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

[TwilightsCall]

To quote a (rather old) card, Dimensional Breach:

"Exile all permanents. For as long as any of those cards remain exiled, at the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player returns one of the exiled cards he or she owns to the battlefield."

So that would lead me to believe you need to refer to the cards as owned, not controlled.

[JmLyan]

Ellen's ability doesn't really fit red. Red card draw usually comes in the from of either:

Discard first, then draw.

or

Draw first, then discard at random.

The key element to red card drawing is that it is risky and unreliable, a looter with better stats in red allows red to have much better draws, which red typically is the worst color at doing.

Changing the order to discard first, then draw would fit far better in red, and random discard would fit Ellen's nature of forgetting a lot of stuff.

[Pesco]

I think to warrant the 2 power, you could even make it discard at random first then draw.

[Starxsword]

@Subterranean Sun: The idea is sound, but how in the world will you be able to destroy "target untapped land"? This looks like its going to always fizzle.

@Concert: Seems kind of weak, considering casting cost and the requirement of having 3 creatures.

"Whenever enchanted creature blocks or becomes blocked, it deals damage equal to its power to each creature blocked or blocking it.  Prevent all combat damage dealt by enchanted creature this turn."  Basically, neutralizes trample for an effect much stronger than first strike.

Just a note, prevent all damage doesn't neutralize trample.

I would change hexproof to Shroud.

I think in Magic the Gathering, they are getting rid Shroud. So, future creatures don't have Shroud, just Hexproof.

Star Sapphire: Give her an ability similar to Norin the Wary, but better. If Star Sapphire blocks or is blocked, exile her until end of turn. If a spell is played, exile her until end of turn.

By the way, wording/ruling question: Does exiled cards still count as being controlled by you so I can refer to "exiled permanents you control", or does that need to be "exiled permanents you own"?

I am unsure, there's Suspend, but is that controlled by you? In either case though, it should not matter. When an exiled permanent returns to play, it always returns as a new card and all previous affiliations it may have is gone.

[JmLyan]

I think to warrant the 2 power, you could even make it discard at random first then draw.

When it comes to random discard, discarding after drawing is a bit worse since you might discard the card you just drew, making calculating the risk harder. Just making it ordinary discard followed by draw should be fine as its offensive stats make it a decent early game attacker forcing you to choose between damage or card filtering.

Just a note, prevent all damage doesn't neutralize trample.

Preventing all combat damage does neutralize trample, If it only prevented damage it would deal to creatures then trample would still work as far as i know.

[KennyMan666]

I got some cards today.

Anyway!

Revisiting green
Green was... somewhat of a mess, mostly due to Focus. Anything with Focus has gone largely untouched because I'm still pondering what I want to do with it, and one of my ideas is replacing it altogether with a mechanic involving +1/+1 counters, essentially flavoured to be the power up items in Touhou. We shall see.

COMMENTS TO THINGS THAT NEEDED COMMENTS.
Parsee now makes every Parsee unlegendary when she's Spell circled.
Sukuna isn't changed yet but will probably be.
Wriggle's Insects... are still unchanged. I kind of want insects to be as strong as the size of the swarm, but weak toughness-wise - and I've posted three cards so far that can deal 1 untargeted damage to all creatures and players, so that would wipe out all insects. idk.
Sylphae Horn now is a land-fetch.
Hourai Jewel might be revised. We'll see.
Yuuka... I've still not done anything with. Huh. I thought I had.

CARDS BECAUSE CARDS.
While we're talking about gods and faithbound, have two and a spell from one of them:


This next creature is one who... probably shouldn't really have Faithbound because she's not really that type.

See, she was originally typed Deity. And I could have gotten away with that, she could be considered a winter deity. Then I re-typed Deity to God... and that doesn't really seem to fit her. I should probably just make her an Elemental.

These two weres supposed to be posted in the original green post, but I forgot about them.


And while we're on the topic of things with high defense:


And while we're on the topic of reach! I didn't remember until just now that she has Focus, so yeah, just don't think about that right now.


And while we're on the topic of auras (let's see how long I can do this):


And while we're on the topic of, uh... actually I think that's all the green cards we had today. So let's move on to the multicoloureds of which there'll not be many.

