Bob: Manifest at Uncommon

 Welcome back to the Manifest cycle! Today I'll be previewing the uncommon cycle of manifesters, a cycle of creatures making different use of the manifest ability. 

The common cycle was used to give niche cards, or what are commonly sideboard cards a secondary use, much like how cycling gave you a replacement card for one you didn't need. With the uncommon cycle, I less of a replacement ability, and more of optional castings, much like creatures with kicker or evoke. What I came up with was a cycle of medium creatures that had abilities of their own, but could enter the battle early if called to do so.

Each  creature does something relevant when it enters the battlefield or manifests (enters as its smaller form), and has a "free" Manifest cost. Another route I could have taken was for the creatures to be 1/1's in their normal forms, but have a stronger enter the battlefield ability than when they were manifested.

White is the spirit of an angel out to protect and save others from harm. Designed to act as a blocker and give you value in what would normally have been a fair trade combat. She's also designed that when manifested, creates a chump blocker that won't die that turn. It's also interesting to note that this is playable by any deck for manifesting.

In blue, we have a return to the merfolk looter. pretty simple, although didn't do a straight enter the battlefield effect, this time making it an activated ability that a single use of is replicated when you manifest. It's also nice that late game, you can manifest to return an island, then discard it to the manifest trigger.

Nekrataal varients we love you. On the manifest side, we have something not really color dependent similar to dismember, however instead of the ability to kill one larger creature, you can kill two 1 toughness creatures (one on the trigger, one on the chump block).

Red gets a different feel than the other ones. Normally, it's a 3/1 haster for three mana. However when you manifest, the umbra lashes out from the grave for one final attack or block. I think this is a card RDW would love to play (removing excess lands for a quick spark elemental without the trample). I think the closest card to compare it to is shard volley.

I always liked Ambassador Oak, and this gives you the option of two little bodies for -2 cards. Is it worth it? If you can make use of the two bodies I'd say yes, otherwise that's a pretty sizable disadvantage for two 1/1s.

Tomorrow I'll show you a handful of my favorite cards from previous BOO sets I've designed. And on Thursday, I'll bring you the rare cycle of Manifest and see what design space we can still work with.