Vow Cycle:: (with cycle explanation)

[The Atog Lord]

Ever since I saw Ephraim's "Vow of Poverty" card, I thought that a cycle of "vows" would be really cool. However, my take on the concept of a "Vow" in magic is a bit different than Ephraim's. The idea behind this cycle is that the player casting the vow agrees not to do something, and until he does, he receives a certain bonus. This is represented in game mechanics as an enchantment which remains in play until the player violates his "Vow." An example of my vision of what a vow would be is already printed in the form of "Energy Field," though of course that card has a very different flavor.

One more thing to note. I created a cycle of four such Vows, without creating a red one. This is for flavor reasons. Red is, I believe, too raging and frenetic to agree to hold itself to any particular conditions. Warrior's Oath is a counter example, but I believe that card may be out of flavor for red as well. And the MVW tutor cycle also excluded Red, giving me a precedent.

Vow of Silence
1U
Enchantment
When you play a spell, sacrifice Vow of Silence.
Whenever you would draw a card, instead draw two cards.
I shall speak no more.

The concept, of course, is that the caster cannot speak without breaking his vow.

(Were the name "Vow of Poverty" not taken, then I would have used that instead)
The concept is that the caster vows to seclude himself away from civilization, and live in a humble forest abode.

Vow of Seclusion
1G
Enchantment
If you control four or more lands, sacrifice Vow of Seclusion.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may search your library for a Forest card, reveal that card to all players, and put that card into your hand. If you do, shuffle your library.
I shall not wander far from your branches.

This Vow depicts the caster vowing to allow his dead minions to rest undisturbed. In return, they are willing to use their corpses to support him in his current struggle.

"Perpetual Care" is a mark on tombstones indicating that the cemetary will maintain that stone and its plot.

Vow of Perpetual Care
1B
Enchantment
If a card is put into your graveyard, sacrifice Vow of Perpetual Care.
Remove three cards in your graveyard from the game: Regenerate target permanent.
Your rest shall not be disturbed.

This card depicts the caster vowing his loyalty to one particular sort of creature type. He breaks his vow by having any other sort of creature working for him.

Vow of Loyalty
1W
Enchantment
When Vow of Loyalty comes into play, choose a creature type.
If you control a creature which is not of the chose type, sacrifice Vow of Loyalty.
Creatures of the chosen type which you play cost W less to cast.
I shall trust my protection to no others.

[The Atog Lord]

Current wording:



Vow of Silence
{2}{U}
Enchantment
When you play a spell, sacrifice Vow of Silence.
If you would draw a card, instead draw two cards.
I shall speak no more.

Vow of Poverty
{1}{G}
Enchantment
When you control four or more lands, sacrifice Vow of Seclusion.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may search your library for a forest card, reveal that card to all players, and put that card into your hand. If you do, shuffle your library.
I shall not wander far from your branches.

Vow of Eternal Servitude
{1}{B}{B}
Enchantment
When a creature card is put into your graveyard, sacrifice Vow of Eternal Servitude.
Creature spells in your graveyard may be played as though they were in your hand.
Your lives shall not end while I still have use for them.

Vow of Brotherhood
{1}{W}
Enchantment
If you control creatures with combined power greater than ten, sacrifice Vow of Brotherhood.
Creature spells you play cost {W} less to play. This effect reduces only the amount of colored mana you pay.
While others find strength in numbers, I shall find strength in you.

[Ephraim]

If you would like to have the name "Vow of Poverty," I will give it to you and change the name of my card. You're probably right that there isn't much of a vow involved in mine.

[Godder]

Normally, this type of White card would grant +1/+1, but that's certainly an interesting effect given the number of WW-costing creatures White has...

[Matt]

I merged these into one thread, and merged the current wordings into one post.

I like these a lot. My favorite is vow of silence.

[Marco]

Yeah, I like Vow of Silence the best too.

Nice jorb, Rich!

[Aeneas]

Vow of Perpetual Care is so much weaker than the rest.  Not only is the effect much weaker than the rest, but it has the second easiest to trigger sacrifice effect, next only to Vow of Silence.  The name is also very clunky and out of flavor.  Perpetual Care sounds white.  Maybe it should return creatures from the graveyard and a more reasonable sac-trigger would be when a creature enters your graveyard?  The flavor being that you vow to give these creatures life, and if they die, then you broke your vow.  Vow of Eternal Life, perhaps?  Not too good a name, but hopefully someone else will make a better one.

