Touhou: the Gathering - Legends of an Eastern Wonderland (Magic set)

[KennyMan666]

As some of you may know from the IRC channel, for quite some time, I have been working on a Touhou set for Magic: the Gathering, made in the little program Magic Set Editor.

It's not actually done yet.

The whole set, so to speak, isn't getting a "release" just yet - but I told myself when Double Dealing Character came out:

"Self, once you have made cards for the Double Dealing Character characters, it's time to do a preview release teaser thing for it."

That preview release teaser thing is this topic.

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So. As noted in the title of the topic, I have chosen to dub the set Legends of an Eastern Wonderland, abbreviated to LEW. The set symbol is, unsurprisingly, the kanji for east. Had I thought of it when I started making it, I would have split it into three sets to give it a proper block format, but as it is right now, I can't find any good way to make that happen - the three sets, in that case, would have been named Legends of an Eastern Wonderland, Forgotten Dreamscape and Conflict of Faith. Roughly, LEW would have been primarily EoSD up to and including PoFV, FD would have been mostly PC98 and Conflict of Faith would have been MoF onwards.

Anyway.

Today we're going to take a look at the core mechanics of the set. As Touhou is about a lot of named characters, every named character is, as appropriate for Magic, a Legendary Creature. With the recent update to the Legend rule (for those of you who have missed this, the Legend rule now only comes into play on your side of the battlefield, so while you can only have one instance of the same named Legendary Creature or Planeswalker, any of your opponents can also have one), this makes it slightly less bad, but as it's Touhou, one of the design ideas was to have fewer but stronger creatures to use. Each colour has, however, one non-legendary creature, just because.

The three new keywords that a lot of the set is based around is what could be called the "spell trio" of keywords - things that come into play for nearly all card types. Let's go through them in the order they were conceived.

Casting your spells
First up was the simple Spellcard mechanic, which goes on every single instant and sorcery in the set. It simply reads "Spellcard <number>", and is an alternate casting cost - the full reminder text for the mechanic is "You may discard <number> card(s) instead of paying this card?s mana cost. If you do, exile it as it resolves."
As an example card, I have chosen Land Sign "Three Sacred Treasures":

(All images are clickable for the full size image, images in this thread are 75% size because they're too big otherwise. Yes, spell names are going to get even sillier. I use the pre-8th Edition style card template, purely because I prefer it to the modern design.)
What Spellcard lets you do is twofold: First, it lets you play spells that are vastly off-colour if you so wish, and it also lets you cast more spells even though you have to discard cards to do it. That's not where it ends - but more on it will come later. Instead, let's move over to creatures.

Buffing your dudes
Early in the design of the set, I was using random non-evergreen keywords on various characters for no other reason than that I thought they fit. I gave Kyouko Echo, Yuugi Rampage, and various other stuff I've thankfully forgotten. This wasn't good design, and eventually a keyword was crafted that not only gave me some opportunities to redesign away a lot of those one-offs, the creation of this keyword I've since come to view as the pivotal moment when the set really started coming together. Since Touhous should have a magic field around them to power them up, Spell circle was made. Okay, specifically, it's not a keyword but an ability word, and it's to do with auras. The general wording is "Spell circle ? [effect] if enchanted with two or more auras." There's some variations on how it's worded to make it make sense with the ability.
Have Rengeteki as an example:

(Yes, fan nicknames have been used. You may look at me disapprovingly for this.)
In regular Magic, it would often be considered too much of a risk to enchant a single creature with multiple auras. I'm trying to balance this set with itself, and, well, I'm trying to make the Spell circle effects attractive enough for people to actually want to use them. A thing I haven't done yet, however, that is desperately needed to push Spell circle more, is create enough auras to make it feasible. That is, however, the next part of the plan. Speaking of auras...

Synergizing your effects
I'm not sure where I came up with this, but I realized that if I want auras to be good, I should do something more with them. Enter Spellbind, the mechanic to tie Spellcard and Spell circle together. Invoked as "Spellbind <cost>", it reads "Whenever you cast a spell by paying its spellcard cost, you may cast this aura from your graveyard for <cost>."
Here demonstrated with the lovely little Poison Sign "Poison Breath":

(this originally used Poisonous and oh god let me forget)
So, if you have the mana for a Spellbind in your hand, but you also want to cast a spell you have, but not enough mana to cast both, you can cast the spell with Spellcard, discard the aura, and pay its Spellbind cost to play it from the graveyard where it now is. Currently, the cost of Spellbind is standardized to be two mana higher than the regular casting cost of the aura. I'm not sure if this is proper, and I'm very open to suggestions about it.

Oh yeah, suggestions.

That's one of the reasons I'm posting this topic. I want, in this supposedly final part of the design process as I consider myself to hve the primary mechanics of the set and colours all locked down, feedback and suggestions to really tie it together. A thing I freely admit to being terrible at is costing cards so feel free to jump on me immediately if you see any of that. Also mistakes in wording.

Now, another central theme of the set is one you might have noticed on Rengeteki up there. Her type - Youkai Demon. Almost all creatures in the set have the supertype Human or Youkai. While this was originally meant to have more of an impact on the card design than it ended up having in its current form, it's not going anywhere.

There's a handful of non-evergreen keywords that have been reused for this set, but there's way fewer of them than there was in the early "throw mechanics at the wall and see what sticks" design process. A few new creature types have been introduced, and a few that used to be actual types in Magic but no longer are have been reclaimed.

But more on all of that stuff when we get to it. Tune in tomorrow when we take a look at the white keyword and planeswalker (feel free to theorize who it is! I'm not going to reply either positively or negatively to any guesses, but if you get it right you can feel smart), introduce the cycles of the set and take a look at a handful of other notable white cards!

[sol35]

HMM.. This is a rather interesting idea or it is to me as a magic player, how many cards will be in the entire thing or how many do you plan for there to be?

[KennyMan666]

It's impossible for me to say how many cards I've planned for it to be, at one point during the design cycle I intended for it to have as many cards as a large Magic set, but that idea is long dead. As you can see from the numbers, there's currently 258 cards in it, though that includes basic lands, each type having two different pictures. While I've made cards for all characters, as long as there's spellcards left to make cards of, I have potential to make more instants, sorceries and auras (even that's not completely accurate as I've "made up" some spellcards, though that's generally just coming up with appropriate names for things from PC98), and there's a host of things I can make more artifacts from.

With the amount of auras I know I need to make and the amount of spells I'm probably going to want to make, I can see this pushing 300 cards easily in the end.

[sol35]

I see, well your ideas for it look good for me, i messed around a little in magic set editor, but never got anywhere but making cards that were fun to look at but were really dickish to use.

[Starxsword]

Here's some input, as someone who plays magic.

I have chosen Land Sign "Three Sacred Treasures":

This card is really strong. It needs to be at least Mythic if that is the case. It is pretty much a 0 to cast drop 2 cards to draw 3 cards. You are getting a free cycle 3 cards. This card is on the same power level as Black Lotus, Time Walk, and the like.

