Werewolf Transform Trigger Ideas

MonoRayJak
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Post by MonoRayJak » 3 years ago

So, I'm currently building a plane that has a very different view of Werewolves to what we've seen before. On this world, Werewolves are not uncontrollable beasts and horrors in the night (of course, the normal humans of the plane are still very racist and fearful of them), instead, they are powerful mages that seek to balance a great mind with a great body, and they see no better candidate than the body of a beast in this respect. Now, this is primarily done because this plane is based on wedge-aligned tribes, and honestly, I just wanted werewolves to be Temur. This does, however, create a bit of an issue: the transform trigger used on Innistrad doesn't really make much sense for a group of mages cultivating both body and mind, especially after considering that they don't change at night/day or moon intervals but are closer to how Arlinn Kord can control her transformations.
With this in mind, I decided to take a cue from Eldraine and Core Set 2021, the trigger to transform from human to werewolf is based on drawing two or more cards in a turn, which I think fits the idea of mages gaining knowledge to grow their abilities. All that left was the reversion trigger, and going along with this idea of mages maintaining knowledge to remain in control of the beast form I figured I could go along the lines of checking the size of your hand... but I don't know how many cards should be required to stop the trigger. My first thought was needing to have four cards in hand, but I'm kind of afraid that wouldn't be very fun because it would force people to not play the game, and I think three could work ok, but I was just wanting some second thoughts.

As an example of this in action:
Chosen Mage
Creature - Human Wizard Werewolf U
At the beginning of each end step, if you drew two or more cards this turn, transform Chosen Mage.
2/2

Mystic Newblood
Creature - Werewolf Wizard
Hexproof
At the beginning of each upkeep, if you have (three)/(two) or less cards in hand, transform Mystic Newblood.
3/3

(Keep in mind, this is just a 'proof of concept' card and not an actual design for the set)
I don't know what this is for.

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

Hmmm, interesting. Some things I'll note:
  • 'Drawing two or more cards' is a significantly more difficult trigger to achieve than not casting any spells. As a result, I would expect the payoff for the flip side to be somewhat stronger.
  • On the other hand, if you cast the werewolf and follow up with a cantrip, it can flip immediately. This makes it significantly more powerful in constructed compared to limited.
  • Having a small number of cards in hand is difficult to do early in the game, and much easier to do later in the game. As you pointed out, incentivizing people to not cast spells is a little awkward. I could imagine drawing a werewolf while topdecking and not being able to maintain its transformation, which makes them generally worse in the lategame.
  • I'll call out that you're mixing triggers - front side has end of turn trigger, flip side has an upkeep trigger. It may be preferable to have all triggers to be the same, for memory reasons.
  • One thing I appreciated about Innistrad werewolves was their inherent interactability - your opponent has some control over whether they flip or unflip. That's not the case here, which makes them a little less interesting to play against.
Anyway, definitely an interesting concept. Would need playtesting to determine how it feels to play with them. I could definitely envision a limited deck lacking card draw and feeling really awkward. I'll also note that most limited sets only have a limited number of Divination / cantrip effects in the first place. One possible alternative I would consider would be gating on spell type - 'transform if you cast an instant or sorcery spell // transform if you cast a creature spell' might be interesting.

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