@smax765 Flurry of Blows is certain interesting card. I would say it's balanced well, but I noticed a few wording. You should go this way;
"Flurry of Blows deals 1 damage to any target then copy it twice, these cannot be copied.
You gain "Next time you would be dealt damage, prevent next 1 damage."
I think your intention was to make card deals 1 damage triple and it prevents next 1 damage triple. However, your currently wording, the damage would be just deal damage at once to same creature as if damage was tripled. Meaning your woring would count toward only one source while new wording gives three sources of damages. After damage is done, you get three effects that stacks each other. You get "Next three time, you would be dealt damage, prevent next 1 damage."-ish. For each time effect been triggered, it's removed and two remains.
You must capitalized all words that's all name of card. Or it might be mistaked for part of ability rather than name of the card.
The point of dealing one damage three times is that the damage is dealt separately, so you can get a better profit of some cards like mechanized warfare.
And what do you think about blooming of the blood rose?
Blooming of the Blood Rose looks good to me. Kill creatures to get mana the next turn is a good combination of black and green. Might get a bit out of hand if you proliferate much or with doubling season, but thats the enemies problem then xD
I've made another Snail. But butter dont ask it about the way.
@LvB ; For me the card seems an un-card, but it seems somehow balanced. If there are lots of cards that have options, giving counters for paying mana is for me OK. It also uses all colors, so it seems more balanced. The only problem is when you have to choose all. That is why the card is overpowered. Just imagine choosing all for Mishra, lost to phyrexia. I really don’t know how to balance that, maybe mana?
@smax765 turning your other Eldrazi into better versions of Ragavan is pretty nuts, especially when it's not difficult to connect with a few tokens and/or the giant beatsticks they help you cast every turn. As for the last ability, by the time you can activate it, you should already be in a strong position to win the game. Even if you aren't, why would you sacrifice eight creatures just to cause some mischief that your opponents immediately get to recover from, likely including shredding you and your freshly cleared board?
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I'd appreciate feedback on these cards:
Taking another stab at these, with some new placeholder art too. ? For some context, see Jadefire's previous feedback.
@Cadstar369 ; I must admit that it's tough to give a feedback to one of the best cardsmiths I know. I will do my best to do so;
Perhaps it is preferable to mention "Another player than you", so it would be clearly that it DOESN'T prefer to its controller, but ally players and enemy players. I don't think "... each other player ..." would work, because, when preferring to each ONE for all other players, you should go for this way; "At beginning of each end step, draw a card for each another player than you gained 3 or more life this turn." Is there a rule that allows "another player than you" to be dismissed to "another player"?
That is all I can to say. Almoner Dorian and Dorian's Shepherds are put together and well-designed.
I would like a feedback on this card Inspired by @Jadefire
@FireOfGolden Shapeshifting Wastes is a great idea for a card. It takes the best parts of Mana Confluence, Thran Portal, and Tarnished Citadel and even has the added bonus of being able to synergize with multiple basic land type strategies. A nice balancing feature of it is that it doesn't inherently have any of the basic land types, so it can't be fetched from your library by effects that look for those.
Even though Wastes is a basic land, there's no such thing as a Wastes subtype, so the card would just have Land as its type with no subtype. You would then just need to take the colourless mana producing ability out of the brackets. You clearly know how to use the tab space to horizontally indent rules text, I wonder why this wasn't applied to the second ability, because I can see the ` used to shift the text to the right. Overall, it's a really interesting, versatile, and powerful take on a five colour land that's still balanced.
Here's my suggestion for wording the abilities:
Shapeshifting Wastes Land T: Add C. Pay 1 life: Choose Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest. Shapeshifting Wastes becomes a copy of the card with the chosen name until end of turn.
I presume your intention was for Shapeshifting Wastes to become a copy of the chosen basic land because you went out of your way to specify that the land retains the Wastes subtype. This also means once the ability resolves, you can't activate it again until the next turn, because Shapeshifting Wastes' text and attributes are replaced by the text and attributes of the chosen basic land.
@Jadefire I didn't noticed Wastes had no subtype when I compare it with other basic lands. That is interesting feature there.
I have a explanation for " ` "; I am mobile user who haven't mastered the use of tab. Perhaps, if someone provide me a tab space, I will be gladly to copy it, so I can paste it onto the card.
Since wastes doesn't exist as subtype, I will have to remove it from the land type as "Land", the ability, however, is intended to be acitvated again, if necessary. There are some situations you could untap it again and make it into different land for different mana. Who knows?
@FireOfGolden if you want Shapeshifting Wastes to have the ability to change multiple times in a turn, you have to include "except it has this ability" in the ability text for the reason Jadefire mentioned above (see these cards for reference). When combined with Jadefire's suggestion, you get this:
Shapeshifting Wastes
Land
{t}: Add {c}.
Pay 1 life: Choose Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest. Shapeshifting Wastes becomes a copy of the card with the chosen name until end of turn, except it has this ability.
