On to the red.
Red is the color of emotion and recklessness. I guess. Well, poorly put, but I need to distinguish them from the other colors, so red is the color of the berserkers and other warriors, but also the color of the skald (the troubadours of the norse).
Because I really do need to distinguish red from other colors, I’m largely going with the skald approach, because I can do something different that way. Well, I’m using pretty standard abilities, but the flavor is different. Canut is worse in combat than any of the other legendary creatures, which goes somewhat against reds usual role, but I like him.
Canut, the Skald
Legendary Creature – Human Advisor 1/2, 1R
Red creatures you control can’t be blocked except by two or more creatures
Grandeur — Discard another card named Canut, the Skald: Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a good class type for artists. [scryfall]Blood Artist[/scryfall] is just a vampire and [scryfall]Tragic Poet[/scryfall] is just a human. On the other hand, [scryfall]Zuo Ci, Mocking Sage[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Diaochan, Artful Beauty[/scryfall] are both advisors, so we’ll go with that.
I was thinking of giving all red creatures Intimidate, but that would probaby be too much. Now he’s basically [scryfall]Goblin War Drums[/scryfall]. There are other similar effects, so I’d like to come up with something more interesting. However, recently, it has been flavored as being skillful enough to avoid blockers, such as [scryfall]Madcap SKills[/scryfall]. These could both work. Mostly, I like to think he’s just making others fear his followers enough to not be able to block them alone.
The flavor of the Grandeur power is to arouse loyalty through poetry. He’s really, really good, apparently. Also, these two abilities work together quite nicely. The Grandeur ability can make blocking even more awkward. Also, unlike the usual red effects such as this one, you can do it at instant speed… which might make this a bit too powerful, although you are pretty much broadcasting the possibiity if you have this guy in play.
Of course, I’d have to find another nickname for him, as I’d like to make a card named Skald as well. Also, skalds were pretty much tied to a court, whereas our Canut is not.
Canut is a renonwed storyteller, who knows hundreds, if not thousands of myths and sagas. Despite this, he is in a constant state of poverty and hunger, because he is not interested in appeasing the powerful. He does make glorious tales of people if he feels they have actually earned it. Because of this, he is appreciated more for his credibility than his art. Also, he is often appreciated more by the common folk than the noblemen, although some of them use him as a source of information.
Canut has made plenty of friends over the years. He seems to know everyone. This is probably how he manages to instill loyalty in so many and why many are willing to betray their own leaders for him.
Maybe name him something like “Rune scribe” or “One Who Remembers”? This would make him a better adviser (though skalds where that anyway. This way his ability would mean that he tells such stories about the warriors that it makes his enemies tremble in fear.
Also – I was thinking that the Grandeur ability still reads more like blue to me. Even though red has a lot of this kind of cards. Maybe changing it to “gain control of target random creature”? Would be more red. To me at least.
Apparently, you’re way too old school. Ray of Command is probably the only blue card with this ability, but there’s one in red (generally known as Threaten-effect) in probably every block, if not every set, nowadays.
I kind of had a feeling it would be this way. But yes. Impressions are hard to change and blue was The Stealer when I started. (It still doesn’t feel red to me.)