#lotv designs

[lilac-nites]

Indie brands wishlist (x/x/x/x/x/x/x/x)

[lilac-nites]

I know it just came out but I want another MTO of Day Dream Carnival so I can get my hands on the lavender version.

LotV's Herb Garden that I missed ;-;

and Meta's Mary Ladder Lace

What are some prints you want to be re-released?

Personally I want dreamy dollhouse from AP to be rereleased (pls make it plus size friendly) or tiara rose from AP

Tiara Rose

Dreamy Dollhouse

[cloudeling]

i see a lotve catgirl mid designs but i like the idea of mousegirl mid. she goes squeak squeak

[thegenderdruid]

finished the Heart of the Swarm campaign in my replay of the SC2 singleplayer, I think the mission design was a bit less interesting than WoL and even on hard I used mass hydra/roach with a few lings and eventually ultras mixed in for literally every mission whereas in WoL I had to use much more varied unit comps, but the gameplay and story delivery were so much better than WoL that it balances out overall I think, looking forward to getting to LotV since I remember the least about it but also not looking forward to it because Protoss is my least favorite race to play in SC2

[aspenwitch]

I got to wander around as a patron for a little bit on the Monday I didn’t get to be there the whole day.

[radramblog]

Planeswalkers in Cube: Black

Third verse, same as the first two. This does come with the caveat that from my recollections when trying to design cubes, Black’s walker options are honestly kind of lacking- like, outside of a few exceptions, they’re a bit more mediocre than one would expect from a colour filled with such value. And those exceptions tend to have a price tag to match.

Let’s see if I’m right? 

Liliana Vess

Liliana 1.0 does not hold up in the year 2021. Her +1 may be card advantage, but it’s going to do stone nothing or effectively nothing a frustrating amount of the time, and while she can tutor with her minus the fact that it puts the card on top rather than in your hand makes it exceptionally mediocre. This is a card that effectively never affects the board, basically being a 5-mana do nothing that even the weakest of cube environments can do better than.

I think a lot of flak gets sent Chandra Nalaar’s way as far as mediocrity from the original Lorwyn 5, and while she’s not incredible, I can at least see her being functional in a cube environment. But the way I see this Liliana playing out is largely as a 5-mana Mind Rot or Vampiric Tutor that gains a little bit of life, and that’s just kind of terrible.

 Sorin Markov

I remember this card as a scourge of Commander tables, dealing 30 damage to people in the blink of an eye. I don’t think he’s quite as terrifying in a cube environment, though. What he does do, however, is stablilise relatively well- picking off small threats while gaining life is quite potent, and on an empty board he can put your opponent on a pretty effective clock.

Expensive Mono-Black planeswalkers are, however, going to suffer from the key issue of not being creatures- so their usability is worse because you can’t Reanimate them. And if your opponent has creatures bigger than X/2, he’s going to struggle to keep them at bay. As such, I can’t give him too strong a recommendation- at least for smaller cubes. I could see it at 720, maybe.

 Liliana of the Veil

Look, it’s fucking Liliana of the Veil. You know if you want this card, because you’ll already have it. She’s powerful, she’s grindy, she’s 3 mana, and she goes great with a lot of cards you’ll already playing in the list. She’s also 80 dollars, and has some of the worst Magic art ever put to paper.

Talking about LotV as a card is redundant. Talking about LotV as a piece of art just makes me kind of sad. It’s an abhorrent twisting of what could generously be called human anatomy that makes the entire game look bad. I get that Liliana as a character is supposed to be confident in her sexuality, but there are ways of depicting that trait without this level of gross exaggeration. In a word, it’s embarrassing.

Basically, Steve Argyle is a hack and if I ever play this card I’m using the proxy I designed that uses the art from Command the Dreadhorde. You know, the card where she’s actually using the fucking Chain Veil.

 Liliana of the Dark Realms

…Look, I don’t like this art, but it’s an improvement at least. I also wish I’d picked one of these up when I was newer to the game, since she was The Liliana Of The Day, but I didn’t play black then and now she’s 20 bucks. Sigh.

I appreciate Mono-Black payoffs, obviously, but this ain’t it, chief. Hitting your land drops just isn’t the most important thing in the world once you’re already at 4, unless you’re specifically a control deck, and unless you’re mono-black then the -3 doesn’t do particularly much. It also kills her if you activate it immediately. This card is not good for cube, for the record. It just doesn’t do anything.

 Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath

Ob Nix is another one of those Planeswalkers that is kind of just a creature. His +2 does somehow even less than every other card we’ve seen so far, so you’re leaning on the -2, making him effectively a 5/5 flyer for 5 mana. This wouldn’t be good enough on its own, but he does at least come with the ptotential to make another one every other turn.

