@LvB Wandering Spirit - Pretty much Squee, the Immortal with better stats but an extra step if exiled. I mean there are applications where you just want to put it in the graveyard like for escape costs but putting it on the board is better in most cases. Aside from that the mana colour order is switched and the frame should be the gold g/w not the hybrid g/w but I'm being nit picky.
Randomia - WUBRG hybrid mana isn't exactly the embodiment of chaos it's more for overwhelming power type cards. Pure red is chaos and that is for entire board changing no control type chaos. Randomness/chance is more blue/red like coin flips and dice rolling or top of library shenanigans, g/u for more creature oriented, b/r for random with risks. For the affect, with no support, will you get a 5CMCworth creature? That depend purely on your deck building. Stick too many big creatures to hope you hit a big Randomia will kill your early game, too many small will make her not worth 5CMC. Build a deck to perfectly manipulate the top 3 creatures to make the perfect Randomia, well she's not random anymore and if you can to do that why not pick 3 creatures to make one of the many game ending combos instead. Build your own creatures can be fun but hitting duds can suck. Perhaps make it the three creatures you hit are mutated so you get the pick the biggest body and then get 2 abilities and her own if you don't like the result. Ah, as cadstar mentioned you can just have 3 other creatures to build the perfect game ending creature, this is running into cascade wombo combo territory. I suppose the fix would be to just look at the top 10 or some high number build your creature.
@cadstar369 - Radical Revelation I think the base cost is good given the is based on an official card. In later games the kicker on top should work, in EDH you could disrupt anyone trying to combo off while also evening out the playing field for 6CMC that's well worth it and the randomness adds a bit of fun/trollness.
@LvB Steller Ring v1 - This is strong, if you compare it to the guild Signet it's cheaper by 1 mana (turn 1 vs turn 2) and cheaper by 1 to activate (net 1 coloured mana and net 2 coloured after). It's 2 steps away from being a black lotus and if you have a way to untap, flicker or return it back to your hand it's a ton of mana every early since it doesn't enter tapped.
Steller Ring v2 - Repeatable turning 1 mana into 3 coloured is what it's doing on turn 1. I don't think any card can do that, again if you can somehow use it more than once per turn, crazy mana too early in the game or at any point in the game and it fuels itself. You need a way to make sure it is not abused, maybe phase it out or something. Also you can reword these to say to add 2 mana of any two colour combinations or something like that rather than list them all. Sol Ring is strong as it is already, making a coloured version is pushing it.
Here's mine - What combos/board states do you think you can do with this? I know there is one but too lazy to dig around. Though I put the discard at random to disrupt any combo too powerful.
This one can be a doozy, no idea if it's balanced since it has dredge
Realm Sculpting ~ I can't think of anything busted this lets you do that you couldn't already with less mana and/or fewer colors, usually with Journey to the Oracle or Retreat to Coralhelm + Walking Atlas. The Epic ability really hurts since you have to have your win condition prepped before you play Realm Sculpting (and you probably can't save it afterward if it's removed). Also, with the variety of Crucible of Worlds effects available, the random discard isn't particularly disruptive.
While rather convoluted, one fun thing I can think of using this is animate Valakut and enchant it with One with the Stars (or ultimate the new Koth), then cast Blood Moon into Realm Sculpting for maximum blasting every turn. You'd only need something like this in multiplayer though, since Scapeshift suffices for 1v1.
Memory Tracer ~ The mana cost and ability costs seem fair, since it's repeatable recursion that both sets up its own cost and is difficult to stop. It's definitely cracked in control decks though since it doesn't exile itself on resolution. Perhaps it'd be more reasonable if Memory Tracer had dredge 1, that way you're actually losing cards to the recursion cost? The scry ability feels a little extraneous though, since I don't think Memory Tracer needs any help getting into your graveyard.
By the way, the channel abilities don't have the "discard NAME" cost that Channel unifies as an ability word. (Took me a minute to notice since I mentally autocorrected it in on my first few reads.)
@cadstar369 Thanks for taking a look, if I recall correctly I put scry 3 in there so even if you're not playing the channel colours you can still do something with it. I got no issue going to dredge 1, if you're already in a self mill deck a few extra isn't going to be game changer. I also remember after I published the card that I forgot the discard clause on channel but if I put that there the rules box will get clobbered, rather have it as is and hope no one notices, but you got a sharp eye. Actually now that I'm looking at it why is there so much space after the "exile 2 cards" part? Oh well.
Made it again and what do you know if I remove all line breaks it actually fits
Will that Valakut combo work? You cast Blood moon turning all your lands in to mountains but then you can't sweep them with realm sculpting. I could have put sweep to do any lands but official wording has it as [land type]. Suppose dual lands and triomes will still trigger Valakut.
