Cycle of Angels (The Host of Heaven)

[Ephraim]

Captain of the Host
{W}{W}
Creature -- Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
Each creature you control has protection from its colors.


Angel of the Inferno
{W}
Creature -- Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
: Angel of Inferno gets +1/+0 until end of turn.


Angel of the Waters
{W}
Creature -- Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
: Angel of the Waters becomes the color of your choice until end of turn.


Angel of the Wilds
{G}{W}
Creature -- Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
Whenever Angel of the Wilds becomes blocked, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each creature blocking it.


Angel of the Abyss
{W}
Creature -- Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
: Target creature blocking or blocked by Angel of the Abyss gets -1/-1 until end of turn.

***

This is not quite a symmetrical cycle here. The notion is that the white angel, although "weaker" than the others, enables its brethren be more powerful, since each gains protection from white and protection from X. I reckon that these are probably a hard sell, in any case, because they'd require a lot of set in a set or even just in a block to be printable. I guess that they could always be printed across a broad array of sets, such as the first cycle of Atogs (Necra, Fora, Aura, and Chrona). For the moment, ignore the logistic difficulty in finding space for a cycle such as this in a set and concentrate more on the flavour, power, and COOOOLNESS of this cycle.

***

Current Wording:

Captain of the Host
{W}{W}
Creature — Angel Soldier
5/5

Flying
Each creature you control has protection from its colors.


Angel of the Inferno
{W}
Creature — Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
{R}: Angel of Inferno gets +2/+0 until end of turn.


Angel of the Waters
{W}
Creature — Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
: Angel of the Waters becomes the color of your choice until end of turn.


Angel of the Wilds
{G}{W}
Creature — Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying, trample
Whenever Angel of the Wilds becomes blocked, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each creature blocking it.


Angel of the Abyss
{W}
Creature — Angel Soldier
4/4

Flying
{B}: Target creature blocking or blocked by Angel of the Abyss gets -2/-0 until end of turn.

[Jacob Orlove]

It's a cool cycle, but the abilities are a little meh (a firebreathing angel?), and, as you said, that's a lot of 4/4 flyers for 5. What about changing up the numbers a bit from card to card, but providing more cohesion in the abilities somehow?

[Matt]

Make the captain bigger - a 5/5, I think. If 5/5 flying for 3WW too good? (pro:white is almost a non-ability, and anyway it's partly a drawback in a white-heavy deck. Can't Holy Strength him, for example.) What if it were Legendary?

The black one is really strong.

The green one is relatively very weak, but not as much as the blue!

Actually, if you just weakened the black and possibly red ones, they'd all align about right. If you don't like that, try to improve the green and blue. For green I suggest "can block two creatures." For blue how about "3U: can't be blocked by flying creatures" (a high-flying sort of ability - the idea is that the angel can fly higher than normal creatures).

[Anusien]

I agree on the Angel lord, such as it were, the chief of the cycle.  He's rather meh for the cycle.

What if instead of color changing, you gave blue - cannot be blocked except by 2 or more creatures?  This ability is fairly wide open - blue has it once, green just got it with Vine Kami, and it's almost the same on Gorilla Berserkers.  This also has an interesting sort of change between blue and green, because one wants to be blocked and one doesn't.

Angel of the Abyss sounds suspiciously like "Fallen Angel", which Wizards won't touch and doesn't fit the theme.  What about something like Angel of the Void?  I'd also make his ability cost 1B, and I'd make the red ability cost 1B as well.

[Matt]

What do you mean, Wizards won't touch? They reprinted Fallen Angel as recently as 8th edition.

[Anusien]

Really?  I assumed they'd want to stay away from real-world mythology.  You could keep it where it is, I guess, although a fallen working with normal angels seems a bit off.

[BurningIce]

The blue one has a typo.  It says Angel of Inferno in the description.

[Ephraim]

A firebreathing angel isn't all that farfetched. Presumably, the art would be an angel wreathed in flame and/or with a flaming sword, so the fire aspect is definitely there. See also Angelfire Crusader.

These are the changes I think I am going to make:

Captain of the Host to become a 5/5 creature.

Angel of the Inferno's pump ability to become {R}: Angel of the Inferno gets +2/+0 until end of turn. Functionally, it's similar, but you have to have red mana in chunks of two to use it. If that's too minor, I'll change it to : +1/+0.

Angel of the Wilds to get trample. (Should I remove the S-Rampage ability?)

Angel of the Abyss's ability to become {B}: Target creature blocking or blocked by Angel of the Abyss gets -2/-0 until end of turn.

[Ephraim]

Changes made. 24 Hour Clock.

[Marco]

Isn't Captain of the Host too similar to my Benevolent Angel?

Benevolent Angel
4WWW
Creature -- Angel
4/4
Flying
All other creatures you control gain protection from all colors.

[Ephraim]

If I were trying to create Captain of the Host alone, I'd back off on the idea, but I wanted to create something that felt distinctly like the leader of the other four angels. Nabbing the Earnest Fellowship ability really did that, since it means that the Captain grants approximately equal enhancement to each of the other angels in the cycle.

[Bram]

closed and added.