This is, of course, predicated on him living beyond that first turn cycle. And that first -2 is going to take him to one loyalty, which means this guy will die to a goblin token. Two goblins, I guess, since you can block with the Demon, but that’s not exactly a tough match. At 5 mana, Black gets some spicy creatures as well as some of the better planeswalkers from further down this list- you can do better.

 Ob Nixilis Reignited

Ob Nixilis 2.0 is representative of a different archetype than his predecessor. He’s kind of the defining piece of said archetype, the Planeswalker’s planeswalker. +1, draw a card. -3, protect itself (via removal or tokens). Ultimate, win the game. 5 mana, easy peasy, safe and printable.

He is not going to be powerful enough for Unpowered lists. 5 mana is too much for these effects at that power level. But the thing is, he’s kind of perfect for lower powered or more restrictive environments. Like, you want a planeswalker for your Black section? Here you go, that’ll be 60 cents. He’s not particularly interesting, but he sure does get the job done.

 Liliana, the Last Hope

The other 3 mana Lili which honestly I don’t think should be living in the shadow of her older, uglier sister. There’s a reason modern decks have had a tendency to mix both in their lists.

LtLH is exceptionally good for higher power environments. She’s a 3 mana card that works great for both faster and slower decks, she’s able to generate a bunch of value or time depending on the situation, and she’s surprisingly good in control. On the play, she can come down on 3, kill or neuter their 2-drop, and if you have enough removal or countermagic in the back then protecting her until she ults isn’t actually that difficult. My one fear is that this Liliana is too oppressive against aggressive decks in weaker environments, but her price tag does kind of keep her out of most of those.

 Liliana, Death’s Majesty

I see this Lili as kind of just a more interesting Ob Nixilis Reignited. They’re both 5-mana black Planeswalkers whose prices hover around a buck, but while Ob Nix’s abilities are basic and efficient, Liliana’s are splashier but slightly more situational. She’s much more midrange-focussed, seeing as control is less likely to have things in the graveyard for her -3 to hit, but she’s still more than playable in other deck archetypes- playing with the graveyard is just something Black does and isn’t really specific to one or another particular deck.

I have a lot of fond memories of this card as a 1-of in my Mono-Black control deck in Standard. That deck ran a lot more creatures than the typical build would, but it meant that her -3 got to reanimate Gonti fairly often. And if there’s anything I want, it’s for my cube drafters to get to do that.

 Liliana, Untouched by Death

Speaking of cards I played in standard. This is also the subject of one of only two called shot’s I’ve ever made when cracking a booster pack, which was good, because I was building zombies. (The other, for those keeping score, was Kaalia, Zenith Seeker at a friend’s “I’m just cracking this box but we might as well draft it” night. People cut me on all the angels and dragons.)

Tribal cubes are… awkward. As fun as they sound, as soon as you find your lane the draft gets kind of automatic unless you’ve managed to pull off the masterful task of mimicking the masterpiece that was triple Lorwyn draft’s feel. And, unfortunately, I don’t think most cube designers are up to that task, so most of the drafts are going to be pretty uninteresting.

Liliana, Untouched by Death basically only fits in a tribal cube- all three of her abilities need a critical density of Zombies in the deck to work. Except not only that, it needs to be a Tribal cube with Zombies as an archetype, and it also has to be a weak enough cube that this Liliana is actually good enough, and it needs to have a high enough budget to justify spending 10 bucks on this, because I doubt you’re already going to have one. Unless you picked them up when they were like a dollar, which is kind of the price tag this card deserves…why is this card 10 bucks?

 Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage

We…hang on, we’re at War of the Spark already? Yeah turns out a lot of the Planeswalker deck cards were mono-black, so I’m skipping a lot of this already limited list. Davriel is one for the Peasant players…but I’m not sure they’re going to want him.

I do currently play this card, for the record. I’m going to be cutting him next update (maybe?) but he’s here for now. He doesn’t impact the board whatsoever, and his passive is whiffing most of the time, and he has low loyalty, but he sure is solid in pox-style decks. I dunno. I like him, but he sucks most of the time? But also if you want to support Pox or like, Rack (good luck! No seriously good luck you’ll need it) then here he is.

 Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted

Hey look, we put both of Ob Nixilis Reignited’s abilities together into one! And there’s an extra card draw! Wait hang on that’s not how that’s supposed to work.

This card has two modes, which is convenient since it gets to activate twice. It’s either 5 mana for two dogshit removal spells, or for two ludicrously overpriced Village Rites, or for one of each! And top it all off with a passive that does nothing unless your opponent’s hand looks like Brainstorm, Brainstone, Riverwise Augur, and JtMS. To be fair, I’d want to see that list, but I’m not sure I’d want to play it.

 Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Now that’s a 6-drop. She clears the board reasonably well (unless you’re playing against tokens or an elf-heavy ramp deck), and her +1 still protects her while generating threats that can eventually win the game, or die for value. And since that +1 is so strong, the -9 is actually viable to push for a reasonable amount of the time and will win the game 99% of the time (notice it doesn’t say nonland).

As a result, this is kind of the de facto Big Black Walker if that’s something your cube is after…and a lot won’t be. The kinds of cubes that can afford this are often ones that would rather just play a 6 mana creature like Grave Titan that can serve a similar role while also being more easily cheated out and supporting more variable strategies. This is not a universal case, of course- reanimator is a popular archetype, but not universally, and it’s combo-ish nature can turn people off- and so there is still a slot for Liliana, Dreadhorde General in many a cube environment.

 Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord

Take everything I said about Liliana, Untouched by Death and copy it here, I guess. Except Vampires instead of Zombies. Also ignore the part about being low power enough because this Sorin is actually quite good, but he’s even more pricey, so…

 Liliana, Waker of the Dead

So she’s basically a more expensive but more balanced Liliana of the Veil? I dunno, sounds pretty good to me. You’re not playing her in the same cube as LotV, but that’s perfectly fine- that card is oppressive enough anyway.

I kinda only just realised that this was the first real 4 mana option available on the list, unless my quick scan missed something important. This card is quite reasonable for that price- a +1 that attritions people out and makes sure you always get at least something from your opponent, a -3 that usually kills something relevant (and importantly isn’t literally suicidal), and an ultimate that you probably won’t gun for most games but isn’t unviable and will eventually win the game most of the time. Just a perfectly decent lower-powered walker with a lot of potential play.

 Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

Aw fuck I forgot to mention these commander-specific walkers when I was listing out things I wasn’t going to discuss in the first one of these. Welp, can’t be fucked changing it, here we go.

Commander Legends kind of solved EDH drafting, and it involves lots of partners. If you’re playing an EDH cube, then, you’re probably playing this card, since it partners with things and is decent enough value.

If you’re not a commander cube, then this card sucks ass. Having a +2 isn’t too impressive when your ultimate does literally not a single thing, and the +1 is solid but very slow. If they kill this 5-mana card the turn after you cast it, you’re left with two 0/1s. And that’s just kind of sad.

 Professor Onyx

Sneaky secret Liliana here made a lot of waves when she was first revealed, many of which were as a result of some infinite combos you can do with her and repeatedly copying a spell. That’s…not really particularly viable in cube, seeing as I would hardly call Chain of Smog exceptionally playable outside of the combo, and also it arguably works better with cheaper cards (mana wise) than Onyx. So what does she do?

I guess she’s the biggest competition to Liliana, Dreadhorde General for the 6-mana walker slot, seeing as Sorin isn’t seeing much play at this point. She’s significantly worse at protecting herself, but much better at drawing cards. She also…doesn’t really win the game that well on her own unless you can ultimate, and the +1 not impacting the board means it’s more likely that you’ll be forced to -3. And let’s be real, that passive isn’t winning the game or keeping you alive that well, especially since she’s coming down after you cast most of your spells. Long story short, I’m not sure this is it, chief.

 Lolth, Spider Queen

I’m not 100% sure how this card plays…but it seems very strong. She might not have a plus ability, but she kind of doesn’t need it- her -3 is going to be a -1 enough of the time, and she can just draw you a card whenever it isn’t one. And of course, she’s going to be fucking nuts in any sort of aristocrats deck. She makes tokens to sacrifice and they pump her up? With an ultimate that goes great with the tokens those decks are likely to produce? Hello?

I would very much like this card to drop in price so I can try her out without resorting to the old printer. She seems a bit more specific a piece than a lot of Planeswalkers, but also more than powerful enough to justify her inclusion. She comes down on 5 and leaves you with 4 power across two bodies with a relevant offensive and defensive keyword, and that leaves her enough loyalty to start drawing cards or to replace the spiders should they die. That looks like a powerful enough package for me.

 Davriel Soul Broker

Okay, so. The +1 is kind of medium being purely defensive, and the -3 is just not big enough to kill things that really matter but the shrink being permanent alleviates a lot of that. It’s 4 mana, so it’s not too unreasonable for midrange and control, and the -2 does…uh…

What does this card do again?

…

[foxgirlintestines]

M21 New Cards

There are some interesting choices, and some cards that are obviously just Commander bait (but that did not stop Field of the Dead from running rampant. This is a long list so it is under the read more:

First I really want to mention what a good card this was to put into Standard and print in general to deal with the effects of WAR and those terribly designed planeswalkers. Plunge: Instant- Destroy target Creature or Planeswalker with Converted Mana Cost 3 or less. It is simple, but it helps to stop how oppressive the many planeswalkers that are stax effects stapled to value engines. And it is joined by:

A solid body with a key 4 toughness and Planeswalker protection. Casting it does cause you to lose out on card advantage and it getting countered will feel miserable, but this card also helps fight back against planeswalkers and it importantly can’t just be bounced by Teferi. It is a solid PW hate card though it clearly belongs in a sideboard rather than the main deck. Will definitely do wonders against the 3 cost WAR planeswalker menace and the new planeswalker problem...

