Horsemanship

Summary:

Horseness is the whatness of allhorse.

Horsemanship

Pasteur 17 Dec 2012 23:40

The initial pitch for Frontier included a "horse equipment". This suffered from some serious mechanical issues, but definitely was looking in the right place for top-down creatures. I'm curious about other ways to represent man's best western friend, and I thought I'd share my take on it so far.

At common:
Trusty Steed 3W
Creature - Horse
When ~ attacks, you may untap it and remove it from combat. If you do, target attacking creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
2/2

This makes the effect happen relatively speaking at "sorcery speed", but still hopefully hits the flavor. Fewer NWO issues than equivalent Infantry Veteran or Ghost Wardens is a boon. There's also the chance to do something like this:

Trusty Steed 2W
Creature - Horse
Protection from black
When ~ attacks, you may untap it and remove it from combat. If you do, target attacking creature gets +1/+2 and protection from black until end of turn.
2/2

//

Bad Horse 2B
Creature - Horse
Protection from white
When ~ attacks, you may untap it and remove it from combat. If you do, target attacking creature gets +2/+1 and protection from white until end of turn.
2/2

What do you think? Cool exploration of space, or obvious and trite? Any other ideas for how to represent equestrian aid?

Re: Horsemanship

elektriktoad 18 Dec 2012 02:16

The effect is nice and clean, but the untap and remove it from combat clause is weird, given that it's really only been used on Gustcloak creatures to show avoiding combat.

This version looks better to me, but I don't know if the wording is correct. It's supposed to only let you use the effect for one of your attacking creatures, but I'm not sure if this wording does that.
Trusty Steed2 3W
Creature - Horse
Whenever a creature you control attacks, you may tap ~. If you do, that creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
2/2

This version is okay, but very very few cards reference the declare attackers step, and probably for a good reason.
Trusty Steed3 3W
Creature - Horse
T: Target attacking creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Activate this ability only during your declare attackers step.
2/2

Re: Horsemanship

Agent Circeus 18 Dec 2012 05:16

Just to be the crazy one. Why not Horsemanship itself? If Time Spiral can have Shadow and Flying, a set can survive with Horsemanship and Flying? I mean, our guidelines don't require us to make a set that can be inserted into Modern (though it generally respect modern guidelines), so why reinvent the wheel if the mechanic already exists? Plus it gives us excuses to come up with more answers for it.

Re: Horsemanship

Pasteur 19 Dec 2012 04:34

I don't know if that's a tack we want to take, but I want to applaud the audacity either way. It's ideas like this that can really make magic happen.

Re: Horsemanship

Jacob S 18 Dec 2012 05:28

Does the ability really need to happen during the combat phase?

Trusty Steed4 3W
Creature - Horse
T: Target attacking creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Activate this ability only when you could cast a sorcery.
2/2

90% of the time you use this ability and then attack, right?

Also, I feel like the buff should mirror the horse's stats. For example, Bad Horse would be a 2/1.

Re: Horsemanship

HavelockV 19 Dec 2012 16:11

Needs to be "Target creature" instead of "Target attacking creature", but other than that, I think this is the right template.

Re: Horsemanship

Jacob S 19 Dec 2012 19:03

*facepalm* Yes, and there's annother templating error too.

Trusty Steed 4a 3W
Creature - Horse
T: Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.
2/2

Is the "only any time" construction to avoid making it look like a triggered ability?

Re: Horsemanship

HavelockV 20 Dec 2012 02:13

I believe it's just there to say, "No activating this ability at instant speed, guys. We really mean it! ONLY when you can cast a sorcery!"

In retrospect, it would have been much better to have "sorcery speed" be the default for all spells and abilities, and give certain spells and abilities the "quick" supertype. Much less wordy.

Re: Horsemanship

HavelockV 20 Dec 2012 03:18

Oh, I see what you mean: "only any time" instead of "only when", because "when" is usually reserved for triggered abilities. Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.