[Nibble]

Vow of Loyalty doesn't seem to fit as well as the others. I like them because they have some good effects but a lot of tension between the benefit and the restriction, as in you're generating card advantage but can't use your cards, or getting land into your hand but not wanting to play it. I see these being used in the sense that you'll play the vow when you can afford the restriction, go a couple turns under the restriction to get your benefits, then break the vow once it's brought you far enough ahead. Vow of Loyalty is nothing like the others in this sense, because it's really just 'play a tribal deck'. Maybe the whole cycle doesn't have to feel exactly the same, but still, I feel like there's not really any tension in Vow of Loyalty. Hm...

Vow of the Meek
1W
Enchantment
When you control a creature with power 4 or greater, sacrifice Vow of the Meek.
Creatures you control get +1/+1.

Sorry if I'm stealing your thunder, but just wanted this idea out there. As for the black one, it has nice tension, but a fairly weak effect. I like the idea of black's creature-sacrificing tendencies paired with a 'no new creatures' restriction, so here's an attempt at that:

Vow of Darkness
1B
Echantment
When a creature comes into play under your control, sacrifice Vow of Darkness.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature. If you do, creatures you control gain fear until end of turn.

I don't like that Forbidden Orchard effectively counters this, but I don't see an easy way around that..

[Joblin Velder]

Vow of Darkness
1B
Echantment
When a creature comes into play under your control, sacrifice Vow of Darkness.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature. If you do, creatures you control gain fear until end of turn.

I don't like that Forbidden Orchard effectively counters this, but I don't see an easy way around that..

You could make it a non-token creature.

[Nibble]

You could make it a non-token creature.

Hm. While this solves the Orchard problem, it makes it easier to just have some sort of token producer and keep this thing around indefinitely. That wouldn't exactly be the most savage combo in the world, but it kind of goes against the spirit of the vow. Non-token for both the vow condition and the sacrifice would work well, though.

[The Atog Lord]

Ephraim, thanks very much for the offer of the name "Vow of Poverty." Do you think that name might be more fitting for the green vow than the current name?

As for the white vow, Nibbles. It becomes so easy for there to be another white card that gives white creatures +1/+1. There are way too many cards that do exactly this. I felt the need to find something that would be very useful to a white deck, but at the same time wouldn't too closely emulate existing white cards. The reduction of mana cost by "W" would be useful to a color currently filled with creatures costing WW. It also ensures that the card is only useful in conjunction with white creatures, adding to its theme. The tension present in the card is that summoning creatures becomes easier, but at the same time the vow is broken should you summon the "wrong" creature. Now, could one build one's deck to take advantage of the vow's restriction? Sure. But then, if someone is going out of their way to work around the card's restriction, I'm not sure that they shouldn't benefit. For example, if you're playing with Vow of Silence, you can include cards with Cycling triggers and cards with Channel. And perhaps a deck with Vow of Solitude (or Poverty if Ephraim agrees that the name is better), then one can play with Spellshapers or perhaps a Bazaar.

Now, on the matter of the black Vow. I agree that the vow is a bit weak. It started that way for flavor reasons, with Black being untrustworthy. However, Brad then reminded me of several vows actually being Black. So, the color should certainly have a stronger vow. How about this vow, being of a similar theme to the current one:

Vow of Eternal Servitude
1B
Enchantment
If a creature card is put into your graveyard, sacrifice Vow of Eternal Servitude.
Creature spells in your graveyard may be cast as though they were in your hand.
Your lives shall not end while I still have use for them.

The theme here is that you promise your minions eternal life in exchange for their service from beyond death. Of course, you break this vow as soon as one of them dies. A nice side effect to the vow mechanic here is that the spell cannot be used to return any creature that was not already in your graveyard when the Vow is cast -- that's why it is worded as it is. And unlike most Reanimation spells, this requires that you pay full price for your returned creatures.

So, what do you all think of this new black Vow idea?

[Aeneas]

That vow has a cool effect, the title is way more black than the previous attempt, and its effect is definitely in black territory.  Top notch, wot wot.

With the inclusion of Vow of Silence and Vow of Poverty, it might be fitting to include a Vow of Chastity.  With Vow of Poverty moving to green, the Vow of Chastity would fit in nicely in the white spot.  However, it doesn't really fit flavorwise with the currently proposed options.  Perhaps a Moat variant would suit it well.

