@CosmicElder I agree that there's enough exiling done in black that you don't need to second guess making Beckon of the Abyss black or have to justify it in any way. The art, name, and flavour go together very well as is. What I actually find most interesting about the card is that you're asked to choose creatures without targeting them, so Hexproof, Shroud, Protection, and Ward have no effect. In the majority of cases, effects are worded as "choose X target creatures" with the exceptions being choosing a creature to be exempt from an effect (E.g., Celestial Judgment, Deadly Vanity) or to be a reference for an effect (E.g., Esix, Fractal Bloom, Metamorphic Alteration), but it's not unheard of (E.g., Azra Oddsmaker, Gideon's Sacrifice, Highcliff Felidar).
My suggestion for the wording of the card would be: For each player, choose X target creatures that player controls. Until end of turn, those creatures gain "{2}: Exile this creature. Any player may activate this ability."
I presume including yourself among the affected players is an intentional drawback/symmetry, which, practically speaking, is largely mitigated by the fact that you get to choose all of the creatures and can cast Beckon of the Abyss at instant speed.
"For each player, choose X target creatures that player controls. Until
end of turn, those creatures gain "{2}: Exile this creature. Any player
may activate this ability."
That makes it much clearer how this card works. When i first read "Choose X creatures under each player's control" i asked myself "X Creatures per Player or X Creatures, with at least 1 per player?"
Jadefire's new wording is a lot more precise.
And with the card before that, "Specimens Examination", i think it is way too powerful because it says, "when a permanent enters the battlefield it gets an oil counter", but "Specimens Examination" can remove any sort of counter. So if you dont care about "oil counters" you just play good cards with "bad" counters on them, like -1/-1 or time counters on cards with "suspend" and remove them. Or combine it with something like "Dark Depths" just to draw cards and then eventually get a 20/20 creature on top. Would make more sense if "Specimens Examination" would just remove oil counters.
So much for the feedback.
And maybe you can help me with this card cause i would really like to shorten the text on it. General Feedback would be nice too.
@LvB Simply addressing the wording of the card, it looks extremely complicated and in need of a lot of simplification. I'll offer some suggested wording changes while maintaining the flavour of the card. These will be ordered the same way as Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle: Vrromby Heindt enters the battlefield with a stealth counter on it. As long as Vrromby Heindt has a stealth counter on it, it can't be blocked and has first strike, hexproof, and "T: Vrromby Heindt gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is its power. Then it fights target creature you don't control. Activate only as a sorcery." Whenever Vrromby Heindt deals damage or is dealt damage, remove all stealth counters from it. T: Put a stealth counter on Vrromby Heindt.
Some suggestions for lessening the wording: -Shorten the name of Vrromby Heindt. There are several places where the card needs to refer to itself by name and that completely kills your text space, especially if it just fails to fit at the end of a line. -Get rid of the clause that it starts out with a stealth counter. Yes, this slows the card down, but it's already very undercosted. -Get rid of first strike. Giving it adds very little (except possibly on defense) if it's also unblockable. Its toughness is already greater than its power and you can't have it block more than one creature, so there aren't many situations where it's valuable.
Shorter name is a good idea, though that will kill some flavour. "Vrromby Heindt" = "From Behind", which seemed a fitting name for a backstabbing rogue.
The general idea behind that card was
"Since its a rogue, it comes into play and is invisible/stealthed at first. When it fights it sneaks towards its target and then starts the fight with a backstab and deals high damage. But after that, when its no longer invisible, it does lesser damage and is more vulnerable until it can become invisible again"
"As long as Vrromby Heindt has a stealth counter on it, it can't be
blocked and has first strike, hexproof, and "T: Vrromby Heindt gets
+X/+0 until end of turn, where X is its power. Then it fights target
creature you don't control. Activate only as a sorcery."
That is really nice. Gave me some ideas. How do you think about this?
It feels even more like a rogue now with double strike vs creatures and unblockable vs players/planeswalkers. But after that one powerful attack its just a 3/4 without abilities until it can stealth itself again.
Now plays like this:
Turn A: Cast it and its protected by stealth.
Turn B: High damage vs creatures, normal damage vs player/planeswalker
Turn C: Its a normal 3/4 now with the choice to regain stealth, but if it does it cant attack or block until the next turn cause its tapped ("hiding")
Turn D : Like Turn B or Turn C, depending on stealth status.
Oh, sorry, Castiel, we postet at almost the same time. My thoughts about your cards:
Smokestack engine: Make it 0/3 and increase the cost by 1 red phyrexian mana.
Splicer of the tangle: Would change it that it can turn lands into 3/3 Land-Creatures.
Phyrexian Aberration: Would change it to "Sacrifice another creature", or you could sacrifice itself only to return itself from the graveyard to the game.
Profane Ascendency: 7 poison counters is really much. Would lower that. And maybe remove hexproof, so its easier to destroy but the punishment for its destruction aint that high.
Specimen Extraction: Good as it is.
Question: Does an oil counter have any effect when on a card?
I Appreciate all the feedback on my last card. Thank you very much. Saw a prompt by jadefire to make a card about secrelty noteing something. This is a very blue effect but my art is red so the colour pie might be broken. Any tips would be appreciated I think its fine because you dont have to pay red for the counter ability making it essentially colourless so maybe the colour pie isnt broken. Again help is immensly appreciated.
Also Castiel the red one drop blocks way to well with such a big butt so as stated above make it a bit smaller. The black one is also very powerful at reanimation maybe should have a few more restrictions otherwise the cards are cool and intresting. One mana is definitley the hardest type of card to make. Hope my brief advice helps.