Have Rengeteki as an example:

For this card, if you want to encourage Spell Circle, you should drop the requirement to 1 aura. The effect is mediocre and having 2 auras is very tough on a creature. But since this card is a common, that is fine. Just don't expect this creature to ever have auras on her.

Here demonstrated with the lovely little Poison Sign "Poison Breath":

Mana cost is prohibitive with mediocre effects. It is already fairly tough casting the Spell card and to force the player to cast the spell card and aura at the same time is harsh. For comparison, think of it like this, if you were to cast "Three Sacred Treasures" and "Poison Breath", that is 9 mana. Of course, this is just because of the cards shown right now, if there were lower cost Spell card cards, then that may more sense.
You can make the weaker aura effects have Spell Bind 1, for +1 mana cost. This aura should be 1B(1 colorless 1 black) or just (B) for the effect. You can do something like Spell Bind <number> and that is the increase in cost. For this card, it should just be +1 to cost. So, 2B or 1B, depending on how you want the card's original cost, to cast from grave with Spell Card.
For comparison, Rancor, G(1 green), +2/+0 aura that gives trample and returns to hand if it goes to graveyard from play. Just note that weak auras will never be played. Stuff like Holy Strength(+1/+2), Holy Armor(+0/+X I think), they never see the light of day, because they are crap.

[KennyMan666]

Starxsword: I appreciate your input and will consider things! Reducing the cost of Spellbind is very likely going to be a thing that'll happen, I'm even considering simply making Spellbind be "Whenever you cast a spell by paying its spellcard cost, you may cast this aura from your graveyard." Note that rarities on cards have rarely been given a ton of thought, and as this set is pretty much never going to be played in a format where they actually matter, I'm not sure how much it'll matter. Land Sign was born early in the design process through the suggestion of an IRC friend who's an avid Magic player, but getting multiple differing opinions on the same card is not a bad thing! Keep it coming. Note, also, that I'm not trying to balance this set with the rest of Magic, I'm mostly trying to balance it with regards to itself.

Anyway.

Yesterday, I introduced the set. Today, we start getting into the finer details of it all - one colour at a time. So let's follow the colour wheel we all know and love!

White - the colour of purity
Today, we're going to look at the White design of the set. In Magic, white represents mostly good, but sometimes it's good going to far. It's lifegain, protection, vigilance, exiling, pacifying. So how do we apply this to Touhou? Well, not very hard. While Rengeteki above was made up, it's a simple demonstration.

Might as well get it over with
Unsurprisingly, the primary hero of the Touhou Project is a white creature. So, without further ado, feast your eyes upon the Magic rendition of Reimu Hakurei:

Yep, that's Fantasy Heaven. Having the possibility to make Reimu into something really strong just felt right.

Staying alive
For this set, I ended up designing one primary keyword for each colour, each one also extending slightly into one other colour. The white one is, at this point in time, probably the most underutilized one, as only a total of 8 cards have anything to do with it at all. It was one of the earliest conceived, and started out as something else - at first, it was called Revive, and would make creatures with it bounce back to the battlefield even from the graveyard. This was eventually realized to be completely stupid, and was reworked into Immortal - and I'm sure you can see where this is going. Making use of the classic Regenerate ability, it reads "If this creature would be dealt damage, regenerate it."
Who better to demonstrate it than the Eientei duo:

Lunarians are considered Human for this set, as they simply are humans from the moon. Now, I said that each keyword stretched somewhat into a second colour. Somewhat unsurprisingly, given who else is immortal and what colour she has to be, Immortal also moves into the territory of red, and I'm sure you know who comes next:

While red creatures can have Immortal, it can't be given to other creatures via red. White, however, doesn't have that problem, and can make Immortal things of any colour. One person in particular can make things of any colour but white Immortal:

With what has been said about auras eaerlier, of course there's a simple Immortal-granting aura, courtesy of Eirin:

There's two cards having to do with Immortal we won't look at right now. One more, however, is coming right up...

Not only Legends
So, almost every creature in the set is Legendary. But, as previously mentioned, there's exceptions. One non-Legendary, shall I say, "core creature" for each colour exists, and the white one gets in on the Immortal action.
Here's a cute little Sunflower Fairy:

What you might notice is that she's not flying. At one part of the design process, she were, but in the end I wanted to standardize them to be 1/1 creatures for C with one ability.

Everybody loves cycles
The "core creatures" I'm not sure I want to call a cycle, but there's no fewer than six proper cycles going on here - but only four of them are monocoloured spells or creatures, so the last two will be a surprise for later. And while we're talking about fairies, why not move right onto the first creature cycle, the fairy cycle. Five flying 1/1 creatures for 1C, that for 2C and an untap do things to annoy people, as Touhou fairies are wont to do.
The white fairy, obviously, is Sunny Milk:


The next creature cycle is what I call the pseudo-spellshaper cycle. For those of you who wondered what would became of the other shrine maiden, here's good news for you!
Resident Good Girl is of course white, Sanae Kochiya:

Now, they wouldn't be spellshapers if they didn't have spells to shape, so...

If this looks familiar to you, there's a reason for that - it's Indestructible Aura.

Continuing on with the cycles, this next one went through a bit of a redesign. Originally, the five of them used different mechanics to invoke the second ability they all have, a returning ability that's one of my favourite Magic abilities. The cycle in question I am calling the wizard instants.
First off we have what originally used Chroma, Earth Sign "Rage Trilithon":

That's right, proliferation! Them being Tribal and Wizard will be revisited later, but this is them - instants for CC, Spellcard 1, doing something colour-appropriate and letting you proliferate if you Spellcard cast them. It's also the first instance of how I've had to align elements to the colours, but earth being white isn't the weirdest one. Given that three of the others are pretty obvious, I'm sure you can see what that one is!

The fourth and final cycle for today introduces not only the first card of its cycle, but also the first card of its particular type we're going to see - the global enchantments. Or, as they're apparently called now, "non-Aura enchantments". The cycle is the divine treasure cycle, so we're going to see a certain someone again.
The white one is unsurprisingly Divine Treasure "Life Spring Infinity":

So, five divine treasures, enchantments that all have you pick a colour during your upkeep that'll last until your next upkeep and causing colour-appropriate effects when colour-appropriate things happen during that time.

The thing no white can be without
If there's one creature type that's never going to disappear from the white part of Magic, it's the Angels. So, of course, they're featured here as well, on two cards: One old character and one new character, with some proper power for being angels.

(actually, Sariel might be overcosted. Huh.)

Walking the plains planes
So, one thing I'll readily admit: I like Planeswalkers. I like them perhaps a bit too much. Each colour has one and it doesn't end there, but I'm going to let you disapprove of that later. First, we're going to introduce the white Planeswalker of Touhou. For Planeswalkers, there's not a ton of options for each colour, and white has perhaps the least possible amount to pick from. But, for full surprise, I'm putting the link in a spoiler. So you can ponder it for a little first.

Done?

Good.

INTRODUCING:

Spoiler:

The Saintly White Planeswalker - Byakuren Hijiri

(I have no idea why that one period is hanging like that there's no space there)

White. And fitting.

