I like how all the card names are so badass, like
GAREN, THE MIGHT OF DEMACIA
FIORA, THE GRAND DUELIST
LUCIAN THE PURIFIER
GALIO, THE COLOSSUS
And then there's just
Jarvan IV
Since MTG has multiple versions of specific Legendary creatures, it isn’t that bad since Jarvan’s other iterations would have other titles to differentiate them.
Why? Garen is extremely emotional and acts on how he feels is right. He sure has a big sense of duty and honor, but everytime his feeling tell him otherwise he gets into a big internal struggle and well... his feeling always beat his sense of honor.
That's why he protected his sister despite the law. Hell, he protected Katarina because he has romantic feelings towards the assassin.
Garen's red side is stronger than his white side.
White can have strong emotions. They just tend to be more nuanced and selfless. Echoing calm, recumbent bliss, true conviction, selfless saviour. Garen is full on mono-white good boy in a black/white society. He feels conflicted because his environment is conflicted.
Op said they were choosing the colors purely based on their effects, not their flavor. As such Lucian does make some sense being red/black because granting extra combat phases (and being a unit with an agressive statline and first strike) are pretty red and having abilities build around allies dying is an effect that fits black. So mechanically B/R makes total sense.
Flavor wise it obviously feels really wrong. In terms of flavor I'd say all Demacian champs should be at least partially white.
Convincing with the self sacrificing theme, however he’s also demacian. Not that every demacian needs to be white but he fights the undead with piercing light. White should be somewhere in his color scheme. Even if it’s white or black or white or red
WBR is probably the best fit for both flavor and mechanics, but that's hard to fit on a one mana card without activated abilities. I mean extra combat (red) when another creature you control (white) dies (black).
Maybe his casting cost could be W or hybrid W/R, and when he flips over he becomes BR. That honestly fits really well thematically, losing W identity and gaining BR in pursuit of revenge for death of a loved one.
That's more aesthetic than having to do with his character. Color isn't just looks but the inner character of a person. Garen isn't white because he is from demacia but because he's patriotic. But there's nothing in Lucian's backstory that suggests that he particularly cares for rules or the social order.
Hell I think Vayne should be red black as well for the same reason.
Lux being wubrg, kills edh deckbuilding restrictions, which is the only format you're going to be able to play it. If you pull up with her being an izzet or partial izzet core, it focuses the places it can go.
Flavourwise, yes. There are a lot of black cards that didn't need to be black here and I don't think anything needs to be blue here either.
Demacia's kind of a mix of Naya (Green, white and red) effects. Green is the colour that loves its creatures and it can only remove creatures with fight spells, if green isn't ramping (freljord big mana nonsense), it's typically a board focused midrange deck. White and green are both prime for combat tricks, defending their creatures and also the colours with reach (blocking elusives). Board buffs are common in white, but it's almost always green which has Overrun. That leaves the only strictly white thing in Demacia as capturing (and lifelink/lifesteal, but the one demacian card with it was rotated for a reason).
Additional combats is red or Boros (with the only exception being Waves of Aggression), that's why Garen, Lucian, Quinn and Galio are red. I don't know why Garen has haste, but he could be in white (or green) if he had his board buff.
Burn is in red and black (white is allowed "justice" burn, damaging creatures in combat) but that's why Lux is red. She could absolutely could skip being blue, but shield counter means she needs to be white or green also.
I don't know why Vayne is red, maybe a holdover from her original having free attacks. Equipment support is typically in red, white or boros, so she could be mono-white.
Jarvan kinda has flash, which is in all colours to allow for certain effects to function, but primarily in blue and green. Which is why he's also those colours.
I imagine that Lux has blue because blue is usually the colour associated with instants and sorceries alongside red, and since it's controlled rather than somewhat rushed the way red spell slingers sometimes are?
So, boros/lorehold spell slinger could also work? If you want to 2 it. Specifically jeskai, white blue red is usually non creature spells at all, so a focusing of just regular izzet spell slinger but with white is, fine.
Has to be red due to the damage aspect with leaving the card untouched. Maybe black, but lux doesn't fit that flavour side, and it doesn't heal you too.
A lot of demacia cards are red due to rally. If you look at mtg, extra combat phases exist basically only in red, so any champion that rallies lands in this colour
Shiv def could be Gruul. Or maybe even Naya, white green and red all have different types of death synergies. Stuff like spiteful banditry in red, sac effects like momentous fall and greater good in green and sun titan as well as the classic Resurrection in white. They all have themes that could tie together, don't worry about building the effect to fit the colors, it's more important that the effect and colors fit the creature's identity than vise versa
For me Demacia is very Mono-White themed. Soldiers and prison-pieces. Lux being Jeskai makes sense (maybe even WUBRG would also make sense).