@LvB The double strike won't work if you fight creatures as fighting only has each creature deal damage equal to it's power to each other. Not to want to backseat design but there are other approaches for designing a blue/black "assassin" creature as I think double strike and fight is way off the colour pie for blue/black. Perhaps using exert to place stealth counters rather then simply tap at sorcery speed. Then a way to spend each/all counters to -X/-X a creature as that is more blue/black's style, an {untap} as a cost perhaps? Maybe give it flash so it has "pseudo" haste to get a stealth counter on your turn to replace the ETB effect.
Smokestack Engine - Having your opponent's creature enter tapped should be CMC 3 and it's usually a white ability but there are 2 card that to that in red. Make it CMC 4 since you get a nice body on spells payoff and it should be good. Also get rid of haste at 4 soot counters there is no point.
Splicer of the Tangle - I like this, Lanowar Elves and late game it can make 3/3s under a condition. It has a weak body so it's not too hard to deal with.
Phyrexian Aberration - I like that even if you are not playing in a poison deck you can still play it and if no one is playing poison as the game drags on they will eventually need to deal with 6/6, 7/7, 8/8, 9/9. I think the graveyard ability should be sorcery speed and bump up the cost or somehow scale it to the amount of poison you have, it gets way too good the more you cast it from your graveyard.
Profane Ascendancy - Kinda underwhelming in a vacuum, I'd like it if it gave you a buff for sitting in 10 poison counters, like you get a creature token each turn or gain life or draw cards when you get more poison counters. I don't really think there is a way to get rid of poison counters so having this die giving you more counters when the only reason to play this is if you already have a lot is a bit redundant, you're dead either way.
Specimen Examination - It pretty much reads whenever you play an artifact or creature create a clue token. Best comparison is Lonis, I'd say given you don't create a token so no synergies, if the creature dies or if Specimen Examination leaves the battlefield you lose the draw ability I would say 1 CMC is about right. I would make it non token artifact or creature though since it can get pretty powerful if you create a bunch of tokens.
Scorn Redundancy - I don't know about giving every colour the ability to counter a spell. Wouldn't every deck play this if they knew the meta? And then people will run this card just to counter the opponent's Scorn Redundancy. The Foretold cost should at least be {r/u} and you get to untap a land or give you a treasure if you want it to be "0".
The Artwork is nice, but i wonder if it is any good.
Because, when would you play it?
Situation 1: Enemy has 1 really strong creature. Then you could use it to kill that creature. But for that purpose there is other cheaper cards that do that, too.
Situation 2: Your turn, you have at least 2 creatures, enemy has 1 creature that can block. You could use this to kill the enemy creature, then both get a 4/4 demon, you let them fight, both die and your other creature can attack the enemy player.
Situation 3: Enemy Turn. You could use this before blocking the enemy attack to get a 4/4 that can block and kill weaker creatures. But theres the risk that the enemy will just use his demon to kill yours.
Or use it after blocking, sacrifice a blocker that would die anyway and kill an attacking creature. Then wait what the enemy will do with his demon.
I can think only of one situation where this card is really good. if you have a lot of small creatures and the enemy has less, but stronger creatures. Then the sacrifice is good cause the enemy loses a strong creature and you a weak one and the demon is good too with his Devour ability cause devouring small creatures doesnt hurt as much as devouring a strong creature.
Lets say, you have six 1/1 creatures and the enemy has three 3/3 creatures. Then you play this, Now you have one 4/4 and five 1/1 and the enemy has two 3/3 and a 4/4.
And now the devour is really good, cause if you use it twice its now
One 6/6 and three 1/1, making it hard for the enemy to decide what he should do. If he doesnt devour, your 6/6 will kill his 4/4, but devouring leaves him without any creatures after the demons fight and your small 1/1 creatures will attack him.
Also there is the drawback that it costs 5 Mana and since you will most likely play it on enemy turn it means you will not do much on your turn.
So its a very situational card that can be good, but most of the time it wont. I think it would be best in decks with a lot of cheap creatures. In the first rounds, spam cheap creatures, then if you have more creatures than the enemy use this card to get a 6/6 Demon and kill the enemy demon and hope, your 6/6 will survive it.
@LvB Yeah it's a situational casual card I designed mainly from the art. It does come with a fair bit of mind games in certain board states. I did try and analyze it myself and in most cases if you're not playing small creatures it's risky as it is vulnerable to removal. In multiplayer it gets messy and even more mind games.
Acid Cube - It feels more green than black, as you're giving black artifact and enchantment destruction even if it is only equipment and auras, that's usually green, so it should at least have some green in it. It is kinda convoluted and a bit around about when it comes to combat, creatures attacking it gain first strike but it's kinda negated because when it gets hit it hits them back and then it hits them again should it survive their first strike. It sounds like the cube has a weakened double strike when blocking or being blocked, weakened because it deals it's damage after first strike but before normal combat damage . It's certainly in flavour for an acidic cube but it's does 5 things in the text box so I feel the rulings and wordings gets messy to put flavour over function so it could use a bit of trimming or there might be another more compact way to represent what you are trying to convey.
Here is a memey one I designed during Neon Dynasty
(I know there is a missing 'a' before +1/+1 but I'm to lazy to resubmit it)
@Sweda this seems alright. While it's horribly slow in a vacuum, three +1/+1 counters sounds right with how easy they are to come by in these colors. Even then, this seems to have the same issue as most exert cards: it's okay at best normally, but kinda silly when combined with vigilance, cards like Sparring Regimen, etc. The best use I can see for this is getting attack triggers without running into a massive wall of blockers, but that situation seems rather infrequent considering how strong your solo attacker should be by the time this triggers. (In general, I'm not sure why you'd want to use this when it generally detracts from the 'best removal is player removal' strategy solo attacker decks tend to adopt.)
