Design a Card

A place to talk about standard, casual, limited and everything in between.
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TaiyouShinobi
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 07 Apr 2016, 17:17

So here's where we are now:

[Grand Bazaar] 1UR
Legendary Artifact
Fading 3. When ~ enters the battlefield, exile the top five cards of your library.
Skip your draw step.
UR, T: Add a card exiled by ~ to your hand.
While there are no fade counters on ~, at the end of your turn you may pay 2UR, if you do, exile ~ and return it to the battlefield under your control.

Changed White to Blue and got rid of the shuffle bit.

@AdmiralMemo, I think Fading is closer to what I wanted here, over Vanishing. I believe that's because the card gets sacrificed when you go to remove a counter and there isn't one. Vanishing says when the last is removed, sacrifice it. It makes the last bit easier to word in my favor, I hope. Additionally, you mentioned that you thought that the card and ability were undercosted? I changed the ability's cost to RU to increase complexity, but I don't know about more than that. Because this card causes you to skip your draw step you're stuck with the pool of five cards for the three turns, baring your own draw spell. I feel like that might be a deterrent if you didn't have ways around it, thus the 1UR casting cost. But I've never really been able to figure out what a fair cost for drawing cards is. Currently, at best, it's Reveal five, add three to your hand for 1RRRRUUUU; just over the course of several turns. Is that good? How likely is it to get played?

@SixFootTurkey, you mentioned that there would be delayed triggers with the first design, are they still present here? I don't really get quite how that works, I thought you'd only get one when there were no more counters. Also, I think I read somewhere that the main difference between artifacts and enchantments were that artifacts were things that get tapped and enchantments didn't. I'm not entirely sure if that's the case but I just went with that as reasoning. It does sort of feel like an enchantment though. (Edit: Changed "When" to "While", because I think that might have been contributing to the multiple triggers things.)

I've also thought about adding "and exile the top card of your library instead." after "Skip your draw step". Would that make it better or worse, My first thought is better, but then after three turns you lose any cards you didn't "purchase" because it becomes a new object if you repay the exile cost, so any that you would have liked to have gotten are lost, which could make it unpalatable.
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AdmiralMemo
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Re: Design a Card

Postby AdmiralMemo » 07 Apr 2016, 21:26

I'm thinking it just needs a tweak from 1RW to 2RU, and the activated ability from 2 to RU. Really, I was largely concerned with the activated ability's cost being generic. With so many things in Magic that can generate mana and a decent amount of cards that can untap artifacts for you, having a generic "Pay 2: Draw a card" ability is really powerful. Late-game, you could just dump a bunch of mana to draw all 5 cards on the same turn.

Also, if you get complete garbage draws, removing three counters doesn't seem to be a big deal.
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SixFootTurkey
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 07 Apr 2016, 21:30

No, but to keep it in line with recent templating I would reword the last ability to be:

"At the beginning of your end step, if there are no fade counters on ~, you may pay [cost]. If you do, [effect]."
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Lycodrake » 11 Apr 2016, 04:38

http://mtgcardsmith.com/view/cards_ip/1460331170047200.png?t=898927

Visheme, the Shifting Fang
2UG
Planeswalker - Visheme
+2: Each player manifests the top card of their library.
-2: Each face-down creature you control deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control.
-X: Look at the top X cards of each player's library. You may reveal up to X creature cards from among them. Manifest each revealed card revealed this way (under your control?). All players shuffle their library.

A WIP UG Rakshasa Manifest fan-Planeswalker, with thanks to Isharton and Ish's chat on tumblr/picarto.
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TaiyouShinobi
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 18 Apr 2016, 15:40

Not sure I like giving my opponent a creature with my planeswalker. Any aversion to just giving it to my side of the board? Also, what's the starting loyalty on this guy/girl/dragon/thing? For the -X ability you shouldn't have to reveal unless you want that to be part of a downside, same with the creature requirement. The cool thing about manifests are that they might be creatures or they might not. I think you can just say "Manifest the top X cards of each players library and put them onto the battlefield under your control."
Alternatively if you really wanted to keep the "Each player" part of the +2 you could have the -X be something like "Each player manifests the top X cards of their library. Then gain control of all manifest creatures." Or something along those lines and then you could take away that early downside. (The problem with that of course is that you could just -0 and get their manifests, but then you're losing a turn you could have been +2ing and I don't know. But it seems fun to play around with.)

_________________________________________________________

Here's one that is possibly broken:

Borrowed Time
0
Instant
(~ is blue and white)
Untap any number of permanents you control.
Skip your next turn. For each additional copy of ~ in your graveyard or exile, skip an additional turn after that.


