Rework explanation; add custom cards

mtg-nicol-bolas-archenemy-reimagined.md

@@ -12,17 +12,18 @@
 
 After playing the original *Nicol Bolas, Archenemy* several times in our playgroup, we found several glaring issues with it:
 
-* There was far too much variance with the Bolas deck, often getting mana-flooded or, paradoxically, mana-screwed. This made playing the deck frustrating.
-* The deck based way too much on the Schemes; unless those went off in just the right way, the deck was quite weak.
-* With those first two issues, out of 7 completed games played, Bolas lost every time, with about as many scoops due to an obvious incoming loss. While that has a certain flavour ring, the product was reflecting the early parts of the War of the Spark storyline where Bolas *won* consistently, so this felt off, and was of course quite unfun to play as a result.
-* The Gatewatch decks weren't swingy *enough*. After 6-7 turns they were able to consistently mow down anything the Bolas deck did, even in the face of Schemes and big pain cards like `Cruel Ultimatum` or `Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker`. We wanted to power these down slightly to provide a bit more variance especially into the late-game.
-* The games were really short, barring long decision-making sessions among the Gatewatch: games rarely went longer than 8-9 turns before an obvious conclusion was inevitable (invariably, Bolas losing).
+* There was far too much variance with the Bolas deck, especially in the (typical of Wizards) very weak manabase, often getting mana-flooded or, paradoxically, mana-screwed. This made playing the deck frustrating.
+* The deck based way too much on the Schemes; unless those went off in just the right way, the deck was quite weak, but since they were random, often I'd get 1-2 dud schemes in a row followed by a good one that was too little too late.
+* The Gatewatch decks weren't swingy *enough*. After 5-7 turns they were able to consistently mow down anything the Bolas deck did, even in the face of Schemes and big pain cards like `Cruel Ultimatum` or `Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker`.
+* The games were really short, barring long decision-making sessions among the Gatewatch: games rarely went longer than 7-8 turn cycles before an obvious conclusion was inevitable (invariably, Bolas losing).
+* With all those issues, out of 7 total completed games, Bolas lost every time, with about as many more scoops due to an obvious incoming loss. While that has a certain flavour ring, the product was reflecting the early parts of the War of the Spark storyline where Bolas *won* consistently, so this felt off, and was of course quite unfun to play as a result.
+* Thus, the goal here was to power-up the Bolas deck a bit, and ensure it was a bit more balanced with where the Gatewatch decks would be in the mid- to late-game, with the ideal goal of a 50/50 win rate across many sessions.
 
 Additionally, there were some aspects that weren't exactly issues, but that we wanted to change:
 
 * We wanted to expand towards the later part of the Bolas Arc, specifically the War of the Spark itself. Combined with the repowering of the decks, we felt like this would be a major flavour win, as we could decide the outcome of his entire plan with the game as well as add some more cool things.
 * We really wanted Bolas to be commanding the Dreadhorde here, with much more of a Zombie/Amass theme and adding Liliana to his deck to represent her turning by Bolas at the climax of the story.
-* We wanted the ability to mix-and-match some more Gatewatch members to allow either more players in one game, or more variety between games; at the very least, we wanted Jace as a playable deck too.
+* We wanted the ability to mix-and-match some more Gatewatch members to allow either more players in one game, or more variety between games; at the very least, we wanted Jace as a playable deck too. For the first iteration, this is adding Jace, but future iterations may add one or two more (shortlist: Teferi, Kaya, and Ajani in that order).
 * We wanted a Commander-like deck structure; not just for the singleton aspect, but also for the ability to repeatedly bring out the key Planeswalkers over a longer game. Also, given Wizards of the Coast's move in the last ~6 years towards extensive Commander support, we felt this is more like how the product would look if produced "today".
 
