many players will confuse being the target of an aura with controlling it.
I was disappointed when the Helvault was broken, releasing untold scores of demons into the world, yet Devils remained quiet. I would have loved to see a Demon that was a Devil lord. Or any Devil lord.
I get what you did with Tormentor, triggering off Devils (because they cause torment) and humans (because they suffer it), but I'm not sure most players would get that. Maybe "Whenever a Devil ETB under your control, it deals 1 damage to target player. Whenever a Human ETB, ~ deals 1 damage to it."?
I love Shock of Grey Hair.
A Demon as Devil Lord is a great idea and having the Lord ping each Human that enters the battlefield is a better way to demonstrate the motif I was going for.
DeleteAs for the origin of Witches, I was purely thinking movie witches, and I figured since they'd made other movie monsters like the Invisible Man and wurms from the movie "Tremors" movie witches would fall in line with their source material. Certainly they can use them when we come back to Innistrad.
Hah! I love the Green curse's flavour. I read the game text, thought "ugh", read the card name and loved it. I also love the Veteran Exorcist. I felt the major problem with AVR was the lack of flavour. The mechanics don't feel tied together in anyway because they're so disparate. "Angels win" isn't much of a theme, really because it doesn't resonate.
ReplyDeleteThanks! The resonance was really lacking, especially when compared to the rest of the block.
DeleteLove the green curse but what if it cost more and said that when it citp the player it targets unattaches all equipment from creatures they control and that player cannot equip
ReplyDeleteI really like the Exorcist. Partly for the crazy protection, but mostly for the untransform ability.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I made it a 1/2 so it wouldn't get wrecked by Tragic Slips. And the protection was really just a streamlined version of Elite Inquisitor's so they'd feel like buddies that play well together. One of the testaments to top-down design is that there are often an array of desperate elements, but when combined on the card they become a cohesive whole.
DeleteHaving Blessings instead of Curses would have been great. It's one of the things that Avacyn Restored could done as a "reverse" (like the Werewolf that permanently transforms into a Human or Wolfir from part 1) to make the set feel more integrated into the block while also showing the change of the world from Innistrad/Dark Ascention.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jay about the Devil Lord, it shouldn't feel like Devils and Humans are teaming up. How about something like "Whenever a Devil enters the battlefield or a Human dies, deal 1 damage."
I'm not sure whether the flavor of Turn Undead represents a Human exorcist coming to dispatch a Zombie, or a Zombie being revived into a Human. If it's the former, it could be a creature with an ETB effect. If it's the latter, it could create a Spirit token under your control to show the soul is freed from the curse of undead. I can picture a Vampire turning back into a pure Human, but I can't picture that with a Zombie.
Shock of Gray Hair is a cool flavor and I don't know why they didn't have something like "Premature Aging" as a card. However, I didn't get how the ability represents having Grey Hair. Is there a trope about that which I'm missing?
I also love the Green curse's flavor and I agree with Trevor that it could be as effective as banning opponents' creatures from equipping forever and it would still be balanced. It would have been a great sideboard card against the Invisible Stalker - Butcher's Cleaver combo if it had been in Innistrad. Well, I guess Stony Silence was that, except it was a Rare so it didn't affect Limited.
For flavor, it could also say "Whenever an equipped creature enchanted player controls attacks or blocks, flip a coin. If opponent loses flip, unequip." That would make it feel like a fumbling with equipment out of clumsiness, and also make it very scary for the opponent to rely on equipment and commit a creature to combat where it might die. But it would probably be too weak to work effectively as a sideboard card.
I feel like Scare to Death shouldn't nudge players to play just monsters. I like how even though Innistrad block's flavor was Humans against Monsters, and the cards did convey that Humans were hemmed in, the actual game play was more lenient and you could play Humans and Spirit decks, Humans and Vampire decks, Humans and Werewolf decks, etc. In contrast, the "play either Mirran metalcraft or Phyrexian Infect, not both" gameplay of Scars felt too constricting to me.
To be open ended, it could be "Name Zombie, Vampire, Spirit, or Werewolf. You may reveal any number of cards from your hand. Target creature gets -X/-X, where X is the number of cards of that type among creatures you control and cards you revealed in this way" or something like that.
I was working with something close to what you had for the Devil lord but backed off because I was afraid of it becoming a Gatling gun. That’s also why it can only target players. I definitely didn’t want it to seem like Humans and Devils were working together, however… my limited ideas were just to make it work in the most kinds of decks possible. I think Jay’s version is the best, even though it doesn’t work well for the RW limited deck.
DeleteTurn Dead was concepted as literally the zombie becomes a human again. In part 3 I went the other way where the zombie becomes a spirit, but here (and Hunted Ghoul from part 1) I was imagining Avacyn magically restored the person to full mind and body. Initially I worried people would reject this on scientific grounds (“that guy’s guts are hanging out and he’s got no arm”) but then I remembered it’s magic. Like, when we were kids magic, that could just make the impossible possible.
Shock of Gray Hair It doesn’t represent having gray hair. It represents witnessing or being part of a traumatic event where you almost died; one which will forever tie you to the supernatural. It may be too loosely tied to the effects, and there may be a better fit. I just wanted two effects. So for the second one, I choose an effect that was common to the block already.
Thanks for the ideas on the green curse. More of an overall ban on equipping was probably the way it could go. I agree it is a much better card in Innistrad, where the equipment truly mattered. It’s a lousy fit for Avacyn Restored.
Scare to Death could use a few tweaks for sure. Black damage dealing is already not ideal.
I'm not sure I understand Blessing of Contentment. Why is it an aura if it doesn't matter what player it enchants? Should it give it's card drawing ability to the person it's enchanting?
ReplyDeleteHaha. I'm sure Nich meant "At the beginning of enchanted player's upkeep, he or she draws two cards, then puts a card from that player's hand on top of his or her library." Even so, how often will you target another player, even in 2HG?
DeleteHa! Yes, Jay's right. Blessing of Contentment is a victim of not finding art to make a mock up. If I had made a card image, I'm sure I would have noticed and corrected the templating. It should be:
DeleteBlessing of Contentment 4U (Uncommon)
Enchantment – Aura Blessing
Flash
Enchant player
At the beginning enchanted player’s end step, he or she draws two cards, then puts a card from his or her hand on top of his or her library.