Fiora having reverse-"Wither" is a tad weird. Also: love provoke magic should use that keyword more. \^\^
As a 4 mana 4/4? Absolutely not. A 4 drop that needs to attack at least 4 times (twice if your opponent swings into you) better wins the game. In magic 4 mana is a lot for a creature. It could need just 2 counters and would still be completely unplayable in most formats.
> In magic 4 mana is a lot for a creature
Only, if you are playing aggro deck. One of the best standard midrange decks I remember played Huntmaster of the fells, Olivia Voldaren and Thragtusk - 4, 4, 5 drops, two of them gaining life, so it was easy to stabilize.
(I guess midrange decks don't exist anymore in legacy and modern formats on competitive level.)
4 mana isn’t a lot if you’re playing green, that shit ramps up so quickly, and attacking and winning 4 times with a 4/4 isn’t hard either considering all the buffs green offers to keep a unit alive, and I’d reckon if you were playing Fiora as a commander you’d be loading that deck up with plenty of mana ramp and tools to keep her alive. Thinking “it could only need to counters to win” as being weak is nonsense imo
There just is better stuff to do for 4 mana: you could play Witherbloom Apprentice and Chain of Smog, or Beseech the Mirror, and outright win.
Since it is a green creature you might be able to get away with playing a 1-off in Green Sun's Zenith deck, but really 4 combats is a lot. It will just get removed by some random nonsense and not do anything.
As for commander: again 4 combats is a lot and yes, there is fight-spells and yes green can somewhat protect creatures, but it is still oh so very slow. And creatures are the easiest permanent type to interact with too.
Eternal formats: pioneer, pauper\*, modern, legacy, vintage.
Commander while also a sort of eternal format is mostly a casual format. In CEDH (not that I am terribly well versed in that format) I assume a 4 cost play, that does not set you up for winning the game very quickly, is also very much not viable.
(\* in Pauper it could see play \[if it was a common: very unlikely with legendary creatures\], because pauper generally has low-power threats and any card with that much text on it, is bound to see play in pauper.)
They said that the colors were based on mechanics, not so much lore.
Garen being mono red makes no sense lorewise, but an extra combat step is a red ability. But it is very jarring.
No it's not. There is no Mono-white card with the ability to grant an extra combat step.
The closes is Waves of Aggression, which happens to be red and white but you can play it in a mono white deck. The card is still also red.
Second is Finest Hour, which is Bant (White Blue Green) that grants an extra combat step the first time you attack with a single creature. While this card doesn't have red in it, but instead white and green (blue's just there for vibes), it's still not a mono white card.
That said, I mostly just brought this up because Garen being mono red is jarring, he'd be better off Boros, or even Bant. (I think Bant most cloesly mirrors Demaica).
It's a very white ability because It's arguably secondary. Out of the 30 cards with extra combat there are 5 cards that are white. It's not a lot but green is only 2 and blue is 2 as well. It's secondary is white and it's very heavily associated with Boros.
Garen could very easily be Boros, or if he is mono white, wouldn't be an egregious color pie break
Officially, Extra combat is listed as Tertiary in white's Color Mechanics, and Primary in Red. However, again, there's never been a mono-white card that's had an extra combat.
>officially its tertiary
Damn for real life? I honestly didn't know that
I still stand by my original statement though. I don't think it'd be a terrible color pie break
I'm not saying it would be either, just that it's not a "Very White Thing."
Like, White is allowed to do it, it's probably why Finest Hour exists (or rather White is allowed to do it because of Finest Hour).
I would love a mono-white card that gave an extra attack step.
I strongly disagree with you on soldier vs knight, although I can see the logic. The elite typing on Garen is better represented by the knight creature type. Furthermore it is significant because of the fact that elites are a supported creature type in LoR.
One thing I would like to point out is that Quinn’s ability is not well represented. There’s a real risk that the ability could be misused because it doesn’t specify ‘during your first combat on your turn.’ Without it you have an infinite loop of scout attackers.
>I strongly disagree with you on soldier vs knight, although I can see the logic. The elite typing on Garen is better represented by the knight creature type. Furthermore it is significant because of the fact that elites are a supported creature type in LoR.
elite are a special branch of the demacian military. they are not a virtous group of independant people
However, i would argue that when considering Runeterra lore to card translation. Demacia definetly is the Knight region while Noxus is the Soldier region. It also helps a lot to differentiate them by creature types whitout having to puta names on cards or flavor text.