Starting with the one whose colours I'm sure you've guessed by now. It was actually by complete coincidence the alternate planeswalker colours and the keyword colours turned out the same - W/B for Byakuren and Curse, U/R for Kanako and Deathbomb, B/G for Shinki and Focus (or whatever the hell it's going to become), R/W for Mima and Immortal, and G/U for Yuuka and Declare.

This Yuuka is a PC98 Yuuka, I originally called her Yuuka, the Sleeper, changed her to Yuuka, Beauty of Everlasting Darkness when I found that character title for her, and changed THAT to something else when it was too long for a thing.

Honestly, though, I'm not entirely pleased with this one yet, and she might go through a bit of a redesign.

But either way, I present to you Yuuka, Maiden of Dreams.

So - emblems. That long title did not cooperate with the emblem. Because, you know, emblems have card representations now. So, here's all of them:


Alright, let's multicolour.

While we're on the topic of Yuuka...


And that's the only card with those colours for today. There's... actually not a lot in this section. One more creature. Who also still has Focus. Ah well.


And then, only one more card.  As I said initially, if I had thought of it earlier, I would have designed this set as a proper block, with three sets. The first of those sets would have been named Legends of an Eastern Wonderland.

Why do I mention that?

Well, I half consider this to be the "promo card" for that first set if that had been a thing, which is why this version of it is foiled and mythic.


So, that's all the colours revisited. Nearly nothing has happened with the artifacts, so we're not going to see an artifacts revisited.

So there's only one thing left.

Tomorrow, we do three things.

First, we look at lands.

Then, the Shrines will be revealed.

And then, we finally deal with Reaper.

Until then.

[Starxsword]

Preventing all combat damage does neutralize trample, If it only prevented damage it would deal to creatures then trample would still work as far as i know.

Haha, I misread the statement. You are right. Preventing all combat damage neutralizes trample. I read it as "prevent all combat damage dealt to enchanted creature". Which won't stop an opposing creature from trampling over the enchanted creature, providing the opposing creature has enough Power.

@Focus: An idea for focus, I think someone mentioned something similar before.
Focus 3 - Once per turn, use this ability before your combat phase. This creature cannot attack this turn. +0/+3 until your next turn. During your next turn, this creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.

Will comment on other cards later.

EDIT: Comments on cards:

@Renko Usami: She seems kind of weak. Either raise her power/toughness or make it so that she puts a land into play tapped. Spell Circle would allow her to put any 2 lands into play tapped.

@Genji: I suggest lowering Genji's mana cost by 1. Or increase his toughness by 1 to 2.

@Phantasm "Vengeful Flowering": This card seems kind of weak for its casting cost. The +x/+x is likely going to be about +4/+4. The fight ability is pretty good.

@Five Elements "Philosopher's Stone": For the casting cost and upkeep, this card is unimpressive. How about, whenever an Instant or Sorcery is casted, you may copy it and choose new targets for it.

[KennyMan666]

I admit to being very unsure about the upkeep cost of Philosopher's Stone and am considering just axing that, keeping the rest of the card the same.

[KennyMan666]

Okay. Let's do this.

But before lands, let's look at one other card because of reasons.

Promotional!
I said that Philosopher's Stone was the promo card for Legends of an Eastern Wonderland. Well, here's the promo card for Forgotten Dreamscape.


Landing it safely
So, lands. Lands are the most important cards in all of Magic because without them, you can't really do anything. So of course I've made some lands.

First, just to be inclusive, I made basic lands. Two of each.






Duality
Early in the set design, I made a legendary land cycle. It consisted, in order of colours, of Heaven, Misty Lake, Netherworld, Youkai Mountain and Forest of Magic. They all read "Whenever <colour-appropriate thing>, add C to your mana pool." This was kind of dumb. They became something else even dumber before I just decided to kill them entirely and make something else instead.

Dual lands!

They're a new kind of taplands and they can all do something more. Here we go, in alphabetical order:




Well, that's nine. And you might understand where this is going.

Because this is the tenth.


