Thirteen Temples of Theros preview: the protagonists

TearsOfTomorrow
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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

Greetings everyone, I can barely put into words how overjoyed I am to start this project on this brand new forum!

For those of you who don't remember/know me from my Salvation days: I'm a 28 years old italian who's studying to become a videogame developer. As part of the project that will (hopefully) make me into a professional game designer, my supervisor made a comment about the importance of learning the design philosophies of as many media as possible, not just videogames but also tabletop and card games: this inspired me to start studying the design philosophy of present-day MtG, and try my hand at designing a full custom set based on Innistrad... But then the topic I had started for that purpose was killed as part of the EU fiasco. I started a new one, but then I fell gravely ill, and had to spend many months away from the forum. And by the time I returned this new forum was already in the making, and I had spent so much time not working on that project that all my ideas had cooled off.

I therefore decided to just abandon the project and start a brand new one, with a brand new approach and on a brand new forum. And as the title of this topic suggests, this new topic will be based on Theros.
The plot I have in mind will be a fairly straightforward affair: having reconnected at the end of WAR, Nissa and Chandra are now an item. Chandra is still beating herself up over Gideon's death, so Nissa decides to take her for a trip on Theros, in the hope that visiting the places of their friend's childhood will help her come to terms with his death. Once there they run into Liliana, who's on Theros pretty much for the same reason, but the ensuing attempt at bonding/character development is interrupted by two problems: firstly there is Kaya, who's on a mission to subdue Liliana and bring her back to Ravnica dead or alive; secondly there is Ashiok, who picked up a trick or two from observing Nicol Bolas during WAR (notice that the background of Ashiok's card depicts the Meditation Realm) and is now back on Theros to attempt his own bid for godhood. And of course, the gods are less then thrilled at the idea of once again having interdimensional troublemakers causing a ruckus in their backyard.

There's going to be a lot more to the plot than just this, the events of the plane that revolve around past minor characters will be fully explored (massive thanks to Tiro of Meletis for the help with this aspect), and thy will be properly intertwined with the basic narrative detailed above... But all this is still a long way from seeing light as a coherent project, and when it does see the light there will be a dedicated topic in the Custom Set section: for now, I just wanted to show off my creations for the three protagonists of the story, as a preview of sorts.

Chandra, Burning Curiosity - 1RR
Legendary Planeswalker - Chandra
Whenever damage is dealt to a green permanent you control, put that many loyalty counters on //.
+1 Exile the top card of your deck. You may play it this turn.
-3 Create a 3/1 red and green Elemental token with Haste
-8 You get an emblem with "Lands you control have 'T: This land deals 1 damage to any target'."
Starting loyalty: 3

Nissa, Voice of Reason - 1GG
Legendary Planeswalker - Nissa
Whenever damage is dealt to a red permanent you control, put that many loyalty counters on //.
+1 Reveal the top card of your deck. You may put it on the battlefield if it's a land. Otherwise put it in your hand
-3 Create a 1/3 red and green Elemental token with Vigilance
-8 You get an emblem with "Creatures you control have 'T: Untap target land'."
Starting loyalty: 3

Liliana, Crushing Despair - 1BBB
Legendary Planeswalker - Liliana
+2 Create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token
+1 Each player discards a card. If an opponent cannot, they lose 2 life
-3 Target creature gets -X/-X until en of turn, where X is your devotion to black
-8 You get an emblem with "Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, exile it, then create a token under your control that's a copy of that creature, except it's a black Zombie"
Starting Loyalty: 4

Kaya, Undead Slayer - 1WWW
Legendary Planeswalker - Kaya
+2 You gain life equal to your devotion to white
+1 Until the start of your next turn, creatures cannot enter the battlefield from graveyards
-3 Exile target creature and all creatures with the same name as that target
-8 Exile all cards from all graveyards. For each card exiled this way, create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with Flying
Starting Loyalty: 4

Ashiok, Nurturer of Nightmares - 2UU
Legendary Planeswalker - Ashiok
Whenever you draw a card, exile the top card of target player's library
+2 Tap target permanent. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step
0 Draw cards equal to your devotion to blue, then exile two cards from your hand
-3 Create Cacophony, a legendary blue and black Nightmare creature token. It has "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards currently in exile"
Starting Loyalty: 4

Comments and constructive criticism welcomed!
Last edited by TearsOfTomorrow 4 years ago, edited 5 times in total.

