The Snapcaster Cycle

As a forward, I'd like to warn any viewers that it's been quite some time since I've really written anything, even on a scholastic level. If you have any advice in terms of writing style, formatting, or anything else for making this blog better, please let me know. I'd like to keep this blog going for a long time, and would like to improve on my prose while I'm at it. 

Magic has super soakers now?

Snapcaster Mage, Tiago Chan's invitational baby (well, second baby. The first card he submitted was too powerful, which is something considering the end product). He sees play in every format he's legal in, and almost creates archetypes of his own.

Usable as a 2nd copy of a counter spell, burn, removal, draw, or almost any other utility spell you can think of (even the occasional pair of creatures); and at its worse, it's still a 2/1 body with flash. He is blue's De facto two drop, and has easily earned his spot amongst the other greats (Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf, and Stoneforge Mystic.) 

But what about red's two drop? Every other color has one, but why the lack of love for red? This was a running joke around my play group for a few days; whenever it came up my answer was obvious: Stormcaster Mage:

You played two spells during your turn? Ok. End of turn, pay 1RR for stormcaster + lightning bolt, you take 12.

Bit too good, huh? (Ok, more than a bit.) Broken as it is, it brought up an interesting idea: What if there was a full cycle of snapcasters? Let's break down what are the important aspects of the cycle.

1. A powerful enter the battlefield effect, that focuses on specific themes of that color.
2. Keyword, Power & Toughness suitable to their costs and colors.
3. Be playable at any point of the game.
4. Unique and interesting.

 Not the most specific outline, but that gives some extra design space to work with. The fourth point is there so that, while part of a cycle, the cards don't feel like xerox's of themselves. 

First off, let's fix what's obviously broken. Two mana to give storm, way too cheap (and even gives you a body). Instant speed makes it too easy to abuse storm count without trying, given the likelihood of your opponent playing one or more spells during their turn. I do however like flash in red, it surprises the opponent and lets the creature attack on your next turn, but red already has a keyword that fills that roll (see if you can guess what it is before you read the new card). The other nice part about replacing flash is that it makes it feel different but similar to snapcaster mage. So let's look at what our changes made:

This feels a lot better. Still powerful, especially given older format's love of red ritual effects, but no longer abuses opponent's spells. I increased the power by 1 to better match the mana cost. It also makes your opponent reconsider when they play removal spells, since it can add to your storm count. Is it still broken? Maybe; but I think it's a lot closer to the power level it should be.

Both blue and red focused on instants/sorceries and being able to repeat or duplicate them, so I wanted the rest of the cycle to focus on other aspects of the game.


While black normally gets the reanimation effects, I had recently created a handful of black reanimtor cards, and wanted to try something different. White on the other hand occasionally gets their shot at that aspect of the game, but instead of zombifying or unholy recursion to return the creature to life, white prefers a rebirth or second chance type effect; and I've always liked me some Angelic Renewal. Bit more cookie cutter to snapcaster than I'd like, but it fit the card well.

While the effect is powerful, I think it's more deceptively so than it actually is. It's only a creature you own, and only one you've already put onto the battlefield. The closest comparison I can make is to Phantasmal Image, however this you'll need to hold up mana for.



I mentioned not wanting the black snapcaster to be a re-animator effect, so let's look at other effects in black's slice of the color pie:

• Creature removal
• Discard
• Graveyard hate
• Tutor effects

I've probably missed a handful, but those are the effects I most commonly associate with black. There are tons of nekrataals, and graveyard hate usually isn't powerful enough, so I avoided those. A tutor on a stick would be interesting, but would be higher up on the cost (4/5+ mana), and I was looking more for a three cost creature. This left me with discard.

I wanted something cool and powerful, but not broken like dream twist, so I choose to create a "balancing" discard spell (based off of blue's balancing draw spells). Unearth was added to allow rotcaster mage to be playable at almost any point of the game, and still get value out of it later (and was partially inspired by the art which was added half way through the design).

Lastly we have the green snapcaster, designed top down from the image. White already focused on actual creatures, but I wanted green to have a slice of the creature pie, as well as an ability based off of lands. I've always liked Wolbriar Elemental, and was sad it didn't see much play, likely to it's heavy green dependency. So while not especially unique, I tried a different take at the wolfbriar.

The original design had Flash, which Maro confirmed recently is actually centrally in green's color pie, it was a little too powerful (think Caller of the Claw without your opponent having to wrath you). Oddly, I think this is less powerful than Wolfbriar Elemental in the one format the elemental sees play in, Commander. In commander, it's common to use multiple mana doublers or just infinite mana engines, which wolfbriar elemental is abusive with, where as this will still only make a set number of wolves.


And that completes my Snapcaster cycle. Let me know what you think.

-Bob