At the beginning of your upkeep, enchanted creature deals 1 damage to its owner.
Voramancy3B
Enchantment [MR]
When Voramancy enters the battlefield, put a 6/6 black Wurm creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are no Wurms on the battlefield, Voramancy deals 3 damage to you.
[EDIT]: Killed the regeneration clause on Immortal Strength, turned it into a black Squee's Embrace.
[EDIT]: Changed Voramancy to bring it more in line with Sarcomancy, changed its cost from 2BB.
When I think of Black enchantments, I think of Curses. Not just the card type, but things that are put on other players or affect players in general, in a negative demeanor. I think a cool Black enchantment would be something that leeches a player's life, then you gain that life. Maybe each upkeep, or maybe on a trigger. Black also likes enchantments that give you card advantage, and enchantments that pull creatures out of the graves. Just take a look at all of the black enchantments throughout magic's history and you should get a lot of creative juices flowing.
In my wedge set the black centered tribe (BGW) is the enchantment color as well, mixing curses, blessings, auras, general enchantment support and enchantment reanimation.
I think black enchantments was something that wotc only did recently and had a really positive response. Theres something about slowly crushing your opponent by stacking enchantment over enchantment that feels very very black.
My suggestions:
Color shift curse of the pierced heart to black and make it be life loss. Killing your opponent slowly, tic by tic, is something black mages should do more oftenly.
Curse of Death's Hold should be black's primary sweep mechanic. One of the most fitting things about this is how that card plays in a control deck. Unlike a traditional sweeper, those enchantments don't take care of all problems at the time, but the advantage is that you can stack then and shut down your opponent pretty hard in the far future. It's like beeing greedy and wanting a ultimate power but playing a less safe game. So, so black imo.
Enchantment that consume creatures in the grave and do 2/2 zombies could be a good choice for uncommon card in this theme as well.
I would like to make an editorial statement. What else do I need?
A Standard-appropriate iteration on Necro and Bitterblossom. Obv.
Could Immortal Strength be a proper "strictly better Unholy Strength"? It's not like giving your creature -1 toughness matters much when it's going to regen anyway.
Not a fan of Voramancy forcing you to specify that you're passing priority through your first main phase and combat phase when you control no creatures.
The regeneration doesnt really carry the "immortal" flavour for me.
I think this would work a lot better as a replacement instead of an activation.
Immortal Strength
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0.
If enchanted creature would be destroyed, instead regenerate that creature and sacrifice ~.
Why is this better ? I can trade in combat and regenerate, if i need to sac it as a cost, i lose the +2 power, which is pretty annoying.
Sacrifice other creatures to keep your big guy around, also feels quite strong in the late game and to protect winning bombs.
Blightcaster :3mana::symb:
Creature — Human Wizard [U]
Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, you may have target creature get -2/-2 until end of turn.
[2/3]
Blightcaster is a very strong card, the core set had a ton of 3 thoughness creatures to tweak its power, but still, more often than not, getting free removal is just value and will quickly produce a winning situation.
If a set would have more enchantments, this card could become a real powerhouse, so the existence of this has quite an impact on any 2 thoughnes common around.
Unholy Communion :1mana::symb:
Enchantment [R]
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and you put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature.
This looks actual quite nice.
Its kinda like Bitter Blossom.
In the past black had the +1/+1 counters for life, cards that were quite dangerous, blacks no longer into that form of "suicide" black.
A single +1/+1 counter each turn seems not really "splashy" enough for a rare. Its not horrible, but its really not good enough for a rare (as its so slow and a pretty bad topdeck, nearly every equipment is much stronger).
That said, i think the card could get a little upgrade, maybe make it a real poster child enchantment.
Unholy Communion :1mana::symb:
Enchantment [R]
At the beginning of your upkeep, for each enchantment you control, you lose 1 life, put that many +1/+1 counters divided on any number of target creatures.
This way, it will just grow stronger with more enchantments. Also i have to look to gain some life, but if i can play a lot of enchantments, the boost is huge.
With some lifelink auras (or Hopeful Eidolon) this becomes pretty nasty, quite a bunch of room to abuse it and it really wants you to build a deck with a some enchantments.
Nirkana's Embrace :2mana::symb:
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant Creature
When Nirkana's Embrace enters the battlefield, add :symb::symb::symb: to your mana pool.
Enchanted creature has ":symb:: This creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn."
This is sexy. Not crazy strong, but the card works so nice that it makes me instantly feel this hits the nail.
With the enchantment theme this can trigger abilities, it will make your guys bigger, gives you a reason to play more black and does so much in a nice package, very nice aura that i could easily see in a set printed.
Enslave :4mana::symb::symb:
Enchantment — Aura [U]
Enchant creature
You control enchanted creature.
