Is this the right time of year to be posting new card ideas? Almost certainly not! Am I going to anyway? You bet I am!
One thing that Redemption hasn't exploited yet is the fact that all cards must now be sleeved for tournament play. This rule, though originally made because of the card size changes, allows for a new card design: dual-sided cards.
There are some sort-of-dual sided cards in the game (namely Saul and Banks of the Nile/Pharaoh's Court). However, this style of making a double card doesn't really work with the new card face. Fortunately, since every card must be sleeved, it's possible to print truly dual-sided cards, since we don't have to worry about seeing the back of the card in the deck.
Here's an idea I had utilizing this.
This card enters play (and is sleeved as/counted in T2 as) Temple Veil. Once the condition is met (in this case, SoG played while the card is active) it turns over, switching from support for High Priests to NT support. For the rest of the game, even if it's de- and re-activated, it will be Torn Veil.
The first side, Temple Veil, is a generic Temple/Tabernacle artifact. As the High Priest passed the veil once per year to enter the Holy of Holies, this allows High Priests (which are most but not all of the priests you'll find in most decks) a once-per-turn heal ability. Since it's usable on both offense and defense (looking at you Ananias), I gave it the cost of deactivating itself - this has an added benefit we'll see in a moment. Initially I had a cost (underdecking a card from hand and only healing matching brigade), but given that A. Peter does a similar thing cost-free and B. The opponent can get rid of this by playing SoG, I figured that once per round is enough cost.
That leads us into the second part of the ability - the transformation. If Son of God is played at any time while Temple Veil is active, its player must immediately take the card out of the sleeve, turn it over to reveal Torn Veil, and replace it in the sleeve. If it was in Tabernacle/Solomon's Temple, it is either immediately deactivated or deactivates as soon as that player's prep phase begins (not sure if there's precedent there). This cannot be negated - there's no way to stop the effects of the crucifixion. This is where the "deactivate Temple Veil" phrase comes into play - if TV was CBN and there was no cost at all, in theory one could heal for the rest of the phase even if the opponent played SoG to mess with it.
Once the transformation has occurred, the card becomes very different. One of the other effects of the crucifixion was as follows: "The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people." (Matthew 27:52-53), which HOLY COW WHY DOES NOBODY EVER TALK ABOUT THIS?!?
That said, I decided to reference this in this card by allowing heroes that would be effected by this to band to heroes in discard. Is this powerful? Absolutely. That said, it requires some setup (having Temple Veil active when SoG is played) and a cost (discarding a card from hand). It also negates opponent's souls, which is generally pretty good (so much soul negation is blanket; having yours active but not your opponent's is really good). It's not fantastic as an enhancement, but thematically covenant makes sense and it won't be possible to play it as an enhancement unless it gets shuffled/returned to hand.
Part of the balance is the transformation; both sides of the card don't fit perfectly into one archetype. Playing it in a straight priests deck carries some uncertainty; most High Priests worth running are OT, so your opponent can play SoG to stop the heal and leave you with only soul negation (that can't sit in Tabernacle or Solomon's Temple). Conversely, Torn doesn't work in your martyrs deck until you find it and SoG at the same time.
Thoughts?