@Sweda fair enough about the scry 3 ability. It's been so long since I've played anything other than commander or brawl that I've kinda forgotten you can splash colors in constructed formats.
The Valakut/Koth combo works because Blood Moon turns nonbasics into Mountains (and they enter as such), but doesn't grant them the basic supertype. Thus you can still pick them up with Realm Sculpting's sweep.
@LvB I think that Stellar Ring is a pretty busted card. It's, if nothing else, a free spell. I'd make it come into play tapped, so it can't immediately give back the mana spent to play it, or make it cost 2 (or even 3) to play. Both would be fine; tapped and costing 2. The second version may be a little more interesting to me personally, where you have to pay to activate it's abilities, which makes it a bit less versatile but it can do more with what it is left with. I'd say, regardless, that this card would be pretty powerful. Basically every 0 or 1 mana mana rock in the game is busted, so I would say a 1 mana artifact that almost unconditionally adds any color mana, ramps when it comes into play, and only really has the downside of a massive 5 turn clock, yeah, that's pretty good. Again, I'd have it at least come into play tapped, or cost more, or both.
Here's one I made recently, I think it's pretty cool. Anything concerning or busted?
Oops! I started commenting, but had to go away for a while, and obviously, some more posts came through before I got to finishing. My bad. Let me give some more feedback:
@LvB Zombie Apocatlypse needs to be worded "Each player sacrifices each creature and planeswalker they control. For each card put into a graveyard this way, that card's owner creates a 1/1 black and red Zombie Cat creature token with deathtouch and fear." If you really don't want to include the word sacrifice, you could exile all creatures and planeswalkers, then add to put all cards exiled this way into their owner's graveyard. Cool card, though. I'd play it.
My idea with the "put into graveyard" thing was that i wanna make sure all creatures and planeswalkers are in graveyard, even if they are indestructible or have shield counters or are immune to sacrifice or anything else that would prevent them from being put into the graveyard.
Then I'd suggest "Exile all creatures and planeswalkers. For each card exiled this way, it's owner puts that card in their graveyard and creates a 1/1 black and red Zombie Cat creature token with deathtouch and fear." Though, there are almost no cards that make it so you can't sacrifice something, so sacrifice would work almost as well. Sacrifice gets around shield and indestructible. Unless you're running into a meta full of Assault Suits, you really could just go with sacrifice. My bigger concern would be avoiding Mayhem Devil and similar effects, where sacrificing is a benefit, but those are generally in Rakdos anyways, and would more likely be good synergy instead of an issue. Either way, you'll want to tweak the wording so it works the way you want to play it.
@cadstar369 Thanks for taking a look at Kronii a few pages back, quite some interesting interactions you found. Suppose only returning spell you don't control should solve much shenanigans, it was my intent to be delaying your opponent's stuff to begin with.
@StuffnSuch War Causalities seems like a no brainer card to add to any deck with a sac outlet since you can attack, sac it if things don't go well, then you get an untapped 2/2 ready to block and get sac'ed some more. It's a little too easy... in my opinion. Going wide or having an anthems also synerizes well, gang block any big threat they got and you'll get more 2/2's than them. It's a strong card with powerful and simple synergies and is repeatable and the idea of trading in combat is thrown out the window. I think there needs a "catch" or some break in the recursion it's has a very set it and forget it feel. I'm not even going to mention any zombie combos, creatures dying, ETB synergies.
Inspired by a recent card of the day disrupting commanders.
The initial design was to block commanders from going back to the command zone as they move to a different zone. Eminence was an obvious keyword if she's gonna be sitting around in a command zone taking up space and while there given she is pirate treasures was an easy theme. Now the phyrexian mana alt cost at instant speed is given as a way for players to cast her to prevent thier own commander from getting lost in the library or exiled making play experience unfun if your commander is gone. Now that was all I can fit in the box, I would have liked it if I could incorporate commander tax into it, the more players pass her along the harder it would be to get rid of her from your command zone, but that's not gonna fit in the text box.
What you think of command zone interaction/manipulation?
@BT9154 So, I was looking at Open the Graves and realized I totally forgot to make War of Casualties say "non-token creature". 'Cause, yeah, it's totally busted if it triggers off the tokens dying. Though, I might make it say "non-zombie" instead. Thoughts?
@StuffnSuch the safe way is non-token but it'll just be a run of the mill zombie synergy deck. Non-Zombie is more interesting to get the most is to make lots of non-zombie tokens, but for black the next best would be rats, if you want to swarm other tokens you need to to go to another colour but War casualties cost {b}{b}{b}{b} makes it hard, but that will also makes it interesting.