At the beginning of your upkeep, enchanted creature deals 1 damage to its owner.
Enslave is a very strong card, as any control magic is pretty busted kind of removal that wins so many games and punishes the opponent for playing really good creatures.
Doesnt mean its a bad thing to reprint this, but keep in mind that this kind of card produces painful games that really evolve around this card, as the opponent cant really be happy about topdeck his strong creature, it might turn against him (its a dream-crusher kind of card).
Voramancy :2mana::symb::symb:
Enchantment [MR]
When Voramancy enters the battlefield, put a 6/6 black Wurm creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
At the end of combat on your turn, Voramancy deals X damage to you, where X is 6 minus the damage dealt to your opponents this combat by Wurms.
This i dont really get.
It uses much text to produce a card with a very big drawback.
Right now we dont really get that kind of drawbacks anymore.
Black turned away from the heavy drawbacks, much more into "minor" drawbacks that still have something positive about them.
Desecration Demon is a strong example of that. Its drawback is real, but it still grows stronger by it.
Also this card "requires" you to play it after combat to avoid the damage trigger, which isnt really a nice way to do things.
WotC kinda got to the point that your own cards should be beneficial to you and not hurt you too much, if thats not some part of giving you something in return.
Immortal Strength — Great comments here, everybody. I was forgetting my combat damage rules, so yes, I would like to find a way to preserve the +2/+0 bonus after the regeneration ability is activated. Totem armor would be a great fix, but I'm not doing totem armor in this set, so I'll have to find another answer.
Unholy Communion — This is meant to be the set's Bitterblossom / Phyrexian Arena. My first instinct is to say that it's not as powerful as either, but I'm actually not so sure. This is meant for aggro, not control, and I think it might prove to curve out really well. It might also suck. I'd like to test it at this cost.
Nirkana's Embrace — Thanks for the praise, here. I was toying around with Shade's Form and the idea just sort of clicked. I like it too.
Enslave — While I get that Control Magic effects are being moved up to rare, I'm just not satisfied with the idea that those effects are forever departing the uncommon slot, where they have always been. I'm sure Enslave would be a very high Limited pick in XI draft, and I'm sure it would win lots of games at uncommon. But that's also exactly what I'm trying to do here, by showing the strength of black enchantments. I'm comfortable with a 6 mana bomb like this.
Voramancy — This is meant to riff on Sarcomancy, which has never really had a proper riff, IMO. For being a rare, Reserved List, black enchantment that was powerful for its day, I just felt like I should take the opportunity and update Sarcomancy for a Modern power-level. I also think that downside mechanics still have an audience, so I'm inclined to pepper a few into each set.
However, Jenesis, I don't understand your priority-passing comment. Are you just saying that you'd rather the damage be dealt upon upkeep so that you don't have to wait through two phases before you take the damage? Or am I missing something?
Follow-up question: why is Penumbra Wurm in the set? Because I wanted something green to generate a big token that could be populated.
Follow-up question: why does Penumbra Wurm being in the set dictate the kind of token that Voramancy generates? It doesn't, directly. But indirectly, I am trying to limit the number of kinds of tokens in the set. The 6/6 trampling Wurm is the only black one I'm using, so I'm trying to get a little more mileage out of it.
However, Jenesis, I don't understand your priority-passing comment. Are you just saying that you'd rather the damage be dealt upon upkeep so that you don't have to wait through two phases before you take the damage? Or am I missing something?
If you cast Voramancy during the precombat main phase, you get a summoning sick Wurm and take 6 damage during the end of combat step for no good reason. If you cast Voramancy during the postcombat main phase, you don't take the damage. If a player controls no creatures, this basically forces them to remember to announce that they're passing priority through an empty combat phase before casting Voramancy, which is not something that anyone outside of Vintage players with Mana Drain decks is accustomed to doing.
I don't think this design is a compelling enough reason to punish players for casting spells when they're normally used to casting spells.
I don't think this design is a compelling enough reason to punish players for casting spells when they're normally used to casting spells.
OK, so let's workshop it.
The mechanic I'm trying to create is something like a loan for a business. You get this capital on the cheap, but then you're on the hook to show results. In Magic terms, you get an undercosted creature, with the stipulation that you must deal damage to your opponent with it. If your opponent can thwart that, you're still on the hook for that damage, and it comes out of your hide instead.
Erg Raiders had a similar idea, but never on a scale where it was impactful. And it was never actually held you to the fire to deal damage, just to attack.
I think the idea is compelling enough. My wording was an attempt to do it with minimal linguistic complexity, but Jenesis, you're saying that it adds an undesirable layer of strategic complexity. Is there a way to keep it simpler, both linguistically and strategically?