Dragonlover
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Post by Dragonlover » 4 years ago

I get where you're going from a plain English point of view, but does your devotion work as a cost currently in the rules?

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TearsOfTomorrow
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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

Dragonlover wrote:
4 years ago
I get where you're going from a plain English point of view, but does your devotion work as a cost currently in the rules?

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I'm not sure I understand the question o.O

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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

TearsOfTomorrow wrote:
4 years ago
Dragonlover wrote:
4 years ago
I get where you're going from a plain English point of view, but does your devotion work as a cost currently in the rules?

Dragonlover
I'm not sure I understand the question o.O
I think what's being asked is, do the Chandra and Nissa ultimates work?

As far as I can tell, they do. You can absolutely be forced to pay a certain amount for X - see Spoils of War. There's no rules reason that prohibits the same for activated abilities and -X loyalty.

Are you planning on having a lot of DFCs in this set? If not, printing a second transform!Liliana feels like a gimmick; otherwise, transforming planeswalkers are something natural to have, as in the Innistrad blocks.

I adore the Chandra and Nissa right up until the ultimates; while they do work ruleswise I can't get behind the... not parasitism, exactly, but the locking the X costs and the double color mana costs that check devotion to a different color... it's too unsynergistic. It's not as though internal tension is bad, but these ultimates are just hard and unfun to use. I get the romantic theme, but that's conveyed very well by the loyalty-gain triggered abilities and the Elemental tokens. Just give them non-gimmicky ultimates, imho.
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TearsOfTomorrow
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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

void_nothing wrote:
4 years ago
I adore the Chandra and Nissa right up until the ultimates; while they do work ruleswise I can't get behind the... not parasitism, exactly, but the locking the X costs and the double color mana costs that check devotion to a different color... it's too unsynergistic. It's not as though internal tension is bad, but these ultimates are just hard and unfun to use. I get the romantic theme, but that's conveyed very well by the loyalty-gain triggered abilities and the Elemental tokens. Just give them non-gimmicky ultimates, imho.
Oh ok, I understand now. And this is actually a reasonable aspect to criticize: I really wanted to push the romantic theme, but I guess I got too carried away. Perhaps I could just do away with the devotion thing, and have them be "deal X damage" and "untap X lands" respectively?

Concerning Liliana, her status as dual-faced card is strictly a matter of plot: I won't spoil anything, but you might have noticed her default face is a creature and not a planeswalker ;)

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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

Changelog: made minor alterations to Liliana in order to give more of a "team feel" with the other two. Chandra and Nissa now have ultimate abilities that still try to follow the "mirroring each other" theme, but are no longer as gimmicky as they were before.

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Post by Henlock » 4 years ago

I like Chandra and Nissa. The link shows. It would be awesome to have one of those Planeswalker deck type.of cards that searched both. I think their passive abilities are good reflection of bondinh and the fact that you can use your Chandra ultimate to cause Nissa to build up lots of loyalty is interesting.

One minor thing. Voice of Reason is a card, so you may want to change Nissa's epithet.

Liliana has some wording issues, it should read "put a loyalty" . I think the design is powerful but it looks very fragile. and hard to transform. I would tinker around withbthe effects and requirements. Also, as to put on par with Chandra and Nissa's design, it would look cleaner to ultimate into an emblem (Maybe allowing you to cast creatures from any graveyard as zombies?)

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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

Henlock wrote:
4 years ago
I like Chandra and Nissa. The link shows. It would be awesome to have one of those Planeswalker deck type.of cards that searched both. I think their passive abilities are good reflection of bondinh and the fact that you can use your Chandra ultimate to cause Nissa to build up lots of loyalty is interesting.

One minor thing. Voice of Reason is a card, so you may want to change Nissa's epithet.