And that's all for today! Well, going to show off one more card as today's parting gift.


Bro Fist.

Tomorrow: Time Magic! Counterspells! Control! And everything else that's blue.

[achicken]

...Do you know how crazy imba the humble Sunflower Fairy is?

I know there are cards that go Bury and Exile, and you can kill it with a -1/-1 counter, but the last time there was a 1/1 "Immortal" of this level at only 1 casting cost, we had Mother of Runes (T: target critter gains protection from chosen color). And the Sunflower, aside from the fact that its ability only benefits itself, is a lot more resiliant than the MOR. It doesn't even need to tap. <_<'

(For reference, Green and Black cheap regenerators either cost 2 and/or require you to pay in blood or mana. )

[Yukarin]

What achicken said.

A 1cmc 1/1 that doesn't die (unless exiled) is insanely powerful and is a great candidate for auras.

Also Rage Trilithon is really powerful. It's like silence, but better imo because you can discard a spellbind, then cast that spellbind to enchant a creature you control with something like Game of Life.

This set is hella powerful.

[TwilightsCall]

This seems like a really cool idea, and I do like it, so I would ask that you don't take the following criticisms too badly :x

I'll give you a card-by-card breakdown of my impressions:


Land Sign: Three Sacred Treasure
This card is absurdly powerful. I know playing off colour is what you wanted, but as long as you don't mind this card being a minimum of three in every single deck...the mana cost is reasonable, but the Spellcard cost is just way too good.

Rengeteki
I...suppose it's alright, for a one drop.  Don't expect anyone to actually try putting auras on her though.

Poison Sign: Poison Breath
Ok, I can appreciate this card.  However Spellbind I find is pretty expensive.  The effect is pretty good for its cost of BB, but 2BB? That's pushing it.  (Now, if it gave infect, I could see myself playing this card for 4.)  I like what you tried to do here though, and I'll talk more about my opinion on your keywords at the end.

Reimu Hakurei
I don't know why protection from black.  It seems like Protection from Youkai is more appropriate, but depending on how you built the set, that might be too overpowered...maybe protection from black is okay after all.   Orb counters, okay.  The ability they grant is kind of depressing though.  Unless you're set is drowning in proliferate, this is going to be a really hard ability to activate, and a rather meh ability that takes seven turns to pull off each time is just not worth it imo.  I would probably change this to "As long as this card has 7 or more orb counters on it, it gets +7/+7 and Shroud."  That ability is considerably stronger, which I think is appropriate considering the effort it takes to activate it.  My instinct also tells me to make this 2W and make her a 2/2, but take from that what you will.

Kaguya Houraisan
As this card is, I probably wouldn't play it.  It's effect is too hard to activate, and its P/T too low to motivate me to play it without trying for her ability.  I also really dislike the Immortal keyword, but I'll talk about that later, as I will talk about Spell Circle.

Eirin Yagokoro
This is a much better card than Kaguya.  In fact, I could see this making a rare slot in a normal magic set without that immortal ability.  With it, it is just too influential on the battlefield.  I just don't think it's a justified amount of power.  Hopefully I"ll have coherent thoughts by the end of this post as to what I think should be done to Immortal, that might make these cards more balanced.

Fujiwara no Mokou
Eh.  More Immortal and Spell Circle hate, don't mind me.  I'd probably change her to a 3/1 Haste for 2R and then rework her other abilities to fit, but that's just a design choice, not really a valid criticism of the present card!

Seiga Kaku
I don't know why this card is white.  I would 100% have rolled Black for Seiga, and made her more like a reanimator than an immortal-giver.  Also more Immortal hate.  I bet you're really looking forward to when I actually talk about that ability, huh?

Revival: Game of Life
You're probably getting tired of me saying this, so I'll stop for now.  Again though, Spellbind cost is prohibitively high, consider retooling it somehow/reducing the cost.

Sunflower Fairy
This card is absurdly strong.  More Immortal hate.

Sunny Milk
I...actually don't mind this card.  The ability cost is a little high, but that's probably appropriate.  My only concern would be with the fact that as soon as your opponent has a flyer with 2 toughness, you suddenly can't use her ability anymore.  Shucks.

Sanae Kochiya
Another strange colour choice imo.  Sanae has a very blue feel to me, though I could see her in green as well.  Naturally, her ability would need to change to match her new colour.

Miracle: Miracle Fruit
Okay.  I find it hard to believe I'd ever cast it by it's Spell Card cost, but I suppose it would be nice to have in a pinch.  I would probably make this cost 1W though, just because preventing damage it takes without preventing damage it deals can turn the flow of an entire game by itself.

Earth Sign: Rage Trilithon
This feels like a very blue spell to me.  I would probably change it to 'creatures can't attack' or something if you wanted to keep it in white, but it's not that big a deal.

Divine Treasure "Life Spring of Infinity"
First, I would change this card's name to Divine Treasure: Spring of Life.  Other then that, it's alright, but I feel like it's effect would be underutilized in almost every situation it's played in.  Maybe bump the cost to 3WW and make the effect something like 'creatures of the chosen colour you control gain lifelink' would be much more appealing.

Sariel
Kinda pricy, but pretty good, so I suppose that's okay.  I would make her 6/4 for 4WW though.

Tenshi Hinanawi
Depending on how you've built the set, protection from Youkai has the potential to be way too strong.  Otherwise, I'd make her a 4/5.  Just imo.

Byakuren Hijiri
I don't like planeswalkers.  Like, I really don't like planeswalkers, but I will do my best to give this card a fair shot.  Basically, I think it's +1 is too good, and its -2 isn't good enough.  I would probably rework her abilities something like this, just for use as a reference:
+1 - Target creature gets +0/+10 until end of turn.
-2 - Creatures you control get protection from the colour of your choice until end of turn.
-7 - You get an emblem with "Prevent all damage to creatures you control."

Unzan
Well.  Okay.  I'd go 4W and make him a 5/3 though.


Okay that's it for card-specific opinions, let's take a look at abilities.

Spell Card
This has the potential to be really strong, and as is the case with Three Sacred Treasures, makes otherwise okay cards brokenly overpowered.  That being said, despite being 'free' manawise, the cost is still pretty hefty, and unless you have a lot of hand-filling effects it won't take you very far if you try to rely on it.  All in all, thumbs up!

Spell Circle
Not good enough.  I understand you were trying to encourage the use of Auras, but what this really does is artificially bump the cost of some creatures up without giving them meaningful effects in return, in exchange for making a few other cards way too strong - assuming you've given anyone a Spell Circle ability that matters.  Kaguya's is alright, but I still wouldn't expect it to come into effect more than once in...5 to 10 matches.  Honestly, this needs to be relaxed somewhat if you want it to see relevant play.  I would probably do something like, 'If this creature is enchanted, X.'  Alternatively, you could do something interesting like 'If you control 2 or more auras, X.'  That way you still need two auras, adding a bit of an obstacle, but suddenly once you have it everything activates.  I personally like the second option, but both of them are a lot more palatable than the current.

