Quiacatl's Champion (former Quetzalcoatl)

[Bram]

Quetzalcoatl, Feathered Snake
3BG
0/0
Legendary Creature -- Spirit
Flying.
Quetzalcoatl, Feathered Snake comes into play with 4 +1/+1 counters.
1, remove a +1/+1 counter from Quetzalcoatl, Feathered Snake: target player gets a Poison counter.
The Feathered Snake is said to have created the Xolotl from the bones of those he poisoned.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to make this guy 0/1 or 0/0. The latter enables comboes since it dies to its own effect, which I like.

Current wording:

Quiacatl's Champion - 3GG
Legendary Creature --  Spirit Warrior
Quiacatl's Champion comes into play with 4 +1/+1 counters.
1G, remove a +1/+1 counter from Quiacatl's Champion: target player gets a poison counter.
Quiacatl is said to have created the Xolotl race from the bones of those he poisoned, and his champion from their blood.
0/0

[Malhavoc]

Maybe it should also give poison counters when he damages the opponent. It could make the poison mechanic quite interesting indeed. Of course this would mean raising its cost a bit, or lowering the number of counters.

[Bram]

Hmm. Interesting. Let's try and see if we can make poison good.

[Jebus]

I like the whole Aztec/Incan thing and all, but should we really be pulling right out of it?

I'd rather we not pull real legends out of the mix and take our own approach.  Sort of like how WotC based Kamigawa off a weird veresion of Shinto.

Just my thoughts.

[Bram]

Well, I don't see anthing wrong with using the name of one actual god. I mean, Wizards used 'kami' etc. I've already come up with a fake name for my mayan/inca/aztec people and completely fabricated the creation myth.

Also: you're right, there is no reason to start on Aztec cards just yet other than the fact that I want to Everyone is obviously free po post whatever they like. My cards with mesoamerican flavor just won't make it to the (first) set then. Just trying on the flavor for size.

[Jebus]

I don't think using the specific name of a god and using "kami" are that similar.

[Bram]

Well, even so.

[Matt]

I am 100% with Jebus.

[Bram]

Hmmm. So you'd be OK with this if I used an Aztec SOUNDING name instead of a real Aztec one? Sure. Done.

But how about the card though?

[Jebus]

Card looks fine.  But, don't you think it should be a Snake Spirit?

[Bram]

Yes

[Ephraim]

Bump.

I like this now. This whole poison counter theme is hot. I'm writing down a bunch of ideas for white and red, in which they'll punish people for using poison counters. It isn't precisely colour-themely, but blue seems less likely than either white or red to get involved in a bunch of divine poisonings.

[Alfred]

Leeches should definately be a reprint!

[Bram]

I made some majot changes after a REALLY lenghty discussion with, among others, Ephraim on IRC.

I now feel that we shouldn't make the god Quiacatl just yet (...since if he ends up being a planeswalker, it all pretty pointless since we can't make him into a card). Also, there were some elements of my cards that worked against it being a god.

1. it's size was too diminuative
2. but if I made it bigger, the poison thing becomes too unimportant and it becomes a Timmy beatstick.
3. so it needs to stay relatively small for it ti keep it's current ability useful
4. gods aren't small
5. hence it can't be a god.

Also, I feel the IF we make a Quiacatl, he needs to be B/G for flavor reasons, and I decided I wanted this Champion guy to be mono green (I actually only gave him black to support him flying in the first place, and I only wanted him to fly because he initially was a 'feathered snake'). The Quiacatl I envision will be a huge toughness, small power, overcosted Timmy multicolor card that somehow doubles assigned Poison counters.

I'd like to clock this as I believe it's fine now. It looks sleeker. It's a 4/4 for 3GG with a decent ability. I believe we get those (escpecially since the fact that it's a solid body doesn't interact with the posion thing on win-condition terms...you need to either fully poison or fully beat someone to death so in general it's futile to attack your opponents on both fronts and this card's mechanic reflects that).


So all in al......



CLOCK!

[Matt]

Gods can be small if they're hard to beat in combat. Look at Phage/Akroma, who were practically gods, or the Myojinn (sp) guys in Mirrodin (with divinity counters).

[BlkXplsn]

Quetzalcoatl (in Mayan culture) was also a god of death and rebirth... analogus to the whole phoenix legend we are more familiar with. I would picture Quetzalcoatl as a Shard Phoenix, actually. Or at least a red creature.

EDIT: What I'm trying to say is that I disagree with the whole flavor the original card has...

[Bram]

BlkX: Quetzalcoatl was never a Mayan god. That is to say, the Mayans had the same god-figure (much as how the Christian God and Allah are the same 'person') but Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec name (or rather, one the Aztecs adopted from the Toltec, even). It literally means 'Quetzal-bird snake' which freely translated leads to Feathered Snake. His Mayan name was Kukulkan. Neither was he a god of death. Soem legends hjold it that he opposed human sacrifice, but even if not, the fact that human were sacrificed to him hardly means he was a god of death. Some 18 to 55 thousand people were sacrificed yearly to any number of gods. It was common practice, really. If anything, he was the god of the Morning Star (the planet we call Venus). He is supposedly the one who created the physical world.

The Mayan Quetzalcoatl ('Kukulcan') was a god of the elements, of resutrection and of creation. They, too, adopted this figure from Toltec culture where he was a divine hero who taught Toltec law as well as the arts of fishing and agriculture. In none of the three cultures Quetzalcoat was even remotely associated with death.

The Mayan god of death is the giant Hun Came who is lord of the underworld called Xibalba together with the demon Vucub Caquix. Tlacolotl was the Mayan god of evil.

Also: it's a moot point since we've changed both the name and the flavor for this card.

[EDIT]

Beel playing around with the new type borders and stuff (you can get the coolest templates at misetings!). This isn't definitive, because the card hasn't even been finalized yet, but I was just fooling around with it. I've still got a lot to learn about the positioning of text etc. but I can see this coming together just fine.

[Bram]

Clock.

[Jacob Orlove]

I still don't like how this can give your opponent 4 poison counters in one shot.

[Bram]

You'd first need to play it somehow and then have 4 mana to spare. Even with Quiacatl's incarnation in play this isn't lethal.

OK, so let's make this worse. I can accept the Snake Hurler tapping, but not this one. So how about I upped the activation cost?

Compare to Flamewave Invoker. A 2/2 red common d00d for 2R, which is decent if not specacular (much like a 4/4 green d00d for 3GG). It's ability deals 5 damage to target player for 7R, and it turned out to be playable in limited. So our card would have to be costed similarly.

It can be slightly better IMO opnion, because:
1. this card is obviously a rare and hence not so prone to limited madness
2. the set will likely have relatively many (common) poison removal cards
3. the creatures P/T actually decreses when used (the creature itself dies before it can do 'lethal poison' unlike the Invoker which just sits around waiting till you gave 7R avalaible again).

If we look at it like 2 damage = 1 poison counter, the cost of 4 poison counters would be comparable to the 'Invoker' cost for '8 damage' which would be a total of 12.8 mana (or 1.6 mana per damage, or 3.2 mana per poson counter). Still with me?

So the ability would have to cost 3 to be of the same magnitude of power as an Invoker. For the reasons mentioned above, I'd like to make it a TAD stronger and make the activation cost 1G.

That way, you'd need to pay 3GG for the card, and on the consecitive turn (assuming it's still there) 4GGGG to give the opponent the very non-lethal amount of 4 poison counters, losing your 4/4 body in the process. It sounds fair to me. Sound fair to you, too?

[Jacob Orlove]

1G is fine, because then you can't just untap and drop all the poison counters at once.

[Bram]

Closed and added.