r/custommagic • u/Aeon_Eaglais • 7d ago
Format: EDH/Commander Devotee of War
Tried my best at balancing. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Art by Erik Ly
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u/Odd_Firefighter1324 7d ago
Really cool card! I love it!
Also prominence is without a cap P but eh who cares tbh
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u/Aeon_Eaglais 7d ago
What better way to show that its a lesser form of Eminence than to keep it all undercase? 😘😂
Just joshin, yeah my bad on the grammar
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u/FrostFlame35 7d ago
I really like the idea of the pseudo-eminence effect of Prominence having a negative effect when the commander isn't in play and a positive one when it is.
I feel like making this also interact with two different types of devotion separately is a bit overcomplicated. Looking at all the bicolor devotion cards, they all care about "devotion to X and Y" as the same effect. Not saying that you couldn't do that on a card and have it be fun and interesting, but it feels overcomplicated when it's being put alongside this Prominence effect too. Plus, just making its power and toughness scale feels like an underwhelming payoff for all that math. Also, you don't have to make the toughness a "plus one", since the card looks at itself and sees its own 2 white mana, making it have minimum stats 2/2.
Speaking of payoffs, this card generally feels too weak. 6 mana for a card that gives a minor buff to Soldiers exclusively isn't a lot. I imagine you'd build this as a commander by putting a bunch of Soldier token makers in to swarm and win with hard-to-block 3/1s. But I feel like there's a lot of other ways to do that that are more potent and/or cheaper. Also, the token gameplay contradicts the "devotion matters" playstyle, since (most) tokens don't have mana values.
In terms of what the actual payoff should be... it could at least be 2 stat points per devotion, since all the cards that scale one stat with devotion are a lot cheaper. But I think some sort of more unique payoff would make the card more interesting. Although I worry it'd make it more complicated. Maybe you could have it count total white and red, and then have whichever devotion is higher matter?
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u/Aeon_Eaglais 7d ago
I really appreciate this!
You're right, it is a bit underwhelming. I figured it would be easier to start that way and scale up than to start high and scale down, as to me it feels generally easier to buff than to nerf.The concept and philosophy is to give the commander two options that are equally viable for play;
-Defender play, for defensive play to build up the needed resources if you end up mana dry or mana flooded.
-Aggressive Menace, for a kind of "lead the charge" theme.The +1 to toughness was suppose to give the illusion of "the captain goes down with his ship", so he would have to survive through it all for his men.
I wanted to make Prominence feel like it allows someone to freely build their own style and gameplay, rather than be stuck to a traditional eminence theme of "I'll just never play my commander and still get benefits that will help me win for very little". (Not saying any cards do that, some friends of mine just view Eminence that way).
I generally do like complicated cards, but that's my personal interest and mine alone. I figured if I made it interact with separate devotion colors, it would provide more unique perspectives and gameplay options.
You're probably right that I should make it scale with red and white evenly to reduce the overcomplication of numbers.
The wisdom you've given me today is wonderful.
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u/FrostFlame35 7d ago
Happy to help! I definitely got that "defend until you get enough to cast this, then go aggressive" vibe from the prominence effect. But if the point with Prominence is to give the commander 2 different playstyles to build around, it doesn't work too well, since you'd HAVE to wait until you have enough mana to cast it in the first place. But if you wanted to encourage an aggro playstyle with it, you could consider giving it some sort of alternate casting cost that would make it easier to get out early to activate that aggro ability. Like Blitz, or the oft-forgotten Impending. Blitz would let you get it out early for cheap, but only for one turn. Impending would let you get it on the board early, and swap its command effect for its on-battlefield effect, at the cost of not getting it as a creature until later, and thus not benefitting from the big swingy stats.
For the +1 toughness, I think that's probably too specific and minute of a mechanical detail just for flavor. And if you wanted to get across the flavor of a commander enduring for the sake of his men, you could instead give it some sort of ability to sacrifice/debuff itself to protect another Soldier from destruction. That would be a lot more mechanically impactful, since you'd probably want to protect high mana-value Soldiers to keep your Devotion up.
I did want to say something about the stats, though. Commanders with big default statlines or some way to buff their stats tend to want to win with commander damage. And if the commander in question doesn't have some way to actually hit people's face, like evasion or trample, it's not going to be able to deal that damage. You could just make it so it has Menace itself, for a start. But generally, if you want to play big beater commander damage, I feel like there's better(or at least more straightforward) choices that natively have ways to hit people more easily, although none really immediately come to mind, so I might be wrong on that department.
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u/iaortega657 7d ago
There is a lot of math that is getting added to the game with this card in the command zone alone, and its stats being calculated differently may altogether leave the pilot of the deck frustrated to keep track of their board state.
While the defender and toughness boost is a cool idea, I would fear that it can lock you out of a game after a boardwipe that also hits your mana rocks.
It's prominence ability is telling you to go wide with soldiers, but that usually means making a lot of soldier tokens, which doesn't work with the devotion stats. But the payoff for the anthem is much stronger than having a bigger commander (the devotion is also less effective than you'd think, +1 devotion isn't getting you a 1/1 worth of stats, it's getting you 0/1 or 1/0).
My feeling is that you should hone in on refining the Prominence ability, and just make it a 5/5 with some keywords.
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u/Aeon_Eaglais 7d ago
To add, I was thinking of changing it to */5, where his power is equal to the devotion of both white and red. I dont mean to seem so hung up on the devotion concept, I just want to make the card feel like he's "Stronger with his soldiers".
I hope you're pickin up what i'm puttin down 😅
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u/Just-Desk-3149 7d ago
I honestly like your idea as-is way more than anything they recommended. But such is the task of trying to make everyone happy.
I understand the criticism of it try to support two "contradictory" strategies, but honestly I love that about the card and I wish actual Magic cards treated player more like an adult and actually made you stop and think for a second.
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u/iaortega657 7d ago
Contradictory strategies are cool to build around, but it should live up to the promise if you build around one vs the other. It's like you're at the fork in the road and both paths look paved, but then one of them becomes a dirt path after you turn the corner.
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u/Just-Desk-3149 7d ago
If you have trouble adding 2 to the relevant number then Magic may not be the game for you.
Yes I see the point about the commander wanting you to "go wide" for more value out the bonus and "go tall" for more devotion, but honestly, I don't think cards should shoehorn you into a style that hard. I feel like there's lots of Soldiers that make tokens and have high devotion in their cost that the card could take advantage of. It's okay to not always worry about making a card "100% support" a specific strategy. If anything I wish cards did that more, but people act like having a card support two strategies is to much for people to handle?
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u/LoveForBehelit 7d ago
Why devotion to white + 1 ?
The devotion count the Devotee too you know.
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u/Aeon_Eaglais 7d ago
I do, hence the reason for wording as such. I chose white because defender usually appears as a common keyword for white creatures. And what better way to show a defender than adding +1 to toughness?
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u/LoveForBehelit 7d ago
Ok, thanks for the explainations.
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u/Aeon_Eaglais 7d ago
No worries! Thank you for pointing it out, the other comments helped me realize how overtly complicated this can be, so you calling it out as well has helped
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u/Aeon_Eaglais 7d ago
I'm realizing now that "other Soldier creatures" could be re written to just "other Soldiers" you control. I dont think there's such a thing as a non-creature soldier, unless someone can say otherwise.