<BB> toadette's Battle Board (Twyla Nguyen, Time Jumper)

(Note that writing actions for another person's character is generally bad form, unless you've gotten the go-ahead to do it.  It's generally okay to assume that a response will come with a "when they respond" or something, but let that writing be on the other side unless you've confirmed ahead of time that it'll happen.  This specific case works out, because Seiva tells Karina who tells your party, but Karina could've just as easily had a shrug and not been sure.)

// Seiva's response to the current time: "I left from a time 82 years after the mending.  I think Karina's is slightly different, but close enough on a large scale."

I listen to the lengthy explanation as I consider how to respond.  There are many words I'm unfamiliar with that I might recognize as being the names of things that're likely on Ravnica.  The word mana comes up again and again.  I remember Mattol talking about it, but it's still a strange concept to me.

"You keep referring to mana.  I'm... very confused as to what exactly that means.  On Volaria we typically use elemental energy, a modified form of aether."

// The planeswalkers of the group hear Seiva's sentence, but Karina doesn't translate it. Instead, she answers it herself, which is audible to everyone in the group.

"It's magic energy you get from special places. Its what pretty much everyone uses, except Volaria."

I look over at Karina.  "That explains why everyone else keeps talking about it.  I should see if we can get some people in Entela looking into it."  I look up at the New Ravnicans again, so I can continue my thought.  It gets translated by Karina again.  "We use elemental energy normally, which means that we don't rely on the plane for it.  ... It would be nice to have access to an aetheric atmosphere, but I've heard those aren't easy to find, so we're working on being able to survive without one.  ... In fact, it's a possible theory as to why we have this problem in the first place."

...

"This might be a lot to absorb. Do you have any questions? And — can I get you anything to drink?"

I shake my head.  "I've got aether water in my bag.  Karina?"

"Uh... Yes, please."

After a moment to let whoever intended to grab a drink for Karina go, I reply, "I don't have any questions.  You answered mine in pretty descriptive detail.  But you said you had questions for me?"

---

Graveyard order mattering is a real pain basically no matter where it is.  Having to pay perfect attention to cards and destruction orders, things like Wrath and Faithless Looting.  Excluding that, this card has some large problems in that it will do the same thing every turn for the rest of the game, which late-game might be a counterspell, or the same creature over and over, or maybe a Silence... It also doesn't interact with the translator in any way, since I'm scrying and not surveilling. 4/10

Aetheric Life 
Enchantment 
Whenever you cast a creature spell, you may pay  any number of times.  If you do, that creature enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it for each paid this way.

I watch as Karina accepts the drink.  I guess I'll just make sure not to try to have her talk while she's drinking.

"Aether is an issue.  Our biology relies on the fact that we have access to aether to convert into elemental energy, as does our spellcasting.  We die without aether... which is why I'm carrying an aether canister."

// Seiva lightly uses magic to pull free a water bottle and drinks some of the water from it.

"Which isn't to say that we can't interact with things without aether, we just also need to make sure we have aether.  But, we can create aetheric fields and contain them on our own, so that's less of an issue.  What I'm looking for are planes that wouldn't mind us placing a city on them.  Somewhere we could send possibly millions of people when Volaria collapses."

I look at Karina for a moment.  Nothing to hide from her now, I suppose.  "We found evidence that the outside aether from the blind eternities is collapsing in on Volaria, almost as though whatever kept the plane stable went away.  A hypothesis... though, it's not really my field of study, so I wouldn't know, is that it's somehow related to the reason we have an aetheric atmosphere in the first place.  Apparently that's not a common thing."

Karina stares at me like I swore.  This time I understand why she's staring at me.  We should talk later finds its way into my mind.  I lightly nod at Karina.

Combine's Diagnostics being a triggered ability means it'll have to just double all the counters on the creature, since it applies after any replacement effects do. IT also needs to read if it was cast from your hand, since otherwise very few creatures enter the battlefield from your hand.  Beyond those wording things, it's probably a fine card? 7/10

Planar Instability 
Enchantment 
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, put a collapse counter on Planar Instability, then flip two coins.  If you lose both flips, sacrifice Planar Instability and it deals damage to each creature, player, and planeswalker equal to the number of collapse counters on it.

These people travel through planes by boat?  Are these the large ships that I see from Leritha and Sythis?

"I can't think of anything abnormal about Volaria, except for the properties of aether and bioaetherics I mentioned earlier.  If you have coordinates, that would be exceptionally helpful.  We have...  possibly one lead so far, and many places that have too many people or too harsh conditions to make a suitable place for evacuation."