[MrZuccinniHead]

vow of loyalty seems to easy to play around.

[asmoranomardicodais]

I'm afraid that Vow of silence is simply too powerful with cycling. I love the card, but astral slide is powerful enough of a deck and it doesn't get nearly the card advantage this gives when you cycle a card. Make a blue/red cycling deck with this and standstill in it, along with slice and dice, lightning rift, and it could be very, very good. Not sure how to fix that, but I think it is a big concern.

[Nibble]

I'm afraid that Vow of silence is simply too powerful with cycling. I love the card, but astral slide is powerful enough of a deck and it doesn't get nearly the card advantage this gives when you cycle a card. Make a blue/red cycling deck with this and standstill in it, along with slice and dice, lightning rift, and it could be very, very good. Not sure how to fix that, but I think it is a big concern.

If cycling is a big concern (which I agree, it can easily be), it could just become a one-sided Howling Mine effect and still be pretty good.

Rich: Yeah, I see what you mean about making just another Crusade variant. And while I agree that all of these can (and should) have decks built around them, I don't like Loyalty because it's too obvious and simple how to go about it. The card just screams to the player, 'Stuff your deck full of cheap and effective creatures of a single type and go to town', rather than something like Vow of Silence, which says something more like 'I'm interesting and potentially quite strong, but you'll have to figure out how to properly use me and get around my drawback to witness my full potential.' To be honest, it didn't even occur to me at all how good Silence would be with Cycling until you mentioned it, whereas I'm sure even the noobiest of noobs would be able to use Vow of Loyalty well. Looking back, I see my suggestion for the White vow had the same problem of a too-simple way to build around it ('Play weenies!!! Have them get bigger!!! Attack with them!!!').

This is why I really like Eternal Servitude. Its benefit is fairly obvious, but how to best use that benefit and build a deck around it requires a good amount of thought. Obviously you want creatures in the 'yard, which might point to a reanimator-style deck, but reanimators usually want to bypass casting costs, not pay them. It might make a good late-game out though, in case your quick reanimation plan fails and you survive long enough to build up some mana. However, the vow could also go pretty well in a sui-style deck as a sort of 'second wind' in the mid- to late-game, although the small cheap creatures are much more likely to end up breaking the vow. It's a card that has a good amount of strategy and depth to it, which is where I think Vow of Loyalty falls short.

[racetraitor]

Perhaps the white vow could be broken by playing non-creature spells? With the "loyalty" be envisioned as soilders heeding the call from their leader/king in times of need, and the vow being fullfilled when the conflict is over...

[asmoranomardicodais]

Perhaps the white vow could be broken by playing non-creature spells? With the "loyalty" be envisioned as soilders heeding the call from their leader/king in times of need, and the vow being fullfilled when the conflict is over...

That's a cool idea. Only problem with that is that it becomes a very green flavored card instead of white. Maybe have it sacrifice when you target something, and have it be Vow of Equality?

[The Atog Lord]

Let's get us a 24 hour clock.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Wait! You can't clock it yet! We have to discuss two things still:

1. Vow of Silences Brokenness with cycling
2. Vow of Loyalty's boringness when compared to the others.

Let's deal with these, and then clock.

[The Atog Lord]

Alright, to address your two concerns:

First, I have no fears about Vow of Silence's strength in conjunction with an effect like cycling. In fact, I would be very interested in seeing how cycling could be combined with the card to create something powerful. Remember, to get ahead on card advantage, you need to cycle not one but two cards. And I'm currently unaware of any blue deck using cylcing anyways. Perhaps this card will encourage people to work on cycling decks revolving around this card. That would be ideal -- a good card is a card that gets people's minds racing with ideas, without being too broken to be healthy. And, no, I'm fairly certain that this vow would not be too powerful. Remember, in order to cast a counterspell to defend board position, for instance, the Vow player would lose the vow. Not playing spells is no easy vow to keep. And if things get too awful with cycling, there's always that card that shuts down cycling for just two mana.  I'm not afraid that the Vow is too powerful at all.

