The plane of Taramir has reached the end of its time. The struggles of the Waning Age have been forgotten, for the sun has set for the final time, leaving the world in darkness. The natural world is, as one might expect, in shambles: a few creeping vines grow where cultivated by humans or lit by the incandescent glow of volcanoes, and across the remains of ancient forests, a fungal morass now spreads, stinking seas of rot that represent what little is left of wildlife. This suits the Nightstalkers just fine, however, and they can be found to heed the call of green mana.
☼Taramir Block☼ Taramir Block consists of three sets: Taramir, Waning Light, and finally Age of Darkness. All three sets feature the new mechanics Salvage and Decay as well as the returning mechanic Cumulative Upkeep. In addition, Waning Light brought Fateseal into the picture. To this, Age of Darkness adds the return of Vanishing.
Salvage: Salvage is an activated ability that can be activated only when the card with salvage is in its owner's graveyard, when he or she could cast a sorcery. Salvaging a card exiles it and has the listed effects. Taramir introduced Salvage while Waning Light added off-color salvage costs and Salvage spells with effects dissimilar to their initial effect from being cast. Age of Darkness introduces Colorless and Nonmana salvage costs.
Decay: Decay is an ability word that causes one or more depletion counters to be added to the permanent with Decay, and causes it to be sacrificed when too many depletion counters have been accumulated.
~Rare Creatures~ As with white we have an Incarnation and a Vanishing Iconic. That leaves Evernight Howler, who takes dubious advantage of most of the colored-producing Nonbasics in Taramir having the appropriate land type.
Evernight Howler
Creature – Nightstalker [R] Whenever Evernight Howler attacks, tap all untapped forests you control. Tap X target creatures, where X is equal to the number of lands tapped this way. Each of those creatures gets -1/-1 until end of turn. 3/3
Rot Titan
Creature – Fungus Treefolk [R] Trample, Vanishing 4 When Rot Titan dies, if it had a time counter on it, exile it put three 1/1 black and green worm creature tokens onto the battlefield 5/5
Decay
Creature – Incarnation [R] Decay deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters Whenever a creature dies, put a 1/1 black and green worm creature token onto the battlefield for each -1/-1 counter on it. 4/4
~Rare Noncreatures~ Other than the former uncommon (Song of Restoration), weird wordings rule the day. As far as I can tell, there's no better way to do either concept (Spores uses Rocket Launcer's rules tech).
Parasitic Spores
Enchantment [R] Cumulative Upkeep – Put a spore counter on target nontoken creature All creatures have “Remove three spore counters from this creature: Put a 1/1 green saproling token onto the battlefield. Sacrifice this creature at the beginning of the next end step”
Feed the Vines
Sorcery [R] Starting with you, players may bid creatures. You start the bidding with any number of creatures you control. In turn order, each player may top the high bid. The bidding ends if the high bid stands. The high sacrifices all creatures he or she bid and may search his or her library for up to that many land cards, put them onto the battlefield, then shuffle his or her library.
Song of Restoration
Enchantment [R] Cumulative Upkeep – Gain 1 life A ballad passed down and added to since the Age of Myths, chronicling the history of Taramir, its last verses echo defiant through the dark.
~Mythic Rare~ What's left of Taramir's natural world? Fungus and rot upon the surface. Beneath that spreads the threads of the great fungus, extending far beyond the reach of the mushroom caps. Perhaps even the woody roots of ancient forests still act as leylines of mana...
Spoiler
Roots of the World
Enchantment [MR] When Roots of the World enters the battlefield, reveal your library. Exile all land cards revealed this way, then shuffle your library You may play lands from exile. , Sacrifice a land: Put an exiled land card you own onto the battlefield.
_________________
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice."
I'm a (self) published author now! You can find my books on Amazon in Paperback or ebook! The Accursed, a standalone young adult fantasy adventure. Witch Hunters, book one of a young adult Scifi-fantasy trilogy.
Last edited by Tevish Szat on Mon Oct 20, 2014 2:41 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Joined: Jun 21, 2014 Posts: 8338 Location: Singapore
Evernight Howler is missing P/T. Also, that effect doesn't feel green at all, but you already knew that.
Feed the Vines seems awful and feel-bad. If I have 5 mana, why would I want to sacrifice my creatures to ramp even harder? I get that it's playable in some Commander decks, but I honestly think nothing would be lost if you redid the card entirely.
