Drakken, the Bloodmonger - I think this card is too strong, but I could be wrong. Card advantage on a +1 ability of a three-mana walker is pretty nutty (e.g. see Jace Beleren for comparison). Also, I don't feel that the strength of this card is all that interesting. It doesn't get me excited to play with it. Custom Planeswalker design is super hard though. Part of that owes to the fact that we as players want really splashy and new effects from real PWs, but kind of look down on custom cards that try to be too original and out there. It's a fine-line to tread.
There's also the fact that this has the same cost as 3CMC Liliana, which isn't doing it any favors. Liliana has that perfect blend of power and synergy, and is my favorite PW design yet .
Your other Planeswalkers left me a bit flat too.
Planeswalkers are hard man! Good catch on Drakken. I'm wondering if I could make it so that he has no ultimate, making the card advantage plus ability a less relavant fact.
The three of them (Drakken, Unknowable and Lyra) are all in here because bant has the lion's share of powerful planeswalkers, and I wanted to even that out a bit. Maybe there's a better way to go about it?
I'm all in support of having sift work in the opposite direction (discard first). I'm with Rosewater here in the thinking that this doesn't really have to be keyworded (especially if it's the only card with this mechanic
).
It used to be a bigger part of my design, and I think it isn't terrible synergy-wise, at least with black (and squee).
I'll probably change him now that it's less of a theme. Back when there were 8 blue cards, Izzet Charm, Faithless Looting and this guy, maybe, but not now.
I love Cascade (Heartwood Empath) and agree people totally mis-evaluate Shardless Agent. Cascade on a monocolored card feels sacrilegious though.
Perhaps just sacrilegious enough to work? Were it from any other block, it certainly seems like a blue/green mechanic (
Thicket Elemental meets
Mind's Desire). If I had to pin it to a mono-color card, green would be where I look first, I think.
Side note: Why is shardless agent an artifact creature? Doesn't that ruin the whole "shardless" thing, since it's clearly esper, the only shard with artifact creatures whatsoever? I know there was some crossover towards the end of the block, but this just feels like one of those cards that was too powerful, not a new design of something that existed before like the name implies.
You can't be shardless if there aren't any shards any more.
March of Time: Not a fan of delayed card draws. Magic is a tedious enough game as is.
While I agree, the flavor trumps the small gameplay annoyance here. It's no worse than rebound the way I see it.
Lastly, I hate the archetype-based fixing stuff. I want to be able to build controlling Boros decks or aggressive Dimir decks. These are hard enough to put together, without having to fight against mana bases pidgeon-holed for other strategies. I've never really understood the advantage to doing stuff like that over lands that are more archetype-neutral.
I should really look into this. You make a good point, one I hadn't really considered up until now.
What I then have to ask is: What cycle would you include? I'm not sure I can safely go up to 30 fetchlands without things getting real crazy (Might be fun), doubling up on filters seems like a recipe for Yu-Gi-Oh magic (IE no colors), and I'm not sure if another set of beta duals would be that interesting.
Maybe extend the
Horizon Canopy cycle? Would you enjoy color appropriate horizon canopies in a control deck?