@BT9154 regarding Marine, the ability to turn card draw into treasures is absurd when combined with Brainstorm, Careful Study, Faithless Looting, Skyswimmer Koi, Transplant Theorist, etc. It'd also be trivially easy to reach planeswalkers' ultimates with access to so much proliferation, making her a powerful superfriends commander if you don't want to go the artifact/combo/storm route.
Given the colors Marine's in, why give up your commander to mess with someone else's when you have access to plenty of ways to steal commanders or simply turn them off, especially since Marine gives them an immediate out to her gimmick? (In general, why give a card this sort of ability if you're not going to commit to it? In Marine's current state, she basically reads "whenever an opponent's commander leaves the battlefield, that player gains control of Marine and loses 0~6 life" with some extra hoops to jump through, which should make it apparent why that ability isn't particularly useful or meaningful, especially since it makes her eminence ability harder to use.) On a related note, 'occupied' and 'empty' seem not well-defined, as it's unclear what happens with emblems, partners, companions, Planechase, attractions, etc.
Overall, as with the existing eminence cards, there's really no need to cast Marine because her eminence ability is so powerful. If anything, using her ability to mess with someone else's command zone hurts you, since you then have to rely on your opponent drawing tons of cards. (Of course, you could put this in a Nekusar-style shell, but you can play better spells and provide your opponents far less value by relying solely on her first ability.)
@cadstar369 Right, she is a bit too powerful giving the ability to generate treasures basically as a passive free starting bonus. The incentives and disincentives to play her how I want needs to be overhauled. I still like the concept of some kind of leech that occupies someone's command zone to put pressure on them to pay some cost to get rid of it or run the risk of having thier commander in the graveyard/exile/library. It's just a matter of finding the right triggers and effects.
@cadstar369 ; Stuff and Such, Scallywags is pretty good overall, but I do recall that the random discarding has been dropped out of MTG is favor of cards being chosen for discarding. As for Forestall, its final ability (being a full turn counter spell for creatures) is quite powerful for two mana. Perhaps an additional mana cost should be payed should that mode be chosen.
Also I should mention that once the augment counter is put onto Cathrine via paying the Mech Augment cost, she will get +2/+2 thanks to her first ability.
@TheGamingBolasChannel I'll take a shot in the dark here, since you've given no explanation for how mech-augment works (after looking through ~40 pages I've only found one card that so much as alludes to what augment does, and Cathrine's ability appears to be a variant on it). To that end, I will assume Augment means the following:
Augment {cost} ({cost}: If this creature doesn't have an augment counter on it, put an augment counter on it. While it has an augment counter on it, it's a colorless Cyborg artifact creature [in addition to its other types?]. Activate only as a sorcery.)
With this in mind, why is this card black? "This creature gets +1/+1 for each creature you control" is mainly in green/white, though since Cathrine appears to deal with artifact creatures her ability could fit in white or blue. Additionally, black clone effects require creatures to die and/or exiling creature cards from your graveyard, so Cathrine's trigger fits better in blue (especially given its artifact-centric nature), with white touching on this sort of ability as well. Thus I'd suggest color-shifting her to white, though the clone ability feels a little strange in white since the token won't be an artifact.
I've no idea how to evaluate the mech-augment cost without additional context (particularly whether it's repeatable and how it interacts with effects like Solemnity), but at first glance I wouldn't pay for it, since it seems significantly weaker than the recent Domini (which each cost {3~4} less to activate) and isn't required for the cloning trigger. Unless your creatures are rather weak post-augment, this ability looks like a win-more or a lifelink button when you're getting desperate (though the latter is somewhat at odds with Cathrine's buff requiring a large board).
P.S. ~ After seeing your update in the middle of writing this, I should note that Cathrine will currently only give herself +1/+1 after using her augment ability. If you wanted her to get +2/+2, you'd need wording similar to the Lieges. (Alternatively, something like "While augmented, Cathrine gets +1/+1 for each Phyrexian you control and +1/+1 for each augmented creature you control" may work, but I can find no examples of this.)
@cadstar369 I had considered putting her into a white/black color identity, but I ended up with just a mono-black creature. Perhaps her Mech-Augment could change the black phyrexian mana to white phyrexian mana.
I went with that wording as I was running into issues with room on the card even at small text size.
@cadstar369 Stuff and Such seems to me like it has very high potential to be an extremely frustrating card to play against and fraught with opportunity for abuse. The key attributes that contribute to this are that it's fast (low cost & haste), it causes random discards, and the effect is repeatable. I agree with TheGamingBolasChannel that random discards, when not paired with drawing an equal or greater number of cards, was dropped from MTG a while ago for good reason. Tourach's Canticle and Tourach, Dread Cantor are the two most recent cards to do this. They're both monoblack, they both cost four mana, and they only cause random discard once. The issue with early game random discard is that it can hit someone's lands (especially against a mulligan), which can completely shut off their ability to play the game. Being on the receiving of this is miserable, as you're reduced to just watching the game happen.