 Thus, *Nicol Bolas, Archenemy: Reimagined* is a complete "product" like the original *Nicol Bolas, Archenemy*. The Scheme deck is unchanged from the original, and all 5 player decks are newly designed, while including all cards that were present in the original decks where applicable for flavour reasons and to assist in deckbuilding.
@@ -39,26 +40,109 @@ In terms of the decks, this is a hybrid between Commander and Oathbreaker:
 * There is no Commander Damage rule; any damage dealt by the Commander Planeswalkers is treated as normal damage, since this would only really apply to Chandra and Gideon and would be anti-climactic.
 * Each Gatewatch deck is limited to a single Planeswalker card, their Commander.
 * Bolas's deck features one additional Planeswalker, Liliana, Dreadhorde Commander, as a secondary commander; both are in the command zone and may be cast in any order.
-* Each Gatewatch deck has that Planeswalker's coresponding Gatewatch Oath card as a "signature spell" as in Oathbreaker; Bolas does not get a signature spell like this, as his Schemes represent that idea.
+* Each Gatewatch deck has a custom Oath card representing that Planeswalker's Gatewatch Oath, as a "signature spell" as in Oathbreaker; Bolas does not get a signature spell like this, as his Schemes represent that idea.
 * The Gatewatch Oaths follow the normal Oathbreaker "signature spell" rules (identical in effect to the Commander card rules), with one change:
-  * A player may cast their Gatewatch Oath at any time from the command zone, regardless of whether they control their Commander or not.
-  Given the abilities of the Gatewatch Oaths, this is quite critical.
-* Each deck features 2 additional Legendary creatures as "lieutenants" within the deck (not command zone), representing key allies that help define the deck and provide strong synergies. For Bolas, these are two of his dead gods; for the Gatewatch, they are on-flavour friends and allies that have come to assist.
-* The Gatewatch decks each feature a Legendary artifact relevant to the commander (the 3 Magic Origins Legendary artifacts for Nissa, Chandra, and Jace, and the Theros Godsend for Gideon), as well as a Legendary land (some on flavour, some not); Bolas's deck instead includes the Legendary enchantment `In Bolas's Clutches` instead (careful, he may turn your commander!).
+  * A player may cast their Gatewatch Oath at any time from the command zone, regardless of whether they control their Commander or not. Given the abilitiesi of the Gatewatch Oaths, this is quite critical, as players will want them out before casting their planeswalkers.
+* Each deck features 2 additional Legendary creatures as "lieutenants" within the deck (not command zone), representing key allies that help define the deck and provide strong synergies. For Bolas, these are two of his dead gods; for the Gatewatch, they are on-flavour friends and allies that have come to assist (Chandra gets her mom twice and her dead dad because, well, we couldn't really find any better ones - suggestions welcome).
+* The Gatewatch decks each feature a Legendary artifact relevant to the commander (the 3 Magic Origins Legendary artifacts for Nissa, Chandra, and Jace, and the Blackblade Reforged for Gideon), as well as a custom Legendary land representing their "fortress" against Bolas; Bolas's deck instead includes two Legendary artifacts and the Legendary enchantment `In Bolas's Clutches` instead (careful, he may turn your commander!), as well as his own custom Legendary Land.
 * The decks, and specifically the 3-colour Bolas and 2-colour Nissa decks, feature a fairly expensive manabase. This was a conscious decision to ensure optimal mana is avaiable and avoid a key problem mentioned above, since losing because you couldn't play your spells is never fun. But we recognize that this might be overly prohibitive to people wishing to craft these decks. There are two options here:
    1. Depower the manabases, replacing the original duals, shocks, and fetches with more modern, slower multicolour lands and basics. This would hurt the Bolas deck much more so than the Nissa deck, but would be doable. Personally, we do not like things such as the MDFC land cycles due to the actual act of flipping them and such, but there are viable options like that.
    2. Proxy the expensive cards. This is the solution we have chosen for our playgroup, as we are firm believers in "Magic should be *played* and the cards exist somewhere, so use them however we can". You may disagree with this philosophy and that's fine, but we built around it.
 
    Yes, this means the decks as-is would never see print, even beyond just the Reserve List cards, but that is after all part of the point of "reimagining" them.
-* The original `Oath of Nissa` card has a second ability ("use mana as if it was any colour to cast a planeswalker") that is functionally useless in her deck and this format, since each deck features only a single Planeswalker and the deck is already in her colours with a good dual-colour manabase. Instead, this variant uses [a new, custom `Oath of Nissa` card to compensate](images/card-renders/oath-of-nissa.png) for the Nissa deck's Gatewatch Oath:
-   ```
-   Oath of Nissa {G}{G}
-   Legendary Enchantment
-   When Oath of Nissa enters the battlefield, look at the top three cards of your library. You may reveal a creature or land card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
-   Whenever a planeswalker enters the battlefield under your control, you may play an additional land this turn.
-   ```
 