Consider Ragavan, one of the most notoriously absurd red cards ever printed. While Ragavan has 2 power and also creates Treasure on contact, it is limited to only being useful offensively, and its lack of haste affords your opponent(s) time to deploy blockers. In contrast, Kitsuninja can attack immediately when it comes down, is a minimum 4/4 on offense or defense when blocking is involved (to say nothing of trample and rampage 3), and can't even be effectively dealt with under most circumstances since it goes back into your library instead. Additionally, why is this card hybrid red/white when there is vanishingly little white about this card or its inclinations?
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@FireOfGolden so far as I can tell, there is no wording issue for Almoner Dorian (though I must admit there is no existing card with a trigger that has wording or function particularly similar to his last ability).
On a separate note, while Shapeshifting Wastes has been compared to City of Brass in prior posts, Mana Confluence is a much better comparison since City of Brass deals damage to you, which can be impacted in a variety of ways. (City of Brass also hurts you if it becomes tapped for any reason, not just from using its mana ability.)
Alms counters are for me a little bit overpowered. Maybe you could give an ability to the counters to remove the counters, like "remove the counter if this creature deals combat damage to a player". And that would be all, honestly I think the cards are balanced.
@smax765 ;Auramancer Sliver is nuts. As far as I can tell, there is no existing card that has an effect like this for Auras (the closest that comes to mind is Yenna or creature Calix), so let's consider this handful of cards. Notice that each of them (with the exception of Radiant Performer) can only copy impermanent effects, doing so is generally not optional, each one costs at least 4 mana, and the strategies they support tend toward a small number of colors.
In contrast, Auramancer Sliver is a 1-drop that optionally copies permanent effects and is part of a 5-color tribe whose main gimmick is having virtually every member be a lord. It's notably both trivial to find and recur because its P/T and mana value are low. On top of all that, it even makes extra creatures itself, replacing this style of effect's main weakness with the potential to rapidly snowball.
Some wording notes (to expand on FireOfGolden's commentary; see cards noted above for reference):
The name of a card should be capitalized appropriately in its card text.
The subtypes of cards and tokens should be capitalized in the text of effects that reference them.
The copying ability should include a clause along the lines of "that the spell could target" toward the end.
There are no Roles that can be cast, so there's no need to exclude them from Auramancer Sliver's ability.
There's no need for the "if able" in the last sentence, since each spell is only copied for things it can target in the first place.
P.S. – Regarding your response to Dorian and his Shepherds, I would appreciate it if you expounded upon your opinion. Suppose I wanted to change the effect of alms counters or create new cards that interact with alms counters; what you've written has provided no useful information with which to guide either of those efforts, since I have no idea why you think alms counters are "slightly overpowered". (I also can't tell if you've evaluated the cards in the intended context; notice the Commander Legends set symbol on both cards.)
Just having a 3-drop that protects you for the rest of the game seems slightly overpowered. They are counters, so they are more difficult to remove than auras like the impetus. Dorian’s shepherds give impetus-like counters each turn rather than on each of your turns. That’s why I think that alms counters need an auto-remove condition. That way players can remove the counters and attack you.
For auramancer sliver, there are some things I want to say: 1. Giving the cards the role subtype means that only the last aura that targeted auramancer sliver will give effect on other slivers, because when you cast another aura, they are roles and remove the other roles from other enchanted creatures enchanted this way (it was used for balance). 2. “If able” means that auras copied by the auramancer sliver won’t always be able to target other slivers. If auramancer sliver is an artifact for some way, you may cast on it an “enchant artifact” aura. And that’s why the card has that text.
@smax765 it appears there’s been multiple misunderstandings. I had internally autocorrected “except of they are roles” (which doesn’t make any sense) to “except if they are Roles” (which still doesn’t make much sense). Your second point has already been addressed by the wording notes in my prior post.
Let me take a stab at a proper wording (using Druid of Horns and the cards I mentioned previously for reference):
Whenever you cast an Aura spell that targets Auramancer Sliver, create a 1/1 colorless Sliver creature token, then you may copy that spell for each other Sliver you control that the spell could target. Each copy targets a different one of those Slivers and is a Role in addition to its other types.
Does this capture your intentions for Auramancer Sliver? If so, it isn’t meaningfully less cracked than I made it out to be initially. It still allows you to adopt key strategies employed by decks like Zada (e.g. turning cantrips into big draw), while coming down significantly earlier than similar cards and snowballing as you go. Having the copied Auras become Roles is practically immaterial when making a bunch of something like Ancestral Mask or All That Glitters at the end is plenty lethal.
Edit ~ Regarding Dorian and company, is turning off a creature or three really enough to stop most decks from killing you? The only thing I can see that stopping is perhaps a voltron deck if you catch them off guard, as Dorian is a one-off and the Shepherds are a rather slow burn (assuming your opponents are trying to kill you with combat damage in the first place). This is also ignoring the ability of at least 3 colors to deal with alms counters fairly easily, with colorless options available as well.
@cadstar369 Maybe for you Dorian and the shepherds are balanced, but I normally play on low tier commander games, so attacking is an important thing on my games. As commander tiers are higher, combat is mostly secondary, so for you the abilities are less powerful.