Firstly, an impulse draw (at any point in the game) is far worse than a full draw for offsetting a discard, since you only have an extremely limited window to play it. This is especially true in the early turns of the game when it's unlikely you'll even have the mana to cast whatever gets exiled. To make things even worse, Stuff and Such only allows players to play the exiled cards until the end of your turn, not even the end of their owner's turn. This means anything except instants and cards with flash end up as straight exiles (again assuming you even have the mana to cast them before you untap). Add to this the fact that the discard is repeatable, that it starts on turn two (turn one with acceleration), the ease with which red can remove early blockers to keep Stuff and Such attacking every turn, and the fact that Stuff and Such doesn't even need to hit the opponent to get this effect (which gives value to extra copies of it if you really want the attack trigger but your opponent has a blocker) and it seems clear how bad things can get for your opponent if you can land this on curve and keep it going for a few turns.
The symmetry of the discard is also offset by the fact that you can play your land and cast whatever spells you can/want to cast before attacking to protect your playables. To put things into perspective, Stuff and Such with a two Mountain draw can start hitting your opponent's hand at the same time as a Hypnotic Specter with a Swamp + Dark Ritual draw. This means if you're not on the play, you need to be packing one mana instant-speed removal and leave up that one mana perpetually once your opponent has presented the possibility of landing a Stuff and Such, as you won't even have a turn of warning like you'd get with a creature that has summoning sickness.
Forestall seems like a reasonable card with perhaps some oddness and redundancy in its modes. Offensively, in most cases you'd probably prefer to use the third mode instead of the first mode against your opponent's creature spells, since it permanently deals with them. There is some utility to the first mode, like temporarily denying your opponent their creature and (more importantly) their next draw or saving your own creature spell from being countered, but it seems a bit narrow. Both the first and third modes work on uncounterable creature spells but the third mode even works to stop creatures from entering the battlefield through other means like reanimation, from exile, or from the library, and it works on multiple creatures so it can stuff a Living End or Second Sunrise. I'm not up on my rules, so I don't know if creature spells on the stack are considered cards, but I believe cards are cards everywhere except on the battlefield. If this is so, the second mode can have the defensive function of giving your creature spells Shroud to make them uncounterable or giving Shroud to creature cards in all graveyards to either protect them from targeted exile or prevent them from being reanimated (another overlap with the third mode). After taking into account all the redundancy between the modes, it seems the third mode will be pulling the most weight on Forestall with the first two modes being standby corner case contingencies. For that reason and because of the power of the third mode (plus adding a premium for flexibility as a modal spell), Forestall should cost at least {1}{w}{u} if not {w}{w/u}{u}.
For Stuff and Such, I initially had the impulse draw last until the end of the affected player's end step, but felt like it'd be insufficiently impactful for the player with Stuff and Such to give the opponent such a large window of opportunity. Do you think it'd be reasonable if I reverted to that? What about if haste was removed instead? (I don't want to increase the mana cost since red probably doesn't want this card if it costs more than two mana.)
Regarding your concerns, I wanted to explore a stronger effect than Zurzoth and Balor, as those cards seem borderline to completely unplayable. Also, there's so much cheap removal and so many good blockers that I can't see a player keeping Stuff and Such going for more than a turn or two without getting very lucky, whereas Hypnotic Specter has evasion for easier attacks (and is in black for stronger removal and discard support alongside it). Overall, I figured that they'd either get removed after one or two attacks (which doesn't seem particularly impactful, especially in non-singleton formats), or it'd push players to change their decks only slightly, since every color has plenty of cheap tools to deal with them (multiple colors can remove them for free even). The only format I could see Stuff and Such being a real problem in is perhaps standard/draft (which I don't mind since I care for neither, nor could I see them being released in such an environment anyway).
As for Forestall, wouldn't the first mode serve better offensively, since it denies your opponent new cards? (Especially during the early turns and since putting things in the graveyard continues to become less desirable.) Also, I think rule 405.4 implies that spells on the stack aren't cards (which would keep the second mode in line with my intention to prevent creatures from being recovered with effects like Forever Young), but I'm not sure. After looking at some similar cards (and realizing they cost more mana than I remember) I'll increase the cost to {1}{w}{u} at some point in the near future.