The sticking point for me is that this card shouldn't deal damage to you while the Wurm is still summoning sick. The only thing I can think of at the moment to fix it is some sort of "if CARDNAME didn't ETB this turn" clause.
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0.
When enchanted creature dies, return that card to its owner's hand.
Creature — Human Wizard [U]
Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, you may have target creature get -2/-2 until end of turn.
[2/3]
Enchantment [R]
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and you put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature.
I would like to make an editorial statement. What else do I need?
[EDIT]: Based on feedback, here are a few more.
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant Creature
When Nirkana's Embrace enters the battlefield, add BBB to your mana pool.
Enchanted creature has ":symb:: This creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn."
Enchantment — Aura [U]
Enchant creature
You control enchanted creature.
At the beginning of your upkeep, enchanted creature deals 1 damage to its owner.
Enchantment [MR]
When Voramancy enters the battlefield, put a 6/6 black Wurm creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are no Wurms on the battlefield, Voramancy deals 3 damage to you.
[EDIT]: Changed Voramancy to bring it more in line with Sarcomancy, changed its cost from 2BB.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
I think black enchantments was something that wotc only did recently and had a really positive response. Theres something about slowly crushing your opponent by stacking enchantment over enchantment that feels very very black.
My suggestions:
Color shift curse of the pierced heart to black and make it be life loss. Killing your opponent slowly, tic by tic, is something black mages should do more oftenly.
Curse of Death's Hold should be black's primary sweep mechanic. One of the most fitting things about this is how that card plays in a control deck. Unlike a traditional sweeper, those enchantments don't take care of all problems at the time, but the advantage is that you can stack then and shut down your opponent pretty hard in the far future. It's like beeing greedy and wanting a ultimate power but playing a less safe game. So, so black imo.
Enchantment that consume creatures in the grave and do 2/2 zombies could be a good choice for uncommon card in this theme as well.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
A Standard-appropriate iteration on Necro and Bitterblossom. Obv.
Could Immortal Strength be a proper "strictly better Unholy Strength"? It's not like giving your creature -1 toughness matters much when it's going to regen anyway.
Not a fan of Voramancy forcing you to specify that you're passing priority through your first main phase and combat phase when you control no creatures.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0.
Sacrifice Immortal Strength: Regenerate enchanted creature.
The regeneration doesnt really carry the "immortal" flavour for me.
I think this would work a lot better as a replacement instead of an activation.
Immortal Strength
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0.
If enchanted creature would be destroyed, instead regenerate that creature and sacrifice ~.
Why is this better ? I can trade in combat and regenerate, if i need to sac it as a cost, i lose the +2 power, which is pretty annoying.
Its kinda Totem Armor this way.
Maybe another version could be:
Immortal Strength
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+0.
Sacrifice a creature: Regenerate enchanted creature.
Sacrifice other creatures to keep your big guy around, also feels quite strong in the late game and to protect winning bombs.
Blightcaster :3mana::symb:
Creature — Human Wizard [U]
Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, you may have target creature get -2/-2 until end of turn.
[2/3]
Blightcaster is a very strong card, the core set had a ton of 3 thoughness creatures to tweak its power, but still, more often than not, getting free removal is just value and will quickly produce a winning situation.
If a set would have more enchantments, this card could become a real powerhouse, so the existence of this has quite an impact on any 2 thoughnes common around.
Unholy Communion :1mana::symb:
Enchantment [R]
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life and you put a +1/+1 counter on up to one target creature.
This looks actual quite nice.
Its kinda like Bitter Blossom.
In the past black had the +1/+1 counters for life, cards that were quite dangerous, blacks no longer into that form of "suicide" black.
A single +1/+1 counter each turn seems not really "splashy" enough for a rare. Its not horrible, but its really not good enough for a rare (as its so slow and a pretty bad topdeck, nearly every equipment is much stronger).
That said, i think the card could get a little upgrade, maybe make it a real poster child enchantment.
Unholy Communion :1mana::symb:
Enchantment [R]
At the beginning of your upkeep, for each enchantment you control, you lose 1 life, put that many +1/+1 counters divided on any number of target creatures.
This way, it will just grow stronger with more enchantments. Also i have to look to gain some life, but if i can play a lot of enchantments, the boost is huge.
With some lifelink auras (or Hopeful Eidolon) this becomes pretty nasty, quite a bunch of room to abuse it and it really wants you to build a deck with a some enchantments.
Nirkana's Embrace :2mana::symb:
Enchantment — Aura [C]
Enchant Creature
When Nirkana's Embrace enters the battlefield, add :symb::symb::symb: to your mana pool.
Enchanted creature has ":symb:: This creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn."