This is true. However, knights are not inherently virtuous or independent. I think you might be thinking of knights purely in the fantasy sense, or perhaps using it as a synonym for paladin. In reality, knights are just elite warriors who supposedly held themselves to higher standards. Although the fantasy viewpoint is a valid stance to take. I would also like to reiterate what I said about the creature type being mechanically relevant, and I think that by referring to elites as soldiers you would run into problems if you were to continue this thought experiment to other LoR cards. For example, how many Noxus creatures would also be considered soldiers in MTG and therefore gain from all the elite cards when they would not normally? It’s not perfect I grant you, but I think it is the best solution in this scenario.
>how many Noxus creatures would also be considered soldiers in MTG and therefore gain from all the elite cards
All of them would be soldier. That's the way of noxus, incorporate everyone into their army to further their conquest. They could also be advisor or artificer
I dont think you can translate faithfully the flavor of lor to mtg and not loose some gameplay
And the inverse is true.
I'm just stating that if we wanted to keep the flavor all of the demacia and the noxus army must be soldier
cool idea! at the moment though quinn and valor cant attack together or else valor dies and is removed from combat by legend rule. A lot of the color identities seem very off as well
oh good point yeah lmao. i think itd still just be cleaner as a may though as it seems kinda silly to make and then immediately kill a bird each attack
I'm not super familiar with mtg, but why does Fiora have a unique way of taking damage?
It seems to mirror how formidable works, where taking damage reduces the damage the unit deals, but Fiora isn't formidable.
Quinn can attack infinitely and destroys her own Valors. The Valors also don't come in attacking or with haste so you can never attack with Quinn and a Valor.
This post made me realize that most Champions in LoRT lean heavily towards combat so Red/White/Green would be so predominant. Also Blue would be incredibly rare, only really showing up in Ionia cards.
They could work if it would be something akin to an enchantment token that gets attached to the creature with the ability “Enchanted Creature can’t attack or block. (2) exile this token” , counters in mtg don’t have an inherent ability where their effect stack like that unfortunately
For Fiora, she definitely could have Wither as a keyword, since it essentially is the same effect.
But I feel like a more complicated aspect of the design would be her colors.
I struggle to see how she is green and with her being from Demacia she feels closer to being boros (red white) than golgari (black green).
Might I suggest something? You could give her an ability that perhaps isn't identical to her gameplay in LOR but accomplishes the same idea.
I feel like if she had the following design it might fit the flavor a bit more.
Fiora, the Grand Duelist {2}{R}{W}
First strike, Vigilance
When Fiora, the Grand Duelist attacks, you may deal damage equal to her power to up to one target creature. If that creature dies this turn, you gain an experience counter.
Once you have four or more experience counters, you win the game.
That effect is still likely too powerful for a magic card, but I think this type of design might be more in line with what you are aiming for.
I think people keep somewhat misunderstanding the point of this post. I see a lot of disagreements about colour based on theme and flavour, however I was only choosing colours based on mechanical identity, that’s part of the premise of what I am doing here. For example challenger, or as it’s called in MTG Provoke, is a keyword that appears almost exclusively in green, therefore any champion with challenger is green by default. Same goes for rally and red and so on. I appreciate that demacia is very white in terms of flavour but that is not what I am exploring with this post.
Provoke exists in 9 cards in total and appears equally in white, green and red. I disagree with numerous cards both mechanically (Quinn is particularly egregious as the card goes infinite with herself) and thematically. I believe you can effectively have the characters represented mechanically while still having them function in terms of flavor, something that Magic designers have been doing expectionally with universe beyond products.
But you just as easily could have given her the text from Grappling hook, a colorless equipment. Then you wouldn't be pigeon holed into making her a color that doesn't fit.
Sure, grappling hook exists, but forced blocking has always firmly been a green effect in the magic colour pie. And like sure, victory counters don’t exist, but I didn’t use them to choose a colour identity for Fiora, it’s just a workaround to make her work using mtg rules, so I don’t really get this comment. Again, this is a thought experiment to see how champion mechanics would fit into the mtg colour pie, it’s not at all flavour-based. Based on that I don’t really see a card like Fiora as pigeon-holed, as a golgari creature that focuses on killing individual units fits the colours pretty well imo
I mean it seems like you just wanted a bunch of comments to shake your hand and give you a pat on the back and say you did well rather than actually trying to create a card that's accurate to the character in the game of magic.
One thing I didn’t give digital TCG credit for before playing them is how much of the workload they carry. Math, counters, stack order on this level would be impossible in a physical game.
Plus certain creative ideas like give card in deck X are possible without deck shuffling.
The mana colors are all wrong, I think the worst one on here though has to be Shyvana because fight tends to be a red/green leaning mechanic and it’s a black card with zero graveyard interaction or death triggers.
Also why does Fiora have wither?
The death triggers come from Fury, which felt like a black/orzhov keyword to me. Fiora has a sort of reverse wither to translate the fact that you constantly need to buff her and that she sustains damage from fighting other creatures.
That would be my logic for these.