Spell Bind
This is an okay ability, but the cost is prohibitively high.  I would probably make the spellbind cost actually cheaper than the CC, and then change the effect so that you play Spell Bind cards as they are discarded for a Spell Card, rather than arbitrarily from the grave at any time when you play unrelated spell cards.  It makes it dangerously close to Madness as an ability, but I think it's forgiveable.  Also, I don't know the set obviously, but if you haven't I would consider making cards that get bonus effects when you Spellbind them.  It can change a card with Spellbind from being a set-filler to being a powerful staple depending on the effects you give.

Immortal
....oh boy.  I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  I absolutely hate this ability.  It is almost exactly just indestructible, the only difference being your creature gets tapped whenever it would die.  Oh, and depending on your regenerate-blocking in the set, it might be a little bit easier to get around.  Either way, in my opinion it adds too much of a layer of ridiculously unnecessary power to cards that have it.  Again, I can't say too much about the overall set since I haven't seen it, but let me use an example with standard magic.  Imagine I'm playing white, green, or red.  Suddenly, my opponent plays Eirin.  Even if I destroy all their lands by some miracle in order to stop them from ever activating her ability, there is still virtually zero ways for me to ever deal with her.  I'll have a 5/4 breathing down my neck for the rest of the game, no matter how many times I blow it up, because she's decided she doesn't want to die.  Okay, I can dig into an oblivion ring maybe, or some other exile card from white.  I can't think of a single red card that actually deals with Immortal, which  means any answers are probably going to be very niche and hard to justify being in the deck at all, let alone in enough volume to deal with it.  Green?  I guess my only recourse is to trample over it.  I sure hope they don't play more than one of them though, especially since Eirin alone can probably race me to end-game.

Basically, it's a ridiculously strong, no-penalty ability that can only be dealt with by a vanishingly small number of answer cards.  No, you won't win the game instantly from playing Eirin or Kaguya, but it'll be pretty hard to lose.  Even just that sunflower fairy is going to basically thwart any attempt to inflict damage that doesn't fly or trample.  Killing them once to tap them so you can attack through is not a sustainable strategy either - they have a LOT more free regenerates than you have kill spells to tap them with.  Yes, I understand this ability isn't so overpowerdly broken as I make it sound, and it's not like there is never any way to ever deal with cards that have it.  Yes, I realize indestructible, which is the same thing but better, already exists.  But there is a reason indestructible is a rare ability, and is rarely couple with any other form of ability.

I would definitely tone this ability way down if I were you.  Change it to like, "When this creature dies, you may pay 2C.  If you do, return it to the battlefield under your control at the beginning of your next upkeep.  It gains haste until end of turn."  Where C is it's colour obviously.  Another option, if you still wanted Sunflower Fairy to not be awful, is to make the immortal cost the same as the CC, but then cards like Eirin and Kaguya will never come back.

Another option is to do something like the following:  "Whenever this creature would die, put a death counter on it.  Then, you may pay 2/1C/whatever for each death counter on it.  If you do, regenerate it.  If you do not, exile it instead of putting it into it's owner's graveyard."  This makes killing the creature repeatedly actually net some returns for the player who has to fight against it, and also will make the player who owns the card think twice before just going 'oh okay I'll just let it die' thanks to the fact there are no reanimation options for them.



I might have more comments about this later, and the rest of the set in general (especially as you post new cards!), but for now I have to go to school, so I'll leave this here for today.  All in all, I like the concept, and with a little work I think this has the potential to become a lot of fun.  Try not to let my criticisms get you too down, especially since most are rooted entirely in my opinions, though admittedly opinions formed from playing magic for 10 years.

Anyways, keep up the good work!

Edit: Fixed some grammar lol

[JmLyan]

Earth Sign: Rage Trilithon
This feels like a very blue spell to me.  I would probably change it to 'creatures can't attack' or something if you wanted to keep it in white, but it's not that big a deal.

Preventing players from casting spells is actually white: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370578.

[TwilightsCall]

Preventing players from casting spells is actually white: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370578.

Yeah, I suppose I should have elaborated on that further.  I don't mean that it's 'not a white ability,' as it...is...a white ability (see also Orim's Chant and I'm sure a plethora of other cards), but all in all it's the kind of trickery I'm used to seeing in blue.  Blocking opponent's actions is something that blue and white like to share, but doing so via paying alternate costs while your mana is all tapped and then proliferating as a bonus seems much more blue than white to me.

That being said, there's no problem leaving it the way it is.  That's just my gut feeling on the card!

[KennyMan666]

Trust me, the colour pie is mostly strongly adhered to. I learned to not blatantly break it after we, a number of years back on another forum, did a draft with custom cards we had made.

Anyway.

Sunflower Fairy insanely broken as it is, got it. It's no longer Immortal but Flying. On that note, any cards that have already been posted and gets updated won't be reuploaded during this preview. Any spell names are directly copied from the English translations of the names on the wiki, the majority of them from Grimoire of Marisa.

It's highly unlikely any characters will change colours. Especially those that are part of a cycle. Seiga... I can see why she'd be considered black, but except for Yoshika, the whole Taoist crew has landed in white. White is still the most underrepresented colour cardwise and black is second only to blue for most represented, so I have a hard time justifying moving characters away from it, especially to black. Seiga was made before she in-story broke with the rest of the gang, but even so. I originally tried hard to make something with her ability to go through walls, but there was literally no way of doing that that wasn't both retarded and would put her in another colour. Sanae is the only character of the Moriya posse that's white, but she's a shrine maiden. Eh. She's white enough.

If the set is hella powerful, that's fine. While, of course, everyone including myself are going to compare it in power to what already exists in Magic, I've tried to design with the intent that cards from this set will really only ever be played together with and against cards from this set. So what seems overpowered now might seem less overpowered in comparison to the rest of the set, assuming I've hit generally the same level of overpowered in all colours. This does not mean I don't want comments based on comparing it to what already exists. Quite the opposite, I want all possible kinds of comments you lot might have on every card that I post. That's, y'know, why I posted it here.

Now, about that comment about Poison Breath giving infect... Infect was, once upon a time, a keyword I used in the set. Wither as well. They were both designed (together with Poisonous because seriously fuck Poisonous) away when I decided I'd follow the actual Magic design rule of not having +1/+1 and -1/-1 counters in the same set, and what I had done with +1/+1 counters I liked better than what I had done with -1/-1 counters. Thus, this set does not feature -1/-1 counters. There's other ways to weaken creatures, but they're rarely permanent.

Speaking of counters, as for proliferation... while doing it is kind of prohibitive, once you have four mana and one orb on Reimu, you can probably get it active in... two turns, with the right cards. Maybe she should enter the battlefield with one counter. With the right setup, even though it's mostly an utterly retarded setup, you could then get it active the turn after she comes into play. I'll admit, though, that Reimu was an early designed card. She might actually be in need of a general reworking. She does have that ability to float out of reality and be untouchable, so maybe she should have Spell circle - Reimu Hakurei has protection from everything if enchanted with two or more auras. Or maybe she shouldn't.

