Bring the Character to Life Contest - Round 5 Magic the Gathering

[[IaF]Skyve]

Bring the Character to Life Contest - Round 5 Magic the Gathering

In this contest you are supposed to create heroes out of a select number characters from certain fictional universes.

Hall of Fame
Round 1 - Final Fantasy Tactics Advance:Drasha
Round 2 - World of Warcraft:MaTz0r
Round 3 - Pokémon:Deva
Round 4 - The Legend of Zelda:Branfour

You have voted for our theme, and here is it: Magic the Gathering. Participants will be tasked to choose one creature card from the MtG universe and create their hero based on that. You are allowed to "equip" your hero with multiple other cards out of the universe, as long as it makes some sense.
By that I mean that you aren't going to give a

abilities based on

since Jaya is a red card, and uses red magic exclusively.

The Task:
Pick one creature card out of the sheer endless amount of cards MtG has to offer and incorporate that card into a hero. Choose one of those cards abilities and make it into an important ability of your hero.
You can also choose other cards and make them abilities on your hero, that is however not required.

The Rules:
Every hero has a thread with [MtG] in the title created in the Hero Drafts section.
Entries will be linked in this thread.
Choose a creature card and design your hero around it. Your chosen hero has to represent the selected original card somehow (you'll want to try to make the creature cards ability into one of the heroes (core) mechanics).
Heroes may use other creature cards as abilities (as in summoning them).
You do not have to make all of your chosen creature cards abilities your heroes abilities. One is enough.

Some creature cards for those that have a difficulty picking something:

Tolsimir Wolfblood

Borborygmos

Djinn Illuminatus

Experiment Kraj

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

Ink-Treader Nephilim

Necroplasm

Skeletal Vampire

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief

Omnath, Locus of Mana

Useful engine to look for cards:
http://magiccards.info/

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Deadline: February, 12th

[MaTz0r]

Here is my first entry:
Soulless One, zombie creature that gets stronger with dead corpses.

This hero is a ganker/carry str melee, that have 3 active skills with 3 passives boost and the passive(3rd skill) inspired by the card effect, that will make him a good semi-carry and has an active part that will double all the passives on this hero. It seems a bit complicated at first, but I think he is quite right, all passives are just esteroids for him/help with the other skills, have a good internal sinergy with his [Q][W] and [E], unleashing a good cc at the other team.

[[KNO]DrPeckers]

Moving on up.

[Drasha]

Damn you have kraj on your list i was already going to do him. Also some one was a ravnica player.

[[IaF]Skyve]

You can still use Kraj

And well, Ravnica was the last set that was released when I still actively played, and all of those have some interesting possibilities for hero mechanics.

[[300]Branfour]

Huzzah! Will definitely be participating after my success with the last round, even more so considering it's MTG!

Brace for epic Onslaught-block ownage.

[MaTz0r]

Im going to do a Sliver hero

[[IaF]Skyve]

That would probably be a lot of fun as a sort of "summoner" hero

[MaTz0r]

Yap, Pusher oriented

[Apostate]

Hell yeah. Get ready for this *****es.

[[KNO]DrPeckers]

Would it be unfair if I asked for help with Cards? I have never played Magic the Gathering.

[Apostate]

Not really. I know the game well and could help. But I don't know exactly how I could help you, ask me questions I suppose?

[[300]Branfour]

I am also available for questions and/or inspiration in terms of anything related to MtG.

As Apostate mentioned above, you can just post some questions for us DrPeckers.


I think a wise place to start would be to choose yourself a color.

Here's a short overview copy-pasted from Wiki :

WHITE:
Damage prevention and life gain
Rules-setting and "Taxing" (*1)
Artifact and enchantment destruction
Combat superiority
Total defense

RED:
Direct damage (Burn)
Artifact and land destruction (*2)
Aggressive creatures
Gambits and short-term mana acceleration
Trickery and randomness

BLACK:
Creature destruction, including toughness reduction
Discard (*3)
Reanimating creatures
Sacrificing itself and others for power
Draining life from others

GREEN:
Powerful creatures
Token creatures
"Pump" effects (*4)
Permanent mana acceleration (*5)
Mana fixing
Artifact and enchantment destruction

BLUE:
Card drawing
Counterspells
"Return to hand" (Bounce) effects
Tapping and untapping permanents (*6)
Gain control (theft) effects



As you've noticed, I put numbers next to a few of the mechanics to try and explain how you could transition them over to HoN :

*1 = In Magic, the game is played on a surface that becomes the play-field. Think of this play-field as the map Forest of Caldavar. The map has limitations in place, such as Fog of War, Cliffs, Trees, a River, Shops, Statues and more. All these things are what make up the environment. In Magic, it's the same principle. You have lands, which give you mana, you have creatures, like heroes, you have spells, like abilities, and you have many other things. Among those things, for example, is the type 'Enchantment' - enchantments are cards that hit the play-field and act as a sort of 'NEW RULE' dictator. Some might enforce rules like "All White Creatures get +1/+1", others might prevent you from untapping your permanents.

The point here is that rule-setting in HoN is skills that break the environment, such as Sand Wraith's ability to walk over anything when he uses his first skill, or Behemoth's Fissure that creates a near-impassable wall, or skills that destroy trees, for instance.

Global aura's would also fit properly in this category.


*2 = Land destruction is an incredibly powerful mechanic. Lands are what give you mana to cast your cards, or spells, and they are a vital resource. Without them, you are useless. Think of this as your Gold or Mana in HoN, without either, you aren't going very far. Skills that would affect either of those would be more or less transient with this effect.