Roots of the World is just a really fancy Scapeshift that I don't think ought to be mythic.
Joined: Oct 17, 2013 Posts: 3486
Preferred Pronoun Set: He
Song of Restoration feels very powerful, probably not busted, but I have a feeling that a lot of control decks are looking to sweep the board, stick that, and spend the rest of the game protecting it.
Joined: Jun 21, 2014 Posts: 8338 Location: Singapore
Nah, it's no Baneslayer Angel. It's the kind of rare that excites new players and throws a curveball into Limited games, but isn't actually very good in Constructed.
Evernight Howler isn't green. Rot Titan is very strong. Not only are you getting a hell of a beater with so many time counters you don't even really care it has vanishing, but if they do manage to kill it early, your rewarded with the tokens. I'm not sure it's broken, but I would play with 4 of these in every green deck. I imagine there is a reason you didn't just give Decay Wither? Also it has the same name as a mechanic from your set but doesn't have decay. Parasitic Spores Since you have to sac the tokens, I assume this is meant to fuel some kind of sacrifice engine? Feed the Vines seems like you would really have to be desperate for lands. If your going to be the highest creature bidder, then you are probably giving up your edge on the game by searching for lands you probably don't need since you already have so many creatures. There will be times it forces funny decisions to be made and I love the originality of bidding creatures, but it seems like a really expensive land search card. Song of Restoration is dangerous. If it gets out and stays out for a few turns it could net just stupid amounts of life. I still like it though. It just shows how good life gain has to be to be considered playable. Roots of the World is strong. Cleaning all the mana out of your deck and then having those lands be a buffet to choose from is great. I think it fits fine in the Mythic slot. Plus I love the fact that you put it in Spoiler tags so I have to reveal it.
Perfect originality is overrated and often ugly. The best and most beautiful cards I've ever seen were clearly inspired by something else. Cards are not entirely unlike living organisms in this regard. All the good ones are a result of long evolution; the 'original' ones are either mono-cellular or mutant aberrations.
Cato
A true warrior seeks out the greatest foe. Their heart cries out for glorious battle, heedless even to its own end.
Parasitic Spores Since you have to sac the tokens, I assume this is meant to fuel some kind of sacrifice engine?
The tokens are not sacced... the creature that births them is. the delay until end of turn is to give you understandable time to fire off as many sets of 3 counters from it as you can before it goes away. (That could work by responding to the abilities with no delay, but not as a cost...)
I might reword it to "Remove all spore counters from this creature and sacrifice it: put a 1/1 green saproling creature token onto the battlefield for every three spore counters removed this way"
Feed is meant for two circumstances: turning token swarms into ramp, or tutoring a number of specific nonbasics
Decay (which may need to be renamed) was not given Wither because Wither is not in Taramir Block, much as Chub Toad does not have Bushido.
_________________
"Enjoy your screams, Sarpadia - they will soon be muffled beneath snow and ice."
I'm a (self) published author now! You can find my books on Amazon in Paperback or ebook! The Accursed, a standalone young adult fantasy adventure. Witch Hunters, book one of a young adult Scifi-fantasy trilogy.
Parasitic Spores Since you have to sac the tokens, I assume this is meant to fuel some kind of sacrifice engine?
The tokens are not sacced... the creature that births them is. the delay until end of turn is to give you understandable time to fire off as many sets of 3 counters from it as you can before it goes away. (That could work by responding to the abilities with no delay, but not as a cost...)
I might reword it to "Remove all spore counters from this creature and sacrifice it: put a 1/1 green saproling creature token onto the battlefield for every three spore counters removed this way"
Feed is meant for two circumstances: turning token swarms into ramp, or tutoring a number of specific nonbasics
Decay (which may need to be renamed) was not given Wither because Wither is not in Taramir Block, much as Chub Toad does not have Bushido.
I totally missed that about Parasitic Spores. It read fine, I just read it wrong.
Perfect originality is overrated and often ugly. The best and most beautiful cards I've ever seen were clearly inspired by something else. Cards are not entirely unlike living organisms in this regard. All the good ones are a result of long evolution; the 'original' ones are either mono-cellular or mutant aberrations.
Cato
A true warrior seeks out the greatest foe. Their heart cries out for glorious battle, heedless even to its own end.
If you play song of restoration on turn 4 it will take you until turn 8 for it to gain you 10 life total. From there on it gets pretty fast but I think its slow enough that its not really that scary.
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