@cadstar369 - Dreamgorge Baku seems kind of swingy to me. Assuming it's played and sac'd on curve, there's the possibility of hitting something absolutely bonkers that you get to play for free on turn 3 that might as well just end the game. Granted, that's based on your opponent's build and pure luck. Overall I like the design a lot, it's just something nagging me at the back of the mind. I think I'd almost like it more if it just cost {b} and the final ability was "When Dreamgorge Baku dies, you may cast one of the cards exiled with it and may spend mana of any color to cast it."
Regarding Dredge the Forgotten, I think this is undercosted or the lifeloss potential needs to be equally applied to all players. In 60 card formats, 5 life is a pretty big hit and usually runs ~5 mana. This isn't guaranteed life loss, but is allowing you to cast spells for free. Rather, the chance of forced life loss is about 40% in a two player game, if you assume each deck is approx 1/3 lands. In a 4 player game, it's slightly higher that the last player will get a land and no spell: about 45%. In other words, just under half the time, this card is "I get a random spell for 4 mana, you get a card removed from your deck and you lose 5 life." Again, I know that's only about half, but I think that 4 CMC is too low for this. It's certainly more reasonable in a Commander game where the higher life totals and multiple players are going to make it much more chaotic in its results, but I think this at least needs to be 3UB. (Especially when you consider that this is in the two colors best at Scrying and therefore rigging part of the outcome.)
The bottom of the deck ideas are fun though, and if I was running those colors and this theme, I'd be super happy to play an old favorite counterspell of mine: Hinder.
I'd like to get some feedback on the following: For Compleated Mutation, I'm still not sure I like the wording on this. I think players can clearly understand what the intent is, but I'm not sure this works rules-wise. Let me know your thoughts.
For Wall of Rejection, yes, it's definitely based on Wall of Denial. I've been considering blocking mechanics lately and it occurred to me that there's not a lot out there that really allows you to fully soak trample damage or damage, damage that can be applied as if not blocking, etc. So this is an attempt at that. I keyworded the ability in order to make it a little easier on the rules. (Originally I just had it as a unique ability for Wall of Rejection, but the issue came to mind that if two WoR's block a creature, it turns into a rules mess. Easier and clearer to say you can only assign damage to creatures with the keyword.)
I really love the Impassable mechanic. That's such a cool idea.
I also like Lithis-Pala Monumental's ability, but I'm curious whether you meant that you can only cast one of the three cards exiled, or whether you have access to every card she ever exiled? It would make more sense with the former and require less tracking of what cards were exiled how, but it currently allows you to cast any card ever exiled with it. If you're going for the former, you'd just replace "by Lithis-Pala, Monumental" with "this way".
I actually think the text on Compleated Mutation is correct, or at least works, rules-wise. It's a great design and seems like a lot of fun to play with. I've thought of several decks I'd be interested in playing with it.
I'm curious, with Angel of Refuge, why you didn't just say it enters with an indestructible counter and when it takes lethal damage and doesn't die, remove all damage and indestructible counters from it. The way you have it works well if you're planning to hard cast it anyways, and if you're getting ETB or LTB triggers, but the other way is better if you're hoping to be able to play it from exile/graveyards/the top of a library, etc. I think that it functions the same 90% of the time, but there may be a little more utility in trying the other way.
Here's a card I just made, but then immediately felt like there's something not quite right about it. Is it over costed, the wrong color, worded wrong? I just can't place my finger on what's not working.
@Creid233 I'm very curious as to where you're drawing these assertions from.
For Dreamgorge Baku, I can understand where you're coming from, but making the player pay full price for the spell upon its death renders it virtually useless if you want to cast anything impactful with it. (Perhaps attaching some minor mana cost to the trigger could work, but I'm not sure such a card would see play, given both its fragility and the variety of ways to deny the death trigger.)
With regards to Dredge the Forgotten, I'm mystified by all of your numbers. From a cursory search, losing 5 life at that cost is usually either paired with gaining a similar amount life or part of a (usually repeatable) dilemma. Dredge the Forgotten also has to compete with cards like Stolen Goods, Chaos Wand, and Wand of Wonder that always hit, so having the life loss potentially rebound onto the user would be horrible. Considering Dredge the Forgotten's life loss is the positive outcome opposed to the very negative "free spell for your opponent(s)", that should lower the overall cost. Additionally, some naive probability (assuming 1/3 of each deck is lands, no mulligans to less than 7, no scry or other effects placing cards on the bottom, and no multiplayer politics) gives ~55.6% chance of life loss in a 1v1 and ~80.2% chance for just the last player in a 4-player game (1-(2/3)^x, where x is the number of players). Even with blue's strength at scrying, that only helps you mitigate the drawback of Dredge the Forgotten, so 4 mana at sorcery speed should be fair. (I considered making it mana value 3, but that seemed sketchy given the current mulligan rules.)
@StuffnSuch blue is the main color of effects that play with creature types (Arcane Adaptation, Xenograft, etc.), so I see no issues putting this in blue (you could add green if you want to restrict it a bit; this fits perfectly in simic). The wording also looks fine after a quick search of similarly worded effects. It feels overcosted though, considering this both comes down later than most popular "choose a creature type" effects, and also doesn't benefit very many strategies (the only three that come to mind are sea monsters, demons/devils/imps, and Tawnos beasts & birds). Since Biodiversity's effect isn't particularly impactful, you might be able to get away with costing it at UU or GU.
@StuffnSuch The ability is cool and in the right colour. It's just extremely narrow and doesn't do anything on its own, so it seems overcosted at four mana and needlessly rare at mythical. I would recommend making it a rare and costing it at two to three mana, three if you put the ability on a creature instead of an enchantment for more versatility (Perhaps some kind of zoologist?). I would also suggest wording it as: If you would choose one or more creature types for a spell or ability, you may choose that many creature types plus one instead.
