[Cycle] The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

[Fistandantilus]

REVISED TEXT:

Horseman of Pestilence

Legendary Creature - Insect Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of Pestilence get -1/-1.

Horseman of Famine

Legendary Creature - Spirit Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of Famine get -1/-1.

Horseman of War

Legendary Creature - Soldier Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of War get -1/-1.

Horseman of Death

Legendary Creature - Zombie Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of Death get -1/-1.
Sacrifice Horseman of Pestilence, Horseman of Famine, Horseman of War, and Horseman of Death: Remove all permanents from the game.  Play this ability only at any time that you could play a sorcery.

***

ORIGINAL TEXT:

Horseman of Pestilence

Creature – Insect Knight Horseman
2/2
Flanking
: Horseman of Pestilence deals 1 damage to each non-Horseman creature and each player.

Horseman of Famine

Creature – Spirit Knight Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All non-horseman creatures are 0/1.
Lands do not untap as normal.
Pay 1 life: Untap target land.  Any player may play this ability.

Horseman of War

Creature – Soldier Knight Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures gain provoke, haste, and double strike.

Horseman of Death

Creature – Zombie Knight Horseman
2/2
Flanking
When Horseman of Death comes into play, destroy all non-artifact, non-Horseman creatures.
Sacrifice Horseman of Pestilence, Horseman of Famine, Horseman of War, and Horseman of Death: Remove all permanents from the game.


I just wanted to create a flavorful cycle of creatures that represented the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  Each of them has a power that is representative (hopefully) of who he is.  Together, they can (appropriately enough) invoke an apocalypse.  Comments are welcome.  I have no idea whether I costed these correctly.

I made them all 2/2 Knights with flanking because in Magic, that's typically what mounted horsemen are.

[Shock Wave]

These seem seriously overcosted. The idea is neat, but why would anybody want to go through the trouble of getting 4 of these into play? I mean, given that you would never actually cast 4 of these things, wouldn't it be better to just win the game through something that requires a fraction of the effort to effectuate?

[Fistandantilus]

These seem seriously overcosted. The idea is neat, but why would anybody want to go through the trouble of getting 4 of these into play? I mean, given that you would never actually cast 4 of these things, wouldn't it be better to just win the game through something that requires a fraction of the effort to effectuate?

I'm not very good at costing things appropriately, I'll admit.  How would you cost them?

Let me add that Pestilence and Damnation (similar in ways to Horseman of Pestilence and Horseman of Death, respectively) both have seen at least some play in their histories, and those are both costed at .

I admit that it would be difficult for a deck to get all four of these into play.  However, they could be valuable in some decks individually, even without the others.

I recognize that the final "apocalypse" ability on each card would be very difficult to play, and therefore probably should be treated as though it were non-existent when costing the cards.  I do like to have it there, though, just for Johnny and Vorthos.

[Anusien]

I don't think you can put these in alternate colors.  For one thing, there are only 4 of them, which means you can't have a 5 card cycle.  I'd rather see them at all the same color or some sort of different colors.  Considering the names and the theme/flavor, I'd make them all black rares.
Also, I would make them all Legendary, and put the ability to create the big bad effect only on Death.  Also, it should be playable only any time you can play a sorcery, to prevent doing something like putting Akroma on the stack and then activating the ability.

Pestilence is fine.

Famine does too much.  I'd get rid of the toughness affecting ability and just make it something like, "Whenever a land untaps, that land's controller loses one life."  This also prevents it from becoming a combo ability.  This is still pretty weak comparatively though.

War is a bit scattered.  I mean, technically, all those abilities deal with War, but I'd rather see something like "All creatures get +2/-2 and have Haste".  Even more fun would be to put Grand Melee on it (All creatures must attack each turn.  All creatures must block each turn) or even "All creatures must attack each turn.  All creatures have Provoke."

Death is one of the two most powerful, but also the most boring.  The others are very interesting and he's JUST a Wrath for BBBB.  I wouldn't blame you for keeping this as is, but I'd look for something more interesting.

[Fistandantilus]

EDIT:

I had an alternative idea:

Horseman of Pestilence

Legendary Creature - Insect Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of Pestilence get -1/-1.

Horseman of Famine

Legendary Creature - Spirit Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of Famine get -1/-1.

Horseman of War

Legendary Creature - Soldier Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of War get -1/-1.

Horseman of Death

Legendary Creature - Zombie Horseman
2/2
Flanking
All creatures that do not share a creature type with Horseman of Death get -1/-1.
Sacrifice Horseman of Pestilence, Horseman of Famine, Horseman of War, and Horseman of Death: Remove all permanents from the game.  Play this ability only at any time that you could play a sorcery.

***

Comments:

The problem with the previous versions is that there was not much of a reason to play with all Four Horsemen in a deck.  With this version, there is: For each of the Four Horseman you get into play, your advantage becomes unquestionably more pronounced.

Also, this version maintains traditionally "black" abilities on these black creatures, so there's less problem with "color bleed."

I costed these at because, while having similar abilities to Night of Soul's Betrayal and Ascendant Evincar, they are definitely  stronger than the former, which costs , and very probably weaker than the latter, which costs .

I retained the original idea of being able to invoke Apocalypse by sacrificing all four.

Comments/suggestions?

[Anusien]

Solid (although I would probably cost them at {B}), but now they're rather unexciting.

[Fistandantilus]

I hereby initiate the 24 hour clock.  Over three days have passed since my last revision of the cards.

[Anusien]

In the future, keep the original text in the first post.

ANy response to my post?  Even if it's just "I think you're wrong"?  4 Rares that are almost functionally identical in the same set is a bit steep.

[Fistandantilus]

In the future, keep the original text in the first post.

ANy response to my post?  Even if it's just "I think you're wrong"?  4 Rares that are almost functionally identical in the same set is a bit steep.

They are similar, it is true, but then, they ARE similar creatures flavor-wise.  And they do have subtle differences that are based on their creature types.  I think I like them as they are now.  They work well together.

Also, I don't know that they would need to be rare.

Also, they are similar to each other in kind of the same way that the "One" cycle creatures (Doubtless One, Heedless One, Nameless One, Reckless One, Soulless One) in Onslaught are similar to each other.  If that cycle saw print, then there's nothing wrong with this one.

As for your proposal to make them cost , does anyone second that?

[Venven]

This could make a real cool megacycle in one of them new 4-set blocks. Your versions don't knock me over though, and that's something that a Four Horsemen cycle definitely should do. I'd seriously encourage you to take these back to the beginning and find out what you want to do, what fits in flavour, and any place those two cross, see where it goes.

[Anusien]

Also, I don't know that they would need to be rare.

Nowadays, non-Kamigawa block Legendary creatures are always rare.

[Fistandantilus]

This could make a real cool megacycle in one of them new 4-set blocks. Your versions don't knock me over though, and that's something that a Four Horsemen cycle definitely should do. I'd seriously encourage you to take these back to the beginning and find out what you want to do, what fits in flavour, and any place those two cross, see where it goes.

Well, I'm open to suggestions.

Whatever we do with these, I want to make sure of one thing: That players will WANT to play with all four in the same deck.  That means that, whatever these end up being, they probably shouldn't conflict with each other when they are all in play together.

[Norm4eva]

Not that it really applies to this Master List, but printing 4 Black Legends that pretty much do exactly the same thing would make drafting a cruel world.  For our purposes this doesn't matter much, but if we're to go about this in the same way that WotC R&D would I think we need to consider what four identical Black cards does to Limited.