Coming up with plausible, made-up Gods Unchained cards is a fun exercise in creativity. I enjoy this a lot. Added to that, getting an AI image generator to produce the card art that adjusts nicely to the card concept can be very entertaining as well, and sometimes very surprising. It can also be frustrating if the model struggles to capture complicated concepts or fails to understand details that sometimes really need to be part of the composition.
The theme of this set is around a new hypothetical keyword - Adjacent. My intention is to showcase a few examples where the placement of the creatures on the board would play a very important role.
This keyword is pretty obvious, the card effect only reaches one card to each side of the target creature (in case of a spell) or where the creature is placed. Since the effects are more localized, they could be slightly stronger than a board-wide effect for the same mana cost.
I don't put a lot of thought into the stats and mana cost, they are just an approximation.
I like cards that do not affect everything. The Adjecent keyword allows for that very nicely. In this case there is some relief from conditions applied by the opponent, but it's not a complete negation of the opponent's play.
It's funny how the Divine Order Format mode revolves so much around Guild Enforcers and other Frontline creatures and then other players counter with a lot more creatures with Flank than they'd normally do otherwise. I like the Flank keyword a lot and I think it's underused, so here is one more card to help make it a little more popular for a God that doesn't really have easy access to that keyword.
A very strategic removal card for hard-to-reach targets while leaving a decent body on the board. Still conditional on the existence of creatures on the board to make use of the removal ability in the same turn, so it strikes a balance between power and execution requirements. Stats and mana cost should be adjusted with the Uncanny Rogue stat line in mind. Adding Blitz would make the card considerably more potent, since it would then be able to activate the Flank effect of the adjacent creatures in the same turn it is played.
A gory and brutal ending to your loyal creatures, giving them an entirely new utility and potentially turning the tide of battle. It's particularly effective if the creatures traded and almost died or dealt some final damage and would be easily destroyed during the opponent's turn. I like a lot the concept of turning creatures into relics or vice-versa, like DeLapore. I'd like to see more cards like that. Maybe the mana cost is too low, considering how big and long-lasting the resulting relic could be. To counter this, the relic could lose 1 durability at the end of the turn.
A perhaps less problematic alternative would be a Dread Weaponsmith which would consume 2 creatures as well, but the relic would have 0-1 attack and durability equal to 1/2 or 1/3 of the sacrificed creature's combined stats. At the end or start of the turn, the relic would leech 2 damage from the opponent's God (essentially a Dread spell) and lose 1 durability.
This card has a deceptively strong potential of snowballing buffs across the board if the player is able to build a wide board quickly. It comes with a delayed payoff, which means for balancing purposes the buffs could be even better. If can also self-buff indirectly, which I think is also strategically very interesting. On a wide board it would require careful and skillful planning from the opponent to limit the effects of the buffs to a minimum. To increase the chances of payoff, the card could also give Ward to adjacent creatures, since we have so many board-wide removals available.
Card composition done via https://gucustom.cards/
AI art generated at https://creator.nightcafe.studio/
