Legendary God Constructs Part 1

[zeroedged]

Hi everyone, this is my first attempt to make a cycle of cards, so they are probably not great. Any advice the community has would be greatly appreciated.
Eventually, this will be a cycle of 10 tricolor legendaries. They are very much a work in progress and I'm cool with sweeping changes. The goal is to make them all fairly equal in power, although that might be asking a lot of myself.

There is one new keyword mechanic that they all have, hopefully, it makes sense with the rules text. (Also, I realize vesseled isn't a word, can't think of a better option sadly.)

Blimbly, Bone of War
Legendary Artifact Creature - God Construct (M)
Haste
Vessel (as this creature enters the battlefield you may attach target nonartifact creature under your control to it.)
As long as Blimbly, Bone of War is vesseled, it gains the ability:
{t}, Sacrifice X goblins: Gain control of target creature with convereted mana cost X until end of turn, it gains haste.
4/2

Terinyx, Void of Day
Legendary Artifact Creature - God Construct (M)
Constructs you control have vigilance.
Vessel (as this creature enters the battlefield you may attach target nonartifact creature under your control to it.)
As long as Terinyx, Void of Day is vesseled, whenever one or more construct creatures you control deals damage to a player exile the top card of that player's library, you may play those cards as long as they remain in exile.
3/3

Leviath, Serpent of Graves
Legendary Artifact Creature - God Construct (M)
Deathtouch
Vessel (as this creature enters the battlefield you may attach target nonartifact creature under your control to it.)
As long as Leviath, Serpent of Graves is vesseled, at the beginning of your upkeep you may put the top five cards of your library into your graveyard, those cards gain retrace until the end of your next turn.
1/3

Rinicilis, Wing of Peace
Legendary Artifact Creature - God Construct (M)
Lifelink, Flying
Vessel (as this creature enters the battlefield you may attach target nonartifact creature under your control to it.)
As long as Rinicilis, Wing of Peace is vesseled, if you would gain life, you may instead add or mana to your mana pool until the end of turn.
5/5

Mirmornia, Thought of Man
Legendary Artifact Creature - God Construct (M)
Whenever you cast your first instant or sorcery spell per turn scry 1.
Vessel (as this creature enters the battlefield you may attach target nonartifact creature under your control to it.)
As long as Mirmornia, Thought of Man is vesseled, you may copy the first instant or sorcery spell cast on your turn. You may choose new targets for the copy.
2/4

Flavor

These are all gods that were turned into machines to be used. Each god, and the color combination, represents something relating to physics (I admit I haven't figured out the details of all 10.)

Blimbly: Having trouble thinking of this one →
Terinyx: Entropy → Breaking down of libraries.
Leviath: Conservation of Energy → Value from changing zones.
Rinicilis: Relativity/Spacetime → Slow down or Speed up the game.
Mirmornia: Superposition → Repeat spells and abilities

If people would like more flavor provided let me know.

[void_nothing]

So the first thing to note here is the flavor. It's really unorthodox and original and I dig the aesthetic of science/magitech Robo-Gods.

There are, however, some definite mechanical issues here, all of which are pretty easily fixed.

First off, I'm not sure what vesseled is actually meant to do; the attached creatures don't stop being creatures, after all, so is this a one-way soulbond? Or did you mean for them to somehow no longer be usable as creatures while the God is on the battlefield, making the ability more like champion? I sort of get the flavor - they have to be channeled by mortals - but at the same time, what are the specifics of that flavor? What does that look like in-world? And how can you best translate that into gameplay?

These cards also don't feel like Gods. They don't have indestructible or any way to recur themselves, they're not restricted from attacking or blocking in any way, and some of them have extremely low p/t. If these are somehow "fallen" Gods - if they were debased by being turned into machines - then you can drop the God creature type, as those would be very cramped text boxes anyhow.

Finally, the power of the bodies and the abilities are all over the place. Making 1/3s with extremely powerful abilities alongside 5/5s with a couple of beneficial keywords and much less useful/more situational abilities isn't very consistent within a cycle (and God cycles are usually pretty mechanically and flavorfully tight; you can easily have other looser cycles if you want), not to mention not an actual way to achieve balance.

[zeroedged]

Thanks for all the feedback.

Looking at champion again, I actually think that works a lot better and is smoother than what I was trying to do. The flavor is basically someone piloting the machine. So, the way champion works seem similar to someone entering the machine and exiting when it dies.

I definitely want there to be a way to recur them, but having trouble thinking of a creative way to do it. I would rather them not be indestructible. I sort of like the idea of damage only being dealt in the form of -1/-1 counters, as if the machine is breaking down. Although that might be too complicated. And I'm not sure how much that would matter in the long run.

And I fully admit I am bad at P/T. I'll look up all the gods in the game currently and kind of go from there.

Thanks again for all of the advice.

EDIT:

Starting with the vessel ability for now. I think it could function similarly to Champion, where the creature gets exiled and then returns when the card leaves the battlefield. I have a few different ways to write it:

As an additional cost:
(As an additional cost to cast this spell exile another creature you control. When this leaves the battlefield, that card returns to the battlefield.)

As Champion basically:
(When this enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you exile another creature you control. When this leaves the battlefield, that card returns to the battlefield.)

As a variation of Kicker:
(As you cast this spell you may exile another creature you control. When this leaves the battlefield, that card returns to the battlefield.)

I slightly prefer the kicker variation, because it follows the getting stronger for losing another creature thing I was going with before. The exiling creature I think still represents the creature controlling the machine.


Here is a quick updated example of Terinyx. I also might drop part of the subtype, I feel like making them gods really requires indestructible or recursion but that seems like even more text.

Terinyx, Void of Day
Legendary Artifact Creature - Construct (M)
Vessel (As you cast this spell you may exile another creature you control. When this leaves the battlefield, that card returns to the battlefield.)
Construct creatures you control have vigilance and menace.
If Terinyx, Void of Day was vesseled, whenever a construct creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent, exile the top card of that player's library, you may play those cards as long as they remain in exile, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any type to cast that spell.
6/6

I raised the power in general, especially because of the exile cost now. This is way too much text, but if I can find a way to simplify it and make it fit better on the text box.


Thanks again for all the advice.