-   The new version keeps the first ability of the original as-is, changes the second ability to be an extra land drop whenever a Planeswalker (i.e. Nissa) enters the battlefield, and increases the cost to `{G}{G}` to compensate for the slightly increased power here (comparable to Explore). Since we decided to proxy chunks of the decks anyways, this was a trivial change for us, but you can choose not to use it should you wish; that said, we feel it helps keep parity between the 4 Gatewatch decks and avoids a feel-bad moment when the Nissa player realizes her Gatewatch Oath has no functional Planeswalker-enters ability like the others have. If we were Wizards of the Coast, we'd very likely just make an entirely new cycle for this purpose, but since we're not, we felt keeping the change as small as possible was important. This may change should the variant evolve over time, but right now the original `Oath of X` cards, along with this tweaked Nissa version, feel on-flavour and at a good power balance.
+## Custom Cards
+
+As mentioned above, there are two cycles of custom cards in *Nicol Bolas, Archenemy: Reimagined*. As these cycles are relatively important to the decks (especially the Gatewatch decks), we recommend playing with them regardless of how you construct the decks. Proxy images are provided.
+
+### *Oath* Cycle
+
+These are the "signature spells" of each Gatewatch deck mentioned above. These are Legendary Enchantments with the custom Oath subtype, and each represents an on-flavour ability of the planeswalker in question. The ability triggers under two conditions: when the Oath enters the battlefield, and whenever a planeswalker enters the battlefield under the team's control (i.e., whenever the commanders enter the battlefield).
+
+#### Jace's Oath
+
+*Jace's Oath represents his mind-magic, helping focus his teammate's thoughts and disrupt Bolas's thoughts.*
+
+{2}{U}
+Legendary Enchantment - Oath
+
+When ~ enters the battlefield and whenever a planeswalker enters the battlefield under your team's control, each player on your team may draw a card, then fateseal 1.
+
+#### Chandra's Oath
+
+*Chandra's Oath represents her aggressive fire magic, dealing direct damage to multiple targets.*
+
+{2}{R}
+Legendary Enchantment - Oath
+
+When ~ enters the battlefield and whenever a planeswalker enters the battlefield under your team's control, ~ deals 3 damage to each of up to 2 targets.
+
+#### Nissa's Oath
+
+*Nissa's Oath represents her animist powers, turning her teammate's lands into creatures for a full turn to act either as attackers or blockers.*
+
+{2}{G}
+Legendary Enchantment - Oath
+
+When ~ enters the battlefield and whenever a planeswalker enters the battlefield under your team's control, for each player on your team, untap up to one target land that player controls. Until your next turn, those lands become 3/3 green Elemental creatures in addition to their other types.
+
+#### Gideon's Oath
+
+*Gideon's Oath represents his martial powers and teamwork, giving additional allies to his teammates in the form of creature tokens.*
+
+{2}{W}
+Legendary Enchantment - Oath
+
+When ~ enters the battlefield and whenever a planeswalker enters the battlefield under your team's control, for each player on your team, that player creates a 1/1 white Kor Ally creature token.
+
+### *Battlement* Cycle
+
+These are a cycle of Legendary Lands for each of the decks with the custom Battlement subtyle. The Gatewatch versions are all mechanically similar, tapping for on-colour mana, providing 2 additional planeswalker loyalty, and having an on-theme ability. Bolas's version is different, representing his "evil lair" and providing a way to quickly summon his generals. The power of these lands is offset significantly by the fact that they are in the deck's 98, not the command zone, so finding them is tricky, and they will swing games when found.
+
+#### Jace's Battlement
+
+Legendary Land - Battlement
+
+Planeswalkers you control enter the battlefield with 2 additional loyalty counters.
+
+{T}: Add {U}.
+{T}: Target player draws a card.
+
+#### Chandra's Battlement
+
+Legendary Land - Battlement
+
+Planeswalkers you control enter the battlefield with 2 additional loyalty counters.
+
+{T}: Add {R}.
+{T}: ~ deals 2 damage to target attacking creature.
+
+#### Nissa's Battlement
+
+Legendary Land - Battlement
+
+Planeswalkers you control enter the battlefield with 2 additional loyalty counters.
+
+{T}: Add {G} or {U}.
+{T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on target land.
+
+#### Gideon's Battlement
+
+Legendary Land - Battlement
+
+Planeswalkers you control enter the battlefield with 2 additional loyalty counters.
+
+{T}: Add {W}.
+{T}: Create a 1/1 white Kor Ally creature token.
+
+#### Bolas's Battlement
+
+Legendary Land - Battlement
+
+Planeswalkers you cast cost {2} less to cast.
+
+{T}: Add {U}, {B}, or {R}.
+{T}, sacrifice a creature: Add {U}{B}{R}.
 