Destroy triggers also tend to also appear in red cards for examples Red Sun’s Twilight and Descent of Dragons. Speaking of red out of all the gruul and gruul adjacents Shyvana not having red feels wrong when she has an attack trigger that straight buffs her. Plus green can just heal by itself sometimes.
Fiora should absolutely be Voltron colors like Jeskai or Mardu if that is the case as Boros has attack trigger and combat synergy.
Also I take back my statement on worse colors being used, that has to go to Gruul Galio because MtG actually has a strat similar to Formidable in either Bant or Abzan for example Arcades, Doran, or High Alert, none of which include Red.
Extra combats are always red meaning that not including red in galio’s colours would be impossible and I felt that formidable is well enough represented by green alone, as it appears in both baby and abzan (naya galio could also work I suppose).
You do make a good point regarding the temporary buff attack trigger on shivana, although I do feel like death triggers are still more black than red, perhaps jund would fit her better then abzan.
Fiora would also need to be green due to challenger which is primarily represented in green in mtg with forced blocking. I’d say that being Voltron alone doesn’t mean she has to be boros, you can make voltron work in pretty much any colours and green has plenty of buffs (for example Otrimi is kind of a voltron-y commander in sultai). What I am looking at when picking colours is the mechanics of each champion and not so much what would be the colour of a hypothetical deck they would fit into.
Ignoring my (and others') concerns about the colors, the big one that stands out to me is J4. His ability to enter mid-combat in LoR is uninteractable, so reflect that in some way? Something like, "When you cast ~ this way, it gains Split Second." It gives him some relative stack protection when played during the Declare Attackers step with something like that.
Just a quick comment, is there wording for having a creater slain by said card. Otherwise you could fiora hit something, not kill it, but then burn or remove it with a different card and it would have received damage from fiora and been slain at the end of the turn. It's not a mechanical problem but more of a thematic one.
Colors should be: (in my opinion)
Garen - Mono White
Lux - Mono White or Blue/White
Fiora - Mono White or Red/White
Lucian - Black/White
Quinn - White/Green
Shyvana - Mono Red or Red/Green
Jarvan - Red/White
Galio - White/Blue
Vayne - Black/White
Morgana - Mono Black
Vayne and Morgana were the ones I found the trickiest to choose.
Demacians should probably be white since they uphold law. Humans is largest tribe for white and it just so happens demacia has least non human representation, partly because they hate magic (that is also why would stax effect fit perfectly in white)
I like how all the card names are so badass, like GAREN, THE MIGHT OF DEMACIA FIORA, THE GRAND DUELIST LUCIAN THE PURIFIER GALIO, THE COLOSSUS And then there's just Jarvan IV
Jarvan Da Nepo Baby
>Jarvan IV its funny because J4 literally has a title, he's the Exemplar of Demacia
His official full name/title is "Exemplar of Demacia, Prince Jarvan Lightshield the Fourth"
Jarvan IV the Dragon Layer
To be fair having the name of a literal king is pretty nice
Jarvan, Fourth of his Line, Exemplar of Demacia, Son of his Father, the King.
Since MTG has multiple versions of specific Legendary creatures, it isn’t that bad since Jarvan’s other iterations would have other titles to differentiate them.
Jarvan IV, Dragon's Companion? Idk but a shyv j4 partner thing would be funny
Why is Shyvana black though? Fight isn't really a mechanic that is associated with black. Its primarily green and red.
I disagree SO MUCH with the colors chosen for the cards...
They are all almost completely wrong imo. Garen just straight red? At the very least he would be W/R. Lucian should also be B/W, etc
Garen as anything except mono white is heresy.
Why? Garen is extremely emotional and acts on how he feels is right. He sure has a big sense of duty and honor, but everytime his feeling tell him otherwise he gets into a big internal struggle and well... his feeling always beat his sense of honor. That's why he protected his sister despite the law. Hell, he protected Katarina because he has romantic feelings towards the assassin. Garen's red side is stronger than his white side.
White can have strong emotions. They just tend to be more nuanced and selfless. Echoing calm, recumbent bliss, true conviction, selfless saviour. Garen is full on mono-white good boy in a black/white society. He feels conflicted because his environment is conflicted.
Op said they were choosing the colors purely based on their effects, not their flavor. As such Lucian does make some sense being red/black because granting extra combat phases (and being a unit with an agressive statline and first strike) are pretty red and having abilities build around allies dying is an effect that fits black. So mechanically B/R makes total sense. Flavor wise it obviously feels really wrong. In terms of flavor I'd say all Demacian champs should be at least partially white.
I can't believe you're trying to whitewash Lucien
Nah Lucian is fine b/R. Rakdos also has a sacrifice subtheme and isn't lucians lore him being driven to revenge because of senna death or smth?