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@Thundermaw your Sorin looks alright; I wonder if Mavren Fein is preferable since you don't have to risk Mavren Fein to get the token, even if both are weaker. I don't get why you gave Sorin hexproof though, since neither white nor black get that ability on their creatures (usually with restriction on the rare occasion they do); I'd suggest replacing it with some variation of Ward if you really want to have a protection effect on it (though almost any other keyword in white/black outside of flying would likely fit more naturally).
P.S. ~ For future reference, you're meant to give feedback on prior card(s) before posting your own for feedback.
@cadstar369 the first two modes of Forestall are great for a 2-mana instant speed modal removal, but the third mode is undercosted at 2-mana, and should probably be at 3-mana if it were on its own. Just my two cents!
Anyone feel like providing feedback on this?
@cadstar369 I get the concern with Stuff and Such not having enough impact as the game goes on and your opponent has access to a larger mana base. In those cases, making the effect trigger on attack rather than damage is actually beneficial. If I seem overly cautious of power level, it's because I'm approaching my evaluation from the point of view of "how bad could this possibly get if someone was actually trying to abuse it?"
I think reverting Stuff and Such back to allowing all players to play the exiled cards until their own end step is definitely a move in the right direction. In the early game, the effect is still going to amount to a straight random discard + mill a large portion of the time because you could flip an expensive spell. Even if that's not the case, you could make your opponent play non-optimally in order to not lose the exiled card, which could mean being less efficient with their available mana or playing something out of order.
Regarding making the card stronger than Zurzoth and Balor, instead of haste, you could create a lose-lose scenario for your opponent by using a modified Keeper of Secrets effect: Whenever a player casts a spell from anywhere other than their hand, Stuff and Such deals damage equal to that spell's mana value to that player (or some fixed amount of damage or make it only affect your opponent). It's synergistic, it advances red's goal of outracing your opponent, and it incidentally punishes Flashback, Rebound, certain forms of spell copying, and your opponent's own impulse draws. This second effect potentially keeps Stuff and Such relevant going into the later game, even if it's no longer able to attack safely, because it punishes the enemy's card advantage mechanics.
What I meant by "offense" for Forestall was doing something against your opponent vs. doing something for yourself. Yes, the first mode is better in a tempo/racing situation compared to one where you want to draw out the game. I guess you get to choose where to put the card depending on where you are in the game and who the aggro is at the moment, that's the benefit of having different modes. Good job finding rule 405.4! If that wasn't enough, this website interprets a broader chunk of the rules and comes to the same conclusion. Unfortunately, that removes one of the more unique uses of the second mode and leaves the part that overlaps with the third mode. In a mass graveyard targeting situation (whether for removal or reclamation), the second mode would do what the third mode can't, so it still has a place. Totally agree with making the cost {1}{w}{u}.
@Thundermaw - Seems quite solid, if not quite powerful in 1v1 formats. In a standard format, I can see this as being stronger than Geist of Saint Traft was back in its day, and it was an unquestionable powerhouse. Power creep may take the edge off it, but the chance to build up those 2/2 vampires instead of having to exile them (comparatively) is strong. In a vacuum, I like this card; whether or not I'd like it in the set it'd be legal in would depend on how much mass removal exists. Removing this is going to come down to countering it on play, having an appropriate blocker you haven't taken measures against, or mass removal; forced sac is just going to hit tokens and you obviously can't target it.
For consideration, Abandoned Quarry:
I acknowledge that the design space of cards that allow themselves into any game, external to the decklist, is dangerous. Companion was a phenomenal demonstration of what happens when you're incautious with that. Thus, any card that has such an ability needs to be poor enough that it wouldn't automatically be used in every game. I think this qualifies. The primary objective of this is to make more games fun by reducing the possibility of random mana screw - a thing that eventually happens to everyone, even with the most mathematically correct deck designs.
@Creid233 ; Great insight here. Yeah I think he deserves the power of St. Traft, but the token coming in not having evasion weakened it a bit, although it stays. Him only being a 3 and having to attack is what I feel balances it a bit. Awesome take though.. I'm going to playtest him in a few token decks and see how it goes. I may at least take the LifeLink off the vamp if it feels too crazy.. Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
This card seems interesting and unique, with its ability to bring itself into your hand from outside the game at the cost of exiling a card from your hand during your first upkeep. However, the restriction that no other copies of Abandoned Quarry may be added to your hand this way seems unnecessary, as it would likely be difficult to have multiple copies of this card in hand during the same game.
The fact that Abandoned Quarry enters the battlefield tapped is a fair drawback for the benefit of adding any colorless mana to your pool. Overall, this card seems balanced and could be a useful addition to certain deck strategies.
