Hello and welcome back to Magic Project: Omega!

Today, rather than make some new cards, I have decided to look at cards I had already made and tweak them to better fit the set.

As I’ve gone along I notice some cards can be made better because the set is fleshing out more and more, so older ideas become obsolete and need to be imroved.

I am making some changes to five cards today, as well as explaining why I am making these changes, so let’s get started!

Chaos Knight

Chaos Knight originally had first strike, protection from black and white and other Knights we control gain first strike and really the only change I made here was giving Chaos Knight hexproof from black and white instead of protection.

The reason for that is because the thing about protection is that it also prevents you from using abilities or spells for your creatures, which if you want a signpost Uncommon to stick around, it’s better that they can be benefit from the various targeting abilities that you stick in these colors.

A simple fix, but a necessary one I think.

Banisher Mage

This went through a bit more of a change. Instead of having to tap and pay mana to bounce a creature, I changed it to just be a bounce for one mana and instead of drawing one card if you controlled the creature, you instead draw two cards then discard one.

The reason for this was that since this is a higher powered set, I didn’t mind sticking some better removal on a creature, plus the ability to bounce anything is pretty good, rewarding you if you decide to bounce your own things.

The discard can also be helpful if you play with some of the other strategies that want cards in the graveyard and are splashing blue.

Horde Fiend

On the other hand I toned down the power of this card. Instead of being able to target any land and destroy it, it instead it destroys a nonbasic land and replaces it with a Powerstone token.

The reason for that is that it can become too oppressive destroying any of your opponents lands, and while that was fine when Magic first started, it isn’t an overall better play experience.

Being able to target only nonbasic lands does mean I do need a Common land cycle to make it a little more effective for a draft environment, but I was planning on doing that anyway so it’s not a problem. The Powerstone being an additional consolation is fine because it isn’t as strong as a Treasure, but there are some ways to use it for more utility creatures with activated abilities or for some artifact strategies.

Flare Elemental

Next up we have Flare Elemental, in which instead of adding two mana and dealing 1 damage to one creature, instead we add three mana and deal 1 damage to each creature we control.

Being able to add more mana is pretty big, but with the amount I wanted to give, having a much more dire consequence felt more red to me. It was also a weird oversight that on the original card I gave it 2 toughness rather than one like I had on my notes, but that has also been corrected.

This also means that if you want to make use of two Flare Elementals, you’ll need to find a way to boost its toughness in order to have it survive long enough to add a bunch of mana.

Frozen Temple

Surprising to see one of the more recent cards on here, but the change was something I even commented on. Before Frozen Temple would counter a spell and gain you life equal to that spell’s mana value whereas now instead you can counter a spell and draw a card.

At that rate it’s better than gaining you life, but it isn’t too oppressive if you use it multiple times in a game. I thought about having it draw you more cards, but even with this being a higher powered set, drawing even two cards would put you at such an advantage that it wouldn’t be that fun.

So a counter spell and draw a card feels like a strong and safe enough design to have without feeling too weak, at least for the time being.

In Conclusion

Some changes were made, and I think for the better. Only time will tell if these changes stick, but for now I think that some solid progress has been made.

When we next come back to Magic Project: Omega, we are going to be making some artifacts for the set, in a variety of rarities, but this is where I also decide how to add references to the five Moxes and Black Lotus for the set, and actually make the first Mythic Rares as well.

Thank you for reading, see you then!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

Bluesky: @jmcasualnerd.bsky.social

Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jmcasual