Landwalk Equipment Cycle

[Ephraim]

I started with the idea of creating a cycle of absolutely generic equipment that grants landwalk ability. I then realized I almost couldn't make them cheap enough to be even a little bit playable, compared to Whispersilk Cloak. Then, I happened upon the idea of giving each equipment a secondary ability associated with the equipment's "colour."

Merskin Flippers

Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has islandwalk.
: Return equipped creature to its owner's hand.
Equip


Dragonite Drill

Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has mountainwalk.
: Equipped creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Equip


Oakleaf Mocassins

Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped Creature has forestwalk.
: Regenerate equipped creature.
Equip


Angelhair Baldric

Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has plainswalk.
: Equipped creature has vigilance until end of turn.
Equip


Visceral Mantle

Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has swampwalk.
, Sacrifice equipped creature: Destroy target creature blocking or blocked by equipped creature.
Equip

[Jacob Orlove]

These should still probably be 1/1 and not 1/2 for the costs. I like how they're useful either in or against the given color.

[TheWellknownBrownie]

I actually think they're a little undercosted. These scream to be an Uncommon cycle, which means a lot of draft play. And landwalk + a very good secondary ability (except for the White one) for 1 to cast and 2 to equip just seems a little overly stroong. I think 2/2 would be better.

[Pizzatog]

Ephraim, you seem to be the complete opposite in card design that I am, in the sense that your card names and flavour texts are always amazing. (maybe mine are so bad because I dont speak english so well... )

I tend to agree with the guy who replied before me. The secondary ability is too powerful for landwalk equipment with a 1/1 cost.

I would use some of the colours less powerful abilities and good for combat, that way this equipment fits into a single theme instead of just having a random ability tacked onto the landwalk. Basically, what landwalk does is make the creature unblockable. So, I think that the secondary ability should also give some kind of unblockability or combat tricks in case the defending player has no lands of the apropiate type.

I propose:


Islandwalk -- {u}: Equipped creature has flying until end of turn.
Plainswalk -- {w}: Equipped creature has first strike until end of turn (my choice would have been shadow actually)
Forestwalk -- {g}: Equipped creature has trample until end of turn
Swampwalk -- {b}: Fear
Mountainwalk -- {r}: Haste

This also gives for some nice, but not broken tricks in limited, such as moving the equipment around before combat, to give your creature these abilities.

[Ephraim]

Current Wording:

Merskin Flippers
{1}
Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has islandwalk.
{U}: Return equipped creature to its owner's hand.
Equip {2}


Dragonite Drill
{1}
Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has mountainwalk.
{R}: Equipped creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Equip {2}


Oakleaf Mocassins
{1}
Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped Creature has forestwalk.
{G}: Regenerate equipped creature.
Equip {2}


Angelhair Baldric
{1}
Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has plainswalk.
{W}: The next time a source of your choice would deal damage to equipped creature this turn, prevent that damage.
Equip {2}


Visceral Mantle
{1}
Artifact -- Equipment

Equipped creature has swampwalk.
{B}, Sacrifice equipped creature: Destroy target creature blocking or blocked by equipped creature.
Equip {2}

[Ephraim]

I might be willing to use first strike on the white one, but I'm absolutely not willing to use flying, fear, shadow, trample, or protection-from-<something> for any of these. Each of these already grants one evasion ability. They don't need to grant a second evasion ability. Maybe I could give white something like the Farrel's Mantle ability...
": The next time equipped creature would deal combat damage to a player, it deals that damage to target creature instead."

[rvs]

You can also do :

W: prevent all damage done to equipped creature. That way he stays alive forever!

[Ephraim]

I like that idea, RVS. I made it just a little bit weaker -- each activation only prevents damage from one source. That's still more powerful than Vigilance, has the flavour of a protection ability, but doesn't give the creature a cheap evasion ability, either.

[Matt]

I don't like some of the abilities on these. What we have here is the [card]Ranger En-Vec[/card] problem: what good is regeneration if it's unblockable? They work at cross-purposes on some (green, black, and to some extent white) and work insanely synergistically on others (red).

[Ephraim]

That problem hadn't escaped my attention, Matt. I'm not really sure what to do about it, though. Black, in particular, is very poor in creature abilities. Green could get ": Equipped creature can't be the target of spells or abilities this turn." but that seems too strong to me. I don't want to give the white one activated spirit link, just because it becomes insanely good then, since it would stack like Genju of the Fields. I could also return to the Farrel's Mantle ability, which also has good synergy with the possible unblockability. I'm really at a loss with the black one. As you can see, I actually had to deviate from the template a little bit with it (additional cost of a sacrifice) just because I couldn't find any historically black creature abilities that lend themselves well to activation (except maybe the specter ability, which seemed too strong to me, and which also would encroach on [card]Specter's Shroud[/card].

[Matt]

The green one could be untargetable, but cost it at like 2G. The black one could RFG cards in graveyard, or some other combat-triggered ability.

[Jacob Orlove]

The black one could be Wicked Akuba style life loss.

[Fall-Titan]

I think if it gets wicked acuba style life loss then its broken even more than the red one.
What if you made these effects playable by any player?
 
And i think the black one would be cool if you made it

B: Target creature gets -1/-0 until end of turn.

[rvs]

Perhaps the answer is that the activations need to be defending abilities. Therefore, the green and white work, and black might need some small rework. The other 2 obviously need to change completely.