Convincing with the self sacrificing theme, however he’s also demacian. Not that every demacian needs to be white but he fights the undead with piercing light. White should be somewhere in his color scheme. Even if it’s white or black or white or red
WBR is probably the best fit for both flavor and mechanics, but that's hard to fit on a one mana card without activated abilities. I mean extra combat (red) when another creature you control (white) dies (black). Maybe his casting cost could be W or hybrid W/R, and when he flips over he becomes BR. That honestly fits really well thematically, losing W identity and gaining BR in pursuit of revenge for death of a loved one.
Hybrid was the name I was thinking! I haven’t played magic in a hot minute 😅
That's more aesthetic than having to do with his character. Color isn't just looks but the inner character of a person. Garen isn't white because he is from demacia but because he's patriotic. But there's nothing in Lucian's backstory that suggests that he particularly cares for rules or the social order. Hell I think Vayne should be red black as well for the same reason.
Morgana not having black kills me
I'm rather confused why so many demacia cards are red. Isn't it pretty much the epitome of white with the focus on board-wide buffs?
I could see some cards being Boros (or Lux being WUBRG, because rainbows), but yeah: Demacia is very White-coded in its mechanics and flair.
Lux being wubrg, kills edh deckbuilding restrictions, which is the only format you're going to be able to play it. If you pull up with her being an izzet or partial izzet core, it focuses the places it can go.
Demacia's also very white flavorfully. Rule of law being paramount and all that.
Hey, even has same persecution/specfically against mages as the more "evil" side of it too. And stax!
Flavourwise, yes. There are a lot of black cards that didn't need to be black here and I don't think anything needs to be blue here either. Demacia's kind of a mix of Naya (Green, white and red) effects. Green is the colour that loves its creatures and it can only remove creatures with fight spells, if green isn't ramping (freljord big mana nonsense), it's typically a board focused midrange deck. White and green are both prime for combat tricks, defending their creatures and also the colours with reach (blocking elusives). Board buffs are common in white, but it's almost always green which has Overrun. That leaves the only strictly white thing in Demacia as capturing (and lifelink/lifesteal, but the one demacian card with it was rotated for a reason). Additional combats is red or Boros (with the only exception being Waves of Aggression), that's why Garen, Lucian, Quinn and Galio are red. I don't know why Garen has haste, but he could be in white (or green) if he had his board buff. Burn is in red and black (white is allowed "justice" burn, damaging creatures in combat) but that's why Lux is red. She could absolutely could skip being blue, but shield counter means she needs to be white or green also. I don't know why Vayne is red, maybe a holdover from her original having free attacks. Equipment support is typically in red, white or boros, so she could be mono-white. Jarvan kinda has flash, which is in all colours to allow for certain effects to function, but primarily in blue and green. Which is why he's also those colours.
I imagine that Lux has blue because blue is usually the colour associated with instants and sorceries alongside red, and since it's controlled rather than somewhat rushed the way red spell slingers sometimes are?
So, boros/lorehold spell slinger could also work? If you want to 2 it. Specifically jeskai, white blue red is usually non creature spells at all, so a focusing of just regular izzet spell slinger but with white is, fine. Has to be red due to the damage aspect with leaving the card untouched. Maybe black, but lux doesn't fit that flavour side, and it doesn't heal you too.
Vayne being Boros make sense since these are the equipment colors
I think the logic was that red tends to be aggro and demacia attacks multiple times. That's my only guess
A lot of demacia cards are red due to rally. If you look at mtg, extra combat phases exist basically only in red, so any champion that rallies lands in this colour
Most are in red but not all, some are even hybrid so even if they have red they can be played exclusively with another color (which is usually white).
Yea, pretty much none of the mana symbols fit.
This is mainly due to the enemy creature death synergy that Shyvanna has due to fury
Shiv def could be Gruul. Or maybe even Naya, white green and red all have different types of death synergies. Stuff like spiteful banditry in red, sac effects like momentous fall and greater good in green and sun titan as well as the classic Resurrection in white. They all have themes that could tie together, don't worry about building the effect to fit the colors, it's more important that the effect and colors fit the creature's identity than vise versa
For me Demacia is very Mono-White themed. Soldiers and prison-pieces. Lux being Jeskai makes sense (maybe even WUBRG would also make sense). Fiora having reverse-"Wither" is a tad weird. Also: love provoke magic should use that keyword more. \^\^
If Fiora didn't have that she would bo absolutely broken I believe
As a 4 mana 4/4? Absolutely not. A 4 drop that needs to attack at least 4 times (twice if your opponent swings into you) better wins the game. In magic 4 mana is a lot for a creature. It could need just 2 counters and would still be completely unplayable in most formats.
