@Beryl: You're right - I'm not playing Red. I'm certainly not playing Red in standard, or even in Draft. My Nicol Bolas EDH deck has red in it, but that's currently in Utah and I haven't gotten around to picking it up. Oh, I guess my Heartless Hidetsugu deck has red in it or something...

I don't see what this has to do with anything, however.

We aren't designing these cards with standard or EDH in mind, however. These cards don't have to be designed around lightning strike or incinerate. That's just. Not necessary. Berly's +1, as I designed it, is an attempt to be flavorful and powerful - because planeswalkers should be flavorful, and powerful. If you want to cast Lightning Strike every turn with her +1, that's fine - but not everyone is going to do that, and it still requires another card. That's why it's balanced - because no other planeswalker requires another card to deal damage to anything. (Well, I mean Nissa had that Nissa's Chosen card but that was ridiculous and kind of really bad, so...)

Which is, in fact, a big deal. The ability is good, but it's not broken. Just an interesting way to ramp and get a bit of card advantage in red.

I could see Beryl costing 6, however. That might be a good thing, because the roster as it stands is pretty low on the curve.

@Soul of Aliavelli: Ok, let's drop unblockable on the Soul of Aliavelli and give it Islandwalk. That probably works better, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Hmm. There might be another work around but I need to do some research.

I'll thank you not to imply my design skills are poor because I don't play paper magic very often. There's no need to be rude. Please, keep in mind that this is supposed to be a fun exercise and no one particularly wants to be attacked because someone else thinks they're bad at creating cards.

I was not saying YOU as a person are not playing red.
I was just saying that if you don't have a 2 cmc spell in your graveyard by the time a 5 cmc planeswalker fields, chances are you weren't playing a red deck.

I was under the impression... this was going into a card set. A core card set. Which should include a shock/lightning strike variant.
The thing with her +1 is that it's too versatile. You can spend every turn bolting and opponent, or you could get a removal back for later and ramp into a bigger spell, etc. etc.
And that won't ever stop you from being able to +1 since you'll just cast that 1- or 2- cmc spell and immediately + again.
I stand by my opinion that +1 is too much.
Costing 6... could fix that. Though ramp at 6 cmc is a bit counter-intuitive in non-edh.

Mmm. Do I sound offensive? If I do, I apologize, but I think this is just how I type when I'm commenting on cards. No offense intended.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the best judge of power levels. This is why a good deal of my statements are preceded by "I think" or "It seems" or "maybe", etc.
I understand it's often unproductive to criticize and then not give alternatives, as well, but... well, sometimes I just don't have alternatives, but that doesn't make my opinions disappear.

@ chinkeeyong - I really love what you did with all the M:EM cards! And I am dead serious when I say that the Tezzeret card almost made me do a spit take on my monitor.

RE: Playing red in standard - That's me. And extended! And legacy! Boy oh boy, do I love me some Lava Spikes!

I mention this only as an excuse to complain about the fact that, for the second time in three years, there will be no Shock in the core set. It's just not fair. I NEED MY SHOCKS! I don't want to spend another year of staring at a sorcery-speed 1 CMC burn spell in my hand and thinking to myself: "I never realized how much I would miss Shock. I mean, I always used to be depressed that Shock wasn't Lightning Bolt, but I would kill for a Shock right now." Because I already lived through that with Pillar of Flame, and that was a rough, rough time.

Not that I don't love you, too, Pillar of Flame. Because I do. But, sometimes, a man just feels the need for speed. Instant speed.

I am that man.

I miss Shock already.

RE: Beryl, Fire-Walker - I love that she has this burn-engine feel to her, like she's a big, flaming kickstarter that just says "time to set the world on fire!" Her +1 seems okay to me, but then I'm a sucker for burn and a sucker for Beryl, so my ability to be impartial is non-existent. Maybe exiling the returned card at EoT would reduce concern about her being too much of an enabler?

The best case would be to give the spell flashback, but that's a bit non-core material.

Hmm. Actually, I think the best way to change this would be to just drop the word "instant" from Beryl's +1. If it can only target sorcerys (sorceries? Apparently it's not letting me type it in plural), that doesn't exactly FIX the whole "free burn" problem, but it limits the cards you can bring back with it to that turn only.