And then there's Immortal.

It's a strong ability and I'm not sure if there's currently enough ways in the set to deal with it. Searching for "exile" in MSE is annoying because it finds every card with Spellcard as well, and every card with two of the OTHER upcoming new mechanics that also involve exile. Perhaps a fix, if it's too powerful, could be to change it to only come into effect on combat damage, or only during your turn/only during not your turn.

And then there's Spellbind!

The prevailing opinion seems to be that Spellbind is way too prohibitively expensive as it is. I don't disagree. This probably comes from my current cost standardization of it. So, there's some options here. Either simply make it so that you can cast it for its regular cost when you Spellcard cast something, or work different costs for different auras, or let you spellbind automatically when discarding them to Spellcard cast something. Perhaps tie it to colours, so if you discard an aura of a colour to Spellcard cast a spell sharing a colour with it, you may for free enchant it to a creature also sharing a colour with it. I don't know how I'd word that in a sane way, though. I like Spellbind, but I'm not married to the current workings of it. Spell circle... I really like as a concept. The set at the moment does not have nearly enough auras to justify it, but that's going to change. It currently exists on 32 cards, more might get it. It could probably get more useful roundaboutedly by simply making Spellbind better, so you'd actually want to do the dance of Spellcarding something so you can Spellbind another aura onto something to activate its Spell circle.

So, Byakuren. An ability too strong and an ability too weak? Actually, that may be me wording it wrong. The intention of the first ability is to give protection from one colour. Perhaps that really does need to read "the color of your choice" - I had in my mind that "protection from any color" was distinct from "protection from all colors".

Whelp.

Miracle Fruit is W since it's practically a reprint of Indestructible Aura that's also W. And if it's going to change, so is Sanae's ability since the entire point of the card was to make a spell to duplicate the effect caused by using her spellshaper thing.

So that was a series of disjoined comments I should probably follow up on once I'm not tired as shit.

[achicken]

Kenny, were you the one who designed the set at http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=282458? (username kilvoctu)?

And then there's Immortal.

It's a strong ability and I'm not sure if there's currently enough ways in the set to deal with it. Searching for "exile" in MSE is annoying because it finds every card with Spellcard as well, and every card with two of the OTHER upcoming new mechanics that also involve exile. Perhaps a fix, if it's too powerful, could be to change it to only come into effect on combat damage, or only during your turn/only during not your turn.

To me, Immortal is just a reworded Regenerate. The equivalent ability is 0: Regenerate.
Balancing it is simple.  Give it an activation cost. If you want, add a Tap requirement so it can only be used once (because regenerating naturally taps the creature). And, bump the casting cost, so perhaps the humble Sunflower Fairly costs WW or 1W.

Regenerate is an unusual ability in White (it's prevalent in Green and Black)  but personally I don't pay attention to which abilities belong to which color. 

I've seen a hell lot worse (Indestructable, "Cannot be the target of spells or abilities"), mitigated by the fact that the casting cost is more than 1, or they have the keyword Legend.

PS:
If your goal is "interesting effects", then there are other alternatives like "if this card would be sent to the graveyard from play, instead return it to owner's hand/shuffle into deck". This ability is still rather strong, but mitigated by the fact that its easier to bypass that effect.

[Starxsword]

Also Rage Trilithon is really powerful. It's like silence, but better imo because you can discard a spellbind, then cast that spellbind to enchant a creature you control with something like Game of Life.

Uh, no. Rage Trilithon is not as powerful as you would believe. This card can't be used to counter, nor can it stop instants or flash.

I can't think of a single red card that actually deals with Immortal, which  means any answers are probably going to be very niche and hard to justify being in the deck at all, let alone in enough volume to deal with it.

Incinerate to name at least one, and there are a bunch. It won't deal with 4 toughness, but you get the idea. I am of the opinion that it really depends on the set. I would like Kaguya and Mokou to be Immortal, because that is their trait. Probably not the other characters though. Indestructible, a better trait can be found on "creatures" of similar casting cost, so I am fine as it is.
I rather see Kaguya have split second over flash though. And her abilities, if she has any, should also be split second. So, she can't be interrupted.

I do agree that Seiga should not be white. Blue or Black, but not white. There are other Touhous that fit much better than Seiga.

[KennyMan666]

achicken: No. This is my first and only Touhou Magic set, apart from three cards I made for that aforementioned custom draft (which were Unzan, like this Unzan except it could block, Unnamed Giant Catfish, which I've forgotten what it did, and Keine, a flip card. This set's Keine is... different.)

Immortal is a variation on regenerate, and giving it an activation cost makes it literally regenerate. It's supposed to be a regenerate variant, because that's how their immortality works (okay, strictly put, they straight up revive after being killed and regeneration under the current rules never has the creature touch the graveyard, but...). There are ways to deal with Immortal in the set, and since it only triggers on damage, things that say "destroy" goes through it - so, theoretically, you could Dreadbore any of them for two mana. Does it still need a fix? Rather than complicate it with death counters and activation costs and whatnot, I'd rather simply make it "combat damage" rather than "damage", but that might make it too weak.

Thing that should probably be mentioned is that by and large, I slightly prioritize flavour over mechanics. Apparently everyone disagrees with me that Seiga is white when it comes to that, but white isn't necessarily good. I'm not sure what Seiga would do in other colours and at this point in time I really don't want to un-white something that's white. We'll see what happens once I have the set more filled up with things so white doesn't have the least amount of cards.

Split second on Kaguya rather than Flash... I don't know. Kaguya has manipulation of the instantenous, so letting her give the capability of having everything be, well, instants, seems like it fits better to me. Split second appears with other flavours in the set and we'll see some of that later today.

On that note, flavour text thing: As you may or may not have noticed by now, flavour text on creatures are mostly quotes said by characters that aren't the character the card represents. I try to go for descriptive quotes, and I'll freely admit I don't always succeed. Sometimes I make up flavour text.

Anyway.

While I found a good quote for Kasen in the first chapter of WaHH, it's a sad truth that I rarely actually read the print works. Therefore, if anyone has any good suggestions for quotes to use as flavour text on Watatsuki no Toyohime, Watatsuki no Yorihime and Kosuzu Motoori, feel free to post them here.

[achicken]

Immortal is a variation on regenerate, and giving it an activation cost makes it literally regenerate. It's supposed to be a regenerate variant, because that's how their immortality works (okay, strictly put, they straight up revive after being killed and regeneration under the current rules never has the creature touch the graveyard, but...). There are ways to deal with Immortal in the set, and since it only triggers on damage, things that say "destroy" goes through it - so, theoretically, you could Dreadbore any of them for two mana. Does it still need a fix? Rather than complicate it with death counters and activation costs and whatnot, I'd rather simply make it "combat damage" rather than "damage", but that might make it too weak.

Immortal itself doesn't need a fix, just as much as Indestructable doesn't.