Hi! First post ever, so I don't entirely know what I'm doing with any of the HTML and what-not. Umm... let's get into it.
LvB -As someone new to a lot of the concepts here, whether they've been done before or not, the artwork for Vrromby Heindt is excellent! I know your short on room there, but what if he could transform when he loses a stealth counter? Maybe he becomes a 3/4 with a face? I don't know if that's a good idea or not. But I understand the card, and I like the value! Maybe instead of listing planeswalkers, players, etc.... hmmm.... ________________________________________________________________________________ When Vrromby Heindt comes into play, put a Stealth Counter(max: 1) on it. As long as Vrromby Heindt has a stealth counter, its power is doubled, and it gets Hexproof, First Strike, and Shadow. Vrromby Heindt can assign combat damage to any target. Vrromby Heindt deals or receives combat damage: remove a stealth counter and transform it.
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ Vrromby Heindt 3/4 {t}: Put a stealth counter on Vrromby Heindt and transform it. (it'll be tapped after transforming.
Smokestack Engines first ability seems like a splash of white. Second ability seems pretty blue, but then so does Guttersnipe, Young Pyro, Revel, Lavamancer, etc to me. Hehe. I like it! I just think its alot of colors all put into red. Which is... fine. RDW.
Splicer of the Tangle just made Llanowar, Fyndhorm, Mystic all kinda obsolete and those things seem to be cards that give green its foundation (sorta like Soul Warden or Champion of the Parish for white, or Lightning Bolt for Red, or ...Brainstorm... or Reanimate...etc. Maybe... make him a 0/1? Tit for tat(is that the expression?)
Phyrexian Aberration! I love working on poison tribal! This card is perfect! Maybe even make it a phyrexian black mana cost to cast so I have more options(life doesn't have to matter), plus then I don't actually have to splash black for my U/W Poison Tribal! Maybe give me TWO poison counters when I reanimate him so that I can get to a win condition faster, in which I cast an Instant that says "Until the end of turn, if target player gets 15 or more poison counters, that player wins the game".
Specimen Examination: Hmmm... hard for me to judge this one. Doesn't seem broken enough = me no likey dat. Nah, I'm just kidding. Its great. Probably more broken that I realize... It just feels like there are faster engines out there. I mean for 2 mana I can come up with countless ways to draw 1 or more cards, correct? So I'd draft any of your other ones over this one. To be fair: I'd have to see more of the oil counter interactions and engines to know if I can feed this thing and use oil to make mana and what-not. It feels like the start of that "energy matters" type deck. The kind that I wish they'd just make more support for and more decent energy sinks to spend the stuff on.
I'll stop there for now. Its midnight and school in the morn'.
@StuffnSuch - Regarding Biodiversity, I agree with the other posters. Color is good, but it's overcosted. I'd either drop it to UU or add another minor ability to the card and keep the cost. (Something like?: 2UG - If a spell or ability would require you to choose one or more creature types, you may instead choose that many plus one types. When an effect requires you to name a creature type, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature of that type you control.) Most effects that ask you to name a creature type are some type of utility (Herald's Horn) or a force multiplier (Coat of Arms). These are at optimum use in decks where virtually every creature meets the condition. As such, Biodiversity has a sort of built in non-synergy, as it wants to be in decks with multiple creature types. But even if you built such a deck (call it a dual-tribal), you'd have to find this card and keep it in play before you started to get the same benefit as a normal tribal deck. In other words, the deck design trades efficiency for a larger card pool. There's a place for this, but not in as many decks as one might think. It's kind of the same issue that Maskwood Nexus runs into.
Regarding your questions: For Lithis-Pala, my intent was to have an increasing pool of exiled cards to be chosen from, so yeah, any card exiled by her ability. The limitation on this ability being there's no marker tracking them ("exile with a void counter on it" or whatnot), so the cards you can access are only those exiled by the currently in play version. Ex: If she was used as a commander, is played, uses her abilities and dies, then is replayed, she would not have access to the cards previously exiled.
For Angel of Refuge, I felt that ETB with an indestructible counter from anywhere is too strong, especially at 5 mana for a 3/5 Flying, Vigilance. It'd be too susceptible as a blink target to just get it back and be quite difficult to remove. The current version is kind of a 2-for-1 creature that's first iteration is immune to destroy effects.
@cadstar369 - My suggestion for Dreamforge Baku was in the thought of making the free spell more of a late game mechanic; you wouldn't get anything off playing this early except a 1/1 Skulk kind of deal, which is also why I thought lowering the cost to just B would be appropriate. I'm not sure that's the correct answer to balancing this; I do like your original design, I'm just concerned it's prone to weird potential unfairness. (Not reliably, more like... just bad luck.) I may be overly concerned.
With regard to Dredge the Forgotten, just speaking in terms of if you want to cause an opponent to lose 5 life in a non-combat method, the "balancing" card for this has always been Lava Axe. (Not a good card, but I digress.) More helpful than that would just be a search for "loses 5 life" and you can see associated costs. Assuming your math is correct (I'll admit statistics is not my strong suit and I was manually simulating the draws in my head), then in a 1v1 you have a greater than half chance that you're getting a free spell and your opponent is losing 5 life. That's crazy value for 4 CMC. Let's break down the possible 1v1 results:
- You get a spell and they get a land, causing them to lose 5 life. - You both get a land, resulting in only them losing 5 life for you paying 4 mana. - You both get a random spell. - There is no possibility of you getting a land and them getting a spell, for the ultimate worst case scenario. Unless you give them Phage the Untouchable, because that's funny.