If we want to take a step further, we could change it to read "+1: Exile target red Sorcery in your graveyard. Until the end of the turn, you may cast the exiled card. Add to your mana pool.

Less elegant, but certainly gets the job done. I really was looking for a bit of CA, though that does fit red more fully...

(Sorry OL, I know you love your instants. It's something you and I have in common, just on opposite sides of the color wheel!)

Anyway, moving on from that, I have an idea for CKY!

If you would like, I (and I am certain, other members of the M:EM) would love to write a few lines of flavor text for any cards that are lacking in that department! If at any time you would like us to spruce up one of your cards with a zinger, just post that card here and say "GIMME SOME FLAVOR TEXT" (although maybe not so excitedly - we are a gentle and easily startled peoples) and we will do our best!

Inversely, if you do not require this service, feel free to ignore me.

I would also like to spitball another idea - since my cycle of legendaries went over so well - what about a few, individual cards, named after some stories in the archives, that attempt to encapsulate the them of those stories in card for? I have a few examples below show what I'm talking about.





Something like that. Obviously, the cards don't actually have to have anything to do with planeswalkers - like I said, I'm just spitballing.

Let me know what you all think!

Thanks for taking the time to go over my cards, everyone!


The biggest challenge to this is that I would have to check for the original card designers' permissions before adding flavor text, and that would be a huge hurdle because of all the different designers – some no longer active on this forum – that I would have to contact. Still, I appreciate the offer!


Ooh, interesting. I hadn't considered representing the stories themselves like this, but I can see how that would be useful in filling mechanical holes and directing players to M:EM stories they might otherwise have missed. What stories might make good core set cards? Please enlighten me!

Also, with all this discussion about Beryl, I think I might have hit upon a possible way to depict her protective magic in a mono-red card:

Beryl, Guardian of Flame

Planeswalker – Beryl (M)
3

+1: Until the beginning of your next upkeep, whenever a creature attacks you or a planeswalker you control, Beryl deals 3 damage to that creature.
0: Put a wreath counter on target creature. It gains haste and protection from red.
-7: You gain protection from red until end of turn. Then Beryl deals 10 damage to each creature and each player.

I'm not sure whether this version or RuwinReborn's version of Beryl works better. Your thoughts?

It might be worth putting off talk of power levels until this project reaches the development phase, actually.

Also, I know we're still trying to get Beryl working, but Gruff is also a monored 'walker. ...Granted his abilities at the moment are "run away" and "hit it with a stick then run away" so that might not be optimal

I dunno... a +3 of :deal 1 damage to target creature or player
and a
0: Creatures you control this turn gain haste

are pretty damned good options. I jacked the loyalty up since the damage output was pretty low. The big issue is finding an ultimate. Maybe some sort of deathclock!... I mean emblem of some sort.


Also, I'll be completely honest, I'm feeling kind of left out for as much as I've contributed.

I'd kind of like to see some cards for Zhiran, if that makes you feel better... I just re-read Loss the other day due to recommending it as a good starting point for the project, and I think there's plenty of card potential there.

Maybe we can do a variant of City of Brass for Rishima too.

Literally took me like 3 seconds so I apologize for any indiscretions.

EDIT: Gotta throw in the reminder text!

Well that's fascinating. o_o

EDIT: Also I forgot to say this earlier but it's great to see Zent getting some love! I feel like that world could really be something special with a bit more polish, and our one story for that plane is still one of my favorites.

I really like lands that don't tap for mana traditionally.

Well, we do have one new 'walker in the archive who has visited Zent recently. Too bad the particulars of that visit are shrouded in mystery... almost like.. the set-up for a later story...

(I do all my foreshadowing out of narrative because I'm awful at it in actual stories.)

...

...

...

...Wait who are you talking about? >_< I feel super unobservant now.

Woop, totally forgot about that.

On the new Beryl, the +1 probably shouldn't extend its protection to you. See Vraska the Unseen for reference.

I have a great Idea for a card, but I can't think of a non-Un-set name for it.

[NAME GOES HERE]
Soercery :uncommon:
Counter target spell.

I say go with an un-name. A sorcery-speed counterspell would probably need one...

Oh! I've got something: Slow Response.