"... though I suppose I would need to determine the conversion between our coordinate systems.  It's likely that we're not using the same system."  I start poking my transceiver to show a document about our system of coordinates.  A long string of numbers might not help them.

I feel like it should remove counters as part of the sacrifice and "distribute that many +1/+1 counters among...". It also means you can pull away the weird "they become +1/+1 counters". Otherwise, feels kinda like an artifact because of the tapping? 7/10

Navigation Conduit 
Artifact - Conduit 
When Navigation Conduit enters the battlefield, you get .
, : Reveal the top four cards of your library.  You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped.  Put the rest into your graveyard.

I look at Karina and smile.  While I speak, I type the coordinates into my transceiver.  "Interplanar communication is one of the Eternity Project's goals.  Communication is important for cooperation, after all.  Leritha's assistance there has been vital.  Perhaps in the future, we'll have set up a communication network like you have."

// After a few moments, Seiva looks around and continues.

"Would it be alright if we looked around your settlement here?  I'd like to see a bit more about how life on other planes is."

I like the idea of triggers that happen whenever you spend energy.  Note that nowadays the creature can't be blocked, instead of being unblockable. 8/10

Part of Society 
Sorcery 
Create two 1/1 white Citizen creature tokens.  If a creature entered the battlefield under your control this turn, instead create three of those tokens.

toadette

// As the tour goes on, Seiva remarks, "This is like Entela.  Far underground with a surface level."

~~~

"Ah, but this information isn't going to be much use for you two, as you don't use mana like the rest of us, do you?"

Karina replies before translating for me. "That's just miss Seiva, I use mana too... but I've never heard of purple? Is it like black?"

When she finally translates to me, I explain, "Elemental energy is a Volarian thing.  We're the only ones in the multiverse that I've seen use it.  Karina learned magic elsewhere."

~~~

"Is there anything you'd still like to see?"

I look around.  "I'm not sure what else you would have for me to see, so I suppose not.  I appreciate your help guiding us around today."

// Karina isn't saying so, because she's been talking enough as it is, but she's looking for a place to pick up either a souvenir or unique crafting material of some kind.  She's got Zinos on her, unsure if New Ravnica accepts them.

I'm both concerned that Flourishing Settlement is too good when you have creatures and so bad in the face of removal. 6/10

Souvenir Hunt 
Sorcery 
Search your library for an artifact card with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of artifacts you control, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.

"Oh, I see. Well, purple is one of a few colors of mana that our chambers can produce. All the blue mana that we aren't using as blue mana gets poured into one of our light chambers, where it's refracted layer by layer over long periods of time. We cook it like one would cook an egg. In the process, the mana slowly changes colors. Leave it in long enough, and it'll turn blue again.

"Not every color of mana is magically viable. For example, if you take the mana out of the chamber while it's turning from green to white, you get this funky yellow color of mana. It's still mana, to be sure, but try to use it in any spell and it'll just fizzle out.

"The colors we've found to work are blue, white, green, red, purple, and a very specific shade of orange that the mana reaches just a hair after it turns red.

"If you're familiar with the same colors we used to have on Old Ravnica, then the functional uses for blue, green, red and white mana shouldn't surprise you. Purple is a color of mana that helps us specifically with spacetime dilation and translation, while orange is a color we're currently doing research on. Both purple and orange seem to 'resonate' at a much lower magical power level, meaning we need to harvest lots of it before we can put it to any good use. So far, orange mana seems to have to do with cycles of life, death, and sentient emotion... it's an interesting contrast to blue, which we're most comfortable with using."


"Of course, it's my pleasure. I'd like to fix up my coordinators before I head back to the Arena — I believe they got a bit busted up in transit — so if you'll follow me to our last stop, we can hit the road in a jiff."

Twyla leads them back in, heading down through the main room to the hallway where she'd pointed out earlier as the research hub. 

Recalibration Service
Instant
Kicker
Untap up to two target artifacts.
If Recalibration Service was kicked, up to two target creatures get +2/+0 this turn.

(Souvenir Hunt: Interesting limitation on this one. Compared to Fabricate, might even be underpowered? 9/10
Out of character: Do you want Twyla to help finding a souvenir? She'd love to help you find one, if Karina asks her.)

toadette


Inherit the ground: It is a smaller, artifact only rampage of the clans, I like the flavor of a dryad casting it and the tokens being dryads, I think a better name for it would be 'Inherit the earth' but that could be just me. 9/10

"I'm from Tolaria West," he says while getting out a Map and placing it in front of Twyla, "It's a part of an Archipelago of Islands called the Spice Islands. There's no big forests on any of the Spice Islands so it's very rare to see forest-dwelling races such as elves and dryads. So... What plane are you from? I don't recognise that signia you're wearing." (I assume Twyla is wearing some form of the selesnya signia, Ignore this if she isn't)

World Atlas
Artifact
, Sacrifice World Atlas: Search your library for up to two basic land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.

