City Cycle

[Nefarias]

I've got a cycle of City of Brass variants I'd like to share.

City of Mages
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to cast Sorcery spells.

City of Scholars
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to cast Instant spells.

City of Beasts
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to cast Creature spells.

City of Mystics
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to cast Enchantment spells.

I wanted to add an artifact version, but obviously it can't be quite the same. Do you think adding two colorless artifact mana is too strong? I do. How about the four cards there? Are they balanced? The instant one is a bit strong, but is it to good? I was also considering the enchantment and creature ones being used for their respected activated abilities, but decided to play it safe.

A side note: Before previewing, I mistyped City of Beasts as City of Beats. Just thought I'd share that.

[Nefarias]

I'm putting the current wording in a separate post due to their length.

///CURRENT WORDING///

City of Mages
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play Sorcery spells.  
The workers of great spells founded their cities in the cold north, where none but they would be harmed in the event of a catastrophe.

City of Scholars
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play Instant spells.
The wise and the peace-loving congregated on the vast, central lowlands, from whence their knowledge could freely flow.

City of Savages
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play Creature spells.
The feral men retreated to the wilds, where they learned to herd the timid jackalope and to befriend the phantom hound.

City of Mystics
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play Enchantment spells.
The diviners of secrets sought the lofty peaks, where they dwell ever between the shifting sky and the brink of madness.

City of Artisans
Land
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana cannot be used to play spells.
The men of skill reside beyond the white fields of lotuses, the oil of which they value highly in the maintenance of their creations.

EDIT 1: Added City of Artisans, changed "cast" to "play"
EDIT 2: Changed to City of Savages
EDIT 3: Flavor Texts

[Matt]

Yes, 2/3 of a Workshop would still be broken. If you want a fifth one, make it add 1-2 mana of any color, and it can't be spent on spells (i.e. abilities only, plus stuff like Nether Void/Mana Leak).

[Ephraim]

These are really neat. I'm not sure about the power level they represent at the moment, but they're very cool. Magic has keyed on creature type and colour and such, but it has seldom focused heavily on spell type. I heartily endorse these cards.

[Nefarias]

I know that cycles don't have to come in fives, especially when they aren't tied to "one for each color" constraints, but I like Matt suggestions. Do others think it feels natural with the rest of the cycle?

[MrZuccinniHead]

I'm pretty sure city of artisans would be safe if it was 2 mana.

[Nibble]

I'm pretty sure city of artisans would be safe if it was 2 mana.

I thought so too, and then I realized that would make it about infinitely better than [card]Thran Turbine[/card]. But then again, Thran Turbine is a pretty bad card, so maybe this isn't an issue.

[Nefarias]

Some questions I have about this cycle:

1) Does anyone else agree that City of Artisans could add 2? I'm quite wary myself, as two mana seems to be a hot commodity in a single card these days. It would also break some symmetry of the cycle. Even if it were safe at 2, would it be worth the breakign of said symmetry?

2) Are the names good/appropriate? The only one I'm not a fan of is City of Beasts, just because Beasts is used a lot.

3) Anyone have ideas for cool, symmetrical flavor texts to tie these all together?

[Ephraim]

I think that it would be okay for City of Artisans to generate two mana. If you don't want it to, though, I think that's also all right. I'm hard pressed to say that it's better or worse than the others if it generates only one mana. Not being usable to play spells is a steeper penalty, I think, than any of the others, but then again, it can be used for a wide array of activated abilities.

You could change the name of City of Beasts to City of Savages. That's a little bit more appropriate anyhow, since Mystics, Mages, Artisans, and Scholars tend to be sentient beings. Savages are also sentient, while Beasts are typically not.

If you give me a couple of days to work on it, I'll see if I can come up with some good flavour text to tie them all together (it'll probably end up being something similar to the flavour texts on the cycle of artifact lands)

[Ephraim]

City of Mages
The workers of great spells founded their cities in the cold north, where none but they would be harmed in the event of a catastrophe.

City of Scholars
The wise and the peace-loving congregated on the vast, central plains, from whence their knowledge could freely flow.

City of Savages
The feral men retreated to the wilds, where they learned to herd the timid jackalope and to befriend the skittish valesk.

City of Mystics
The diviners of secrets sought the mountaintops where they dwell ever between the shifting sky and the brink of madness.

City of Artisans
The men of skill reside beyond the white fields of lotuses, the oil of which they value highly in the maintenance of their creations.

[stolen]

Very nice, but for one thing: you're not seriously going to mention "skittish valesk" in a flavor text, are you?

[Ephraim]

Would you prefer,
The feral men retreated to the wilds, where they learned to herd the timid jackalope and to tame the capricious phantom hounds.

[Jacob Orlove]

Having a full card name in the flavor text is just jarring.

[Nefarias]

Those are indded very nice, and I will gladly use them. I only have a couple of nitpicks, which and I believe you would do a far better job resolving than I.

City of Scholars
The wise and the peace-loving congregated on the vast, central plains, from whence their knowledge could freely flow.

I don't like the use of the word "plains," as it seems to tie it to a certain color (and a bad one at that).

City of Mystics
The diviners of secrets sought the mountaintops where they dwell ever between the shifting sky and the brink of madness.

The same, except the word "mountaintops."

In both of these situations, I like your description of where the city is located, it's just a matter of word choice. If mountaintop were changed to "lands on high" or something, I'd like it a lot better. I'll leave it up to you to decide the word changes (unless you don't want the responsibility), because the final product will no doubt be better that way.

I'm also not sure about the Skittish Valesk/Phantom Hound thing, but the rest on Savages is fine.

The only other thing is on City of Artisans, where it mentions the WHITE field of Lotuses. I know nothing about real lotuses, but in Magic, they have come in a variety of forms, mostly black (obv). Also, the whole tied to a color thingy. Taking from another card, does a "vale of lotuses" work? I'm not exactly sure what a vale is, but does that make sense? Vale is definitely a cooler word than field.

Again, these are just tiny issues, meant as constructive criticism. If you thinkt hey work better the way they are, I'll trust your creative panache.

[Ephraim]

Having a full card name in the flavor text is just jarring.

I assume then, that you are put out by at least two of these flavour texts, since I specifically mention "catastrophe," "shifting sky," and "brink of madness." Do you like the others?

Also, for the record, there is no such card as "phantom hound." The card to which that refers is actually called "phantom whelp," which has creature type -- hound.

TheWalkingSponge, as far as the word choices go, how's this:

City of Mystics
The diviners of secrets sought the lofty peaks, where they dwell ever between the shifting sky and the brink of madness.

City of Scholars
The wise and the peace-loving congregated on the vast, central lowlands, from whence their knowledge could freely flow.

The reference to white lotuses in the flavour text for City of Artisans is an allusion to a TMD original card:

White Lotus

Artifact
, sacrifice White Lotus: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. You can't spend this mana to play spells.

[Nefarias]

I like those a lot. I'm going to clock this now.

[Ephraim]

Make sure you add the flavour texts to the current wording post, so that Matt doesn't have a hard time adding them to the master list.

[Nefarias]

Just took me a second to edit them in. They're there now.

[Ephraim]

Bump. I just went looking for these after another poster suggested a similar cycle of cards. Let's get these finalized and added, roight?

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]