This is sexy. Not crazy strong, but the card works so nice that it makes me instantly feel this hits the nail.
With the enchantment theme this can trigger abilities, it will make your guys bigger, gives you a reason to play more black and does so much in a nice package, very nice aura that i could easily see in a set printed.
Enslave :4mana::symb::symb:
Enchantment — Aura [U]
Enchant creature
You control enchanted creature.
At the beginning of your upkeep, enchanted creature deals 1 damage to its owner.
Enslave is a very strong card, as any control magic is pretty busted kind of removal that wins so many games and punishes the opponent for playing really good creatures.
Doesnt mean its a bad thing to reprint this, but keep in mind that this kind of card produces painful games that really evolve around this card, as the opponent cant really be happy about topdeck his strong creature, it might turn against him (its a dream-crusher kind of card).
Voramancy :2mana::symb::symb:
Enchantment [MR]
When Voramancy enters the battlefield, put a 6/6 black Wurm creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
At the end of combat on your turn, Voramancy deals X damage to you, where X is 6 minus the damage dealt to your opponents this combat by Wurms.
This i dont really get.
It uses much text to produce a card with a very big drawback.
Right now we dont really get that kind of drawbacks anymore.
Black turned away from the heavy drawbacks, much more into "minor" drawbacks that still have something positive about them.
Desecration Demon is a strong example of that. Its drawback is real, but it still grows stronger by it.
Also this card "requires" you to play it after combat to avoid the damage trigger, which isnt really a nice way to do things.
WotC kinda got to the point that your own cards should be beneficial to you and not hurt you too much, if thats not some part of giving you something in return.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Unholy Communion — This is meant to be the set's Bitterblossom / Phyrexian Arena. My first instinct is to say that it's not as powerful as either, but I'm actually not so sure. This is meant for aggro, not control, and I think it might prove to curve out really well. It might also suck. I'd like to test it at this cost.
Nirkana's Embrace — Thanks for the praise, here. I was toying around with Shade's Form and the idea just sort of clicked. I like it too.
Enslave — While I get that Control Magic effects are being moved up to rare, I'm just not satisfied with the idea that those effects are forever departing the uncommon slot, where they have always been. I'm sure Enslave would be a very high Limited pick in XI draft, and I'm sure it would win lots of games at uncommon. But that's also exactly what I'm trying to do here, by showing the strength of black enchantments. I'm comfortable with a 6 mana bomb like this.
Voramancy — This is meant to riff on Sarcomancy, which has never really had a proper riff, IMO. For being a rare, Reserved List, black enchantment that was powerful for its day, I just felt like I should take the opportunity and update Sarcomancy for a Modern power-level. I also think that downside mechanics still have an audience, so I'm inclined to pepper a few into each set.
However, Jenesis, I don't understand your priority-passing comment. Are you just saying that you'd rather the damage be dealt upon upkeep so that you don't have to wait through two phases before you take the damage? Or am I missing something?
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Because Penumbra Wurm is in the set.
Follow-up question: why is Penumbra Wurm in the set? Because I wanted something green to generate a big token that could be populated.
Follow-up question: why does Penumbra Wurm being in the set dictate the kind of token that Voramancy generates? It doesn't, directly. But indirectly, I am trying to limit the number of kinds of tokens in the set. The 6/6 trampling Wurm is the only black one I'm using, so I'm trying to get a little more mileage out of it.
If you cast Voramancy during the precombat main phase, you get a summoning sick Wurm and take 6 damage during the end of combat step for no good reason. If you cast Voramancy during the postcombat main phase, you don't take the damage. If a player controls no creatures, this basically forces them to remember to announce that they're passing priority through an empty combat phase before casting Voramancy, which is not something that anyone outside of Vintage players with Mana Drain decks is accustomed to doing.
I don't think this design is a compelling enough reason to punish players for casting spells when they're normally used to casting spells.
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!
OK, so let's workshop it.
The mechanic I'm trying to create is something like a loan for a business. You get this capital on the cheap, but then you're on the hook to show results. In Magic terms, you get an undercosted creature, with the stipulation that you must deal damage to your opponent with it. If your opponent can thwart that, you're still on the hook for that damage, and it comes out of your hide instead.
Erg Raiders had a similar idea, but never on a scale where it was impactful. And it was never actually held you to the fire to deal damage, just to attack.
I think the idea is compelling enough. My wording was an attempt to do it with minimal linguistic complexity, but Jenesis, you're saying that it adds an undesirable layer of strategic complexity. Is there a way to keep it simpler, both linguistically and strategically?
Avatar by Numotflame96 of Maelstrom Graphics
Sig banner thanks to DarkNightCavalier of Heroes of the Plane Studios!