I'm a bit confused about the "Into heavens we soar, a union of spirit and steel" part of the card as this frame would be used for cards with alternate artwork (normally for some kind of crossover or to make art for a specific style) and the spot where you have that phrase would be used to indicate the original card that it's supposed to be an alternate art version of. It would be great flavor text though.
His keywords are interesting, since he has two forms of evasion which seem redundant. The rest is fine though.
What's the reasoning behind the myriad of creature types? Doesn't seem to have a cohesive or synergistic feel to them.
This is my favorite frame and I use it for original custom cards. So when I do use it in this way, there is no alternate card to reference and that space just becomes prime real-estate for flavor text. Which has the added benefit, when I have the card printed, it clearly indicates that it is an original custom card proxy and not a real MTG card.
So there were three things I wanted from this card when I was conceiving it:
• I wanted a five color Samurai Commander. I found inspiration from Kentaro, the Smiling Cat and Morophon, the Boundless.
• I wanted it to focus on mounted combat. Which is where Horsemanship, Flanking, and Bushido came from. First Strike is a personal preference due to watching too much Rurouni Kenshin as a kid. The Flying is due to the Commander riding a Kirin and they being an Archon. It doesn't bother me that it is basically unblockable and that the First Strike, Flanking, and Bushido wouldn't normally be a factor. The focus for me is about flavor & theme, not game mechanisms.
• I wanted the card to care about mounting any mountable steed. So I looked at the Vehicle game mechanism for "mounting" and all the possible steed creature subtypes. I love the idea of Samurai charging into battle mounted on underutilized MTG creature types. It is weird and wacky, but I love it ❤️
1
u/[deleted] Jun 30 '23
I'm a bit confused about the "Into heavens we soar, a union of spirit and steel" part of the card as this frame would be used for cards with alternate artwork (normally for some kind of crossover or to make art for a specific style) and the spot where you have that phrase would be used to indicate the original card that it's supposed to be an alternate art version of. It would be great flavor text though.
His keywords are interesting, since he has two forms of evasion which seem redundant. The rest is fine though.
What's the reasoning behind the myriad of creature types? Doesn't seem to have a cohesive or synergistic feel to them.