Every possible result listed puts you at a total overall gain, except the third, which is hard to estimate due to randomness and deck build, so we'll do it by card advantage and say the opponent has come out one card ahead. (You played 2 spells for 2 cards and the opponent got 1 spell for 1 card, but one of your two spells effectively did nothing.)
As such, the vast majority of the time you're causing the opponent to lose 25% of their life total for 4 mana. Add on top of that you have a strong chance of getting a free spell and the overall odds of this card make it worth much more than the worst case scenario. If you also had the potential to lose life when it resulted in two lands, that'd balance that out a bit. But overall, in most 60 card formats, this is crazy good.
Then we get to Commander: I actually think this is much more balanced there for its cost. You have multiple opponents likely getting free spells, the 5 life loss is only 12.5% of the life total, etc. So with that in mind, I would fully support if you wanted to say this card was intended as part of a Commander specific release, like Commander Legends. This means it'd only be playable in Commander and Legacy/Vintage, which wouldn't actually care for it because they're doing far more dumb stuff.
Re: Fleshwarp - I like what you're trying to do here. I actually think this is significantly overcosted though. I played during Saviors of Kamigawa when they were doing "number of cards in hand matters" mechanics, and they almost always turned out to be pretty unplayable. Save for some crazy draw engines that already win you the game via other methods, generally holding cards to buff these effects means you're not playing on tempo and losing game opportunities.
So breaking down the effects, you could use this as a board wipe. That's probably the strongest use of it, but again, requires you to have a lot of cards in hand. Maybe it could be used as kind of an awful fog effect, if your opponent is holding a lot? (Would still be better to just wipe their stuff if that's viable.) You could use it try and hold onto your creatures through board-wide damage like Blasphemous Act, assuming you had enough cards; that's kind of niche though. Finally you could pump your own guys for an attack, but you have to consider if they die or not - it wouldn't work on cheap tokens, and you couldn't pump things that heavily. (Assuming you had a bunch of 3/3s or something, you could make them into 5/1s?)
As written, I think this would be good at UBB and maybe passable at 2UB. If you changed "in its controller's hand" to "target player's hand", that'd at least give you much more control over the options; at that point I think it could be worth its cost. Or, maybe the first option could be +0/+X; then it could be used as buffing attackers/defenders for a turn.
Card I made a few days ago. I'm a newer card custom card maker, making cards for less than a year. Had a few cards that kind a did well, but I don't look at numbers as fame I look at them as progression. I still am an amateur at this but do believe I am progressing with the help from the community!
@Castiel_Demiurge - Seems like a perfectly fine card. Anthem effect, appropriately costed for today's meta with Vigilance attached. Looking over the other cards that interact with oil counters, the only thing that struck me that may be an issue is The Filigree Sylex's third ability. Seems very very easy for a white weenie build to make go off quickly using this. I could see this as a turn 4 kill in Standard, maybe even Modern if there's sufficient quick creature buildup.
@TheKeefMan - I can't see how this isn't going to have basically the same issues that resulted in the Commander banning of Hullbreacher and Leovold, Emissary of Trest. Which is to say, wheel effects break him. He does have the downside of needing haste +1 more mana to activate, but this still results in you playing him followed by Windfall, Teferi's Puzzle Box, Jace's Archivist, Wheel of Fortune, etc., resulting in all of your opponents having 0 cards and you having 20+.
@WarriorCatInAhat I think it would still be balanced if you make is {3}{w}{b}{r}, colors that flows better with the card, but at a higher price to keep it balanced.
Though, I do believe it could be a {w}{b}{r} or a {1}{w}{b}{r} if you make it a legendary instant, its just really hard to balance a card like this when you take into account in a deck your allowed 4 of them max.
@kennyboy23 honestly, I have no idea how best to evaluate your cards. Given that there's no tribal synergies available outside of shapeshifters though, I don't think any of them are particularly powerful. If a card like Maraschino were to exist though, it would greatly restrict the design future Pig cards to avoid broken shenanigans (the brick house pig similarly restricts future pigs with mana value 3 or less).
@Castiel_Demiurge this looks like a heavily power crept version of Radiant Destiny. It's always on, affects your entire (current) board, and even proliferates! (While the value of oil counters is yet to be fully comprehended since we're still in spoiler season, giving everyone two is pretty nuts since most of the costs only remove one or two. It also makes Urabrask's Anointer nuts in a token deck.) While you can't stack the passive from multiple, the ETB is so powerful that extra copies aren't dead cards. This feels very much like a mythic to me, and should perhaps cost 1 more mana (the proliferate functions as an extra anthem if you're playing +1/+1 counters, which white has plenty of access to).
As Creid233 has already touched upon, this card is fairly obnoxious, likely even more so than the cards they referenced, since instead of shutting everyone out you're choosing a single opponent to steal cards from.
How come this isn't a Human Rogue?
With regards to the wording, I'd suggest something along these lines:
{u}, {t}: The next time target opponent would draw one or more cards, if it isn't their draw step, instead you draw that many cards.
(There's no particularly direct examples for what the wording should be here, but I'm using a number of these cards as reference.)
@WarriorCatInAhat I'd be wary of any effects that can exile spells, given there's only 3 cards that do it, and two of them give the spell back later for free. While Oblivion's Touch looks fairly costed, it probably couldn't ever be printed because of how many ways there are to copy/recur/clone instants & sorceries an arbitrary number of times (for example, imagine seeing this under an Arcane Bombardment or Eye of the Storm in a control deck, or ramping into a huge blowout in a deck stuffed with cards like Double Vision and Dualcaster Mage).