But... I think may be undervaluing Immortal in your builds. It's not game breakingly powerful, just too useful for the value you seem to have assigned it. Keep that in mind when you're constructing cards. Here I have no issues with Kaggy, Eirin and Mokou receiving Immortal (except for Eirin not having taken the Elixir...), just with the Fairy.

Dream Thrush, 2 mana for 1/1 flying with a neat special, is considered uncommonly good because of its special. The special isn't game breaking, it just has unintended side effects that prove useful to Blue.

PS:
- It's fine to attach a name to a known mechanic (done for "Doesn't tap to attack" and "Can attack the turn it enters play").
- It's fine to change the name of a known mechanic (done for the Three Kingdoms amatuer expansion. Flying is Horseback in that. Except horseback isn't flying, so shenanigans if you're trying to use R3K cards in the standard sets)

[KennyMan666]

Well then. Today we move into the coloSURPRISE


Goddamnit Kogasa go away

But indeed.

Blue - the colour of deceit
Also known as "the colour of bullshit". In Magic, blue is about, well, magic, but certain specific breeds of magic. Gaining knowledge. Stopping the magic of others. Taking control of things. In Touhou, there's a LOT to be done with this.

As promised
Time Magic!


Counterspells!

(Ancient Duper's nickname is "better than Cancel")

Control!


And everything else that's blue.


Spellcasting for great justice
This card serves both to introduce the, so to speak, "main" blue character and the blue keyword - Declare. A bit of a variant on Imprint and Cipher, it goes on creatures and reads "T, exile an instant or sorcery card from your hand: Whenever this creature attacks or blocks, you may cast a copy of the exiled card as if it were in your hand. Declare only as a sorcery." So it's the first straight up trying to Magic-ify an existing Touhou gameplay mechanic ability.
So, just as scheduled, Sakuya Izayoi:

Some other notable declarers:

(idk about the cost of Yumemi's ability)
As previously mentioned, the keywords extend into another colour. For Declare, it goes into green, here demonstrated by someone... unexpected.


Like a shooting star
Core creature? Core creature.


Back to the cycles
Alright. We have regular business to attend to.
First of all, surprising exactly noone at all, the blue representant for the fairies is Cirno:

(she originally was a bit different, but was modified to fit the rest of the fairies better. Once upon a time she also had a picture that made her look badass and I'm sure you understand why that was changed)

Our spellshaper is someone who I'm pretty sure everyone agrees is blue... but I'm guessing most of you was actually guessing she'd be the blue Planeswalker.
Guess again, because our blue spellshaper is Yukari Yakumo:

With, of course, a spell to shape:

(it's Redirect)

Furthermore, the blue wizard instant:

(EVEN MORE COUNTERSPELLS)

And a blue divine treasure:


A scholarly lot
Card drawing and the like is a thing you do when you're blue. So here's a trio of characters that I just like the blueness of.

Hell, have a mouse as well.


Plane and simple
Well, with Yukari no longer an option, there's not a lot of characters left that would do as a blue planeswalker. So this one is probably no great surprise either.

But take a guess anyway.

Alright, that's enough time.

INTRODUCING:

Spoiler:

The Venerable Blue Planeswalker - Kanako Yasaka

Yep.

I didn't post any blue auras because I'm going to look over Spellbind first.

And I think that's all we need to see of blue for noSURPRISE


Getting real tired of your shit, Kogasa.

[TwilightsCall]

There are ways to deal with Immortal in the set, and since it only triggers on damage...

Well, I clearly need to learn to read, because that is no where near as bad as I had thought it was.

In that case, I'll just reiterate what achicken said:  It's fine to give things immortal, just realize that even with the restriction of only triggering on damage, it is a very strong ability.  That needs to be reflected in the cost.  You've already changed the sunflower fairy, and that was the really big issue, so no more problems there.

Considering you've said you are planning on putting Spellcard on every instant and sorcery, I suspect there is going to be some sort of dismember equivalent in the set, ie a black kill spell that goes in every deck whether it's black or not.  I'm not sure how that makes me feel, but I feel like it will go a long way to making Immortal less than a problem if it only triggers off of damage.

Incinerate to name at least one, and there are a bunch.

See, I used to play a fair amount of red when M12 was standard, so missing something like this makes me feel rather silly.  Clearly I'm just not very good at this whole feedback thing.


Fake EDIT: WHOA UPDATE WHILE TYPING here let me give more terrible feedback.

I actually have mostly good things to say this time.  I think the ability you've given for Sakuya's time magic is pretty creative, and I actually really like it, though I'm not 100% sure how much I'd use it.  I think the biggest issue with it is Sakuya's World - this effectively reads 'You may pay U as you play any instant or sorcery. If you don't, delay it until your next upkeep.'  This is actually quite painful for blue, who relies on Instants for much of their pull in a game.  I think it would actually be a really strong and very viable card if you bumped up the cost, and then had it's effects apply to opponent's spells instead of yours.

Killing doll has...a couple options.  I would probably opt to reduce the cost a little bit (2U + Spellcard 1) on the grounds that it only delays the spell, not really hard countering it.  Alternatively have it hard counter the spell.

Ancient Duper is pretty cool, but it kind of obsoletes Winter Sign before I even got to reading it.  I'd reduce the spellcard cost of Winter Sign to 1 to keep it a viable choice.

I don't really understand the motivation behind Ichirin and Kana's abilities, but that's not really a problem with the cards lol.  I would however make Ichirin a 3/2 for 2UU and Kana stay where she is for 2U.  As it is, they aren't that bad though, I just feel like having Ichirin a bit beefier makes sense!

Nazrin Pendulum is fine, though I don't like the mana cost.  I don't know if I'd be able to justify reducing it though lol.  Reading Maribel was a pretty funny experience for me: "Wow, that is a pretty strong effect, I could definitely see myself playing this...wait why am I exiling my enchantments all of the sudden? Oh. Maybe I'm supposed to use her effect on enemy enchantments..."  Regardless, having the exile thing as a may effect is definitely a must.

Sakuya, hmm.  She has a pretty cool ability, though I would touch up the wording to say "...and put X time counters on them" rather than "with X time counters" just because I got confused reading it the first time xD  Otherwise, I think the ability is a biiiit strong for her cost, so I'd probably bump her up to 3UU to balance it a bit, especially considering her P/T.

Declare is an interesting mechanic, and in the span of reading your post I went from thinking it was way too strong to thinking it might be a bit underpowered.  I think right now I like where it is though.  I feel like, as an ability, it really shines on the low-costs like Nitori, so I'd keep that in mind when costing cards - the stronger their own effects are, and the higher their mana costs, the less likely they are to ever use declare - within reason, of course.  Though ironically none of the blue instants/sorceries you've posted would be any good at all with Declare except Nazrin Pendulum and damn would I love a declared Nazrin Pendulum.

I'd reduce Yumemi's ability cost to just U.  Doesn't need to be that expensive.  Reference: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=338452 except that Yumemi is a little more fragile because she's a creature.

Star Fry? I approve.

That's all I have time for now, I'll be back to make comments on the rest of these cards later.  All in all I like this reveal so far!