M21 you were doing so well, and then you give us this. This card is pushed as hell. Even though it does not generate card advantage it can be used on each player’s turn meaning it essentially pluses by 2 each turn cycle in a normal game. It is able to be reactionary phasing out creatures making dealing with your finishers a nightmare. The looting will be nice if there are more graveyard synergies but the fact he continuously blanks removal and threatens to get out of control if unanswered is definately in my opinion a combination that will make him a dominant force in Standard. leaning on this being a mistake that will cause problems from first impression.

This is more of the power level of a planeswalker that I expect to be strong but not oppressive. She is a mix of some of the best parts of Liliana of the Veil and Liliana of the Dark Realms with an ult that is as hard to combat as Liliana the Last Hope. The mana cost of 4 makes her less of an early than than LotV but the fact that she combines both hand attacking and is a win condition which LotV could not do is a nasty mix. I see her being a strong contender for the best midrange Planeswalker for the traditional “Jund ‘em Out” style deck. Hell, I am tempted to try this is Pox builds due to how good she is at attacking both the hand and field and acts as a solitary win con. Depending on the environment of Standard she might be too strong, but I am leaning on the side of her being strong enough to be meta defining but not needing action to stop her.

Hmm, he is interesting. he serves a completely different role than the Gideons of old did. He supports creatures instead of applying pressure by himself. That -2 is brutal in a go wide strategy and he might be just the nail in the coffin for any control player who needs time to set up. I like this design because he is pretty useless on his own which means he can;t just be plopped down on turn 3 and then the game is constantly a game of catch up. He makes a good finisher rather than an enabler or value engine, and he is costed to allow aggro decks to make good use of him. Of curse, wraths and not having your pressure first makes him pretty weak so he is definitely an interesting design.

This card is just cute, what can I say? Also the legendary Cog vs Hound debate has been answered. This card seems like it will be a fun commander though there are a decent amount of cats in standard and pioneer.

Hey, now we know why there was a buyout of Exquisite Blood despite there being no revealed support for the card that would have caused that mysterious price spike. I’ll talk more about that later but Vito is an efficient way to turn life gain into pressure which is a good thing. its activated ability is half of a Vault of the Archangel and combined with his other ability creates a pseudo unblockable and double strike for creatures. Solid though a 3 drop 1/3 is hard to justify in an aggressive deck where Ajani’s Pridemate provides pressure from a similar angle.

New Sphinx’s tutelage that exchanges a mana sink for an immediate effect. Decent, but the main thing is that this allows those strange Sphinx’s Tutelage combo decks to run more than 4 copies of their win-con. Not really too much to talk about aside from that.

Everything that could be said about Mangara already has been said. White has gained a card that gives it legitimate card draw.

Just some Commander bait as a legendary Enchantment even with that strong effect will be awkward, but I just want to point out that these two cards combine to form an Enter the Infinite. I need both of them for Commander, but I can see some against the odds jank involving these and Thassa’s Oracle. I will mention btw, if you have an odd amount of cards in your library you will die to this combo if you don;t have a Lab Man or Lab Jace. Overall, M21 is looking to be the first set that has made me excited for MtG in a while, and oddly enough it is just a core set. I am pessimistic though, how will WotC break standard this time? Also, from the flavor text of Peer intothe Abyss, new card for Braids? Reprint of Cabal Minion? I want a Smokestack in Standard.

[seaprincess-selkie]

The coordinate is really coming together. I’ve never seen the headpiece that goes with this dress on sale before (or anyone actually wearing it) so I had LOTV designs make me one.

[nxesco]

Design Proposal for Shadow Priest in 7.2.5

Introduction

Shadow Priest need to decrease ramp up time.

Spriest is so uncompetitive in M+ (till 15 or higher)

Too weak versus trash packs (using two Global Cooldown AOE mechanism is awful for them).

Need to make some burst insanity generation for trash packs.

Power Infusion >> Baseline Spell

Spriest could not get into high stacks of Voidform without Power Infusion.

Make PI to the baseline (similer with Frost, Arcane Mage), which could give compatability to Spriest in M+ & ST damage dealing.

Create some spell synergy to Shadow Crash.

Tweak talent for balance & various situation (and more fun).

Shadow Priest also have uncompatitable single target damage in 7.2.

Also not good at heavy movement style.

Spriest needs to retain 40+ Voidform stack, which is hard to archive on heavy moement style fight.