Liliana has some wording issues, it should read "put a loyalty" . I think the design is powerful but it looks very fragile. and hard to transform. I would tinker around withbthe effects and requirements. Also, as to put on par with Chandra and Nissa's design, it would look cleaner to ultimate into an emblem (Maybe allowing you to cast creatures from any graveyard as zombies?)
1) On Chandra and Nissa: glad you like them! Funnily enough, I do plan to also try my hand at designing one of those beginner-friendly PW decks that come with every set, but it's likely going to be Kaya vs Liliana.

2) On Nissa's epithet: meh. I didn't know about that card, and I have a reason for wanting to call her that: the idea is to tell the core portion of the story as a standard road trip... And I mean, it's a trip with Chandra "I swear the forest was already on fire when I got there" Nalaar. And then you add Liliana (in full "I blame myself for Gideon's death" mode, no less) to the mix? Yeah, Nissa is definitely going to be the voice of reason in this group: that's why I really wanted to go with that epithet :(

3) On Liliana: yeah, she's definitely the oddball here. It's just... There are so many things I wanted to put in her: I wanted to convey her current emotional state, but also her usual power set. I wanted to get across her character arc in my story (again, I don't wanna spoil anything, but suffices to say I had a reason for making her a creature) but I also wanted to give her some elements in common with the other two, so as to convey that they're all going to act together as a group. I'm afraid that's just too many aspects and factors to try and cram into a single card: should I just try and remake her from scratch with a simpler design?

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Post by SecretInfiltrator » 4 years ago

TearsOfTomorrow wrote:
4 years ago
Liliana, Crushing Guilt - 1BB
Legendary Creature - Human Cleric
Lifelink
Whenever you cast a black spell, put the top X cards of your library into your graveyard, where X is your devotion to black. Then, if there are 15 or more cards in your graveyard, you may exile //, then return her to the battlefield transformed under her owner's control.
2/3
So, Liliana loses her Spark in this story? I didn't get the impression she lost her Spark in WAR.
TearsOfTomorrow wrote:
4 years ago
Whenever a creature card is put into a graveyard from anywhere, put that many loyalty counters on //.
In this context "that many loyalty counters" makes no sense. Maybe use "a loyalty counter" instead.

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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

SecretInfiltrator wrote:
4 years ago
So, Liliana loses her Spark in this story? I didn't get the impression she lost her Spark in WAR.
Here's the thing: Liliana obtained the Gem of Becoming at the end of WAR, didn't she? So yeah, my initial idea was that she would willingly renounce her spark and seal it inside the gem, as part of her guilt trip over Gideon's death. Later on in the story she would find it in herself to move on, and gt back her spark.

However, after giving a lot of thought, I've realized this idea is problematic for a number of reasons:

1) Liliana's immortality relied on her contracts and on her status as a Planeswalker: with her contracts gone, would horrible things happen to her were she to also lose her spark? Answering this question would cause me to put too much effort and focus on a matter that's simply not what I want the story to be about.

2) If she begins the story having lost something, only to reacquire it before the story ends, then what was the point in losing that thing at all? And conversely: after fighting so hard to retain her life and her spark during WAR, wouldn't willing renounce the latter while endangering the former kind of kill the whole point of her character arc up to this point?

3) As [mention]void_nothing[/mention] pointed out, if this is going to be the only two-faced cards, then the whole deal is essentially reduced to a pointless gimmick.

For all these reasons, I have decided to drop the idea entirely. There already are a lot of angles I want to deal with in this story, this one simply has no place in the flow of events. With that in mind, here's a tentative rework of her card for this set:

Liliana, Crushing Despair - 1BBB
Legendary Planeswalker - Liliana
+2 Create a 2/2 black Zombie creature token
+1 Each player discards a card. If an opponent cannot, they lose 2 life
-3 Target creature gets -X/-X until en of turn, where X is your devotion to black
-8 You get an emblem with "Whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, exile it, then create a token under your control that's a copy of that creature, except it's a black Zombie"