And thanks for the wording of the sliver. That’s what I was trying to find!
@cadstar369 Now this is a version of Dorian that's up to par with its rarity. Using alms counters instead of +1/+1 counters really gives Dorian some lasting utility after it hits the board. I may not be fully up on current templating, but I don't remember seeing counters with inherent abilities having those abilities explained in reminder text. Any lasting effect of counters (irrespective of the need for the card that generated it to be present) is usually explained in the card text itself. I'm thinking of cards that function like these in particular.
Even though it's not applicable to Dorian itself, it's nice that the second ability has the potential to give you multiple life when putting more than one counter on the same creature. I don't think there are too many spells or effects in Selesnya that let you do that, but leaving that option open is better than not. Now that alms counters give the creature lifelink, making Dorian's third ability check at the end of every turn can really net you a lot of card advantage, so good choice with that. It also gets rid of the need to keep a running tally of the amount of life gained by each opponent across multiple turns.
The fact that Dorian, as a commander, is always accessible and easily reusable does potentially raise the question of whether or not it's too annoying to play against. On the one hand, alms counters continue to have their effect even when Dorian isn't on the battlefield and you can target any creature to receive them. With enough mana, this can single-handedly perma-Moat the entire board, and there are plenty of ways to bounce Dorian to reuse it against anything else that might get played later. While not full-on removal, removing a creature's ability to attack you tends to take away its greatest (if not only) function for many decks. This is about all you'd need for a deck that doesn't care about combat. Compare this with Eriette of the Charmed Apple. While her ability is also a win condition/life gain, she only shuts down attackers on a 1-for-1 basis because each creature needs to be individually enchanted. Dorian provides its own counters (which are much harder to remove than Auras), can have its full protective effect with zero additional card investment, has no ceiling for its effect other than the mana you have available, continues to shut down attacks even after it gets removed, is easily reusable due to it being a creature (regardless of whether or not it's a commander), and has additional utility to give your creatures a toughness boost and lifelink.
On the other hand, being more of a Moat effect than acutal removal means there are ways to interact with the alms counters, like bouncing or blinking the creature. However, these are tools only certain colours have and they may not be played that commonly. Even if they are played, the effect probably won't be simultaneously one-to-many like Dorian's ability or as mana efficient if it requires recasting the creatures. Alms counters don't turn off your opponents' ability to attack each other, so combat isn't shut down entirely, but in a 1-on-1 situation (especially against a combat-focused deck) it may as well be a one-sided Wrath. This could be addressed by making it necessary for Dorian to be on the board to prevent attacks, like with Eriette or Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer.
Suggestion for Dorian: When Almoner Dorian enters the battlefield, put an alms counter on each of up to X target creatures. Those creatures get +0/+1 and have lifelink for as long as they have an alms counter on them. Creatures with alms counters on them can't attack you or permanents you control.
Note that this wording makes alms counters noncumulative, but you're not likely to stack multiple counters on the same creature anyway.
The same issue with giving alms counters the inherent ability to prevent attacks is present with Dorian's Shepherds, perhaps even moreso outside of Commander because they're not legendary. After Moating all of your opponent's creatures, the Shepherds just sit there waiting for your opponent to play their next creature. Their ability triggers every upkeep with no mana or card requirement, which can be quite oppressive even when not faced in multiples. The other thing with Dorian's Shepherds is the wording of the first ability. Rule 107.1c states that zero can be chosen when selecting "any number," which means this ability can be used to shut down life gain for all of your opponents. Rather than making it a replacement ability, it can just be a triggered ability whenever an opponent gains life that lets you choose any number of other players to also gain that much life. This way, attack prevention doesn't need to be an inherent quality of alms counters, because the Shepherds will gain you back any damage your opponent deals to you with lifelink creatures.
Suggestion for Shepherds: Whenever another player gains life, you may have any number of other players gain that much life.
Yoran appears to be an aggressively costed punisher in your Seizan-lite series. You're already aware of the similarity between this card and Nekusar. Like with Nekusar, Yoran can still do 2 damage to your opponents each turn while only risking giving them one extra card, which is an improvement over Seizan. More importantly, all this starts two turns earlier than with either Seizan or Nekusar, which seems ideal for your historic brawl deck. Yoran is even more versatile than Seizan and Nekusar because the damage can be dealt to any target and can be distributed 1 damage at a time across multiple targets. It's also a great Wheel punisher, unlike Seizan, and has fewer colour requirements than Nekusar. Using the wording of "whenever a card is put into an opponent's hand" rather than just triggering whenever they draw a card is an interesting choice. In most cases, it'll function identically to the "draw" wording because drawing a card is done by putting the top card of your library into your hand (Rule 121.1). I can only imagine that the choice of this wording is, in part, to give the card some novelty and to sync it up with how the second ability is worded. Speaking of the second ability, I'm guessing this is supposed to be a drawback because exiling a card means it'll be face up for all players to see and you'd rather do it this way than to word the ability like these cards. Following the format of Nekusar, I would recommend listing Yoran's upkeep trigger first and inserting a leading blank line to vertically center the text in the box. The final thing is that making Yoran two turns faster, despite making it easier to kill by lowering its toughness to two, would probably justify upping its rarity to mythic.
