Cycle of Spirits

[GerryMander]

Spirit of the Light
{W}{W}
Creature -- Spirit
White creatures you control gain +1/+1 and "Attacking doesn't cause this creature to tap".
2/2

Spirit of the Darkness
{B}{B}
Creature -- Spirit
Black creatures you control gain +1/+1 and ":  Regenerate".
2/2

Spirit of the Woods
{G}{G}
Creature -- Spirit
Green creatures you control gain +1/+1 and trample.
2/2

Spirit of the Flames
{R}{R}
Creature -- Spirit
Red creatures you control gain +1/+1 and first strike.
2/2

Spirit of the Water
{U}{U}
Creature -- Spirit
Blue creatures you control gain +1/+1 and flying.
2/2


CURRENT WORDING:

Monarch of the Sky
UUU
Creature -- Spirit
Blue creatures you control have +1/+1 and flying.
And the light was liquid, filling the open sky.
0/1

Monarch of the Woods
GGG
Creature -- Spirit
Green creatures you control have +1/+1 and trample.
And the sky was life, quenching the thirsty woods.
2/2

Monarch of the Flames
RRR
Creature -- Spirit
Red creatures you control have +1/+1 and haste.
And the woods were kindling, feeding the sunset's flames.
1/0

Monarch of the Darkness
BBB
Creature -- Spirit
Black creatures you control have +1/+1 and "Pay 2 life:  Regenerate".
And the flames were candles, doused in the night's darkness.
0/1

Monarch of the Light
WWW
Creature -- Spirit
White creatures you control have +1/+1 and first strike.
And the darkness was gone, fading to dawn's light.
1/2

CHANGES:
-gave red haste *ChowdaCup*
-gave white first strike *GerryMander*
-name changed for effect reason *GerryMander*
-changed around p/t's *Some People*
-made the red one weaker *GerryMander*
-have instead of gain *Matt*
-kick ass flavor text *Laurie Cheers*
-name change *Laurie Cheers*

[ChowdaCup]

i think the red one should be haste not first strike

[skecreatoR]

Agree with Chowda.

[GerryMander]

If I give the red one haste, the white one is getting first strike.

changes made

[Ephraim]

3/3's for 3 aren't bad, in and of themselves. I think these creatures need to have a base power and toughness of 1/1, to make them a little bit more fragile. Granted, these are playable only in a mono-colour deck and one that focuses on creatures, at that, but they're still very strong. The Black one in particular is already really difficult to get rid of. I would suggest it grant the ability "Pay 2 life: regenerate this creature."

[twinky]

What about "all other creatures of this colour get this ability?"

[brendan]

The blue one is a 3/3 flier for 3, that pumps and wonders all your other guys. Way too good. The blue, red and black ones need to be 1/1.

They don't necessarily need to mirror eachother. The green one is fine at 2/2 and the white one probably should be good too.

[Ephraim]

Brendan's suggestions work too. I have no objection to the green one being a 2/2. The White one would be a bit more flavourful as a 1/2, but I also would not object to the red one being a 2/1. But yes - the black and blue ones definitely need to be 1/1's.

[GerryMander]

changes made

also changed the blue one's name because water isn't really a flying element...

[Ephraim]

I heartily approve of this cycle now. All of these cards are hella-flavourful (as they should be, since they cost 3 coloured mana.

[Matt]

All the "gain"s should be "have", because the effect goes away when the Spirit leaves play.

[brendan]

Yea these are really cool. Nice work there!

[Jacob Orlove]

Now all we need is flavor text. Is there some way we could split up something larger into five parts? I really love stuff like that, but we never get a chance to really do it.

[Ephraim]

Add one for Artifacts

Spirit of the Machines
Artifact Creature
3

Artifact creatures you control get +1/+1.

1/1

Then, there's six of them and I can write something resembling a sonnet for them. It won't quite follow the correct stanza pattern, but then I could write 2 lines for each of the coloured spirits and the last 4 lines for the artifact spirit.

[brendan]

The red one is quite high on the power scale.

3/2 haste for 3 is pretty decent already and when it has such a kickass set of offensive abilities in the colour best set-up to use it, it might just be too good.

The fact it isnt a goblin is the only thing that makes this even debatable.

[ChowdaCup]

i think the red is fine as is

[Jacob Orlove]

If the red one gave +1/+0, it would be fine. That breaks the cycle, though.

[stijndon]

I agree on the strongness of the red one. I wanted to post about that before I saw others doing it, so now I want to support the others who say that the red one is too strong.

And using the last four lines of a sonnet for the artifact one is silly, since sonnets have two pairs of four lines, and two pairs of three lines. Breaking them up like you suggested would do away with the structure of the sonnet. Perhaps just split the quatrains (is that the english name?) in halve, making four pairs of two lines, and use the triads independently, for a total of six pieces of sonnet, but now more eastethically representative.

[GerryMander]

ok, I made the red one weaker and changed gain to have.

I am not sure aboot there being an artifact one, but if more people want it, then I'll put it on.

Can't wait to see this flavor text...

[Ephraim]

Stijndon, Actually, only Petrarchan Sonnets are an octect followed by a sestet (similar to the scheme you described). Spenserian Sonnets have four stanzas - abab bcbc cdcd ee. I was going to use something like that, with the same rhyme scheme, but break the last two lines off the third stanza and put them over the rhyming couplet at the end. It would be a trifle inelegant, but it would leave each of the coloured cards with half of a stanza, which would only really be meaningful when combined with the card containing the other half of the stanza - and then all six cards would need to be ordered to see the entire poem.

Oh, and Gerry, you changed the original wording post instead of the current wording post. Just a heads up so you can put the red card's new text in the correct place.

[GerryMander]

whoops!  Fixed it.

[ChowdaCup]

i think these look pretty good now

[GerryMander]

24 hour clock

[Jacob Orlove]

What about flavor text?

[GerryMander]

oh yeah, flavor text.

where is the flavor text?

[Ephraim]

I could write some doggerel for them, like I have for other cards if you want. With only 5 of them, I can't split a sonnet across them. If you like, I can try to make the various pieces of doggerel bleed across the cards, but it's less meaningful if there's no real poem structure underlying the connected flavour texts. (like the Song of All or the Love Song of Night and Day...I'd bet good money that no such poems were ever written. WotC just took various poetical flavour texts and attributed them to these poems...but they're really long, so that's why you can't see the connection!)

[Jacob Orlove]

No, actually they have the full Love Song of Night and Day up on the wizards site somewhere. It's quite a love story.

[GerryMander]

so, is a flavor text being made for this or what?

[Ephraim]

I'm not writing any flavour text for them, no. I still haven't been given any clear objective as to what sort of flavour text is desired for these. I've made suggestions as to things I might be able to do, but I'd require more input and none has been forthcoming.

[GerryMander]

oh, I am sorry.  I thought you had something in mind...

24 hour clock then unless someone can make superb flavor text...