[Workshop Wednesday] Axis & Ally Colors

     Welcome back to TwistedSpoon Studio! Wednesday is when we talk about custom Magic designs, usually covering new custom mechanics. I say usually because this week we're doing something a little different.

    While these designs are new, the mechanics might be familiar... because we're working through the signpost uncommons for Festival of Urbestia! FUR might be on hiatus, but we're still working through the card file. Without further adieu, let's jump in!

Sky Merchant

    WU is here to play artifacts and swing with flyers. And they're all out of artifacts. Because they played them to trigger Commerce and give their creatures flying.

    FUR's white-blue archetype is your standard flyers affair-- gum up the ground, swing in the air, profit. In this case, it's more tempo than control, using bounce and disruption to slow down the opponent while playing artifacts at the right time to secure an advantage. There's also a mild flicker subtheme, because who doesn't love to abuse ETB triggers?

Terrible Price

    UB is all about artifacts, from entering the battlefield to leaving it. Between Commerce in blue and sacrifice outlets in black, the goal is to squeeze out every last bit of value.

    This card in particular is a callback to Threads of Disloyalty, a rare enchantment from Betrayers of Kamigawa. To adjust for rarity, we've added a color and a sacrifice clause; as a thematic tradeoff, it can nab artifacts in addition to creatures.

Black Market Broker

    I know, the art is pretty rough. That aside, though, the signal should be clear: BR is the sacrifice deck. 

    While Ravnica and Innistrad have set up expectations for black-red to be an aggressive pair, it's more often a control deck because of how good both colors are at killing creatures. With that in mind, this is meant to be a late-game value engine and beater, but the combination of cost and body are meant to keep it from being a win condition by itself.

Wild-Blood Wolf

    Its in the first line: RG is vicious. This deck wants to beat face with chunky dudes and get the Blood flowing. Being able to rummage with Blood tokens lets the deck straighten out its draws when it starts to run out of gas.

    If you remember the article where we introduced Vicious, you'll recognize this design as the second draft of Ripclaw Hunter. (If you missed it, imagine this as a hybrid-mana 2/2.) The main feedback I got about that card's design was that its power and toughness left something to be desired, so it's been shifted to multicolor and beefed up appropriately.

Prismatic Chaperone

    GW is usually a go-wide aggro deck, but here, it's all about Vibrant-- a set mechanic that improves spells when three or more colors of mana are spent to cast them. This card doesn't have it, but it does enable it handily.

    The callback here is Prismatic Omen, a 2-mana enchantment from Shadowmoor. As with Terrible Price, the shift from rare to uncommon involved adding a color and a restriction (the original affected all lands, not just basics). I feel like the experience of playing Vibrant is improved when it's not too easy to set up, hence the frail body. 

Time to Stratego

    That's all for this week! How do you feel about these signposts? How likely would you be to draft them? Let us know in the comments or over on r/TwistedSpoonStudio. Next week, we'll be doing this again with the enemy colors, so stay tuned!