@WarriorCatInAhat There are actually more cards that exile spells that haven't been named, so I wouldn't be too concerned about that being too rare of an effect. Mindbreak Trap does it in addition to any card that can end the turn at instant speed like Discontinuity, Hurkyl's Final Meditation, Obeka, Brute Chronologist, Sundial of the Infinite, and Time Stop. As far as abusing it for repeated removal, most cards that can repeatedly copy Oblivion's Touch can also copy Vindicate, Maelstrom Pulse, and Utter End, so don't worry about that either.
Made this card about a week ago and people seemed to have likes it. I just made it out of the blue because I saw the artwork and wanted to make a card with it. No reference was used for wording or as inspiration, just from my mind alone.
MTG Cardsmith Community Forums
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My suggestion for the wording of the card would be: For each player, choose X target creatures that player controls. Until end of turn, those creatures gain "{2}: Exile this creature. Any player may activate this ability."
I presume including yourself among the affected players is an intentional drawback/symmetry, which, practically speaking, is largely mitigated by the fact that you get to choose all of the creatures and can cast Beckon of the Abyss at instant speed.
Vrromby Heindt enters the battlefield with a stealth counter on it.
As long as Vrromby Heindt has a stealth counter on it, it can't be blocked and has first strike, hexproof, and "T: Vrromby Heindt gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is its power. Then it fights target creature you don't control. Activate only as a sorcery."
Whenever Vrromby Heindt deals damage or is dealt damage, remove all stealth counters from it.
T: Put a stealth counter on Vrromby Heindt.
Some suggestions for lessening the wording:
-Shorten the name of Vrromby Heindt. There are several places where the card needs to refer to itself by name and that completely kills your text space, especially if it just fails to fit at the end of a line.
-Get rid of the clause that it starts out with a stealth counter. Yes, this slows the card down, but it's already very undercosted.
-Get rid of first strike. Giving it adds very little (except possibly on defense) if it's also unblockable. Its toughness is already greater than its power and you can't have it block more than one creature, so there aren't many situations where it's valuable.
I Appreciate all the feedback on my last card. Thank you very much.
Saw a prompt by jadefire to make a card about secrelty noteing something. This is a very blue effect but my art is red so the colour pie might be broken. Any tips would be appreciated I think its fine because you dont have to pay red for the counter ability making it essentially colourless so maybe the colour pie isnt broken. Again help is immensly appreciated.
Also Castiel the red one drop blocks way to well with such a big butt so as stated above make it a bit smaller. The black one is also very powerful at reanimation maybe should have a few more restrictions otherwise the cards are cool and intresting. One mana is definitley the hardest type of card to make. Hope my brief advice helps.
I'd appreciate feedback on these cards:
Regarding Dredge the Forgotten, I think this is undercosted or the lifeloss potential needs to be equally applied to all players. In 60 card formats, 5 life is a pretty big hit and usually runs ~5 mana. This isn't guaranteed life loss, but is allowing you to cast spells for free. Rather, the chance of forced life loss is about 40% in a two player game, if you assume each deck is approx 1/3 lands. In a 4 player game, it's slightly higher that the last player will get a land and no spell: about 45%. In other words, just under half the time, this card is "I get a random spell for 4 mana, you get a card removed from your deck and you lose 5 life." Again, I know that's only about half, but I think that 4 CMC is too low for this. It's certainly more reasonable in a Commander game where the higher life totals and multiple players are going to make it much more chaotic in its results, but I think this at least needs to be 3UB. (Especially when you consider that this is in the two colors best at Scrying and therefore rigging part of the outcome.)
The bottom of the deck ideas are fun though, and if I was running those colors and this theme, I'd be super happy to play an old favorite counterspell of mine: Hinder.
I'd like to get some feedback on the following:
For Compleated Mutation, I'm still not sure I like the wording on this. I think players can clearly understand what the intent is, but I'm not sure this works rules-wise. Let me know your thoughts.
For Wall of Rejection, yes, it's definitely based on Wall of Denial. I've been considering blocking mechanics lately and it occurred to me that there's not a lot out there that really allows you to fully soak trample damage or damage, damage that can be applied as if not blocking, etc. So this is an attempt at that. I keyworded the ability in order to make it a little easier on the rules. (Originally I just had it as a unique ability for Wall of Rejection, but the issue came to mind that if two WoR's block a creature, it turns into a rules mess. Easier and clearer to say you can only assign damage to creatures with the keyword.)
I really love the Impassable mechanic. That's such a cool idea.
I also like Lithis-Pala Monumental's ability, but I'm curious whether you meant that you can only cast one of the three cards exiled, or whether you have access to every card she ever exiled? It would make more sense with the former and require less tracking of what cards were exiled how, but it currently allows you to cast any card ever exiled with it. If you're going for the former, you'd just replace "by Lithis-Pala, Monumental" with "this way".
I actually think the text on Compleated Mutation is correct, or at least works, rules-wise. It's a great design and seems like a lot of fun to play with. I've thought of several decks I'd be interested in playing with it.
I'm curious, with Angel of Refuge, why you didn't just say it enters with an indestructible counter and when it takes lethal damage and doesn't die, remove all damage and indestructible counters from it. The way you have it works well if you're planning to hard cast it anyways, and if you're getting ETB or LTB triggers, but the other way is better if you're hoping to be able to play it from exile/graveyards/the top of a library, etc. I think that it functions the same 90% of the time, but there may be a little more utility in trying the other way.
Here's a card I just made, but then immediately felt like there's something not quite right about it. Is it over costed, the wrong color, worded wrong? I just can't place my finger on what's not working.
