Makes it easier to track triggers for stuff only entering your own battlefield, vs tracking entries to every battlefield. Also helps with power creep by reducing how much these types of effects can trigger in a multi-player setting: triggers for just your own creatures entering vs every creature entering.

Lol exactly! Knotvine Paladin became one of my pet cards when my friends and I used to play janky 60 card homebrews when we were broke college students back in 2013-15. One of the decks I brewed up was a not so good Exalted deck featuring Knotvine.

All good, and totally understandable on all fronts, Goldbranner. One of my Alara block pet cards from my earliest days of playing is Knotvine Paladin.

Aragorn really is a Hornburger Helper. I get that Vigilance is a big component of the deck theme, but I'm a bit surprised to not see Kodama of the West Tree in the Main or Maybe Boards. If it isn't too much of a budgetary issue, maybe it could be a swap with Retaliator Griffin.

I'd say try 2 for at least a couple irl games first to get a feel for it, then try 1 for a few more. If nothing feels good, time to hit option 3 lol

I started brewing Zinnia recently. I brewed Satya, Aetherflux Genius as just Value ETBs, & Energy is just a secondary support to keep around certain value creatures. Long-winded way of saying that the Zinnia deck I started brewing is basically just the Satya deck without the Energy support & a few other cards swapped out.

I think Zinnia wants lower curve creatures with value ETBs, so paying the Offspring cost feels fairly reliable. You could def do stuff like:

• Soul's Attendant

• Skyclave Apparition

• Loran of the Third Path

• Spirited Companion

• Sower of Temptation

• Vengeful Ancestor

You can def get tech-y with your ETBs & tailor them to your meta. You can also add in a sprinkle of ETB blink effects to keep reusing your ETBs, like Felidar Guardian

Deck play summarized:

Dragonhawk was finally confirmed as real?

It seems like it's one of Kolaghan's brood. I kinda like that a "regular" dragon becomes Legendary because it's so alien to the inhabitants of the plane.

Yes, you can have all of those planeswalkers on the field at the same time without having to sacrifice any of them. From the wiki page:

"Planeswalker cards used to have a similar rule to the 'legend rule': If a player controls two or more planeswalkers that share a planeswalker type, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners’ graveyards. This was called the "planeswalker uniqueness rule".

Starting with Ixalan, this rule was abandoned. [24] All planeswalkers past, present, and future gained the supertype legendary and became subject to the 'legend rule'. Thus, if a player controls more than one legendary planeswalker with the same name, that player chooses one and puts the other into their owner's graveyard. This has also enabled planeswalkers without types to be printed, such as The Wanderer.

The change was made to simplify gameplay. [25] [26] [27]

There are no current plans to create nonlegendary planeswalkers. [28] "

Those all make sense tbh. Contractual Safeguard was my next pick in place of Resourceful Defense.

Happy to talk shop! I'm curious, which were some of the cards you were considering for cuts?

No prob! I've used all 3 cards at some point or another in different decks, usually in Aristocrats or token focused strats.

I like your inclusion of stuff like Homestead Courage and Feat of Resistance to protect or anthem up Anim Pakal, and get extra counters on her. I think you have a decent amount of redundancy that you could maybe swap one of them for Scapegoat, since it has upside of saving other creatures beyond your commander. I think of all of them, you could cut Test of Faith, as it feels the most narrow.

I think you could swap either Dispatch or Wear / Tear for for Soul Partition, depends on your preferences. I could also be off-base that these aren't even on your radar for swaps lol.

I see the usefulness in Resourceful Defense being able to move counters around on your creatures, either for the activation cost, or when they die. Fanatical Devotion could be a 1:1 swap on mana value, & turns your Gnomes into protective fodder.

Anim Pakal is a lot of fun. I run her in the 99 of one of my decks, and she snowballs pretty quickly if left unchecked, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Your deck looks solid, just thought I'd leave a few budget suggestions for protection & removal:

• Scapegoat - Chuck some of your token fodder to save whatever pieces of your board from removal that gets around your Indestructible protection.

• Soul Partition - Pulls double duty as either removal or protection for one of your key pieces. The times I've used it as removal, my opponents rarely re-cast whatever I exiled.

• Fanatical Devotion - Makes your opponents second guess sending removal your way with a board full of token fodder.

From having gotten a few games in with an adjacent token/copy strat with Satya, Aetherflux Genius and clones like Sakashima & Spark Double, can confirm that Souls Sister stuff like Guide of Souls quickly gets out of hand.

I love everyone's input and that we're all on similar trains of thought with where Eda is currently at.

I can see where you're coming from with your flavor intention for Eda, Tsukimi; I think I interpreted the "wayward" aspect of her name to be more like she takes in other players' "kids", and less about making your own. To make play patterns for everyone at the table kind interesting, I could see where she is like Faerie Artisans, but you may pay an Offspring type cost whenever someone else's creature enters. Less groan-y than Faerie Artisan to an extent, but everyone at the table will second guess if you're holding up mana to make a copy, or to play some other instant speed interaction.

Regardless, I think agree that your current design doesn't need anymore restrictions, and is great as is.

Another quick thought on the "Mother of the Wayward" flavor. If you wanted to change up the Life gain or Offspring aspect, maybe instead Eda makes temporary copies of other players' stuff, like Faerie Artisans? Maybe incorporate a timing/payment restriction kinda like Satya, Aetherflux Genius, minus the Energy, to determine if her wayward children stick around or not.

Idk, just trying to think of other angles & play space that could fit the flavor of Eda.

I think you should be okay with the Populate & Offspring on the card as is right now. 4 mana, tapping Eda, & tapping 2 other creatures isn't super steep, but restrictive enough to keep it interesting.

I think your Populate also curves nicely as a play the turn after Eda drops. With how mana intensive Offspring can get, you'll probably be initially limited to either doing Offspring or Populating off Eda, until you drop something like Jaheira, Friend of the Forest.

I could see Eda also have an interesting Lifegain variant with stuff like Myriad (Hammers of Moradin) to get bang for your buck on token production & Lifegain. Offspring your Myriad folks so their Offspring have Myriad, & really roll in life gain.

Likewise, it's always nice when you reach out to me!

I figured it might not be exactly what you're looking for, but could be worth a shot. Helga seems open-ended enough with the various things Bant adjacent strats want to do, that you could take her in a few different directions.