Pretty much no changes since last week. Keter became a trigger so that you still get your creature's on death triggers. Hesed was changed to be a global Crucible of Worlds so that Armageddon effects don't lock your opponents out completely.
Of course the pre-constructed decks came with more than one new legend. Unfortunately, I feel that making more four color cards would cheapen the specialness of the new nephilim. I decided to make one legend of each three color pair. Each deck will have a four color legend, a shard legend, and a wedge legend. As of now, the plan is to include 10-15 extra cards so that swapping for one of the three color legends is more easily accomplished.
Gevurah's deck:
These are the most concrete of the 10 lesser generals so far. Uriel currently mills the card if you miss. When playing with him it felt pretty bad to run into a road block if you have multiple triggers going off. I wanted library manipulation to be an important aspect of the card, but the strength of the trigger should be enough to warrant playing with brainstorm, top, etc.
Tiferet used to sacrifice for free until I goldfished a win off of a persist creature. Whoops! I think 1 mana should be enough to contain him. I'm largely ok with it going infinite as long as it involves a third piece, a la Ghave.
Both of these were designed from a place of wanting to do similar things to what had been done in their color combination previously, but from a different axis. Sultai decks care about the graveyard, but they either care about getting lots of cards into their graveyard or getting specific cards into their graveyard. I wanted to have a different interaction with the yard. Tiferet cares about cards leaving your graveyard. As such, the traditional weapons, Relic of Progenitus and friends, don't matter as much against this strategy. Of course that wouldn't be fun to just strip people of counterplay. The other side of the trigger is for something that everyone comes prepared to deal with, creatures.
Uriel had a similar genesis. Grixis generals often care about reanimation, but they are usually the ones doing the reanimating. I wanted to build a general that wanted you to be reanimating things and rewarding you for doing so. Combine that with library manipulation, sneak attack/goryo's vengeance, and continuing to fuel your deck, and you get Uriel.
Hesed:
Hesed has some interesting ways that she pushes the game. The lesser generals under her wanted to be aggressive. Netzach is the Mardu general that I hoped we would get in Khans. He wants you to be attacking and gives you the means to do so. The draw had to be black-ish to avoid Hesed's clause, but it feels right for the colors anyway. Most Mardu generals want to be attacking, but they themselves become the focus of the opponents removal since they are the only attacker that matters. I wanted Netzach to feel like he was spreading the glory out. He is leading an army, a very white thing to do. The card doesn't feel quite Red enough, aside from the desire to turn all of its creatures sideways as often as possible. It might need some minor tweaks.
Suphlatus is the most aggressive of all the creatures. She clears paths and gets enormous pretty fast. An aspect of the lesser generals that was important to me was that they be able to go into the other four color deck that they could fit in. This is not a hard rule, just something to keep in mind. Suphlatus would be right at home in Gevurah. She's also a solid entry into the Jund pantheon. There hasn't really been a Jund general that interacts with lands, and that seemed strange to me. Jund is the color of Destructive Flow and Earthlink. Having a low to the ground aggressive general fit the themes of Jund and Hesed.
Ein'Sof:
Ein'Sof is about growth unending. I wanted the generals under Ein'Sof to either promote growth or benefit from it.
Binah was originally written with Affinity for Lands. While that is striking wording, having the keyword would have required the reminder text anyway, so I just wrote the ability out in full. The rescue ability used to be an active and Binah had, "You may play an extra land on each of your turns." I found that iteration could have been a mono-colored card. As such, I attached the bounce to the playing of an extra land. Now it feels a bit like a ritual, since you can get an extra mana for the turn. It also provides more choices about what you are doing with your lands. You can play them for extra mana, but that means holding out on the Trade Routes ability since you might not wind up with a land to play. The other Temur generals are very unfocused, but for the most part involve reducing costs of your creatures or playing things for free. I went another way on Binah, who I have yet to figure out a good title for, and focused on providing for Landfall, which will be a pretty large part of the Ein'Sof deck.
Chohkmah was a similar story to Binah. Naya generals are all about creating lots of small creatures, and one of the original versions of the card gave each creature you controlled a +1/+1 counter for each land you controlled. Not only was that redundant with Avenger/Craterhoof, it was also completely overpowered. I flipped the script and instead made Chohkmah responsible for finding the land to fuel your growth. Now he wants you to have lots of creatures, but he doesn't provide them. He wants you to have large creatures so that they don't get blocked, but he doesn't help you get there. He is a pay off, not a set up. Also, as was pointed out to me, white infrequently tutors lands to hand. As such, the card got haste instead of vigilance. Turning your guys sideways every turn is a pretty red mindset, but the haste helps with concrete recognition. Of course, to make the white read a bit better, it could have both and cost more.
Keter:
Keter is the hub of the wheel. His lesser generals were a challenge. I am still not overly happy with Zadkiel. I think he will likely be changed. The idea was to make a creature version of Recurring Nightmare. Unfortunately, I think that Karador does what he is trying to do better. Its important to find space that exists within a color pairing and riff on it, but its also important to realize when you are too close to something and abandon ship.
Hod, however, was very easy to design. He is greater than all, so he amalgamates everything that exists, in a "Anything you can do, I can do better," sort of way. The hard part for him was finding a way to word him. The problem is that power and toughness setting abilities are very confusing. If there was a Lord of Extinction and a Consuming Aberration on the battlefield when Hod came into play, then he would choose one of them. If he chooses the Lord, and someone blinks the Aberration, he would switch to the Aberration's ability. So the simpler wording does work, but its quite confusing. Of course the wording I have here might be too confusing. There are some abilities that affect power and toughness that still work under the current wording, in fact most of them do, but people who play with the card won't use since they don't realize he can do it. Hopefully, feedback and testing let him work in his current iteration since its the cleanest, and having to list all the combat abilities takes so much space.
Yesod:
These two took some considerable time to make. It was only afterward, when I showed them to a friend, that it was pointed out to me that Da'at was very similar to Moonring Mirror.
Da'at wanted to be something that was indirectly connected to creatures. However, both decks with Jeskai colors liked drawing cards. In particular, since the trigger is on drawing cards, red sift effects that have been getting pushed recently get you multiple triggers. Da'at reaches beyond the veil to play those cards. He can even do so at instant speed, transforming Yesod by playing a creature. Most of the Jeskai legends are built around casting spells for free or in rapid succession. I wanted Da'at's meditative posture to take things a bit slower. A bit more measured. To process the raw data of a mass draw and find the best option. Also, on a practical level, I wanted him to be able to cast anything. The easiest way to ensure he didn't get out of hand was not letting him cast the card for free. As a side effect of that, he can play things at instant speed. I think he might need the "as though it had flash" text, but the oracle wording of Mosswort Bridge indicates that I don't.
Malkuth was an idea I had after reading some blurbs about Phylacteries. I was curious how I would go about making a creature that acted as a phylactery for multiple creatures. Malkuth hides the soul of a creature within his body, and makes new soulless bodies for those creatures. Like the Djinn, the victims aren't aware that Malkuth intends to use them to make himself an army. Killing Malkuth frees the souls. I also considered having the cards go the the graveyard, or back to play. To play feels a bit dodgy, since then he becomes a slow mass reanimate type card. To graveyard feels very strong since he then unequivable reads, Tap: destroy target creature, even if its indestructible/regenerates/etc. To hand seems like a solid place to start.
Well that was a lot of work! Zadkiel is in need of a re-design, but I'm reasonably happy with where the rest are. I'm going to start building decks around the cards and seeing what works with them. From there a number of the cards will get shaved down to open up room for the new cards that will be added to the precons.
Cheers!
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