Now, onto the second concern -- that the white Vow isn't exciting enough. I'm not sure what exciting would mean. It seems solid but not spectacular. Right about on par for a white weenie deck where it would most likely find a home. This card does something that I believe is fairly new ground in magic card design -- reducing mana cost by some colored portion. Sure, there is that Cleric, but he saw very little play. That alone serves to make it exciting, to me at least. And if you combine this white Vow with the Black Vow, it lets you send your White Weenie deck right back from the graveyard into play again. Sure, you can design a weenie deck to be all one creature type. But then you make the sacrifice in deck design rather than in deck play -- you may be forced to include sub-par creatures in your deck rather than a more powerful off-type creature. Yes, I could change the Vow to be broken whenever any spell is played other than a creature of the chosen type; but this would make it too similar to the Blue vow.

[Matt]

I think the blue one should cost 2U. That would quell any fears about it but still make it cheap enough to be useful to any deck that truly wants the effect.

The black one seems very strong.

I fixed a lot of your wordings. You might want to look up how to phrase replacement effects and triggered abilities!

The white one is categorically different from all the rest, because it's the hardest to break. When you draw more cards, it increases the temptation to play one. When you play lots of creatures, it increases the liklihood of one of them dying. Digging up land will eventually destroy the green vow. But the white one is not only cumulative, but it never on its own tempts you to break your vow. This is jarring.

Also, why no red one?

[The Atog Lord]

I think the blue one should cost 2U.

Alright. It was nice having all of the Vows cost the same, but if you think that 1U is too powerful, then I'll change it to 2U.

The black one seems very strong.

The black Vow is strong. One option would be to change the mana cost to 1BB, which would make it much harder to splash. I costed it at 1B because that's what the other Vows cost; but if I'm changing Vow of Silence, then this too can be changed. Do you think that would solve the problem? If I really needed to weaken it, then I could add, "You cannot play creature spells the turn that this comes into play." That would really make it weaker.

I fixed a lot of your wordings.

Thank you. This is my first time contributing ideas to the Card Creation forums. So, go easy on a n00b 

The white one is categorically different from all the rest

Ah, now I understand. The white Vow doesn't tempt you to brake it like all of the others do. One option would be for the Vow to break if creatures you control reach a certain total power, perhaps ten. This would create that sort of internal vow tension, because the more you cast the closer you come to breaking it. It then helps to break itself. In addition, it might be interesting because the opponent could force you to break the vow by casting, for instance, Giant Growth on one of your creatures. How about that?                   

Also, why no red one?

One more thing to note. I created a cycle of four such Vows, without creating a red one. This is for flavor reasons. Red is, I believe, too raging and frenetic to agree to hold itself to any particular conditions. Warrior's Oath is a counter example, but I believe that card may be out of flavor for red as well. And the MVW tutor cycle also excluded Red, giving me a precedent.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Actually the MVW tutors had gamble, which was the red one.

[Lofobal]

Actually the MVW tutors had gamble, which was the red one.

Not really, Gamble was from Saga. Did you realize this but consider it to complete the cycle regardless, or was it an oversight?
As for the white vow, it seemed logical to me that the white one should be the hardest to break, as white is this most loyal colour and the most interested in creating and following rules.

[Matt]

I like the "total power less than ten" thing. That rules.

[The Atog Lord]

I have updated the Vow wordings. I changed the white vow, and added B to the cost of the Black vow.

[asmoranomardicodais]

I was pretty sure gamble was not from that block, but I couldn't remember which one. I remember hearing something that it was made to complete the cycle, or it was taken out of the mirage block, or something like that. The point is that they did complete the cycle, albeit whether on purpose or not.

[Nibble]

I really don't consider Gamble the completion of the cycle for a few reasons:
a) different set/block
b) different rarity (I seem to think there's a cycle or two that does this, but it's usually just for limited power level issues)
c) most importantly, it has a key functional difference from the others, in that your card goes to hand instead of top of library. The top-of-library clause is, to me, what defines the MVW tutor cycle.

Back on-topic, I really like all of these, and they seem balanced enough - although I agree that Silence could still be very good and more fair at 2U. A little something, too: did you intend for Poverty to be able to fetch duals? I don't think it would be at all broken if it did, just wondering.

[Matt]

The rarity thing isn't really valid, because Vampiric Tutor was rare too.

[The Atog Lord]

A little something, too: did you intend for Poverty to be able to fetch duals?

Yes

Alright, the Vow of Silence has been upped to 2U. I'll start the clock soon, unless there are further issues to resolve.