While the MTGCS version of Dorian looks pretty egregious now, I do like the changes you suggested to both him and his Shepherds. (It's also pretty silly of me to miss how nonstandard counters are described despite using some of the cards you linked to for reference in the first place. ?)
I've gotten pretty bad at evaluating effects that shut down combat in a vacuum since not only is this style of effect rather ineffective in most commander games I've played (it's rare that every opponent is aiming for a combat damage kill with no backup plans), but I've also thought for the longest time that attacking is one of the worst strategies you can have in Magic, even if it's the standard way for a player to win the game. I've probably gotten even worse at it recently due to how ineffective Eriette and similar creatures seem to be at preventing you from dying, though that likely stems from how vulnerable creatures are in general, especially legends.
Good catch with zero being allowed for Dorian's Shepherds. I might go back to having it be a replacement ability so you can't get wrecked by an opponent "ungratefully" alpha striking you, but making it a triggered ability instead puts it more in line with cards like Angel of Destiny.
You're right on the mark with why I worded Yoran's first ability the way I did. The second ability being 'exile and put into hand' instead of 'draw and reveal' is for a handful of reasons (in no particular order):
Red seems to be slowly getting more effects that care about your cards getting exiled, regardless of why or what happens to them later.
It doesn't interact with effects that mess with additional draws this way, so it's unlikely that Yoran will hand out an asymmetric number of extra cards.
It's harder to mess up the execution this way, whereas a player might forget to reveal their extra draw with the other style of effect.
Exiling cards better aligns with the way I've interpreted the Hyakki Yakou aesthetic across previous cards. More generally, I think this way fits (crazed) revelry better than draw and reveal.
Lots of mythic rares coming from me recently huh. ?
I would change dorian that way that he distributes two alms counters when he comes into play and dorians shepherds that they distribute one alms counter when they come into play.
And then when the creature with the alms counter leaves play the counter is moved back unto dorian or the shepherds and then during your upkeep if they have alms counters, you can move the alms counter to another creature.
Just being able to put alms counters on every creature seems too powerful to me.
@kaoz42 assuming Melodize N means something along the lines of
Exile the top card of your library. If it's an instant or sorcery card, put it into your hand. Modal spells put into your hand this way gain composition N and the value of each mode becomes 1.
then it's an insanely strong mechanic.
At N=1 this is nuts for Songs. From the wording of Composition N, I would assume having Composition N and Composition M has the player make two sets of decisions, with separate collections of choices resolving in sequence. Getting to choose an extra mode is already strong, but it also vastly increases the strength of any Song with modes that cost more than 1. For example, if your Malicious Melodist flipped Kalmiya's Opus, you could use it to put six +1/+1 counters on each of your creatures, which is way cheaper than Strength of the Tajuru, the closest existing card I can find. And that's ignoring the other modes!
Even for normal modal spells, since Composition N doesn't override the original card text, getting to choose an extra mode with repetition can easily be backbreaking. For example, Abrade becomes potent double removal for a mere two mana.
At N≥2 however, Melodize becomes even more powerful than Far Out in most cases, and is definitely broken with how easy it is to make consistent. (Blue has plenty of both deck control and ability to regrow instants and sorceries, so it would be rather trivial to hit a modal instant or sorcery more often than not.) For example, imagine if Abrade hit 3+ artifacts and/or creatures, or Bant Charm could counter multiple spells while also simultaneously destroying artifacts and/or tucking creatures.
Additionally, Melodize doesn't work in paper because your hand is a hidden zone. Suppose you have two copies of the same modal spell in hand, but only one of them was melodized. There's a ton of ways you can cheat if someone were to mess with your hand since there's no apparent difference between the two cards. Since melodize already exiles, it'd make more sense if you were allowed to cast melodized spells from exile to prevent information issues.
In general, with how powerful it is, if you're really attached to Melodize as an ability, I'd suggest rewording it along these lines:
(Exile the top card of your library. If it's an instant or sorcery card, you may cast it for as long as it remains exiled. If you cast a modal spell this way, when choosing modes you choose an additional mode and you may choose modes more than once. If you cast a Song spell this way, the value of each mode becomes 1 when choosing modes.)
Even then, there should be fairly heavy costs attached to any Melodize ability.
By the way, why does this mono-blue creature have a triggered ability that causes players to lose life? Wouldn't it make more sense if it was "scry 1" or something more blue-aligned rather than such a black-aligned effect? (Alternatively, you could add black to the mana cost, since 'malice' isn't particularly blue either.)
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@LvB I would appreciate it if you at least attempted to give proper feedback. Space issues for Almoner Dorian and Dorian's Shepherds aside (Jadefire's suggestion for Dorian already doesn't fit at 90+ words, so there's absolutely no way yours will fit), what are readers supposed to gain from you hurling an unsupported opinion into the void like that? You have neither provided a basis upon which a reader can attempt to understand and subsequently accept or reject your words, nor have you given a reader any reasonable information that can be used to guide future card designs.