@jpastor Cretaceous Crisis is giving me some real Centaur Glade vibes. Tapping an enchantment is unusual but not unheard of and a great shorthand way to say "Activate only once each turn" on an enchantment. Turning the token creation ability into a mana ability is where things get really spicy. You could've made the ability cost {1}{g}, {t} but you made it cost one more and rebated it {g} on the back end. I'm not sure if that was intentionally done to get the benefit of turning the ability into a mana ability (i.e., it can be activated whenever you can add mana - effectively anytime, it doesn't use the stack - effectively instantaneous and uncounterable, it's exempt from many effects that either remove abilities or prevent abilities from being activated), but if so, bravo! The second ability is where you lose me a bit. It seems quite expensive to have to sacrifice X Dinosaurs to tutor an X MV creature to the battlefield, and you don't even save on the mana because you still have to pay {x}{g}. In most cases, I'd rather just have the nine power across three bodies or twelve power across four bodies than whatever I can tutor for, especially since those creatures collectively represent multiple turns of activation.
Incidentally, way to flip the script on the keelhauling challenge. You took what I had intended to be the effect and the means and made it into the cost and the target for something completely unexpected.
@Ranshi That's some great art. Edifice of Ruin seems like a very reasonable effect. The fact that its edict ability lacks tapping as a requirement is quite notable to me. It's not likely to be applicable a great deal of the time, but the potential to activate it multiple times in a single turn with other Deserts is definitely not irrelevant. I'm not the most up-to-date on land power levels these days, but it seems that an uncounterable source of removal with decent potential for interactions resulting reusability is closer to a rare than an uncommon.
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Realm Sculpting ~ I can't think of anything busted this lets you do that you couldn't already with less mana and/or fewer colors, usually with Journey to the Oracle or Retreat to Coralhelm + Walking Atlas. The Epic ability really hurts since you have to have your win condition prepped before you play Realm Sculpting (and you probably can't save it afterward if it's removed). Also, with the variety of Crucible of Worlds effects available, the random discard isn't particularly disruptive.
While rather convoluted, one fun thing I can think of using this is animate Valakut and enchant it with One with the Stars (or ultimate the new Koth), then cast Blood Moon into Realm Sculpting for maximum blasting every turn. You'd only need something like this in multiplayer though, since Scapeshift suffices for 1v1.
Memory Tracer ~ The mana cost and ability costs seem fair, since it's repeatable recursion that both sets up its own cost and is difficult to stop. It's definitely cracked in control decks though since it doesn't exile itself on resolution. Perhaps it'd be more reasonable if Memory Tracer had dredge 1, that way you're actually losing cards to the recursion cost? The scry ability feels a little extraneous though, since I don't think Memory Tracer needs any help getting into your graveyard.
By the way, the channel abilities don't have the "discard NAME" cost that Channel unifies as an ability word. (Took me a minute to notice since I mentally autocorrected it in on my first few reads.)
The Valakut/Koth combo works because Blood Moon turns nonbasics into Mountains (and they enter as such), but doesn't grant them the basic supertype. Thus you can still pick them up with Realm Sculpting's sweep.
Here's one I made recently, I think it's pretty cool. Anything concerning or busted?
@LvB Zombie Apocatlypse needs to be worded "Each player sacrifices each creature and planeswalker they control. For each card put into a graveyard this way, that card's owner creates a 1/1 black and red Zombie Cat creature token with deathtouch and fear." If you really don't want to include the word sacrifice, you could exile all creatures and planeswalkers, then add to put all cards exiled this way into their owner's graveyard. Cool card, though. I'd play it.
Though, there are almost no cards that make it so you can't sacrifice something, so sacrifice would work almost as well. Sacrifice gets around shield and indestructible. Unless you're running into a meta full of Assault Suits, you really could just go with sacrifice. My bigger concern would be avoiding Mayhem Devil and similar effects, where sacrificing is a benefit, but those are generally in Rakdos anyways, and would more likely be good synergy instead of an issue. Either way, you'll want to tweak the wording so it works the way you want to play it.
Given the colors Marine's in, why give up your commander to mess with someone else's when you have access to plenty of ways to steal commanders or simply turn them off, especially since Marine gives them an immediate out to her gimmick? (In general, why give a card this sort of ability if you're not going to commit to it? In Marine's current state, she basically reads "whenever an opponent's commander leaves the battlefield, that player gains control of Marine and loses 0~6 life" with some extra hoops to jump through, which should make it apparent why that ability isn't particularly useful or meaningful, especially since it makes her eminence ability harder to use.) On a related note, 'occupied' and 'empty' seem not well-defined, as it's unclear what happens with emblems, partners, companions, Planechase, attractions, etc.
Overall, as with the existing eminence cards, there's really no need to cast Marine because her eminence ability is so powerful. If anything, using her ability to mess with someone else's command zone hurts you, since you then have to rely on your opponent drawing tons of cards. (Of course, you could put this in a Nekusar-style shell, but you can play better spells and provide your opponents far less value by relying solely on her first ability.)