Need to arrange Talent for 3 kind of situation

for Trashes(M+) / Heavy Movement / Single Target

and more FUN.

Changes

1. Spell Changes

Oblivion [New]

Passive

Off the battle, Spriest generate 3 Insanity every second to 45 Insanity level in Shadowform.

Make better performance on periodic battle.

Reduce first Voidform build up time without LotV.

Power Infusion

Now baseline spell for Shadow priest.

Void Eruption

Cast time is reduced to 1.5sec (was 2).

I think Void Eruption damage(to multiple target) is a reward for the build up action. So, need to reduce cast time, which causes Voidform delay.

Shadowy Apparitions

Now deals 45% Spell damage (was 27.5%)

or Dealing twice of damage in Voidform. (55% Spellpower damage in Voidform)

This spell's damage output is too low now, even after insanity generation nerfed.

2. Talent Change

Tier 1 Talent

Shadow Word : Void

Instant Cast (was 1.5 sec)

For heavy movement style fight and risky small adds (e.g Explosive M+ Affix).

Tier 4 Talent

Void Ray [Rework]

Mind Flay have 100% chance to apply Shadow Word:Pain. [Added]

Each time your Mind Flay or Mind Sear deals damage, cause your Mind Flay channels 10% faster for 6 sec, stacking up to 4 times. [Changed]

Decrease tick rate 0.75 sec to 0.45 sec (channel time is 1.8sec).

with 100% haste 0.9sec (0.225sec tick period, GCD=0.75sec), 4 Target Insanity generation : 28 insanity

DMG : MB >Mind Flay (with VR) > SW:Void > Mind Flay

Insanity : 4target MF (with VR&FoS) > SW:D (with RoS) > 4target MF (with VR) > SW:Void - Remove 2 Global Cooldown mechanism & make burst insanity generation for mind sear

Easy to get in & stack up Voidform.

Make balence Tier 4 talent.

Lingering Insanity : Formal encounters

Reaper of Souls : Burst finishing blow

Void Ray : Stacked multi targets

Tier 5 Talent

Shadowy Insight

Instant Cast Mind Blast is dealing 50% additinal explode damage to all enemies within 8 yds. [Added]

This talent was not good on PVE.

Make lottery AOE damage for lower M+ trashes.

Tier 6 Talent

Void Flux [New]

Mind Flay and Void Torrent may be channeled while moving and deal 20% more damage.

Upgrade filler damage & make compatitability for Heavy movement fight.

2% average damage boost for single target.

Msery

VT applies SW:P to target and now generate 9 insanity (was 6)

Reduce build up time

Full of Oblivion insanity stack, 3 target VT casting and Void Eruption can activate Voidform in 6 sec (was 10.5)

Reduce dependency on Lingering Insanity

Tier 7 Talent

Shadow Crash

Now have 640% of spell power damage (was 800%) and generate 6 insanity per target hit. (was 15, on cast)

Reduced Cooldown to 24sec (was 30)

Shadow Bolt speed is increased to 200%

100% chance to apply SW:P to the target [Added]

Reduce burst damage and make some synergy with other Spriest spells.

SC now can proc. Shadowy Insight and Mind Sear without SW:P casting.

Surrender to Madness

Cooldown reduced to 6min (was 10min).

I don't think this talent need to rework right now, just want to reduce cooldown time for M+ boss fight.

3. Legendary change

The Twin's Painful Touch [Rework]

In Voidform, Mind Flay ticks have 50% chance to speads SW:P & VT to 1~3 enemies within 10 yards of your target

Spriest community want to rework this legendary item because which has weird mechanism after 7.1.5 (Mind Sear removed patch).

So, make steady and lottery dot spread mechanism to this item and give some synergy with reworked Void Ray

Baseline : spread dots to 1.3 target per second.

Void Ray : spread dots to 2.22 target per second.

Build Suggestion & Conclusion

1. Lower M+

AOE Burst Build

Talent Build

Fortress of the Mind

Void Ray

Shadowy Insight

Void Flux (or Misery)

Shadow Crash

Rotation

Reworked Shadow Crash apply SW:P to the targets which can cause Shadowy Insight

And also have some synergy with new legendary "Heart of the Void" (Void Eruption : 600% Spellpower damage)

SC > VE > MB (with Shadowy Insight) > VT (to the big one) > MF

2. High M+

Dot Spread Build

Talent Build

Twist of Fate

Void Ray (or Lingering Insanity)

Auspicious Spirits (or San'layn with mastery gear set)

Misery

Legacy of the Void

Rotation

This Build can make massive dot damage with 30+ Voidform stacks, but also require ramp up time over 45sec.

With "The Twin's Painful Touch", Void Ray and Void Flux might have better potential to dealing with trash packs.