@cadstar369 It looks like it was quite the accomplishment to get all of Dorian's rules text into the MTGCS textbox, regardless of formatting. Nonstandard counters are just that, so it's understandable that the way they're described on cards wouldn't have jumped out to you. I just happen to be a fan of Aven Mimeomancer.
Our context, experiences, and playgroups often shape our perspectives and biases, but that's what soliciting group feedback is for. You're clearly more of a commander player who prefers a non-combat path to victory. I'm more of a 1v1 player who's open to various approaches to victory.
If you prefer Dorian's Shepherds to have a replacement effect so that you can't die while waiting for the life gain trigger to resolve, you can just do a modified replacement effect that won't prevent the original player from gaining life: If another player would gain life, you may have that player and any number of other players gain that much life instead. Now that I think about it, having this effect in triggered ability form on a nonlegendary creature could result in an infinite ping ponging back and forth between two or more copies of Shepherds, so the replacement effect route is probably the way to go.
Those are some well thought out reasons for providing Yoran's extra cards through "exile and put into hand" rather than "draw and reveal" covering flavour, mechanical, and practical gameplay perspectives.
I'm not sure if you were intending on creating a two card infinite combo with Autumn Cursemonger, but that seems to be what's happend. Giving the Cursemonger the abiltiy to tap for {b} or {r} (E.g., Paradise Mantle, Karametra's Favor, Multani's Harmony, Utopia Vow) will instantly result in infinite damage. Alternatively, this can also be done with Earthcraft, Cryptolith Rite, or Elven Chorus in a less risky fashion. Aside from that, the potential to "first strike" for a point of Wither damage on the attack and have pseudo-Vigilance for {b/r} seems alright for an uncommon. I would also recommend shifting the rules text down by a line on this card to center it vertically.
I just realized that the triggered ability version of Dorian's Shepherds goes infinite with itself in multiplayer games since making at least one player other than you gain life will immediately trigger the Shepherds again.
Nice catch on Paradise Mantle shenanigans for Autumn Cursemonger. Between that and Umbral Mantle it's way too easy to break tons of activated abilities. ? Increased the cost of Autumn Cursemonger's activated ability by {1}. (Leaving the image above as is for reference.)
True, it only takes a single Dorian's Shepherds to go infinite when there's a third player present. At least it's an easy fix to go back to making the ability a replacement effect that works the way you had initially intended.
Upping the activation cost of Autumn Cursemonger's ability as a fix to the easy infinite makes a lot of sense, since the untap symbol is more associated with blue and white anyway.
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Flurry of Blows is certain interesting card. I would say it's balanced well, but I noticed a few wording. You should go this way;
"Flurry of Blows deals 1 damage to any target then copy it twice, these cannot be copied.
You gain "Next time you would be dealt damage, prevent next 1 damage."
I think your intention was to make card deals 1 damage triple and it prevents next 1 damage triple. However, your currently wording, the damage would be just deal damage at once to same creature as if damage was tripled. Meaning your woring would count toward only one source while new wording gives three sources of damages. After damage is done, you get three effects that stacks each other. You get "Next three time, you would be dealt damage, prevent next 1 damage."-ish. For each time effect been triggered, it's removed and two remains.
You must capitalized all words that's all name of card. Or it might be mistaked for part of ability rather than name of the card.
And what do you think about blooming of the blood rose?
For me the card seems an un-card, but it seems somehow balanced. If there are lots of cards that have options, giving counters for paying mana is for me OK. It also uses all colors, so it seems more balanced. The only problem is when you have to choose all. That is why the card is overpowered. Just imagine choosing all for Mishra, lost to phyrexia. I really don’t know how to balance that, maybe mana?
Anyway, this is my card. Is a commander.
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I'd appreciate feedback on these cards:
Taking another stab at these, with some new placeholder art too. ? For some context, see Jadefire's previous feedback.
I must admit that it's tough to give a feedback to one of the best cardsmiths I know. I will do my best to do so;
Perhaps it is preferable to mention "Another player than you", so it would be clearly that it DOESN'T prefer to its controller, but ally players and enemy players. I don't think "... each other player ..." would work, because, when preferring to each ONE for all other players, you should go for this way; "At beginning of each end step, draw a card for each another player than you gained 3 or more life this turn." Is there a rule that allows "another player than you" to be dismissed to "another player"?
That is all I can to say. Almoner Dorian and Dorian's Shepherds are put together and well-designed.
I would like a feedback on this card
Inspired by @Jadefire
Even though Wastes is a basic land, there's no such thing as a Wastes subtype, so the card would just have Land as its type with no subtype. You would then just need to take the colourless mana producing ability out of the brackets. You clearly know how to use the tab space to horizontally indent rules text, I wonder why this wasn't applied to the second ability, because I can see the ` used to shift the text to the right. Overall, it's a really interesting, versatile, and powerful take on a five colour land that's still balanced.
