Revamping the Masterpieces of..

DuskPaladin

Masterpieces are the most sought-after and prized cards. Unfortunately, most of them don’t feel Epic at all, worse yet, many are functionally worst than lower rarity cards. Here’s some ideas how to give them their Masterpiece’s gleam.  

Note that all the mana costs are subject to change for balance issues. The important thing is to identify a core concept for each card, and give it an unique feel.

I’ll start with the worst offenders:

Champion’s Helm

Concept: It protects the commander (MTGPQ Planeswalkers are basically our Commanders).

New in-game Stats: You gain Hexproof. 

Mana Cost: 7. 

Explanation: First part of Sigarda’s card without the disadvantage of being a creature. Are you tired of getting shot in the face by Chandra or always have your cards discarded by Liliana? Here’s the card for you. It is powerful with a unique effect.

Lightning Greaves

Concept: The wearer becomes lightning fast, dodging every spell.

New in-game Stats: Your first creature gains Hexproof (and optionally Haste).

Mana Cost: 6.

Explanation: The bread-and-butter ability of this card is Hexproof. As many pointed out already, giving Haste to your first creature (and not your last creature) is marginally useful at best. Even with Hexproof, the creature will still be affected by prison effects affecting the opponent’s first creature. So yes, it’ll be really good but not unbeatable.

Gauntlets of Power

Concept: The wearer becomes much stronger.

New in-game Stats: Your first creature gains double strike.

Mana Cost: 8. (I kept the mana cost low since it's supposed to go in an aggressive deck)

Explanation: That’s right, the first card to grant a permanent double strike ability. It is potentially the strongest ability of the bunch, which is fitting for its name. I would try to balance it with a shield of 1. High risk high reward.

What do you guys think?

Would you like me to redesign more Masterpieces?

Would you like to submit redesigns of your own? 

babar3355

These changes would make me consider spending my hard earned unobtanium on a pack.  Currently, I would select any of the 5 mythics (except maybe metallurgic summons) over any of the masterpieces. That's just clearly saying that these MP's are way underpowered.

Thanks for the thoughtful ideas DP!

Steeme

I like your ideas but I think their intent was that masterpieces were more for collecting than for ramping the power level of already optimized decks.

The three masterpieces you've listed are all colorless, so take Ulvenwald Hydra and make it hexproof.  Then take Olivia and give her double-strike.  See what happens?  That kind of RC style meta-warp will literally force everyone to build around it in PVP events, and now you've officially made the game full-blown P2W.

babar3355

Eh, I don't think the idea for masterpieces were for them to look pretty and collect dust on your shelf.  We can't trade cards or anything and D3 completely prevents anyone from having a full set.  I think they were intended on being very powerful. 

And yes, its probably wise to use support destruction as well as something that can disable hexproof.  Not sure a double strike Olivia is all that concerning.  But you might be right that the mana cost needs to be increased or the shields need to be reduced... but, I think you actually want them to be good cards. 

Look at the most recent poll... no one is wasting their jewels on this pack.  Clearly people don't just want to "collect" these extremely hard to get and expensive cards.

Phase

I really like the champion's helm. "You have hexproof" is a space WotC has played around a bit with maybe 3 cards in paper magic? 

For greaves... 6 mana hexproof on the first creature is really, really broken, even for a masterpiece. It doesn't take much work to just auto-win slapping it on an ulrich or olivia. I think of masterpieces to be powerful cards but not just "slam this in everything and win". If that support existed it probably would have to cost 14-16 mana and have 2 shield max.

Gauntlet of Power makes a lot of sense too. Double strike is inherently strong on a lot of guys (again, Olivia!!) but at least you can kill the wearer of it. With such a low shield value you could even bring down the cost to 6.

If I would redesign greaves I would maybe mess around with conditional hexproof. I think an activate 2 or 3 or so would be fair (not unlike lumbering falls). I'm sure there's other ways to do it. 

Laeuftbeidir

Steeme said:

I like your ideas but I think their intent was that masterpieces were more for collecting than for ramping the power level of already optimized decks.

The three masterpieces you've listed are all colorless, so take Ulvenwald Hydra and make it hexproof.  Then take Olivia and give her double-strike.  See what happens?  That kind of RC style meta-warp will literally force everyone to build around it in PVP events, and now you've officially made the game full-blown P2W.

maybe some kind of:
Activate 2: your creatures gain hexproof 'till the beginning of your next turn?

DuskPaladin

Yea, these are just drafts, we would surely have to rebalance their mana cost, shield amount, etc. But at least, we have define their core concept, what makes each of them unique and powerful.

They would be something that the players would be proud to possess and wish to chase after as @babar3355
pointed out.

Lumbering Falls sees no play because it's so incredibly unreliable. You can't even give hexproof to a newly cast creature with the mana generated to activate its ability.

We have to be careful to not overcharge things too. Because even if they created a Double Strike or Hexproof granting support with 10 shields, if it cost 25 mana, nobody would play it. (except with Whir of Invention, but that's a bit far-fetched for the kind deck that would want such effect)

Evolution Leap is one such example, the effect is unreal, incredibly good, but instead of spending 15 mana, wouldn't you rather just cast a 15 mana creature instead? Zendikar's Resurgent would be another example, its effects are crazy and really Mythic. But, usually we would just cast a creature for that Mana Cost instead and just win the game.

There's many awesome Mythics not seeing play because of their prohibitive Mana Cost. Just thing about how it would shake the metagame and spawn multiple new archetypes if they could just do another round of rebalancing like for the Magic Origins Mythics.

shteev

I'd love to see rebalancing done in the game, but currently I'm much more concerned about overpowered cards than underpowered ones.

hawkyh1

I think being able to give permanent hexproof to a creature of
your choosing(maybe something like undergrowth champion)
is too powerful of a flexibility to have.

HH

shteev

hawkyh1 said:

I think being able to give permanent hexproof to a creature of
your choosing(maybe something like undergrowth champion)
is too powerful of a flexibility to have.

Possibly not? At high levels of play there are many ways of disabling hexproof creatures.. I regularly use the rare cards Deadlock Trap, Prism Array, Aligned Hedron Network, Suppression Bonds, and Authority of the Consuls. Niblis of Frost is popular now Baral is doing the rounds although he might drop off the radar again soon with the 'nerf'. At mythic there are even more powerful Disablers available, like Drowner of Hope, Emrakul, or Hixus.

What about uncommons? Well, they aren't AS good, obviously, because of the power imbalance baked into the very core of the game, but Retreat to Coralhelm and Kor Entanglers are pretty good, and Encircling Fissure and Subjugator Angel have their uses.

[edit when I thought of more stuff to say]

I think it's fair to give effects like this to masterpieces since high level players will have a variety of tools to deal with them, even if low level players do not.

What I'd really liked to have seen with the introduction of Masterpieces would have been their absolute restriction to high level players. We all moan about how rubbish Ornithopter is in Platinum Tier, but honestly in a level 1 PW deck it's going to be solid as a rock. It might sound a little mean to restrict masterpieces to just Platinum Tier, or maybe Platinum and Gold Tier, but I think new players have plenty to explore in the game with all the broken rares and mythics available. I personally think that the fact that there's a chance of a day 1 player lucking into a Platinum Angel or Sword of Body and Mind, and obliterating his peers with it, is a bad thing.

It's doubtful that this restriction would happen, of course, as it excludes the possibilty of a brand new whale turning up and being able to spend thousands of dollars trying to get Masterpieces in the first day or two.