3. Raid

Formal Encounters

Twist of Fate

Lingering Insanity (or Void Ray with multiple target)

Auspicious Spirits (or San'layn with Mastery gear set)

Mindbender

Legacy of the Void

Burst Finishing Blow

Twist of Fate

Reaper of Souls

Auspicious Spirits

Mindbender

Surrender to the Madness

Heavy Movement Style

Twist of Fate (Shadow Word : Void, Non add fight or with the new legendary ring)

Lingering Insanity

Auspicious Spirits (or San'layn with Mastery gear set)

Void Flux

Legacy of the Void

4. Conclusion

With this changes, Spriest could pull 5%+ increased Single Target damage, relative to the battle time.

This changes also could make 25~40% total damage increase in M+ dungeons.

With AOE Build, Spriest can dealing burst 1475%+ Spellpower damage in 6 sec (was 960%)

**4 stack Arcane Explosion = 1966% of Spellpower damage

New passive Oblivion could decrease build up time 40%

Since Legion patch, Spriest always have under perfomance in 5-man dungeons, and it's getting worse after 7.2 open.

Many Spriest have suffered with painful refusals in party making screen right now. Moreover, Spriest is also uncompetitive in Mythic NH after 7.2 among the Ranged DPS.

This means Spriest could not possible to farm their iLv, and it might continues 7.2.5.

So, Spriest just need some buff right now, and this proposal might be the one option.

[evol-astraea]

After this, I’m done.

I found a page from some obscure SC Artbook I did not know about (might be wrong here though) and..in the right bottom corner there’s Selendis artwork from WoL.

Plus two sketches, one frontal without the cloth and one of the side.

She lacks - I repeat LACKS COMPLETELY - those waist/hip bones protrusions other protoss - read: males - do have.

It’s an old artwork and Selendis underwent a major overhaul, design wise, in LOTV.  Buuuuuuuut...at least that would mean there are more differences between male/female protoss..

[lilac-nites]

Forest Girl Clothing

Just found this really cute mori kei brand that has accessories that would have gone perfect with the LOTV Designs dress I missed out on

[burdsdumpsterfire]

Starcraft 1&2 undertale au (startale) concept

This was made out of pure boredom

Keep in mind I've only played entirely through WoL and only to the protect the artifact from the zerg in LotV. I have not played HotS or NCO. This is purely baised on co-op.

ut character =(becomes) Sc 1/2 character

Some are left blank due to not knowing who to put there, so feel free to add or change! I'll draw some designs when the au is finalized.

Frisk = Dehaka

Chara = Abathur

Toriel = Kerrigan

Asgore = James Raynor

Flowey =

Asriel =

Sans = Horner

Papyrus = Hans

Gaster = Stetmann (co-op)

Undyne = Nova

Alphys = ariel henson

Mettaton (box) = Timothy (stetmann)

Mettaton (human-like robot) = Gary (stetmann)

Mettaton Neo = Super Gary

Gaster Followers = Mecha Swarm

Monster Kid =

Grillby =

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This post initially appeared on Wayward Strategist.

About 3 months ago, I wrote a pretty long and, admittedly, rather rambling post about in-match progression in real-time strategy games. My core premise in the article was that while base-building and economic operations can be instrumental in providing players with important fine-grained control over their success in the game, they also present some seldom-addressed issues: namely, that such systems promote the type of imbalanced interactions that can limit player engagement and drive players away from a multiplayer game feeling that their losses are unfair. The purpose of the article was less to say that these systems were bad, but more to draw some lines around their limitations.

That article also pointed out some RTS games that have tried to design their systems to account for those limitations. Namely, Legacy of the Void drastically altered the StarCraft 2 early game to shorten it and minimize its impact, and changed the logic of its expansion system to get, and keep, more of the map relevant and keep the player moving. And the entire premise of the Dawn of War and Company of Heroes games revolves around an extremely protracted economic crawl, with most interactions including only a small fraction of a player's total possible fighting force. In my mind, both of these systems are intentionally trying to limit the possibility of wildly imbalanced player interactions and widely differing relative player power at any point in the game. Lately, though, we've seen something new tried in RTS.

In the past month, we've seen two new RTS which introduce the concept of 'phases' into their gameplay. Both Dawn of War III and Steel Division: Normandy 44 include some type of built-in escalation, though the implement them slightly differently. While the concept of phases is not new to gaming in general, it's certainly not something seen in many strategy games. But, perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. First, I will define and describe phases as they appear in Dawn of War III and Steel Division. Then, I will discuss the positive and negative impacts of phase mechanics on RTS.

Steel Division's deck builder, showing units grouped into A, B and C phases

Let's start by defining our terms. In a real-time strategy game, a 'phase' is a match- or game-level process. This process applies modifications to all players, or to the game state itself, increasing its effect multiple discrete times across the course of the match. Phases are typically time-based, but they by no means have to be.