This single card is the only reason Reaper still exists. Because I can literally not find anything else to give it. First/double strike are white and red. Shroud isn't a thing anymore. Protection from is white. Indestructible is white. Reach is green.

There's nothing and that's why I'm reaching out to you lot to help me kill Reaper once and for all. What can I have this card give creatures, appropriate to black and blue, that wouldn't be a one-off?

Gah.

Shrines for the maidens
So, the Reaper problem was the first of today's big things. The second is the long-awaited reveal of the Shrines.

I used to have lands called Hakurei Shrine and Moriya Shrine. They were completely different things, Hakurei Shrine was dumb and Moriya Shrine I was never satisfied with.

So I came up with something else. A cycle of Legendary Lands. Shrines. High-maintenance lands with capabilities for greatness if you could feed them.

So, in the appropriate colour order...

(for those of you wondering what we were going to be proliferating, this is a large part of your answer.)

And that's them.

In the hypothetical block setup, the Shrines would have been the big thing in Conflict of Faith.

Even the Conflict of Faith promo card has to do with Shrines.


And that's the lands. I do have another land card bearing the name of Gensokyo, but it's currently blank, and what it originally did was dumb. Great Hakurei Barrier essentially turned into something closer to what I had wanted Gensokyo to be, so I might just axe Gensokyo entirely.

---

And so concludes the second week of previews. What happens now?

Updates are no longer going to come daily. Once I'm done with designing two that you haven't seen yet (sort of), I'm going to do a post about the cycles of the set, introducing a character who's been conspiciously absent from this thread so far. I'll read through the thread a few times, taking notes about cards and doing small changes. Keywords will be revisited when I have enough to revisit them with, and in the meantime, I might post random cards I'm looking for opinions on. The set and the thread are far from done, but with fourteen updates in two weeks, you've seen the majority of the cards. I've appreciated all the opinions I've gotten, and I've taken essentially all of them to heart.

Until then.

[achicken]

Woah, I never thought I'd see Tolarian Academy again, in a lighter form. Mind the existing cards that go "you may untap up to X lands". 

Like the unique nonbasics.

Sanzu can use Undying, since you are playing with +1/+1 counters in this set. (The result could make Sanzu quite coveted tho... but you already have a land which grants Immortal and another which grants Hexproof, so why not.)

Persist is another option although that would mean you now have -1/-1 and +1/+1 counters in the same set.

[JmLyan]

Some notes about the dual lands.

If a land has an activated ability besides providing mana or fetching lands, then it either produces colorless or produces one color but enters the battlefield tapped. Dual lands with actives is a bit too much flexibility.

Putting the same cost on all ten actives is rather unbalancing. For 3 mana, you can get an ability as good as immortal, deathtouch or hexproof, or the horribly niche and situational reaper ability.

[TwilightsCall]

Shizuha
I feel like it would make more sense if she was destroying lands in some way, a la Reap and Sow.  So I would do something like, "Sacrifice Shizuha, destroy target land. That land's controller searches their library for up to one basic land card and puts it into play tapped."

Minoriko
I feel like she should involve putting lands into play somehow, but seeing as how she matches with her spell, I'll let it slide.

Bumper Crop
I'd make it cost G.  Since, you know, Dark Ritual.

Letty
Yeah, Letty isn't a god in any sense of the word.  Definitely closer to an elemental.  Or you could look at the card that represents the exact race that she is, but thats kind of got block-style restrictions behind its creature types.  I think Spirit or Elemental are the best ways to go.  Incarnation is another possibility.

Renko
Okay.  I'd probably at least make her a 2/2.

Kisume
Green? Really?  Well...okay, I suppose she's fine.

Genji
I think 1/4 for 2G would be a more worthwhile setup.  And I think you can give him flying, since, you know, his whole purpose for existing is that he's a flying turtle.  Also another one where I'm curious as to why its green.

Yamame
I guess we'll have to wait and see what focus does.

Cave Spider's Nest
I'd probably opt for -1/-0 or -2/-0 rather than subtracting toughness only.  Not only is only subtracting toughness...kind of weird, but I also don't think it makes much logical sense if this is supposed to be representative of a spider web.  (Why do I keep trying to spell spider as 'spirer' @_@)

Scourge God
Cool.