*3 = Discarding is also a very powerful mechanic due in part to the fact that in Magic, you are limited to playing the cards that are in your hand. As such, if the cards were to be discarded, you would find yourself limited in what exactly you could play. This mechanic could be compared to a few things:
Discarding can be compared to Mana-Burn, in that you are preventing the opponent from 'playing his spells'.
Discarding can be compared to Silence, " " " ".
Discarding can be compared to Minor Disables as well.


*4 = Pumping a creature simply means 'buffing' it up. Some of these effects are temporary, others are permanent.
For temporary effects, think of War Beast's War Cry that gives +44 damage to everyone at level 4 for a short duration.
For permanent effects, think of Tremble's Impalers and how they passively give him a bonus damage boost each level you put into them.


*5 = As I mentioned earlier, your lands, that give you mana, are incredibly important. But much like in HoN, lands aren't the only thing that give you mana.

In Magic, you can get mana from Sorceries, from Creatures, from Artifacts and Enchantments. It goes on. HoN is the same when you think about it.

In HoN, you can get mana from static regen, from items like Blood Chalice, from abilities such as Nymphora's Grace, from runes, etc.


*6 = A permanent in Magic is tapped when it is 'being used'. This is true for a lot of types of permanents, with a few exceptions. When creatures attack, they 'tap' out - What this signifies is that they have committed to an action and they will no longer be available to defend on your opponent's attack phase since they just attacked. There are mechanics and ways around this, as well as ways to tap out all of your opponents board.

The advantage in that is that if your opponent has no permanents he can untap, all that he has on the board is more or less 'useless' ( again, exceptions, as with any BIG game ).

This tapping mechanic applies itself for your Lands too. When you want to use mana, you must tap your land for the resource. This means that for the rest of the turn, your land is depleted and you cannot get more resources from it unless it becomes untapped via another spell or effect. Each turn your lands untap, unless 'ruled' otherwise due to an effect or spell.

So, what does that all mean? It means that this is essentially like 'shutting down' your opponent, so this can be compared to things in HoN like :

Stuns and Disables : Preventing the opponent in making an action, 'Lockdown'.
Manaburn and Mana-"Screw" : Messing with the opponent's ability to cast a spell.



---

I hope that gives you a little overview, as well as to everyone else who has never played, and hopefully it's a good start for you to try and find a creature you like.

[[KNO]DrPeckers]

Thank y'all. I am still trying to work through the words. I should have some questions for y'all later.

[[IaF]Skyve]

Would it be unfair if I asked for help with Cards? I have never played Magic the Gathering.

I actually did intend to write that people can post here/pm me if they have any questions regarding any cards, or really anything involving the contest.

I just usually never do all those things I intend to do :/

[[IaF]Skyve]

Here's a short overview copy-pasted from Wiki :

WHITE:
Damage prevention and life gain
Rules-setting and "Taxing" (*1)
Artifact and enchantment destruction
Combat superiority
Total defense

RED:
Direct damage (Burn)
Artifact and land destruction (*2)
Aggressive creatures
Gambits and short-term mana acceleration
Trickery and randomness

BLACK:
Creature destruction, including toughness reduction
Discard (*3)
Reanimating creatures
Sacrificing itself and others for power
Draining life from others

GREEN:
Powerful creatures
Token creatures
"Pump" effects (*4)
Permanent mana acceleration (*5)
Mana fixing
Artifact and enchantment destruction

BLUE:
Card drawing
Counterspells
"Return to hand" (Bounce) effects
Tapping and untapping permanents (*6)
Gain control (theft) effects

Honestly that list is somewhat incomplete, considering most "effects" are available in multiple colors, just usually in slightly/somewhat different ways.

Card Draw for instance is blue, but also green and black.
Enchantment removal is green and white.
Artifact removal is red and green, and to a lesser degree white.
Land destruction is black, green and red.
Blue never destroys but is able to deal with any type of spell/permanent by "denial" (countering mostly) or by bouncing them (return to hand effects). However, blue also can force players to sacrifice creatures - but usually via means that replace them ("morph" effects).
Also every color has its own type of "reanimation". Blue usually shuffles (cards from) its graveyard into the library, green "recycles" any type of card back to your hand, black usually puts creatures onto the battlefield or returns them to your hand, white usually returns a certain type of permanent to the battlefield and quite often does so in a manner that involves all players (Second Sunrise, Open the Vaults) and red... usually gets the short end of the stick.

Anyhow, that is really just all about mechanics, but I think it would be more important for people to understand "color identity", which more involves how each "color" thinks, and what their goal is, rather than discussing what their mechanical functions are.

To help with that, I'm gonna post 5 links that are somewhat in-depth and probably more important to you if you are trying to create MtG cards, but they could still be useful to you.

The Great White Way by Mark Rosewater
True Blue by Mark Rosewater
In the Black by Mark Rosewater
Seeing Red by Mark Rosewater
It's Not Easy Being Green by Mark Rosewater

Also, as a small summary of the above, I'm going to leave the following here:

[Drasha]

Mishra rather un polished but i am relatively happy with it.

[Drasha]

Mishra rather un polished but i am relatively happy with it.

[Pocks]

Here's mine.. Actually it's my brother's idea, since he's into MtG stuff and I got way over it long before. Still, it's nice to see contests like this one ( too bad I missed the WoW theme, I had like 2 heroes per class ( )

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...d.php?t=384103

Based it on three "copying" cards.

EDIT: Can I post more than 1 hero idea?

[[IaF]Skyve]

Yes, you can post more than 1.