As an example, Steel Division includes 3 gameplay phases titled A, B, and C. In Phase A, the player only has access to a limited palette of units, and their income is relatively low. Phase B kicks off 10 minutes into the game, and unlocks a larger selection of unit types for deployment. During Phase B, a player's income is increased. Phase C unlocks the player's heaviest units, and again increases the player's income.

In many ways, Steel Division is vastly different from a mainline RTS. Technically, I would consider it a tactics game since it has no real representation of an economy. In Steel Division, phases act as something of a tech tree, limiting the amount of game-deciding firepower available to players.

I'll comment on the relative merits of the system below.

WarCraft 3. Notice "No Upkeep" icon in the upper right corner.

Phases can be compared in some ways with the "upkeep" systems seen in some other RTS games, like Company of Heroes 2 and WarCraft 3. In WarCraft 3, a player's gold income is reduced when they cross a certain Food threshold (when they've called a certain number of units onto the field) and decreases again once they cross a second, higher, limit. This method is intended to organically limit a player's effective ability to continue to advance over a disadvantaged opponent, and as a way to subtly influence the game's pacing. It's a relatively weak cost/benefit system that, among other things, will organically curb a player from getting too far ahead too quickly.

One interesting aspect of systems like Upkeep and Phases is that they can be fine-tuned to only impact balance at a specific point in time or gameplay condition. Such systems allow gameplay designers to tweak only the early game, or only the mid game. Definitely nothing to sneeze at.

Phases work slightly differently in Dawn of War III than they do in Steel Division. As in the latter title, Phases in Dawn of War III increase players' income, but access to units is not directly linked to the game's current Phase. However, Phases in Dawn of War III increase the durability of match objectives, and decrease a refund that players initially receive on the cost of squads they've lost. Dawn of War III also includes 4 escalation phases.

Lategame combat in Dawn of War 3, featuring Eldar vs Space Marines.

In Dawn of War III, phases have been implemented with the express purpose of scaling the game from a tactical experience in the early stages, to a clash of massive armies in the later game. Phases are integral to that process. In the early game, players have a small number of squads, and the loss of even one is keenly felt. This is slightly offset by a refund of the lost squad's cost, in theory preventing a player from falling irrecoverably behind if they lose a squad or two. Phases 2 and 3 reduce this refund while increasing overall income, allowing for the production of much larger numbers of units, and making higher tier units more accessible. The increased durability of match objectives is designed to keep their defenses relevant as the overall power of each player spikes dramatically.

One of the notable aspects of Dawn of War III and Steel Division's phase systems are that is capable of resetting the match in terms of which player is ahead when a phase ticks over. This is not a guarantee: falling critically behind can still be a death sentence, and the player who's ahead going into a new phase can cement it or pull off a win in the next, but in both games I've had situations where a new phase has been enough of a boost to save my bacon.

For better or worse, anecdotes are not good evidence to support an argument. My intent is to illustrate that I have experience which tends to reinforce my belief that Phases systems can and should target ways to reinforce what I like to think of as homeostatis or equilibrium in strategy gameplay.

The real question is, do they work? Does the phase functionality fit into the overall framework of a competitive strategy game? Does it add to, or subtract from, the overall experience?

StarCraft Brood War. Can't just jam combat phases into a game like this!

Obviously, any mechanical interaction or gameplay system must fit into the overall context of the game. Jamming gameplay phases into Brood War isn't going to just make a better game (presuming such a thing could even work). The real, fundamental questions are, what is the goal of gameplay phases, and does it achieve that goal? A secondary question would be, is there another system that does this job better?

As mentioned above, gameplay phases serve to set broad constraints on a game's pacing: it's pretty hard for one player to get out-of-control ahead of another player economically in the phases systems implemented in Dawn of War III and Steel Division.

In most competitive formats, all players begin and remain at roughly equivalent levels of power across a game's duration. From FPS, to fighting games, to MOBAs, while players are able to unlock or obtain incremental or temporary or positional advantages, winning at a competitive game is often a matter of attaining some sort of meta-objective: number of player kills, more successful rate of completion of a game objective, destruction of neutral obstacles. Success is often generally equally obtainable for a player whether their team is behind in completing an objective, or not.

Heroes of the Storm, a MOBA famous for its 'meta-objective' system

Obviously, this is not the case in most RTS. In most RTS, the game objective is tied to a player's infrastructure, and a player's capabilities are also tied tightly to infrastructure. Therefore, economic and tactical operations are inherently going to start tipping the game in favor of a player who manages to gain an advantage.

Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I think in modern RTS design, imbalanced interactions and situations where a player has a high likelihood of being unable to properly address a threat are being, rightly, targeted for mitigation. Remember earlier, when I mentioned how Blizzard truncated the early game phase in StarCraft 2 with the Legacy of the Void expansion? A big piece of this was related to the frustrations of hair-trigger response times to certain powerful early game strategies (at least, in my opinion). LoTV also attempts to keep players out on the map more: players have to take bases earlier and more often.

The solution in LoTV seems like a band-aid to me: a sophisticated kludge to address the underlying structural issues inherent in the common RTS formula. And gameplay phases feel similar in some respects: they're a system intended to keep the playing field even and players competitive against one another for longer. Moving into a new phase is a huge deal in Steel Division: everything changes abruptly when a phase ticks over. It's a pivotal moment where new things can happen.

In Dawn of War III, moving into a new phase is a more subtle thing, oftentimes. You're kind of gradually becoming better, and it just gives a bump to that process. You don't *really* notice it at first. To me, however, Dawn of War III's phase system feels more artificial, and it's worth examining why.

Dawn of War 3 - more Eldar vs Space Marines

There are two standout issues that I see with phases in RTS games (at least, that we've seen with Steel Division and Dawn of War III). First and foremost, a major component of every successful RTS is that such games allow as much freedom as possible for a player to succeed or fail on their own terms: incremental gradations of skill along multiple axes are a vital component of a successful RTS formula. And locking part of the game down, while it technically solves some fundamental issues, still kind of feels like... locking part of the game down.

Game design is a series of tradeoffs, and the phases systems we've currently seen implemented in Steel Division and Dawn of War III still kind of feel like tradeoffs to me. I do enjoy both games, and I feel like phases are more beneficial than detrimental in both cases. But, in both cases, I can't help but feel that phases restrict player agency in crucial ways at the same time as they ensure relatively equal player interactions.

Supreme commander Forged Alliance - in the late game, economy takes off and Experimental units are able to be built.

All RTS games have inherent phases determined as a consequence of their mechanics. In Supreme Commander, for instance, deciding to move into tier 2 is a pretty big deal for a player, and fundamentally changes the nature of interactions between the players from that point out. Likewise, in Planetary Annihilation, a player getting Orbital technology is a... phase shift in terms of how the game is played from that point out. In StarCraft, moving from one base to two, and from two to three, changes the calculus of how the players interact with each other.

What we see with the implementation of phases is the attempt to move a player-level system to a match-level system. I think it's a laudable goal, but I'm not sure the current implementations are sufficient to be broadly useful for future games. Future phase systems - and I hope to see more games experiment with this - need to learn from what we see in Steel Division and in Dawn of War III and find ways to both sell themselves as a more natural and welcome part of the gameplay experience, and to allow as great variety of tactical options within each phase as possible.

Of the two, Steel Division's system is probably the more sturdier and future-proof: the game's deck-building bakes in a wider array of tactical options for each player, and the overall more focused (a word I chose intentionally in contrast to "limited") palette of gameplay options ensures that players have the time and ability to make more lateral, incremental and nuanced actions within the confines of each phase. Therefore, phases in Steel Division are a welcome unflowering of power as opposed to feeling like an artificial restriction of power, which can feel like the case in Dawn of War III.

Steel Division. Notice "Phase B in..." in the top right. Notice that Phase B and C units aren't available in call-in menu (top middle)

Dawn of War III's phases make it very difficult to access a wide variety of unit options in the early game, and the high-impact damage and difficult-to-disengage fights all serve to exacerbate the very issues that its phase system was intended to resolve. A morale system, a retreat function, and/or some way to more reliably call in even a single vehicle in early phases would go a long way to making the system feel more friendly and natural.

I don't think that phases are the future of RTS, but I think they can have a place in the future of RTS. And I do really, really appreciate the bald evidence that professional RTS designers are focusing on systems which allow players to have an overall more positive experience within the RTS genre. As an whole, RTS have gotten pretty good at figuring out how to allow players nuanced tactical and strategic control of their gameplay. The next big challenge will be figuring out natural ways to encourage homeostasis, and allow a losing player to continue to viably compete and attain the upper hand. With Legacy of the Void and Company of Heroes 2, we've seen some interesting thinking in this regard, and phases systems are another step in the right direction.

Thanks for reading.

[whatdohappen]

Excuse my lack of blouse. I just tried it on to check the fit but look at this beauty!!! I have a cute cream short sleeved blouse that will match nicely already, as well as some cognac tea party-esque flats from antaina. Just need some accessories and tights. * v * I definitely need to iron it and I might need to get a different petticoat because the fabric is much heavier than I thought it would be. I'm wearing two in the picture. Or maybe I need to get use to less poof in the jsk?

[aspenwitch]

Man I’m so grateful I ran into this meme on a weekend day when I’m wearing something fun instead of just work clothes.

[aspenwitch]

Lily of the valley @lotvdesigns designs at the Paradiso fashion show!