Here's my suggestion for wording the abilities:
Shapeshifting Wastes
Land
T: Add C.
Pay 1 life: Choose Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest. Shapeshifting Wastes becomes a copy of the card with the chosen name until end of turn.
I presume your intention was for Shapeshifting Wastes to become a copy of the chosen basic land because you went out of your way to specify that the land retains the Wastes subtype. This also means once the ability resolves, you can't activate it again until the next turn, because Shapeshifting Wastes' text and attributes are replaced by the text and attributes of the chosen basic land.
I didn't noticed Wastes had no subtype when I compare it with other basic lands. That is interesting feature there.
I have a explanation for " ` "; I am mobile user who haven't mastered the use of tab. Perhaps, if someone provide me a tab space, I will be gladly to copy it, so I can paste it onto the card.
Since wastes doesn't exist as subtype, I will have to remove it from the land type as "Land", the ability, however, is intended to be acitvated again, if necessary. There are some situations you could untap it again and make it into different land for different mana. Who knows?
Land
{t}: Add {c}.
Pay 1 life: Choose Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest. Shapeshifting Wastes becomes a copy of the card with the chosen name until end of turn, except it has this ability.
Consider Ragavan, one of the most notoriously absurd red cards ever printed. While Ragavan has 2 power and also creates Treasure on contact, it is limited to only being useful offensively, and its lack of haste affords your opponent(s) time to deploy blockers. In contrast, Kitsuninja can attack immediately when it comes down, is a minimum 4/4 on offense or defense when blocking is involved (to say nothing of trample and rampage 3), and can't even be effectively dealt with under most circumstances since it goes back into your library instead. Additionally, why is this card hybrid red/white when there is vanishingly little white about this card or its inclinations?
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@FireOfGolden so far as I can tell, there is no wording issue for Almoner Dorian (though I must admit there is no existing card with a trigger that has wording or function particularly similar to his last ability).
On a separate note, while Shapeshifting Wastes has been compared to City of Brass in prior posts, Mana Confluence is a much better comparison since City of Brass deals damage to you, which can be impacted in a variety of ways. (City of Brass also hurts you if it becomes tapped for any reason, not just from using its mana ability.)
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I'd appreciate feedback on these cards:
I would like feedback on my first sliver:
In contrast, Auramancer Sliver is a 1-drop that optionally copies permanent effects and is part of a 5-color tribe whose main gimmick is having virtually every member be a lord. It's notably both trivial to find and recur because its P/T and mana value are low. On top of all that, it even makes extra creatures itself, replacing this style of effect's main weakness with the potential to rapidly snowball.
Some wording notes (to expand on FireOfGolden's commentary; see cards noted above for reference):
P.S. – Regarding your response to Dorian and his Shepherds, I would appreciate it if you expounded upon your opinion. Suppose I wanted to change the effect of alms counters or create new cards that interact with alms counters; what you've written has provided no useful information with which to guide either of those efforts, since I have no idea why you think alms counters are "slightly overpowered". (I also can't tell if you've evaluated the cards in the intended context; notice the Commander Legends set symbol on both cards.)
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I'd appreciate feedback on this card:
1. Giving the cards the role subtype means that only the last aura that targeted auramancer sliver will give effect on other slivers, because when you cast another aura, they are roles and remove the other roles from other enchanted creatures enchanted this way (it was used for balance).
2. “If able” means that auras copied by the auramancer sliver won’t always be able to target other slivers. If auramancer sliver is an artifact for some way, you may cast on it an “enchant artifact” aura. And that’s why the card has that text.
Let me take a stab at a proper wording (using Druid of Horns and the cards I mentioned previously for reference):
Edit ~ Regarding Dorian and company, is turning off a creature or three really enough to stop most decks from killing you? The only thing I can see that stopping is perhaps a voltron deck if you catch them off guard, as Dorian is a one-off and the Shepherds are a rather slow burn (assuming your opponents are trying to kill you with combat damage in the first place). This is also ignoring the ability of at least 3 colors to deal with alms counters fairly easily, with colorless options available as well.
And thanks for the wording of the sliver. That’s what I was trying to find!
Even though it's not applicable to Dorian itself, it's nice that the second ability has the potential to give you multiple life when putting more than one counter on the same creature. I don't think there are too many spells or effects in Selesnya that let you do that, but leaving that option open is better than not. Now that alms counters give the creature lifelink, making Dorian's third ability check at the end of every turn can really net you a lot of card advantage, so good choice with that. It also gets rid of the need to keep a running tally of the amount of life gained by each opponent across multiple turns.