[Jacob Orlove]

I don't see how these are as insane in limited as people think. If you aren't playing the given color, then these just give you evasion in some matchups--a decent SB card, but not like Slay or anything. If you are playing the color, then these might make the cut MD, but they won't be very good. You'd probably still SB them for the appropriate matchups:
White/x vs White/x. Plainswalk is probably useful here, since the ground will stall with creatures.
Green/X vs Green/X. Forestwalk is strong here, since green lacks evasion and removal (ie creature stalls).
Red/x vs Red/x. Between bad creatures and burn, you're unlikely to see stalemates here. Firebreathing is nice, but mountainwalk isn't huge.
Blue/x vs Blue/x. Between bad creatures and flying, you're again unlikely to see stalemates. Islandwalk isn't going to be too good.
Black/x vs Black/x. Swampwalk could be amazing or somewhat weak, depending on whether the black removal can hit black creatures, and how much evasion black has.

Overall, these seem like potentially decent cards, but they're certainly not better for decks that need evasion than Neurok Hoversail.

[TheWellknownBrownie]

What I would do, which would add synergy and flavor, is to distribute "damage to a player" abilities on the Equipment.


So, something like

Blue- Whenever Equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
Black- Whenever Equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card at random from their hand.
Green- Whenever Equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, search your library for a basic land and put it into play tapped, then shuffle your library.
Red/White- Not as sure on these, but there's several options available.


That would also further validate changing the cost to 2/2


Jacob: The problem would be that in a limited enviroment, except for on the White one, the Landwalk would become a secondary feature, like Goblin Piledriver's Protection from Blue, or Wild Mongrel's ability to change colors. All those abilities are very strong in Draft, and much more so when they come in the form of a very cheap and easy to manage equipment. You'd pick them up if you plan on playing that color, and they'd be very strong if you never played against anyone using the correct land type. And if you did, the card would become nuts.

[Matt]

The black one could be a one-shot Wicked Akuba effect, paying like 2B for 3 life loss and limit it to once each combat.

[Jacob Orlove]

Jacob: The problem would be that in a limited enviroment, except for on the White one, the Landwalk would become a secondary feature, like Goblin Piledriver's Protection from Blue, or Wild Mongrel's ability to change colors. All those abilities are very strong in Draft, and much more so when they come in the form of a very cheap and easy to manage equipment. You'd pick them up if you plan on playing that color, and they'd be very strong if you never played against anyone using the correct land type. And if you did, the card would become nuts.

I just don't see these abilities as being that strong in draft. They're mostly defensive, and defensive equipment is weak, since you lose the major benefit of it being equipment to begin with.

[TheWellknownBrownie]

It would depend somewhat on the enviroment, of course, but take 8th Edition draft for instance. The black one neuters all of their fatties, making a Tundra Wolves trade with a Phyrxian Hulk. The Blue one provides infinite chump blockage, screws with combat, and makes lots of cards much stronger (Wood Elves and even Merchant of Secrets become highly playable, and Gravedigger becomes insane). Fire-breathing is just a very strong ability by itself, much less on a First Strike or Trampling creature. The Green one is the most balanced, but would still be very strong in Limited. Regeneration is quite a handy ability.

[fattzzach]

This is just my idea but i think it would be cool if they granted enem=y color abilities. I think it would work flavorly, this equipment grants island walk, and firebreathing. That way it shows the cards dislike with blue and leads you into playiong blues enemy color, red. The same would be true for all of them.

[stolen]

For Green, although I have no problem with the current ability, untargetability was suggested.  As with the White one, instead of making the creature completely untargetable with one activaction, it could be "G: Counter target spell or ability that targets equipped creature."  The only problem there is that, while the effect is the same, actively countering a spell may be outside of Green's jurisdiction.

Just a small note on the cycle itself, three of the abilities are useful more than once per turn, and two (blue and black) aren't.  Not a big deal, but just something I noticed.

[Ephraim]

TheWellKnownBrownie, I initially considered giving them damage triggers, but I opted instead for activated abilities. I'm still up in the air about whether to make some of the abilities more costly/powerful. I'm wary of ideas like the Akuba ability because it would require a 'once per turn' clause to work fairly and I've never liked that clause.

Jacob, you've noted that you think the green and white ones are somewhat stronger than the rest (at least, I think that's what you said.) That's just fine with me. It isn't often that green and white get the good cards in a cycle! Red's has synergy, which makes it a potential game breaker, too. If blue's and black's are a bit weak, that's all right.

Matt, you noted the anti-synergy of the green, black, and white equipments. Recall that if these are to be good in draft, defensive abilities could do more than just save the creature when it's attacking. Green and white's abilities allow the creatures to survive non-combat damage and all three make these creatures strong defenders, which can be important in a draft situation.

[Jacob Orlove]

Jacob, you've noted that you think the green and white ones are somewhat stronger than the rest (at least, I think that's what you said.)

Actually, I said that plainswalk and forestwalk were good. Ironically enough, those two will probably see more use against green and white decks than in them. Green and White are the two colors that will take advantage of colorless landwalk the most, though, so it probably evens out.

[Ephraim]

I think I am satisfied with these right now. They're not perfect cards, but I think they've been polished as much as they will be. Unless somebody has a big objection to some aspect of these, I am going to initiate the 24 Hour Clock.

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]