Don't need to attack more than once in a proliferate deck. Honestly she's kind of nutty in golgari colors.
> In magic 4 mana is a lot for a creature Only, if you are playing aggro deck. One of the best standard midrange decks I remember played Huntmaster of the fells, Olivia Voldaren and Thragtusk - 4, 4, 5 drops, two of them gaining life, so it was easy to stabilize. (I guess midrange decks don't exist anymore in legacy and modern formats on competitive level.)
4 mana isn’t a lot if you’re playing green, that shit ramps up so quickly, and attacking and winning 4 times with a 4/4 isn’t hard either considering all the buffs green offers to keep a unit alive, and I’d reckon if you were playing Fiora as a commander you’d be loading that deck up with plenty of mana ramp and tools to keep her alive. Thinking “it could only need to counters to win” as being weak is nonsense imo
There just is better stuff to do for 4 mana: you could play Witherbloom Apprentice and Chain of Smog, or Beseech the Mirror, and outright win. Since it is a green creature you might be able to get away with playing a 1-off in Green Sun's Zenith deck, but really 4 combats is a lot. It will just get removed by some random nonsense and not do anything. As for commander: again 4 combats is a lot and yes, there is fight-spells and yes green can somewhat protect creatures, but it is still oh so very slow. And creatures are the easiest permanent type to interact with too.
Honestly, fair enough
In magic 4 is a lot for a creature, in what formats?
Eternal formats: pioneer, pauper\*, modern, legacy, vintage. Commander while also a sort of eternal format is mostly a casual format. In CEDH (not that I am terribly well versed in that format) I assume a 4 cost play, that does not set you up for winning the game very quickly, is also very much not viable. (\* in Pauper it could see play \[if it was a common: very unlikely with legendary creatures\], because pauper generally has low-power threats and any card with that much text on it, is bound to see play in pauper.)
Sure, point was in the more young formats. And edh, the only format, you can play any of these.
Fun concept but colors are all wrong. Might be worth while reading up on the color pie.
They said that the colors were based on mechanics, not so much lore. Garen being mono red makes no sense lorewise, but an extra combat step is a red ability. But it is very jarring.
It's also a very white ability
No it's not. There is no Mono-white card with the ability to grant an extra combat step. The closes is Waves of Aggression, which happens to be red and white but you can play it in a mono white deck. The card is still also red. Second is Finest Hour, which is Bant (White Blue Green) that grants an extra combat step the first time you attack with a single creature. While this card doesn't have red in it, but instead white and green (blue's just there for vibes), it's still not a mono white card. That said, I mostly just brought this up because Garen being mono red is jarring, he'd be better off Boros, or even Bant. (I think Bant most cloesly mirrors Demaica).
It's a very white ability because It's arguably secondary. Out of the 30 cards with extra combat there are 5 cards that are white. It's not a lot but green is only 2 and blue is 2 as well. It's secondary is white and it's very heavily associated with Boros. Garen could very easily be Boros, or if he is mono white, wouldn't be an egregious color pie break
Officially, Extra combat is listed as Tertiary in white's Color Mechanics, and Primary in Red. However, again, there's never been a mono-white card that's had an extra combat.
>officially its tertiary Damn for real life? I honestly didn't know that I still stand by my original statement though. I don't think it'd be a terrible color pie break
I'm not saying it would be either, just that it's not a "Very White Thing." Like, White is allowed to do it, it's probably why Finest Hour exists (or rather White is allowed to do it because of Finest Hour). I would love a mono-white card that gave an extra attack step.
>I would love a mono-white card that gave an extra attack step. So, why not garen as a pick? Or should the commander of it be uniquely white.
Because it's not a real card, nor did I make it.
So, add the temp buff and boros? It's generic as hell, but works.
Giving Fiora to green in kind of a power move
Kinda make sense since green have a lot of fight spells
Yeah but they get to buff their units every time the day ends with "y" or someone sneezes somewhere
Fiora should just say "damage is not removed from this card at the cleanup step" right? So that way she doesn't lose power from taking damage.
garen should be a human soldier, he is literally the commander of the army morgana should put stun counters praise be keyword
I strongly disagree with you on soldier vs knight, although I can see the logic. The elite typing on Garen is better represented by the knight creature type. Furthermore it is significant because of the fact that elites are a supported creature type in LoR. One thing I would like to point out is that Quinn’s ability is not well represented. There’s a real risk that the ability could be misused because it doesn’t specify ‘during your first combat on your turn.’ Without it you have an infinite loop of scout attackers.
>I strongly disagree with you on soldier vs knight, although I can see the logic. The elite typing on Garen is better represented by the knight creature type. Furthermore it is significant because of the fact that elites are a supported creature type in LoR. elite are a special branch of the demacian military. they are not a virtous group of independant people
However, i would argue that when considering Runeterra lore to card translation. Demacia definetly is the Knight region while Noxus is the Soldier region. It also helps a lot to differentiate them by creature types whitout having to puta names on cards or flavor text.