The fact that Dorian, as a commander, is always accessible and easily reusable does potentially raise the question of whether or not it's too annoying to play against. On the one hand, alms counters continue to have their effect even when Dorian isn't on the battlefield and you can target any creature to receive them. With enough mana, this can single-handedly perma-Moat the entire board, and there are plenty of ways to bounce Dorian to reuse it against anything else that might get played later. While not full-on removal, removing a creature's ability to attack you tends to take away its greatest (if not only) function for many decks. This is about all you'd need for a deck that doesn't care about combat. Compare this with Eriette of the Charmed Apple. While her ability is also a win condition/life gain, she only shuts down attackers on a 1-for-1 basis because each creature needs to be individually enchanted. Dorian provides its own counters (which are much harder to remove than Auras), can have its full protective effect with zero additional card investment, has no ceiling for its effect other than the mana you have available, continues to shut down attacks even after it gets removed, is easily reusable due to it being a creature (regardless of whether or not it's a commander), and has additional utility to give your creatures a toughness boost and lifelink.
On the other hand, being more of a Moat effect than acutal removal means there are ways to interact with the alms counters, like bouncing or blinking the creature. However, these are tools only certain colours have and they may not be played that commonly. Even if they are played, the effect probably won't be simultaneously one-to-many like Dorian's ability or as mana efficient if it requires recasting the creatures. Alms counters don't turn off your opponents' ability to attack each other, so combat isn't shut down entirely, but in a 1-on-1 situation (especially against a combat-focused deck) it may as well be a one-sided Wrath. This could be addressed by making it necessary for Dorian to be on the board to prevent attacks, like with Eriette or Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer.
Suggestion for Dorian:
When Almoner Dorian enters the battlefield, put an alms counter on each of up to X target creatures. Those creatures get +0/+1 and have lifelink for as long as they have an alms counter on them.
Creatures with alms counters on them can't attack you or permanents you control.
Note that this wording makes alms counters noncumulative, but you're not likely to stack multiple counters on the same creature anyway.
The same issue with giving alms counters the inherent ability to prevent attacks is present with Dorian's Shepherds, perhaps even moreso outside of Commander because they're not legendary. After Moating all of your opponent's creatures, the Shepherds just sit there waiting for your opponent to play their next creature. Their ability triggers every upkeep with no mana or card requirement, which can be quite oppressive even when not faced in multiples. The other thing with Dorian's Shepherds is the wording of the first ability. Rule 107.1c states that zero can be chosen when selecting "any number," which means this ability can be used to shut down life gain for all of your opponents. Rather than making it a replacement ability, it can just be a triggered ability whenever an opponent gains life that lets you choose any number of other players to also gain that much life. This way, attack prevention doesn't need to be an inherent quality of alms counters, because the Shepherds will gain you back any damage your opponent deals to you with lifelink creatures.
Suggestion for Shepherds:
Whenever another player gains life, you may have any number of other players gain that much life.
Yoran appears to be an aggressively costed punisher in your Seizan-lite series. You're already aware of the similarity between this card and Nekusar. Like with Nekusar, Yoran can still do 2 damage to your opponents each turn while only risking giving them one extra card, which is an improvement over Seizan. More importantly, all this starts two turns earlier than with either Seizan or Nekusar, which seems ideal for your historic brawl deck. Yoran is even more versatile than Seizan and Nekusar because the damage can be dealt to any target and can be distributed 1 damage at a time across multiple targets. It's also a great Wheel punisher, unlike Seizan, and has fewer colour requirements than Nekusar. Using the wording of "whenever a card is put into an opponent's hand" rather than just triggering whenever they draw a card is an interesting choice. In most cases, it'll function identically to the "draw" wording because drawing a card is done by putting the top card of your library into your hand (Rule 121.1). I can only imagine that the choice of this wording is, in part, to give the card some novelty and to sync it up with how the second ability is worded. Speaking of the second ability, I'm guessing this is supposed to be a drawback because exiling a card means it'll be face up for all players to see and you'd rather do it this way than to word the ability like these cards. Following the format of Nekusar, I would recommend listing Yoran's upkeep trigger first and inserting a leading blank line to vertically center the text in the box. The final thing is that making Yoran two turns faster, despite making it easier to kill by lowering its toughness to two, would probably justify upping its rarity to mythic.
While the MTGCS version of Dorian looks pretty egregious now, I do like the changes you suggested to both him and his Shepherds. (It's also pretty silly of me to miss how nonstandard counters are described despite using some of the cards you linked to for reference in the first place. ?)
I've gotten pretty bad at evaluating effects that shut down combat in a vacuum since not only is this style of effect rather ineffective in most commander games I've played (it's rare that every opponent is aiming for a combat damage kill with no backup plans), but I've also thought for the longest time that attacking is one of the worst strategies you can have in Magic, even if it's the standard way for a player to win the game. I've probably gotten even worse at it recently due to how ineffective Eriette and similar creatures seem to be at preventing you from dying, though that likely stems from how vulnerable creatures are in general, especially legends.
Good catch with zero being allowed for Dorian's Shepherds. I might go back to having it be a replacement ability so you can't get wrecked by an opponent "ungratefully" alpha striking you, but making it a triggered ability instead puts it more in line with cards like Angel of Destiny.
You're right on the mark with why I worded Yoran's first ability the way I did. The second ability being 'exile and put into hand' instead of 'draw and reveal' is for a handful of reasons (in no particular order):
- Red seems to be slowly getting more effects that care about your cards getting exiled, regardless of why or what happens to them later.