Tiger Sign
Oh.  I see how it is.

Flowery Sign
I...feel like this card needs to enchant a land rather than a creature.  Paying three mana to make one of your creatures into a mana slave seems rather weak to me

Yuuka 2
"...you may reveal it and put it onto the battlefield tapped" is a better wording.
Also, drawing a card for yourself is generally restricted to minus effects on planeswalkers.  Something to keep in mind if you plan on going ahead with the redesign.

If I was doing a redesign, I'd probably jump on the dreams aspect, making something messy like this:

+1:  Exile target nonland permanent.  Return it to play under its owner's control at the end of the turn.
-3: Put a nonland permanent from your hand into play.  It gains haste.  Return it to your hand at the end of the turn.
-9: You get an emblem with "During your upkeep, you may choose one: Exile target nonland permanent an opponent controls, or put a permanent from your hand into play. It gains haste."

I feel like its a bit strong, but its an idea for you to work with if you feel like a redesign.


Vengeful Flowering.
Hmm...I feel like this card is either going to fall really flat, or you'll be playing insects and it'll be way too strong.  I might do something like "Enchanted creature gets +1/+0 for each mountain you control.  Enchanted creature gets +0/+1 for each forest you control."  A much more reliable, and much harder to abuse, effect, though in the end it'll probably have a significantly lower impact.  I'd change the cost to 2RG for that effect.
And the second ability should be "Enchanted creature has 'T: This creature fights target creature.'"

Youki
Waiting for focus update....

Philosopher's Stone
I would take off the upkeep cost and the proliferate effect, to be completely honest.

Dragon
I'm just gonna say I hate annihilator with a burning passion and move on.

Dual Lands

Ho boy.  I'm just going to talk about these all at once because yeah.

First, I'd change River Sanzu to Sanzu River, so that it matches with typical English word order.  Secondly, I'd switch reaper to unblockable because reaper is just...not worth it.  As far as why unblockable, I feel like blue's penchant for unblockableness and general trickery along with blacks penchant for fear and intimidate make it a technically appropriate ability.  You might not like this considering Makai, but I'll get to that...right now.

I think Intimidate isn't worth it, considering the other possible abilities.  So I'm going to recommend this:  Remove Intimidate from Makai.  Move Deathtouch from Netherworld to Makai.  Give Netherworld Regenerate.  To fix the overlap that causes, change Eientei to give First Strike (which is a much more technically appropriate ability, because two mana to give a creature immortal is a bit...:x).

As far as balance, I agree with JmLyan.  They are a bit over the top as far as utility goes when it comes to lands, so I'd recommend one of the following:
-Make them add colourless, and add a new cycle of dual lands that are just plain dual lands.
-Force you to sacrifice one of the appropriate basic lands when they come into play.

Also, making them come into play untapped as long as you played spells of the appropriate colours...is virtually useless.  In 90% of cases, this means you will have to play two spells just to get an untapped land.  If you still have the mana to play spells after that, to make use of your now untapped land, I feel like you are probably doing something wrong.  I feel like you might as well just make the lands come into play tapped and not clutter the card with meaningless effects.

Shrines
Reword the removal to say "Whenever [this card] untaps,...." That'll make it sound nicer.  Also, I know it doesn't fit flavourwise, but I'd just make them all use faith counters instead of going half and half.  It already doesn't make sense flavourwise for lands like the Palace of the Earth Spirits to be shrines, so I wouldn't add convoluting details like spirit counters just because.

Great Hakurei Barrier
Sounds fine.  I might consider renaming it to Great Hakurei Border, just because that sounds nicer to me, but it's not a big deal.

[KennyMan666]

I costed Bumper Crop 1G rather than G to encourage it be cast with Spellcard rather than mana, but maybe it's got too expensive of a Spellcard cost for that. Minoriko's ability is because she's a god of harvest - so you reap what you planted and get resources in return.