[achicken]

Cards:
Oh I LOVE Kogasa. She should Surprise only 1 tho. Or make her 1/1 so she can keep her 2 surprises.

Also, Cirno can afford to add the "Tap target creature..." in front of her ability. I don't actually care if it makes her slightly Stronger, because she deserves it. :3

ZA WARULDO: If you want, I suggest making its ability to apply to both players. The cost for adding and removing time counters, make it 1 instead of B, and add a rule saying "you can only pay for your own spells" - something like that. But see my abilities section.

Vision Sign's "Entwine" should be called Kicker. (That's what it is.)

Akyuu: :3
Please exile hand Face Up or her ability won't work. :3

Abilities:
You need to explain the Suspend mechanic. It potentially has problems with instant and sorcery targets (which the other card resolves, but not WARULDO), and it's technically not an advantage at all for the caster. Blue cannot afford to have a mana cost increase to make its counterspells more predictable.

Declare: This ability is too powerful as written and genuinely broken. Once attached, you can now cast a card for NO ADDITIONAL COST after the first payment by a simple attack or block action. When making abilities, think of the worst case scenario, eg Nitori can Time Warp/Walk every turn for 0, Satori can 'Ggedon every turn for 0, etc. I suggest you clone the Isochron Scepter ability instead, even if it allowed instants to be cast at the speed of instants, its a hell lot more balanced because you still have to pay for the spell after you copy it.

[KennyMan666]

Sakuya's World was one of those cards that was born of flavour over mechanics, because it just felt so right to have it and once designed I figured "I'm sure someone will figure out how to pull some shenanigans with this". You could use it to stack up a whole bunch of spells to go off at the same time or something. It also lets you pseudo-flash sorceries during your opponent's turn by suspending one during your turn and removing its time counter during someone else's turn, if you have any good reason to do that.

Perhaps a simple "you may" would be a significant improvement.

Akyuu's ability originally just read "Return target exiled card you own to your hand." I changed it because of Kosuzu's ability. I've always assumed that cards that don't specify if they're exiled face up or down are considered face up, but maybe this isn't the case?

Vision Sign's "Entwine" should be called Kicker.

Nope. Entwine and Kicker are different things.

You need to explain the Suspend mechanic. It potentially has problems with instant and sorcery targets (which the other card resolves, but not WARULDO), and it's technically not an advantage at all for the caster. Blue cannot afford to have a mana cost increase to make its counterspells more predictable.

I generally don't include reminder text for abilities that already exist. Do people really not know how Suspend works? Granted, it's almost always been an alternate casting cost rather than like I'm using it here, but...

Declare: This ability is too powerful as written and genuinely broken. You are now casting a card for NO ADDITIONAL COST after the first payment by a simple attack or block action. When making abilities, think of the worst case scenario, eg Nitori can Time Warp/Walk every turn for 0, Satori can 'Ggedon every turn for 0, etc. I suggest you clone the Isochron Scepter ability instead, even if it allowed instants to be cast at the speed of instants, its a hell lot more balanced because you still have to pay for the spell after you copy it.

Nope, you've misread Declare. It allows you to cast a copy of the exiled spell as if it were in your hand - it does not let you cast a copy for free. You still have to pay the mana or spellcard cost to actually cast the copy.

[achicken]

Akyuu's ability originally just read "Return target exiled card you own to your hand." I changed it because of Kosuzu's ability. I've always assumed that cards that don't specify if they're exiled face up or down are considered face up, but maybe this isn't the case?

Actually I don't know.
Technically yes, because all abilities that exile require you to show the card. My goal here was to make sure the pile of stuff Akyuu throws doesn't get mixed in with the other stuff not exiled by Akyuu.

Of course if you want Akyuu to touch all cards you've exiled over the game, ignore this. :3

Nope, you've misread Declare. It allows you to cast a copy of the exiled spell as if it were in your hand - it does not let you cast a copy for free. You still have to pay the mana or spellcard cost to actually cast the copy.

Ah. Ok then, the ability is fine.

My bad for misinterpreting the "as though it were in your hand" keywords. Came across Psychic Theft with the same keywords and yes it does imply the need to pay the CC. DOH. >_<
 

[KennyMan666]

Of course if you want Akyuu to touch all cards you've exiled over the game, ignore this.

"could remember anything after seeing or hearing it once"

So, yeah, it was intentional. My only issue is that now that Declare (and another thing we'll see later) exists, it might get... weird.

Sakuya's ability and Killing Doll can be good counter-counters given their Split second speed, as if you'd use any of them to exile away a counterspell, they'd have no legal targets when returning to the battlefield and thus fizzle. So there's that.

[Pesco]

I saw Ancient Duper and I just had to post. The card is literally better than Force of Will. That's enough to make me ignore the rest of the posts along the way. Prioritizing flavour is nice but it doesn't make a playable set.

[KennyMan666]

Is Force of Will even considered broken these days? It's not even restricted in Vintage or Legacy...

Ancient Duper was actually designed without prioritizing flavour. I needed a standard blue counterspell, so I hit up Grimoire of Marisa to find a fitting spell card to use for it. Even then, when I say that I've been slightly prioritizing flavour, I mean that I consider myself somewhat better at flavour than mechanics, but I've still done all I can to keep the set properly playable. Getting the cards, mechanics and overall set balanced is why I'm posting this set here and has previously had people I've been playing a bunch of Magic with on LackeyCCG over in another IRC channel look over cards. Land Sign was actually created after a suggestion of a guy who's, if I recall, an actual Magic judge once he learned of the Spellcard mechanic.

I've bumped the Spellcard cost of it up to 3 for now, but it'll be closerly looked at later.

Winter Sign has been lowered to Spellcard 1 which it should have been from the beginning - I think it was Spellcard 2 as a remains from a time when it was a very different card - and Yumemi's ability is now U. The jury is out on making Ichirin and Cirno slightly more powerful.

Ichirin is controlling creatures because it was close enough to how she's in command of Unzan, and Kana is controlling lands because she's a poltergeist and they do shit like that.

[TwilightsCall]

Okay I'm back for more!

Cirno
Yeah, let her tap people too.  You're already paying 3 for the effect, you might as well actually....get an effect!

I chuckled a bit when I saw Yukari typed as a Deity.  Other then that, her and Mesh of Light and Dark seem pretty good to me.  Just having Yukari on the field would put a lot of pressure on someone, especially if they are playing control.  Maybe bump her cost up to 3UU.  I realize that her activation cost is pretty hefty though, so it's not like a do-or-die change.

Princess Undine makes a good match with Winter Sign.  I'm looking forward to seeing what we're going to be proliferating though!

Buddhist Diamond is alright.  I want to suggest that you let it proc off of creature spells as well, but then it feels kind of overkill since its half an Urabrask for 2 mana.  Then I realize that Urabrask costs 4, so it's...half an urabrask for half of urabrask's mana cost...hmm....In conclusion, I think it would be alright, because you have to choose between exploiting your spells or your opponents, and your opponent knows well in advance which is going to be happening.

