Both are pretty uninspiring, though there are aspects to each I like. The quirks feature of the Phoenix Soul stands out. Yet, I can’t get behind the Phoenix Soul’s death-triggering abilities. It only facilitates a specific concept of a fire mage and is only mechanically effective in a short window of gameplay. You noted as much in your breakdown. If someone loved the Phoenix concept I wouldn’t direct them away from it. For anyone else looking to play a fire sorcerer, I’d suggest the other. The Kaladesh Pyromancer, while bland, is at least a baseline open to customization for other concepts.

With both the fire mage and artificery, I’ll concede I come to these I’m looking for rules and game concepts that facilitate the status quo of my homebrew world. You are right that there isn’t much here that supports crafting and invention on a setting wide scale. While artificers aren’t unheard of in my homebrew world, they are not common, so these rules work for me. At least for now, ha.

Thinking about it a little more, I think that if invention is really going to be the beating heart of a campaign, it’s okay to make it a nuanced, involved system. D&D has intricate rules for combat because it’s a major source of interest in most games. If Kaladesh is really about invention, the rules must commit to supporting that.

I’m not with you on the fire sorcerer thing, but I think the PS Pyromancer doesn’t go beyond “I deal fire damage in huge quantities” with its themes, and that bores me. The Phoenix Sorcerer at least has some evocative imagery and other things going on, though Colin’s still right that they could have broadened that further. But my aesthetic preferences are, apparently, not for everyone. =)

I feel like Servo Crafting is what the artificer theme supported – a small tech pet for scouting, not a combat brute. So, yeah, here I agree with you strongly. Same for Quick-Smithing – Magic Item Analysis starts down this road, but doesn’t realize what a good thing it has going and stops.

At first glance I’m more inclined to this Fire Sorcerer than the Phoenix Soul from the Sorcerer Unearthed Arcana. Though a combination of the two will probably make it into my games.

In regards to artificing, Servo-Crafting is really what I was looking for from Mechanical Servant. Also seeing it here makes me realize that something akin to Quick-Smithing should have been included in the UA Artificer class. I’ll probably switch out Mechanical Servant for those features in home games.

😀

If you specifically want magitech, Everron is phenomenal. The main things to recommend Kaladesh in that consideration are the Consulate vs. renegades conflict (which you could bring into Eberron through House Cannith, but it’s a stretch), and the incredible advantage of M:tG art to show your players for nearly any situation. That said, much like Innistrad vs. Ravenloft, being spoiled for choice is awesome. 😉

I had a quick read at the morning. It has some nice ideas throughout, but for any such magicpunk setting I would always prefer Eberron.