Genjii is green because it made sense to me for a turtle to be green. He has reach rather than flying because green things generally don't fly, they destroy things that do fly. Hence reach being a green thing. Kisume is green because... I don't even remember why she was green initially, but I'm sure I had my reasons. Green and red are tied for least amount of creatures (21), and if I were to change Kisume to anything it'd be black, but black already has the highest amount of creatures (26). Black in general is kind of over-represented with 43 cards at this time of writing, with blue and red having 39, green 38 and white 37. So nothing's moving TO black, but I did make two new black spells based on Komachi spellcards the other day (Komachi herself never got posted because she has reaper - hell, reaper as a keyword was invented for Komachi - and now I'm not sure what to do with her. I'll think of somthing.), so that didn't help.

Flavouring Dragon like an Eldrazi just felt right. Hell, my card notes for that one used to just read "ELDRAGONZI".

While playing spells before lands to get them into play untapped would in regular Magic not happen often, in this set there's Spellcard. And... I'm not sure if Spellbinding an aura would count as casting it. Though that's colour-locked now so you'd still only have one colour covered like that. So, well... you could do something like spellcard Starlight Breaker, by discarding and spellbinding Orreries Sun and Filled Miasma off of it, and then you could get Makai into play untapped without having spent any mana beforehand to already play three spells. Silly spell synergy is a theme of the set, anyway, and encouraging the use of it is always good.

Unblockable, or as it's called now, can't be blocked since Wizards decided it was definitely not a keyword, is very blue, so like that, it'd fit. But just because of the reason that's it's not a keyword but a separate quality given to the creature (kind of the opposite of what happened with indestructible) Deathtouch is one of those perfect fits as it's a black and green ability (the half-fits would be Garden of the Sun since vigilance is only white, Makai since intimidate is only black, and Scarlet Devil Mansion since haste is only red. Well, and Sanzu, since reaper is only black, but...). Immortal felt like it fit Eientei so well. Regenerate... is a rule mess, and I'm fairly sure it can't fit in the wording "gains <ability> until end of turn" - it'd have to be "regenerate target creature". I really did want to use immortal on more things, but maybe it's too powerful an ability to actually be on a buffland.

Really, I might just drop the buffing entirely and make them taplands, keeping the spell thing. That'd at least solve my Sanzu problem. And once Reaper is off Sanzu, I'm killing that keyword once and for all. I still like it as a keyword, but it's not a keyword for a Touhou set.

If I were to make the lands not give coloured mana and keep the buffing, they'd become different lands entirely and then I wouldn't be so colour-locked with them as I am here. There's not a ton of places that can actually be used.

Palace of the Earth Spirits was a bit of a stretch, but there was literally nothing else that could be properly used as a green shrine. Anyway, they all use faith now. I was already considering changing that, anyway, especially since Faithbound became a thing. But I'm still not sure Faithbound should be a thing because there's not enough gods in the set to really give it that oomph I would want it to have. At the moment, eight creatures are using it, that will become seven if/when I take it off Letty. And really I think I'll type them back to Deity. the gods in Theros are bigtime gods, not the kind of lesser kami the gods of Gensokyo would be. Maybe I'll have Faithbound go slightly beyond Deities, too. (then again, there's only three creatures with straight up Immortal... that keyword really turned into a mess)

Okay yeah I need sleep.

[Raitaki]

Dragon needs to either be nerfed or be more expensive to cast, or both. Between its Faithbound {1} and a bunch of "add [mana] to your mana pool for every X" you have, I can see the 10-cost being shrunk easily and if you draw shrines you'd be able to play it pretty early for your opp to be able to deal with the annihilator 3.

Also, some of the abilities your lands grant are considerably superior to others, in particular intimidate and deathtouch. Intimidate is basically unblockable against the right decks, and having the threat of instant deathtouch lying around kind of discourages people from blocking with big creatures or multiples creatures ever. This would mean you can have 3 1/1s and your opp can have 1 10/10 and you can still swing with 2 each turn and your opponent will not dare do anything because you can just up and loldeathtouch.

[KennyMan666]

I think Intimidate isn't worth it, considering the other possible abilities.

Also, some of the abilities your lands grant are considerably superior to others, in particular intimidate

I think I'll just let the two of you fight this one out.