- It doesn't interact with effects that mess with additional draws this way, so it's unlikely that Yoran will hand out an asymmetric number of extra cards.
- It's harder to mess up the execution this way, whereas a player might forget to reveal their extra draw with the other style of effect.
- Exiling cards better aligns with the way I've interpreted the Hyakki Yakou aesthetic across previous cards. More generally, I think this way fits (crazed) revelry better than draw and reveal.
Lots of mythic rares coming from me recently huh. ?Composition mechanic by @12SidedGuy.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/kalmiyas-opus
Also, everything but the mode cost depends on the Melodize number, the mode cost is always 1.
@LvB
Seems fine to me. Might need to be rare.
At N=1 this is nuts for Songs. From the wording of Composition N, I would assume having Composition N and Composition M has the player make two sets of decisions, with separate collections of choices resolving in sequence. Getting to choose an extra mode is already strong, but it also vastly increases the strength of any Song with modes that cost more than 1. For example, if your Malicious Melodist flipped Kalmiya's Opus, you could use it to put six +1/+1 counters on each of your creatures, which is way cheaper than Strength of the Tajuru, the closest existing card I can find. And that's ignoring the other modes!
Even for normal modal spells, since Composition N doesn't override the original card text, getting to choose an extra mode with repetition can easily be backbreaking. For example, Abrade becomes potent double removal for a mere two mana.
At N≥2 however, Melodize becomes even more powerful than Far Out in most cases, and is definitely broken with how easy it is to make consistent. (Blue has plenty of both deck control and ability to regrow instants and sorceries, so it would be rather trivial to hit a modal instant or sorcery more often than not.) For example, imagine if Abrade hit 3+ artifacts and/or creatures, or Bant Charm could counter multiple spells while also simultaneously destroying artifacts and/or tucking creatures.
Additionally, Melodize doesn't work in paper because your hand is a hidden zone. Suppose you have two copies of the same modal spell in hand, but only one of them was melodized. There's a ton of ways you can cheat if someone were to mess with your hand since there's no apparent difference between the two cards. Since melodize already exiles, it'd make more sense if you were allowed to cast melodized spells from exile to prevent information issues.
In general, with how powerful it is, if you're really attached to Melodize as an ability, I'd suggest rewording it along these lines:
By the way, why does this mono-blue creature have a triggered ability that causes players to lose life? Wouldn't it make more sense if it was "scry 1" or something more blue-aligned rather than such a black-aligned effect? (Alternatively, you could add black to the mana cost, since 'malice' isn't particularly blue either.)
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@LvB I would appreciate it if you at least attempted to give proper feedback. Space issues for Almoner Dorian and Dorian's Shepherds aside (Jadefire's suggestion for Dorian already doesn't fit at 90+ words, so there's absolutely no way yours will fit), what are readers supposed to gain from you hurling an unsupported opinion into the void like that? You have neither provided a basis upon which a reader can attempt to understand and subsequently accept or reject your words, nor have you given a reader any reasonable information that can be used to guide future card designs.
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I'd appreciate feedback on this card:
Our context, experiences, and playgroups often shape our perspectives and biases, but that's what soliciting group feedback is for. You're clearly more of a commander player who prefers a non-combat path to victory. I'm more of a 1v1 player who's open to various approaches to victory.
If you prefer Dorian's Shepherds to have a replacement effect so that you can't die while waiting for the life gain trigger to resolve, you can just do a modified replacement effect that won't prevent the original player from gaining life: If another player would gain life, you may have that player and any number of other players gain that much life instead. Now that I think about it, having this effect in triggered ability form on a nonlegendary creature could result in an infinite ping ponging back and forth between two or more copies of Shepherds, so the replacement effect route is probably the way to go.
Those are some well thought out reasons for providing Yoran's extra cards through "exile and put into hand" rather than "draw and reveal" covering flavour, mechanical, and practical gameplay perspectives.
I'm not sure if you were intending on creating a two card infinite combo with Autumn Cursemonger, but that seems to be what's happend. Giving the Cursemonger the abiltiy to tap for {b} or {r} (E.g., Paradise Mantle, Karametra's Favor, Multani's Harmony, Utopia Vow) will instantly result in infinite damage. Alternatively, this can also be done with Earthcraft, Cryptolith Rite, or Elven Chorus in a less risky fashion. Aside from that, the potential to "first strike" for a point of Wither damage on the attack and have pseudo-Vigilance for {b/r} seems alright for an uncommon. I would also recommend shifting the rules text down by a line on this card to center it vertically.
Nice catch on Paradise Mantle shenanigans for Autumn Cursemonger. Between that and Umbral Mantle it's way too easy to break tons of activated abilities. ? Increased the cost of Autumn Cursemonger's activated ability by {1}. (Leaving the image above as is for reference.)
Upping the activation cost of Autumn Cursemonger's ability as a fix to the easy infinite makes a lot of sense, since the untap symbol is more associated with blue and white anyway.