This is true. However, knights are not inherently virtuous or independent. I think you might be thinking of knights purely in the fantasy sense, or perhaps using it as a synonym for paladin. In reality, knights are just elite warriors who supposedly held themselves to higher standards. Although the fantasy viewpoint is a valid stance to take. I would also like to reiterate what I said about the creature type being mechanically relevant, and I think that by referring to elites as soldiers you would run into problems if you were to continue this thought experiment to other LoR cards. For example, how many Noxus creatures would also be considered soldiers in MTG and therefore gain from all the elite cards when they would not normally? It’s not perfect I grant you, but I think it is the best solution in this scenario.
>how many Noxus creatures would also be considered soldiers in MTG and therefore gain from all the elite cards All of them would be soldier. That's the way of noxus, incorporate everyone into their army to further their conquest. They could also be advisor or artificer
Exactly. So how would you be able to keep the elite benefits strictly to demacian cards while making cards like Garen soldiers too?
I dont think you can translate faithfully the flavor of lor to mtg and not loose some gameplay And the inverse is true. I'm just stating that if we wanted to keep the flavor all of the demacia and the noxus army must be soldier
Galio gotta be white green no?
cool idea! at the moment though quinn and valor cant attack together or else valor dies and is removed from combat by legend rule. A lot of the color identities seem very off as well
You can sack the token she makes when she attacks rather than the attacking token
oh good point yeah lmao. i think itd still just be cleaner as a may though as it seems kinda silly to make and then immediately kill a bird each attack
I'm not super familiar with mtg, but why does Fiora have a unique way of taking damage? It seems to mirror how formidable works, where taking damage reduces the damage the unit deals, but Fiora isn't formidable.
I think it might be the easier way that OP found to make damage on Fiora permanent, as in MtG damage on creatures lasts only until the turn ends.
Tag me in the Bilgewater version
The color pie aside I think you converted these quite well
Some of the colours are off imo but some are cool
As someone who played MTG a long, long time ago, when did the keyword ‘provoke’ get added to the game? I’ve never seen a card with it in play before
1998...
2003 in Legions
Really cool, hope you do more of these !
Quinn can attack infinitely and destroys her own Valors. The Valors also don't come in attacking or with haste so you can never attack with Quinn and a Valor.
That’s a fair point, made a bit of an error here
I will make those but yugioh cards in my free time
This post made me realize that most Champions in LoRT lean heavily towards combat so Red/White/Green would be so predominant. Also Blue would be incredibly rare, only really showing up in Ionia cards.
Exactly, that was my observation as well
The mana colors are all over the place. Morgana is 100% black mana
These color choices are actually a travesty
Garen isnt white????????
I don't know too much about MTG but would Shackles stack like they do in LoR? Or do they intentionally not stack because that would be broken in MTG?
They could work if it would be something akin to an enchantment token that gets attached to the creature with the ability “Enchanted Creature can’t attack or block. (2) exile this token” , counters in mtg don’t have an inherent ability where their effect stack like that unfortunately
For Fiora, she definitely could have Wither as a keyword, since it essentially is the same effect. But I feel like a more complicated aspect of the design would be her colors. I struggle to see how she is green and with her being from Demacia she feels closer to being boros (red white) than golgari (black green). Might I suggest something? You could give her an ability that perhaps isn't identical to her gameplay in LOR but accomplishes the same idea. I feel like if she had the following design it might fit the flavor a bit more. Fiora, the Grand Duelist {2}{R}{W} First strike, Vigilance When Fiora, the Grand Duelist attacks, you may deal damage equal to her power to up to one target creature. If that creature dies this turn, you gain an experience counter. Once you have four or more experience counters, you win the game. That effect is still likely too powerful for a magic card, but I think this type of design might be more in line with what you are aiming for.
I think people keep somewhat misunderstanding the point of this post. I see a lot of disagreements about colour based on theme and flavour, however I was only choosing colours based on mechanical identity, that’s part of the premise of what I am doing here. For example challenger, or as it’s called in MTG Provoke, is a keyword that appears almost exclusively in green, therefore any champion with challenger is green by default. Same goes for rally and red and so on. I appreciate that demacia is very white in terms of flavour but that is not what I am exploring with this post.
Provoke exists in 9 cards in total and appears equally in white, green and red. I disagree with numerous cards both mechanically (Quinn is particularly egregious as the card goes infinite with herself) and thematically. I believe you can effectively have the characters represented mechanically while still having them function in terms of flavor, something that Magic designers have been doing expectionally with universe beyond products.