Akyu...I'm pretty sure any card exiled is face up, unless a card effect specifically tells you to exile it face down.  With that note aside, her, Kosuzu, and Rinnosuke look fine to me.

Nazrin is interesting, but suffers from the same Spell Circle problem as everyone else.  That being said, scry 2 for free every turn is pretty good...

Kanako is...not so fine, imo.  Her +1 is okay, I think it can stay as it is.  Her -X is way too harsh.  Considering some of the minus abilities on planeswalkers nowadays, I think you can just say "-2: Move an aura to another permanent of the same type."  If you're worried it makes it too easy to steal auras from someone, then specify that it only can attach auras to another permanent of the same type with the same controller.

The -8 is, in all honesty, really bad.  Without counting proliferate and mana acceleration, the earliest you could possibly activate this ability is turn 7.  At that point, taking two lands is not going to change a whole lot of anything.  As a planeswalker ultimate, it really needs to change the game.  To compare, here are the other (mono)blue planeswalker ultimates:

-Mill target player for 20
-Any number of players draw 20 cards.
-Search each players library for a nonland card and play it for free.
-Exile target player's library, then shuffle their hand into their library.
-Artifacts you control become 5/5 Artifact Creatures until end of turn.

Now, none of these start at 6 loyalty and end at 8, but all but one of them also cost less than 5.  The comparison might not be particularly fair, being that it's slightly easier to ultimate Kanako then the other guys, barring Tezzeret who makes living artifacts, so you don't need that kind of power, but you definitely need something that makes a stronger impact than just taking two lands.

If you want something controlly, something like "You get an emblem with 'whenever an opponent casts a spell, it's controller may discard a card. If they do not, counter that spell.'"  If you want something that involves lands, "You get an emblem with 'whenever an opponent plays a spell, that player may spend 1 for each coloured mana symbol in it's cost.  If they don't, counter that spell.'"  If you want something that literally deals with lands, "You get an emblem with 'whenever an opponent taps a land for mana, that land doesn't untap during it's controller's next untap step.'"

Those are just some random ideas.  Try and find some inspiration and give her an ultimate that will consistently change the game: Planeswalkers very rarely get to use their ultimates, so when they do, it should have a huge impact.

EDIT: ugh salvaging, cause it posted a chunk of this before I was ready for it to.  Bear with me for a second lol.

[KennyMan666]

Due to A Thing I'm doing with every other creature in the set that's a Deity, which I can't do with Yukari because she's part of the cycle, I'm considering re-typing her to Horror. It's not really anything important, though.

Kanako is the planeswalker I'm the least satisifed at the moment so yeah there was probably going to be reworking anyway. I definitely want her to be able to steal auras, so I'll make that a -2, and the ultimate... yeah, I'll come up with something. Not sure if aiming for Jace power is the way to go though. :V

[achicken]

FOW and Ancient Duper:
FOW is only allowed in Legacy because Legacy has OTK combos present.
To be honest the proposed Discard 3 effect is hard to pay up (even considering Blue). You could make it cost the same as FOW. But...methinks you can get away with making Ancient Duper cost 2UU, because paying Discard 2 (if strict and not payable by an empty hand, like Null Brooch's is...) is harder than paying Discard 1 and 1 life. (Exile doesn't matter, I've never seen anyone "purposely a FOW from the graveyard" anyway.)

Cirno:
Her ability costs too much for what it gives at the moment. Is this par for the course for a Legend? (Then again, Common Legends aren't very, uh, Common.)
I only requested an additional Tap effect, but even after, you probably can get away by lowering its cost to 1U. OR you can go "Tap target creature. As long as Cirno remains tapped..." Edit: and "You may choose not to untap Cirno during your untap phase."  to make the ability worth the cost of 2U.

[SeasideCharizard]

I'm still having a hard time believing that a Cancel that can also be activated by biting well into your current options is even close to the card advantage often gained by use of Force of Will. Discarding 2 immediately comes off as an effect to use sparingly, and like the initial post goes, it may be simply a better Cancel.
...Unless you're running revival.

Also, yeah, after thinking about it, keep Flower Wither Away at 1U.

[KennyMan666]

As Magic players and Wizards learned after Necropotence, one card is worth more than one life point. So discard 2 is a higher cost than discard 1 + pay 1 life. But you probably wouldn't hardcast Force of Will very often, whereas Ancient Duper is simply a Cancel when hardcast. I... don't know. And even then you can stop Ancient Duper with a Princess Undine for one card less. Keep the opinions about it coming.

Cirno got her tapping things, but I don't want to add more to her since she's in a cycle of fairies (thing I've realized:  Wizards always spells it "Faerie" rather than Fairy. I should probably do too). Wait with any big suggestions about those until you've seen all five.

Also, it was Land Sign I bumped to Spellcard 3, not Ancient Duper.

[Starxsword]

Split second on Kaguya rather than Flash... I don't know. Kaguya has manipulation of the instantenous, so letting her give the capability of having everything be, well, instants, seems like it fits better to me. Split second appears with other flavours in the set and we'll see some of that later today.

Yes, I know. Flash seems more like something that someone fast would do, not someone instant can do, if you get what I mean. That's why I am unsure about Flash. But Split Second does make her weaker than if she has Flash or gives Flash, at least with what you currently give her. Kaguya's time manipulation abilities are pretty much a stronger version of Sakuya's, which has Split Second.

Immortal is a variation on regenerate, and giving it an activation cost makes it literally regenerate.

There's also a variant option, if you want to try. There is like 1 creature I know of that has this skill. If the creature is sent from field to grave, Suspend it and put 1 or 2 time counters on it. That is one other way I can think of for Immortal if you want an alternate method.
This way, Fairies can have a timer of 3, while Kaguya and Mokou has a timer of 1 or 2.

Sakuya's World

One comment here. This card hard counters all of your X spells, setting X to 0, not quite sure if that is your intention.

So, just as scheduled, Sakuya Izayoi:

For that kind of power/toughness and ability, she is too strong. (UU1) to use, counter anything is too much. It may not actually counter, but that is essentially what it does, at Split Second too.

Declare

This mechanic is too strong. I would add a cost to it. We'll see with what other Instants or Sorceries you have. Right now, there isn't much to Declare, but I can see too many potentially devastating combos. In Standard magic, it would be Declaring Bolt, Giant Growth, Boomerang, etc.

Kosuzu

She's like a very weak Merfolk Looter. Pretty much unuseable.

See, I used to play a fair amount of red when M12 was standard, so missing something like this makes me feel rather silly.  Clearly I'm just not very good at this whole feedback thing.

It is probably because Immortal, at first glance sounds Overpowered, which I agree, it does sound overpowered.

I saw Ancient Duper and I just had to post. The card is literally better than Force of Will. That's enough to make me ignore the rest of the posts along the way. Prioritizing flavour is nice but it doesn't make a playable set.

It is not. Force of Will is -2 cards and 1 life for Counter. Ancient Duper is -3 cards for Counter. It is, however, a stronger version of Foil.