[TwilightsCall]

lol.

By "not worth it,"  I mean in comparison to unblockable.  Intimidate as an ability is perfectly fine, just with a minor caveat of...not really unblockable but getting there.

Comparing intimidate to the other abilities you had listed (deathtouch? immortal? hexproof?) I felt like unblockable made a better fit.

On second thought, you might want to also consider raising the cost of the tap effect to 1(C1)(C2).  If you weed out the...not useful effects, I think this is a better representation of effect:cost.

[KennyMan666]

Anyway, even with Shrines, Dragon's not that easy to cast. Even if you manage to play a shrine on each of your five first turns, to get the 5 mana you'd need to cast Dragon at that point, you would also have had to cast a spell of the appropriate colour (well, and/or proliferate. Spellcarding wizard instants are a good way to gather faith, apparently.) after playing a Shrine every turn. If you've managed that, you might deserve to have a dragon on turn five (and then hope someone doesn't throw a Starlight Breaker or Deadly Butterfly at it).

I reread this post after posting it and it contains at least one sentence where I confuse myself. I'm going to read it again in the morning.

[Raitaki]

I haven't encountered hexproof much, so don't know exactly how good it is, at least against non-red decks. The land that gives immortal for one turn is only slightly better than regenerate (since while it triggers off damage even if not lethal, but AFAIK doesn't trigger off removal alone), and it costs 2 mana + 1 land, so I'd say the cost for immortal is reasonable.

Also, now that I think of it, reaper looks kind of situation; not all decks rely on their creatures/aura going to the graveyard. Maybe you should add something extra like a +1/+0 boost to make it relevant in other situations? Though I guess power boosts don't fit blue/black very well.
And how about making Genji 3-cost instead? He's essentially a 1/6 wall with reach and without defender, and it's unlikely for people to use him offensively. Many 3-cost walls can do better.

Cut by Kenny: Not really. You can cast multicolored spells also, and I don't see why a shrine-centric deck wouldn't have some of the proliferate Patch instants in them. And just because decks with control/removal can deal with the dragon on turn ~6 doesn't mean other decks that focus on other things can. As soon as you let that dragon swing boom three permanents woosh. And you're likely losing another to block as well.

Or you can just go the easy way out and toss out the Great Hakurei Border early :V

[Starxsword]

This single card is the only reason Reaper still exists. Because I can literally not find anything else to give it. First/double strike are white and red. Shroud isn't a thing anymore. Protection from is white. Indestructible is white. Reach is green.

There's nothing and that's why I'm reaching out to you lot to help me kill Reaper once and for all. What can I have this card give creatures, appropriate to black and blue, that wouldn't be a one-off?

Maybe Wither?

Here are some ideas on how to change the Reaper effect:
Reaper (Damage dealt by this creature cannot be prevented).
OR Reaper (If this creature would deal lethal damage, exile that creature).

@Great Hakurei Barrier: Just speaking strictly from Touhou lore. What does faith have anything to do with the Greath Hakurei Barrier?

Dragon needs to either be nerfed or be more expensive to cast, or both. Between its Faithbound {1} and a bunch of "add [mana] to your mana pool for every X" you have, I can see the 10-cost being shrunk easily and if you draw shrines you'd be able to play it pretty early for your opp to be able to deal with the annihilator 3.

I rather see how it actually plays out. At 10 to cast, this cost is equivalent to Kozilek. Kozilek is 12/12 with Annihilator 4. He also allows you to draw 4 cards if you cast it.

From what I am seeing, I don't see a problem with the Dragon.

[KennyMan666]

What part of "No -1/-1 counters" do you people not understand.

Anyway yeah you know what I went ahead and did it.

Makai now gives First strike. Pure black had things with natural First strike as recently as Innistrad, and Rakdos had some First strikers in RtR, so it's fine colourwise. I assume Double strike might be too strong.

So Sanzu now makes it so a creature can't be blocked. It's not the most elegant solution with regards to wording, as I would prefer for it to be worded "gains <thing> until end of turn", but Wizards definitely made unblockable not be worded like that, so...