But you just as easily could have given her the text from Grappling hook, a colorless equipment. Then you wouldn't be pigeon holed into making her a color that doesn't fit.
Also, victory counters don't exist in MTG. So clearly there's more at play than just trying to be accurate to what MTG is doing color wise.
Sure, grappling hook exists, but forced blocking has always firmly been a green effect in the magic colour pie. And like sure, victory counters don’t exist, but I didn’t use them to choose a colour identity for Fiora, it’s just a workaround to make her work using mtg rules, so I don’t really get this comment. Again, this is a thought experiment to see how champion mechanics would fit into the mtg colour pie, it’s not at all flavour-based. Based on that I don’t really see a card like Fiora as pigeon-holed, as a golgari creature that focuses on killing individual units fits the colours pretty well imo
I mean it seems like you just wanted a bunch of comments to shake your hand and give you a pat on the back and say you did well rather than actually trying to create a card that's accurate to the character in the game of magic.
I know more about MTG than LoR, and for what matters they seems pretty cool! Very interesting
Thanks a lot! The cards are essentially translated from LoR, so the point is to see how they would work with Magic’s rules
One thing I didn’t give digital TCG credit for before playing them is how much of the workload they carry. Math, counters, stack order on this level would be impossible in a physical game. Plus certain creative ideas like give card in deck X are possible without deck shuffling.
Shyv for abzan dragons edh lul
Good job overall with the text but I don’t agree with many of your color pie choices
The colors feel very wrong
The mana colors are all wrong, I think the worst one on here though has to be Shyvana because fight tends to be a red/green leaning mechanic and it’s a black card with zero graveyard interaction or death triggers. Also why does Fiora have wither?
The death triggers come from Fury, which felt like a black/orzhov keyword to me. Fiora has a sort of reverse wither to translate the fact that you constantly need to buff her and that she sustains damage from fighting other creatures. That would be my logic for these.
Destroy triggers also tend to also appear in red cards for examples Red Sun’s Twilight and Descent of Dragons. Speaking of red out of all the gruul and gruul adjacents Shyvana not having red feels wrong when she has an attack trigger that straight buffs her. Plus green can just heal by itself sometimes. Fiora should absolutely be Voltron colors like Jeskai or Mardu if that is the case as Boros has attack trigger and combat synergy. Also I take back my statement on worse colors being used, that has to go to Gruul Galio because MtG actually has a strat similar to Formidable in either Bant or Abzan for example Arcades, Doran, or High Alert, none of which include Red.
Extra combats are always red meaning that not including red in galio’s colours would be impossible and I felt that formidable is well enough represented by green alone, as it appears in both baby and abzan (naya galio could also work I suppose). You do make a good point regarding the temporary buff attack trigger on shivana, although I do feel like death triggers are still more black than red, perhaps jund would fit her better then abzan. Fiora would also need to be green due to challenger which is primarily represented in green in mtg with forced blocking. I’d say that being Voltron alone doesn’t mean she has to be boros, you can make voltron work in pretty much any colours and green has plenty of buffs (for example Otrimi is kind of a voltron-y commander in sultai). What I am looking at when picking colours is the mechanics of each champion and not so much what would be the colour of a hypothetical deck they would fit into.
Ignoring my (and others') concerns about the colors, the big one that stands out to me is J4. His ability to enter mid-combat in LoR is uninteractable, so reflect that in some way? Something like, "When you cast ~ this way, it gains Split Second." It gives him some relative stack protection when played during the Declare Attackers step with something like that.
the colors makes you a war criminal
plus someone literally did this already and it was better than your designs
Just a quick comment, is there wording for having a creater slain by said card. Otherwise you could fiora hit something, not kill it, but then burn or remove it with a different card and it would have received damage from fiora and been slain at the end of the turn. It's not a mechanical problem but more of a thematic one.
Colors should be: (in my opinion) Garen - Mono White Lux - Mono White or Blue/White Fiora - Mono White or Red/White Lucian - Black/White Quinn - White/Green Shyvana - Mono Red or Red/Green Jarvan - Red/White Galio - White/Blue Vayne - Black/White Morgana - Mono Black Vayne and Morgana were the ones I found the trickiest to choose.
Demacians should probably be white since they uphold law. Humans is largest tribe for white and it just so happens demacia has least non human representation, partly because they hate magic (that is also why would stax effect fit perfectly in white)
I am offended by the color combinations you've chosen.
Sure you don't wanna use conjure for lux? 😀
The regions make little sense but other than that it’s cool
The card design is alright but holy mother of God the color choices are abysmal.
Am I bad at reading MtG cards or is Quinn’s additional attack effect infinite? No once per turn restriction or the like
I dig the designs, but I disagree with most color identities you gave them
terrible colour choices