"Show the way, then," I agrees.

// Karina doesn't say what she's thinking, instead just keeps looking.

Recalibration Service feels a lot like it's trying to do two very different things. 7/10

Also I don't really have a card to respond with here, since priority's on Twyla to lead Seiva/Karina somewhere.  You can still make a response without a card and I can respond to that with an "attack", or you can come attack my board with what's happening and that'll also work. 

Archipelican: That... Pun...! I would remove hexproof and reduce the cost to  because the cost of  feels clunky 8/10
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"Ilael..." he says to himself as if trying to remember something, "I've never heard of that plane; Although that isn't really saying much, I haven't been to many planes. And the name of New Ravnica isn't ringing any bells," he says while his facial expression changes from contemplation to a more light hearted expression, "You said you were head of research; what a funny coincidence, I'm one of the head professors of Tolaria West. I specialise with more experimental artifacts..." he says, then suddenly turns very sombre, "In fact, one of my experiments was the reason my spark ignited... So... What do you research?"

Spark Ignition 
Instant 
Until end of turn, target creature gains “When this creature dies, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature you control and return this card to its owner’s hand.”
Draw a card

(Let's just say Brayden was kind of traumatised by that experience)

"How interesting! My own research focuses primarily on manaphysics and space travel — our society is working on developing and finding uses for new colors of mana. My own spark ignited when I was photosynthesizing as a sapling and found that the light we were using was actually a strange form of mana. Messed with my upbringing a tiny bit."

Sparkling Lightchamber
Instant
Counter target multicolored spell. You may draw a card.
You may play Sparkling Lightchamber as a land. If you do, it loses all other abilities and gains ": Add ."

Spark Ignition is cool, and after thinking about it for a moment, I actually do agree with putting it at blue-green. If anything, the effect seems to be a tiny bit underpowered, as returning resources to your hand isn't a super valuable action compared to existing cards. 8/10

Sparkling Lightchamber: I really like the 'play as a land' idea I think drawing a card for its cost might be too much 9/10
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"New colors of mana?" he says while slowly turning his head to meet Twyla's gaze, visibly quite astonished by what she said, "There are other colors of mana? I've only heard of the regular 5 colors but to think there's more colors of mana..." he says with his head in his hands, clearly trying to fully comprehend what Twyla said, "Where can you find this mana, How do you crea-, can you create it? Because that would be a massive innovation, and I would absolutely want to experiment with it!"

Astonished Witness 
Creature - Human Citizen 
When Astonished Witness enters the battlefield, if a creature died this turn, you draw a card.
1/1
"It was him!"

"Well, it's simple, you see. Mana is not so rigid in form or essence that you can't manipulate it. The only naturally occurring mana on our home plane is blue, which means all of the other types of mana we need to use have to be home-brewed. We put the blue mana we harvest into huge chambers built from mirrors and one-way nanotech, where the mana is refracted until it changes form. It rotates through many different phases before returning to being blue, and if you take it out before it turns back, then you can access a whole rainbow of colors that you otherwise wouldn't think to use."

Glittering Butterworm
Creature — Insect
Flying
Glittering Butterworm enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana you spent to cast it.
1/1

Astonished Witness: Nice. 10/10.

Swoop: 8/10. Just looking at it, it feels powerful, but looking at Essence Flux it seems a bit weak.

"Well, first off, it's cold just about the entire year. And the higher ups are nearly as cold as the wind. Eventually, I got caught making a bit too much fun. Thing about jail cells, though, is that they usually don't account for people planeswalking out of them."

Hometown Deviants 
Creature - Human Rogue 
Haste, Trample
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may destroy target artifact. If you don't, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
3/2

"Oh, I see. We had no dearth of fun-havers and jail-breakers on the plane that preceded ours."

Hooligan's Highland
Land
Hooligan's Highland enters the battlefield tapped.
: Add .
: Add one mana of any color. Use this ability only if a creature or artifact has left the battlefield this turn.

Hometown Deviants: A 4-mana 4/3 with trample and haste seems really powerful to me, but at 5 mana this would be perfect. 8/10.