 ## How To Play *Nicol Bolas, Archenemy: Reimagined*
 
@@ -66,7 +150,7 @@ In terms of actual gameplay, there is one major change and one minor change from
 
 1. For life totals, first pick a Gatewatch life total; this could be either 20 (same as the original *Nicol Bolas, Archenemy*), 30 or 40. Pick higher values for fewer Gatewatch members or for longer games with more players, or lower values for more Gatewatch members or quicker games. Each Gatewatch member starts with this life total.
 2. Nicol Bolas starts with the same life total as the Gatewatch, plus an additional 10 life for each Gatewatch member. For example, a 3-vs-1 with 40 Gatewatch life means Bolas starts with 70 life (`40 + (10 * 3)`), or a 4-vs-1 with 20 Gatewatch life means Bolas starts with 60 life (`20 + (10 * 4)`). This should give him the life edge he deserves, while preventing the game from going on too long, and avoids the potentially unfair imbalance inherent to a simple doubling of the Gatewatch life for Bolas (i.e. having the same life total in both a 2-vs-1 and a 4-vs-1, the former benefiting Bolas too much and the latter benefiting the Gatewatch too much).
-3. Nicol Bolas has an optional (rule 0) special ability, useful when he's at less than 10 life, designed to represent his ruthless last-ditch efforts to turn the tide and stave off defeat:
+3. Nicol Bolas has a special ability, useful when he's at less than 10 life, designed to represent his ruthless last-ditch efforts to turn the tide and stave off defeat:
    ```
    As long as your life total is less than 10, planeswalker spells you cast cost {X} less to cast, where X is 10 minus your life total.
    ```
@@ -96,6 +180,7 @@ Lieutenants:
 
 Other Legendary Cards:
 * In Bolas's Clutches
+* Bolas's Battlement
 
 ### [Gatewatch - Nissa Revane](https://archidekt.com/decks/6544248)
 
@@ -107,7 +192,7 @@ NOTE: This deck features a custom `Oath of Nissa` card to better complement the
 
 Commanders:
 * Nissa, Steward of Elements
-* [Oath of Nissa (Gatewatch Oath, custom)](images/card-renders/oath-of-nissa.png)
+* Nissa's Oath
 
 Lieutenants:
 * Tatyova, Steward of Tides
@@ -115,7 +200,7 @@ Lieutenants:
 
 Other Legendary Cards:
 * Sword of the Animist
-* Yavimaya Hollow 
+* Nissa's Battlement
 
 ### [Gatewatch - Chandra Nalaar](https://archidekt.com/decks/6544278)
 
@@ -125,7 +210,7 @@ Chandra Nalaar: Pyromancer, passionate friend, "hot mess". This deck is designed
 
 Commanders:
 * Chandra, Flame's Fury
-* [Oath of Chandra (Gatewatch Oath)](images/card-renders/oath-of-chandra.png)
+* Chandra's Oath
 
 Lieutenants:
 * Pia and Kiran Nalaar
@@ -133,7 +218,7 @@ Lieutenants:
 
 Other Legendary Cards:
 * Pyromancer's Goggles
-* Shivan Gorge
+* Chandra's Battlement
 
 ### [Gatewatch - Gideon Jura](https://archidekt.com/decks/6544330)
 
@@ -143,7 +228,7 @@ Gideon Jura: Soldier, commander, selfless hero, enemy of evil. This deck is desi
 
 Commanders:
 * Gideon, Martial Paragon
-* [Oath of Gideon (Gatewatch Oath)](images/card-renders/oath-of-gideon.png)
+* Gideon's Oath
 
 Lieutenants:
 * Lena, Selfless Champion
@@ -151,7 +236,7 @@ Lieutenants:
 
 Other Legendary Cards:
 * Blackblade Reforged
-* Kor Haven
+* Gideon's Battlement
 
 ### [Gatewatch - Jace Beleren](https://archidekt.com/decks/6552318)
 
@@ -161,7 +246,7 @@ Jace Beleren: Mind mage, plotter, temperamental ally, living guildpact. This dec
 
 Commanders:
 * Jace, Memory Adept
-* [Oath of Jace (Gatewatch Oath)](images/card-renders/oath-of-jace.png)
+* Jace's Oath
 
 Lieutenants:
 * Alandra, Sky Dreamer
@@ -169,4 +254,4 @@ Lieutenants:
 
 Other Legendary Cards:
 * Alhammarret's Archive
-* Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
+* Jace's Battlement