I'd appreciate feedback on these cards:
My card:https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/cathrine-perfected-priest-1?list=user
Also I should mention that once the augment counter is put onto Cathrine via paying the Mech Augment cost, she will get +2/+2 thanks to her first ability.
I've no idea how to evaluate the mech-augment cost without additional context (particularly whether it's repeatable and how it interacts with effects like Solemnity), but at first glance I wouldn't pay for it, since it seems significantly weaker than the recent Domini (which each cost {3~4} less to activate) and isn't required for the cloning trigger. Unless your creatures are rather weak post-augment, this ability looks like a win-more or a lifelink button when you're getting desperate (though the latter is somewhat at odds with Cathrine's buff requiring a large board).
P.S. ~ After seeing your update in the middle of writing this, I should note that Cathrine will currently only give herself +1/+1 after using her augment ability. If you wanted her to get +2/+2, you'd need wording similar to the Lieges. (Alternatively, something like "While augmented, Cathrine gets +1/+1 for each Phyrexian you control and +1/+1 for each augmented creature you control" may work, but I can find no examples of this.)
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I'd appreciate feedback on these cards:
I went with that wording as I was running into issues with room on the card even at small text size.
Firstly, an impulse draw (at any point in the game) is far worse than a full draw for offsetting a discard, since you only have an extremely limited window to play it. This is especially true in the early turns of the game when it's unlikely you'll even have the mana to cast whatever gets exiled. To make things even worse, Stuff and Such only allows players to play the exiled cards until the end of your turn, not even the end of their owner's turn. This means anything except instants and cards with flash end up as straight exiles (again assuming you even have the mana to cast them before you untap). Add to this the fact that the discard is repeatable, that it starts on turn two (turn one with acceleration), the ease with which red can remove early blockers to keep Stuff and Such attacking every turn, and the fact that Stuff and Such doesn't even need to hit the opponent to get this effect (which gives value to extra copies of it if you really want the attack trigger but your opponent has a blocker) and it seems clear how bad things can get for your opponent if you can land this on curve and keep it going for a few turns.
The symmetry of the discard is also offset by the fact that you can play your land and cast whatever spells you can/want to cast before attacking to protect your playables.
To put things into perspective, Stuff and Such with a two Mountain draw can start hitting your opponent's hand at the same time as a Hypnotic Specter with a Swamp + Dark Ritual draw. This means if you're not on the play, you need to be packing one mana instant-speed removal and leave up that one mana perpetually once your opponent has presented the possibility of landing a Stuff and Such, as you won't even have a turn of warning like you'd get with a creature that has summoning sickness.
Forestall seems like a reasonable card with perhaps some oddness and redundancy in its modes. Offensively, in most cases you'd probably prefer to use the third mode instead of the first mode against your opponent's creature spells, since it permanently deals with them. There is some utility to the first mode, like temporarily denying your opponent their creature and (more importantly) their next draw or saving your own creature spell from being countered, but it seems a bit narrow. Both the first and third modes work on uncounterable creature spells but the third mode even works to stop creatures from entering the battlefield through other means like reanimation, from exile, or from the library, and it works on multiple creatures so it can stuff a Living End or Second Sunrise. I'm not up on my rules, so I don't know if creature spells on the stack are considered cards, but I believe cards are cards everywhere except on the battlefield. If this is so, the second mode can have the defensive function of giving your creature spells Shroud to make them uncounterable or giving Shroud to creature cards in all graveyards to either protect them from targeted exile or prevent them from being reanimated (another overlap with the third mode). After taking into account all the redundancy between the modes, it seems the third mode will be pulling the most weight on Forestall with the first two modes being standby corner case contingencies. For that reason and because of the power of the third mode (plus adding a premium for flexibility as a modal spell), Forestall should cost at least {1}{w}{u} if not {w}{w/u}{u}.
For Stuff and Such, I initially had the impulse draw last until the end of the affected player's end step, but felt like it'd be insufficiently impactful for the player with Stuff and Such to give the opponent such a large window of opportunity. Do you think it'd be reasonable if I reverted to that? What about if haste was removed instead? (I don't want to increase the mana cost since red probably doesn't want this card if it costs more than two mana.)