She costs one more than her companions, but the cost format is still "one generic, and the rest is all symbols of her color of choice". And she uses the Torch of Defiance/God-Pharaoh template rather than the WAR template, but she still has a +1, a -3, and a -8 that makes an emblem. I think this should get across the aspect I was discussing earlier: that she's part of the team, but not as close to Chandra/Nissa as they are to one another. She likes being with them, but she's not one of them, and the fact she feels this way is also meant to showcase her different way of coping with Gideon's loss, compared to Chandra: for the pyromancer, the pain has become a source of motivation, making her more determined than ever to protect those close to her (when Nissa, her love interest, is harmed, she becomes more powerful); meanwhile, for Liliana this pain is a reminder of the fact that she wasn't powerful enough, she wasn't determined enough, she wasn't wise enough, and someone important died because of it... And so now she's not going to allow herself to be weak anymore: to get this across, I wanted her card to be the blackest black PW that ever blacked, while still giving her a "protect your friend" ability, but with her own unique twist. She protects her friends by MURDERING AND ZOMBIFYING those who would threaten them. Because she's an oldwalker, she's a necromancer, and she's pissed off. The despair is hers, but her enemies are the ones who're gonna be crushed by it.

So, how do you like it? Is it good enough to be put in the OP, replacing the old version?

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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

Major updates everyone! I was quite satisfied with my design for Liliana, and since nobody was commenting on it I figured I'd add it to the OP, replacing the old design: with this, the "Liliana gave in to her sorrow and renounced her spark" angle has officially been removed from this project, it will not happen.

I also created Kaya and Ashiok! The former was built specifically as a counter to Liliana (her lifegain counteracts Liliana's own clock, her -3 wipes out Liliana's zombie tokens, and her other abilities punish people who would use graveyard-based shenanigans, I.E. necromancers), because remember, the whole gimmick here is that Kaya was hand-picked for the mission to defeat Liliana and bring her back to Ravnica dead or alive. As for Ashiok, they're the main villain, so while I think I managed to capture well enough what I believe they should be about in this project, I'm not sure they're powerful enough: I mean, none of their abilities scream "OMG THIS IS THE BIG BAD EVIL GUY" to me, the same way Nicol Bolas' abilities often do, but on the other hand this card is meant to be competitively costed, so I didn't want to go overboard. It was quite the dilemma.

I really wish to get some good constructive feedback here, simply because, barring major changes to my designs stemming from said feedback, this will be my last time updating this topic: in the upcoming days I plan to start a topic in the custom set section and start working on the set itself :D

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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

Monowhite Kaya and monoblue Ashiok are cool ideas. However, Kaya's ultimate absolutely can't go on a monowhite 'walker. In fact, triple white in the cost and an ability that is basically purely black feels really wrong.
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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

void_nothing wrote:
4 years ago
Monowhite Kaya and monoblue Ashiok are cool ideas. However, Kaya's ultimate absolutely can't go on a monowhite 'walker. In fact, triple white in the cost and an ability that is basically purely black feels really wrong.
Genuine question: are you saying that because of the life loss?

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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

Yes, I am. Other than New Phyrexia "paintrips" and Orzhov cards with extort, please point out a modern color pie card that is monowhite and causes direct life loss. Reverse the Sands effects are an entirely different matter and I might add that while white has Morningtide and Rest in Peace, black exiles graveyards constantly as well.
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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

void_nothing wrote:
4 years ago
Yes, I am. Other than New Phyrexia "paintrips" and Orzhov cards with extort, please point out a modern color pie card that is monowhite and causes direct life loss. Reverse the Sands effects are an entirely different matter and I might add that while white has Morningtide and Rest in Peace, black exiles graveyards constantly as well.
Valid points. How about now?

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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

I was literally going to suggest exactly that.
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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

Ok so, one last thing: I want Cacophonia to be a creature in this set, and I want it to have power and constitution each equal to the number of cards in exile. I was originally planning to make it a card, but then I had an idea: how about making it a token created by Ashiok's -3, replacing the current-3? Would that be too strong, or would that be ok?

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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

Ashiok's fake God? I think the name of that particular Nightmare creation was in fact called "Cacophony", and no I don't think that would be a problem at a -3. You can easily get something with p/t equal to the number of exiled cards very big, but you can easily do the same thing with Crackling Drake and that card has evasion.
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Post by TearsOfTomorrow » 4 years ago

Ok, it's settled then. With this, I believe this topic is more or less done. Set creation topic coming soon-ish!

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