For Dreamgorge Baku, I can understand where you're coming from, but making the player pay full price for the spell upon its death renders it virtually useless if you want to cast anything impactful with it. (Perhaps attaching some minor mana cost to the trigger could work, but I'm not sure such a card would see play, given both its fragility and the variety of ways to deny the death trigger.)
With regards to Dredge the Forgotten, I'm mystified by all of your numbers. From a cursory search, losing 5 life at that cost is usually either paired with gaining a similar amount life or part of a (usually repeatable) dilemma. Dredge the Forgotten also has to compete with cards like Stolen Goods, Chaos Wand, and Wand of Wonder that always hit, so having the life loss potentially rebound onto the user would be horrible. Considering Dredge the Forgotten's life loss is the positive outcome opposed to the very negative "free spell for your opponent(s)", that should lower the overall cost. Additionally, some naive probability (assuming 1/3 of each deck is lands, no mulligans to less than 7, no scry or other effects placing cards on the bottom, and no multiplayer politics) gives ~55.6% chance of life loss in a 1v1 and ~80.2% chance for just the last player in a 4-player game (1-(2/3)^x, where x is the number of players). Even with blue's strength at scrying, that only helps you mitigate the drawback of Dredge the Forgotten, so 4 mana at sorcery speed should be fair. (I considered making it mana value 3, but that seemed sketchy given the current mulligan rules.)
@StuffnSuch blue is the main color of effects that play with creature types (Arcane Adaptation, Xenograft, etc.), so I see no issues putting this in blue (you could add green if you want to restrict it a bit; this fits perfectly in simic). The wording also looks fine after a quick search of similarly worded effects. It feels overcosted though, considering this both comes down later than most popular "choose a creature type" effects, and also doesn't benefit very many strategies (the only three that come to mind are sea monsters, demons/devils/imps, and Tawnos beasts & birds). Since Biodiversity's effect isn't particularly impactful, you might be able to get away with costing it at UU or GU.
I'd appreciate feedback on this card:
LvB -As someone new to a lot of the concepts here, whether they've been done before or not, the artwork for Vrromby Heindt is excellent! I know your short on room there, but what if he could transform when he loses a stealth counter? Maybe he becomes a 3/4 with a face?
I don't know if that's a good idea or not. But I understand the card, and I like the value!
Maybe instead of listing planeswalkers, players, etc.... hmmm....
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When Vrromby Heindt comes into play, put a Stealth Counter(max: 1) on it.
As long as Vrromby Heindt has a stealth counter, its power is doubled, and it gets Hexproof, First Strike, and Shadow. Vrromby Heindt can assign combat damage to any target.
Vrromby Heindt deals or receives combat damage: remove a stealth counter and transform it.
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Vrromby Heindt 3/4
{t}: Put a stealth counter on Vrromby Heindt and transform it. (it'll be tapped after transforming.
I like superpowered cards obviously.
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Castiel_Demiurge
I'll refrain from paragraphs.
Smokestack Engines first ability seems like a splash of white. Second ability seems pretty blue, but then so does Guttersnipe, Young Pyro, Revel, Lavamancer, etc to me. Hehe. I like it! I just think its alot of colors all put into red. Which is... fine. RDW.
Splicer of the Tangle just made Llanowar, Fyndhorm, Mystic all kinda obsolete and those things seem to be cards that give green its foundation (sorta like Soul Warden or Champion of the Parish for white, or Lightning Bolt for Red, or ...Brainstorm... or Reanimate...etc. Maybe... make him a 0/1? Tit for tat(is that the expression?)
Phyrexian Aberration! I love working on poison tribal! This card is perfect! Maybe even make it a phyrexian black mana cost to cast so I have more options(life doesn't have to matter), plus then I don't actually have to splash black for my U/W Poison Tribal! Maybe give me TWO poison counters when I reanimate him so that I can get to a win condition faster, in which I cast an Instant that says "Until the end of turn, if target player gets 15 or more poison counters, that player wins the game".
Profane Ascendency: + Phyrexian Aberration + the aforementioned instant spell = WIN!
Specimen Examination: Hmmm... hard for me to judge this one. Doesn't seem broken enough = me no likey dat. Nah, I'm just kidding. Its great. Probably more broken that I realize... It just feels like there are faster engines out there. I mean for 2 mana I can come up with countless ways to draw 1 or more cards, correct? So I'd draft any of your other ones over this one. To be fair: I'd have to see more of the oil counter interactions and engines to know if I can feed this thing and use oil to make mana and what-not. It feels like the start of that "energy matters" type deck. The kind that I wish they'd just make more support for and more decent energy sinks to spend the stuff on.
I'll stop there for now. Its midnight and school in the morn'.
Most effects that ask you to name a creature type are some type of utility (Herald's Horn) or a force multiplier (Coat of Arms). These are at optimum use in decks where virtually every creature meets the condition. As such, Biodiversity has a sort of built in non-synergy, as it wants to be in decks with multiple creature types. But even if you built such a deck (call it a dual-tribal), you'd have to find this card and keep it in play before you started to get the same benefit as a normal tribal deck. In other words, the deck design trades efficiency for a larger card pool. There's a place for this, but not in as many decks as one might think. It's kind of the same issue that Maskwood Nexus runs into.
Regarding your questions: For Lithis-Pala, my intent was to have an increasing pool of exiled cards to be chosen from, so yeah, any card exiled by her ability. The limitation on this ability being there's no marker tracking them ("exile with a void counter on it" or whatnot), so the cards you can access are only those exiled by the currently in play version. Ex: If she was used as a commander, is played, uses her abilities and dies, then is replayed, she would not have access to the cards previously exiled.