Regarding your concerns, I wanted to explore a stronger effect than Zurzoth and Balor, as those cards seem borderline to completely unplayable. Also, there's so much cheap removal and so many good blockers that I can't see a player keeping Stuff and Such going for more than a turn or two without getting very lucky, whereas Hypnotic Specter has evasion for easier attacks (and is in black for stronger removal and discard support alongside it). Overall, I figured that they'd either get removed after one or two attacks (which doesn't seem particularly impactful, especially in non-singleton formats), or it'd push players to change their decks only slightly, since every color has plenty of cheap tools to deal with them (multiple colors can remove them for free even). The only format I could see Stuff and Such being a real problem in is perhaps standard/draft (which I don't mind since I care for neither, nor could I see them being released in such an environment anyway).
As for Forestall, wouldn't the first mode serve better offensively, since it denies your opponent new cards? (Especially during the early turns and since putting things in the graveyard continues to become less desirable.) Also, I think rule 405.4 implies that spells on the stack aren't cards (which would keep the second mode in line with my intention to prevent creatures from being recovered with effects like Forever Young), but I'm not sure. After looking at some similar cards (and realizing they cost more mana than I remember) I'll increase the cost to {1}{w}{u} at some point in the near future.
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@Thundermaw your Sorin looks alright; I wonder if Mavren Fein is preferable since you don't have to risk Mavren Fein to get the token, even if both are weaker. I don't get why you gave Sorin hexproof though, since neither white nor black get that ability on their creatures (usually with restriction on the rare occasion they do); I'd suggest replacing it with some variation of Ward if you really want to have a protection effect on it (though almost any other keyword in white/black outside of flying would likely fit more naturally).
P.S. ~ For future reference, you're meant to give feedback on prior card(s) before posting your own for feedback.
I think reverting Stuff and Such back to allowing all players to play the exiled cards until their own end step is definitely a move in the right direction. In the early game, the effect is still going to amount to a straight random discard + mill a large portion of the time because you could flip an expensive spell. Even if that's not the case, you could make your opponent play non-optimally in order to not lose the exiled card, which could mean being less efficient with their available mana or playing something out of order.
Regarding making the card stronger than Zurzoth and Balor, instead of haste, you could create a lose-lose scenario for your opponent by using a modified Keeper of Secrets effect: Whenever a player casts a spell from anywhere other than their hand, Stuff and Such deals damage equal to that spell's mana value to that player (or some fixed amount of damage or make it only affect your opponent). It's synergistic, it advances red's goal of outracing your opponent, and it incidentally punishes Flashback, Rebound, certain forms of spell copying, and your opponent's own impulse draws. This second effect potentially keeps Stuff and Such relevant going into the later game, even if it's no longer able to attack safely, because it punishes the enemy's card advantage mechanics.
What I meant by "offense" for Forestall was doing something against your opponent vs. doing something for yourself. Yes, the first mode is better in a tempo/racing situation compared to one where you want to draw out the game. I guess you get to choose where to put the card depending on where you are in the game and who the aggro is at the moment, that's the benefit of having different modes. Good job finding rule 405.4! If that wasn't enough, this website interprets a broader chunk of the rules and comes to the same conclusion. Unfortunately, that removes one of the more unique uses of the second mode and leaves the part that overlaps with the third mode. In a mass graveyard targeting situation (whether for removal or reclamation), the second mode would do what the third mode can't, so it still has a place. Totally agree with making the cost {1}{w}{u}.
For consideration, Abandoned Quarry:
I acknowledge that the design space of cards that allow themselves into any game, external to the decklist, is dangerous. Companion was a phenomenal demonstration of what happens when you're incautious with that. Thus, any card that has such an ability needs to be poor enough that it wouldn't automatically be used in every game. I think this qualifies. The primary objective of this is to make more games fun by reducing the possibility of random mana screw - a thing that eventually happens to everyone, even with the most mathematically correct deck designs.
This card seems interesting and unique, with its ability to bring itself into your hand from outside the game at the cost of exiling a card from your hand during your first upkeep. However, the restriction that no other copies of Abandoned Quarry may be added to your hand this way seems unnecessary, as it would likely be difficult to have multiple copies of this card in hand during the same game.
The fact that Abandoned Quarry enters the battlefield tapped is a fair drawback for the benefit of adding any colorless mana to your pool. Overall, this card seems balanced and could be a useful addition to certain deck strategies.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/cretaceous-crisis
My card. ☝️
Incidentally, way to flip the script on the keelhauling challenge. You took what I had intended to be the effect and the means and made it into the cost and the target for something completely unexpected.
@Ranshi That's some great art. Edifice of Ruin seems like a very reasonable effect. The fact that its edict ability lacks tapping as a requirement is quite notable to me. It's not likely to be applicable a great deal of the time, but the potential to activate it multiple times in a single turn with other Deserts is definitely not irrelevant. I'm not the most up-to-date on land power levels these days, but it seems that an uncounterable source of removal with decent potential for interactions resulting reusability is closer to a rare than an uncommon.