Also, the buffs now cost {X}{X/Y}{Y} rather than {X}{Y} to use. The spell thing remains.

That means that Reaper is dead, long live the Reaper.

Strictly speaking, the Hakurei Barrier doesn't rely on faith, but the idea was that faith is what empowers the shrines, and the shrines are what stabilize the border. Yeah, yeah, it's only the Hakurei Shrine, and it was destroyed in SWR without anything bad happening to the border, but if you read my fanfiction but I'm taking a few liberties. I'm sure I could think up some story involving Magic lore, with Gensokyo as a plane in the multiverse.

OR SOMETHING.

Speaking of double strike, have a card. I'll probably post random cards in most of my posts in this thread now that the big previews are, with the exceptions of a few megaposts once the things that are supposed to be in them are done designes, over.

[JmLyan]

Shrines
Reword the removal to say "Whenever [this card] untaps,...." That'll make it sound nicer.

The correct wording for that would be "Whenever [this card] becomes untapped,..."

[achicken]

You know, I think you can get away with this for Shrines.

<this shrine name>

Legendary Land - Shrine

During your upkeep, if you have no Faith counters on <this shrine name>, Sacrifice it.
Whenever <this shrine name's> owner casts a <color> spell, put a Faith counter on <this shrine name>.

T: If there are faith counters on <this shrine name>, add 1 <color> mana for each Faith counter on <this shrine name>, then remove a Faith counter from <this shrine name>.

I dunno, I kinda find it somewhat backwards to to use the only Faith counter you have to untap the land and end up with nothing anyway. With this suggestion the Shrine can come into play untapped, but still unusable.

[KennyMan666]

Focus is being experimented with. It's now being retooled into increased power and toughness at the cost of speed. And now that Reaper is finally dead I can post this card that has in my opinion one of the best images in the set.


(don't focus (see what I did there) too much at the cost of it, it's also being experimented with. But opinions on if it should be a static cost depending on the size of the buff or differ from creature to creature depending on what else they have are welcome.)

I considered a variant where Focus would be an ability word rather than an action keword where creatures would get some buffs from having +1/+1 counters on them, but since Spell circle exists I felt I would have too much overlap there.

And while I'm posting Komachi, have some Komachi spells:


Also, Kanako got a new ultimate.

I originally had it only be permanents, but I changed my mind.

[achicken]

The disadvantage you added (won't untap next turn) makes Focus a bit too weak. This is even if you make Focus non-situational (i.e can be activated anytime) and unlimited (not just once/turn).

How about this template:

Focus X<color>: <This creature> gains +X/+0 and Absorb X until end of turn. If <this creature> receives damage this turn, bury it. Play this ability only once a turn.

[KennyMan666]

Bonus content!

A thing I started making once as a companion to the core Touhou set was some Touhou Archenemy schemes. While that project has largely been abandoned, I still like to think that, regardless of the effects, the visuals and names of these cards ended up really well.

So I might as well show some of them off. Not thumbnailed because there's no point in viewing any of these in anything but full size.

So, in alphabetical order (don't pay too much attention to what they do):
A Thin Vine
Controlled Fate
Creation of History
Destruction of Anything (I am infinitely pleased with the picture I found for THIS one)
Five Impossible Requests
Manipulation of Boundaries

If I ever were to pick up this thing again, it'd be after the core set could be considered complete.

[commandercool]

Have you considered Islandwalk and/or Swampwalk for River Sanzu's effect? Unblockable seems like a bit much, and Blue and Black are arguably the biggest Landwalk colors. The flavor doesn't really work as far as I know, but neither does unblockable.

[Starxsword]

@Focus: With Focus' new penalty, I would lower the cost to activate it by 1 mana or 2 mana.
One issue I see with this new text is it makes focus favor offensive playing.

@Game text: Should you not use the word "cast" instead of "play"?

[KennyMan666]

Focus favouring offensive playing is not a bad thing.

Also yes, Exchange should have cast. I don't know how I missed that.

[Raitaki]

Isn't Komachi's first ability basically combat-only deathtouch? Was the wording intentional?

[Starxsword]

It is not exactly Deathtouch. Deathtouch allows regeneration, this does not.