For Angel of Refuge, I felt that ETB with an indestructible counter from anywhere is too strong, especially at 5 mana for a 3/5 Flying, Vigilance. It'd be too susceptible as a blink target to just get it back and be quite difficult to remove. The current version is kind of a 2-for-1 creature that's first iteration is immune to destroy effects.
@cadstar369 - My suggestion for Dreamforge Baku was in the thought of making the free spell more of a late game mechanic; you wouldn't get anything off playing this early except a 1/1 Skulk kind of deal, which is also why I thought lowering the cost to just B would be appropriate. I'm not sure that's the correct answer to balancing this; I do like your original design, I'm just concerned it's prone to weird potential unfairness. (Not reliably, more like... just bad luck.) I may be overly concerned.
With regard to Dredge the Forgotten, just speaking in terms of if you want to cause an opponent to lose 5 life in a non-combat method, the "balancing" card for this has always been Lava Axe. (Not a good card, but I digress.) More helpful than that would just be a search for "loses 5 life" and you can see associated costs. Assuming your math is correct (I'll admit statistics is not my strong suit and I was manually simulating the draws in my head), then in a 1v1 you have a greater than half chance that you're getting a free spell and your opponent is losing 5 life. That's crazy value for 4 CMC. Let's break down the possible 1v1 results:
- You get a spell and they get a land, causing them to lose 5 life.
- You both get a land, resulting in only them losing 5 life for you paying 4 mana.
- You both get a random spell.
- There is no possibility of you getting a land and them getting a spell, for the ultimate worst case scenario. Unless you give them Phage the Untouchable, because that's funny.
Every possible result listed puts you at a total overall gain, except the third, which is hard to estimate due to randomness and deck build, so we'll do it by card advantage and say the opponent has come out one card ahead. (You played 2 spells for 2 cards and the opponent got 1 spell for 1 card, but one of your two spells effectively did nothing.)
As such, the vast majority of the time you're causing the opponent to lose 25% of their life total for 4 mana. Add on top of that you have a strong chance of getting a free spell and the overall odds of this card make it worth much more than the worst case scenario. If you also had the potential to lose life when it resulted in two lands, that'd balance that out a bit. But overall, in most 60 card formats, this is crazy good.
Then we get to Commander: I actually think this is much more balanced there for its cost. You have multiple opponents likely getting free spells, the 5 life loss is only 12.5% of the life total, etc. So with that in mind, I would fully support if you wanted to say this card was intended as part of a Commander specific release, like Commander Legends. This means it'd only be playable in Commander and Legacy/Vintage, which wouldn't actually care for it because they're doing far more dumb stuff.
Re: Fleshwarp - I like what you're trying to do here. I actually think this is significantly overcosted though. I played during Saviors of Kamigawa when they were doing "number of cards in hand matters" mechanics, and they almost always turned out to be pretty unplayable. Save for some crazy draw engines that already win you the game via other methods, generally holding cards to buff these effects means you're not playing on tempo and losing game opportunities.
So breaking down the effects, you could use this as a board wipe. That's probably the strongest use of it, but again, requires you to have a lot of cards in hand. Maybe it could be used as kind of an awful fog effect, if your opponent is holding a lot? (Would still be better to just wipe their stuff if that's viable.) You could use it try and hold onto your creatures through board-wide damage like Blasphemous Act, assuming you had enough cards; that's kind of niche though. Finally you could pump your own guys for an attack, but you have to consider if they die or not - it wouldn't work on cheap tokens, and you couldn't pump things that heavily. (Assuming you had a bunch of 3/3s or something, you could make them into 5/1s?)
As written, I think this would be good at UBB and maybe passable at 2UB. If you changed "in its controller's hand" to "target player's hand", that'd at least give you much more control over the options; at that point I think it could be worth its cost. Or, maybe the first option could be +0/+X; then it could be used as buffing attackers/defenders for a turn.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/oath-of-norn
Card I made a few days ago.
I'm a newer card custom card maker, making cards for less than a year. Had a few cards that kind a did well, but I don't look at numbers as fame I look at them as progression. I still am an amateur at this but do believe I am progressing with the help from the community!
@TheKeefMan - I can't see how this isn't going to have basically the same issues that resulted in the Commander banning of Hullbreacher and Leovold, Emissary of Trest. Which is to say, wheel effects break him. He does have the downside of needing haste +1 more mana to activate, but this still results in you playing him followed by Windfall, Teferi's Puzzle Box, Jace's Archivist, Wheel of Fortune, etc., resulting in all of your opponents having 0 cards and you having 20+.
https://mtgcardsmith.com/view/oblivions-touch-2
@Castiel_Demiurge this looks like a heavily power crept version of Radiant Destiny. It's always on, affects your entire (current) board, and even proliferates! (While the value of oil counters is yet to be fully comprehended since we're still in spoiler season, giving everyone two is pretty nuts since most of the costs only remove one or two. It also makes Urabrask's Anointer nuts in a token deck.) While you can't stack the passive from multiple, the ETB is so powerful that extra copies aren't dead cards. This feels very much like a mythic to me, and should perhaps cost 1 more mana (the proliferate functions as an extra anthem if you're playing +1/+1 counters, which white has plenty of access to).
@TheKeefMan
@WarriorCatInAhat I'd be wary of any effects that can exile spells, given there's only 3 cards that do it, and two of them give the spell back later for free. While Oblivion's Touch looks fairly costed, it probably couldn't ever be printed because of how many ways there are to copy/recur/clone instants & sorceries an arbitrary number of times (for example, imagine seeing this under an Arcane Bombardment or Eye of the Storm in a control deck, or ramping into a huge blowout in a deck stuffed with cards like Double Vision and Dualcaster Mage).
I'd appreciate feedback on these cards:
Cards below are inspiration and citing for wording.
What do you think?