Is this okay or broke?
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Phi » 19 Apr 2016, 01:00

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chetoos
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Re: Design a Card

Postby chetoos » 15 May 2016, 11:57

I just had this idea, and I wonder if it's any good:
[name] 5BR
Creature - Dragon skeleton
Devour 1
Unearth 4BBRR
When this creature leaves the battlefield, put a number of 1/1 skeleton creature tokens onto the battlefield equal to the number of 1/1 counters on this creature. If this creature was exiled, put twice that many skeletons onto the battlefield instead.
0/0
Should I give it base P/T? Or should I decrease the costs?
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Re: Design a Card

Postby AdmiralMemo » 15 May 2016, 23:25

1. Needs Flying. It's a Dragon.
2. Make it a 1/1.
3. The Skeleton tokens need to be Black.
4. Correct it to +1/+1 counters.
5. Even after the adjustments, the cost is a little high. After checking average Devour and Unearth costs and effects... The Unearth cost is usually less than the cost of the card itself, with a few exceptions. However, that's on the assumption of getting the same effect. If you're getting a better effect by the Unearth, that should ramp the cost up, so I'd say the Unearth cost should be about the same as the base cost.

A 1/1 Flying Dragon Skeleton with Devour 1 that makes 1/1s when it dies? I'd go for 3BR. Unearth giving twice as many? 3BBRR.

As for synergies... The way it's currently worded, you make it so it discourages your opponent from playing direct exile effects on its first go-around, like Swords to Plowshares, Abzan Charm, or Reality Shift. It even discourages stuff like Stasis Snare, Banisher Priest, and Anafenza, the Foremost. On your side, it encourages the use of stuff like Conjurer's Closet, Momentary Blink, and Cloudshift. Commander games can get degenerate at times, but I'm thinking about it coming in, Devouring say 4 creatures, then blinking it for 8 skeletons, then Devouring them when it comes back. If your deck stockpiled reanimator and blink effects, this thing could get colossal very quickly.
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chetoos
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Re: Design a Card

Postby chetoos » 16 May 2016, 08:33

Remnant of Jund 3BR
Creature - Dragon Skeleton
Devour 1
Unearth 3BBRR
Flying
When Remnant of Jund leaves the battlefield, put a number of 1/1 black skeleton creature tokens onto the battlefield equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on Remnant of Jund. If Remnant of Jund was exiled, put twice that many skeletons onto the battlefield instead.
1/1
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Re: Design a Card

Postby AdmiralMemo » 16 May 2016, 09:15

Looks good. Would need to be rare or mythic, for sure, but I don't see it as game-breaking in the right environment. :-)

Flavor-wise, being Jund, I can see a deck built around generating tokens of Goblins, Zombies, and Saprolings, with this guy as a finisher. :-)
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 16 May 2016, 09:30

The only way to _not_ get skeletons is to remove its abilities; I'm okay with something benefiting from being exiled, but it should be _only_ if exiled, and it's rather out of flavor here.

I understand you want synergy with unearth, but doing so can't come at the expense of flavor and balance. It's also a bit up there on the complexity level; three keywords AND a non-intuitive LTB trigger. While only one of the keywords - the simplest one too - matters after it's on the battlefield, that it is hard to deal with _and_ matters when in the graveyard is an issue.

The only really reliable ways to deal with this spell, are the 'less fun' ways of interacting in magic; counter magic that exiles, and hand disruption. Tuck/bounce doesn't even work, since you made it a pure LTB trigger; very few - if any - cards require this amount of workaround to deal with.

One way to limit this, might be to make it a death trigger instead of LTB, and replace unearth with "[optional mana component], sacrifice N Skeletons: return [name] to the battlefield." - This would provide more self-synergy while preventing it from bypassing the vast majority of interaction. It would also gain an upside here that is common in both black and red - a way to recur something as long as they can pay the cost until it's dealt with in a more permanent manner (exile/tuck).

Edit: @Memo - there's absolutely no way that would be anything less than Mythic as is.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby chetoos » 16 May 2016, 16:28

SixFootTurkey wrote:The only way to _not_ get skeletons is to remove its abilities; I'm okay with something benefiting from being exiled, but it should be _only_ if exiled, and it's rather out of flavor here.

I understand you want synergy with unearth, but doing so can't come at the expense of flavor and balance. It's also a bit up there on the complexity level; three keywords AND a non-intuitive LTB trigger. While only one of the keywords - the simplest one too - matters after it's on the battlefield, that it is hard to deal with _and_ matters when in the graveyard is an issue.

The only really reliable ways to deal with this spell, are the 'less fun' ways of interacting in magic; counter magic that exiles, and hand disruption. Tuck/bounce doesn't even work, since you made it a pure LTB trigger; very few - if any - cards require this amount of workaround to deal with.

One way to limit this, might be to make it a death trigger instead of LTB, and replace unearth with "[optional mana component], sacrifice N Skeletons: return [name] to the battlefield." - This would provide more self-synergy while preventing it from bypassing the vast majority of interaction. It would also gain an upside here that is common in both black and red - a way to recur something as long as they can pay the cost until it's dealt with in a more permanent manner (exile/tuck).

Edit: @Memo - there's absolutely no way that would be anything less than Mythic as is.

The card came from me wating to make something that worked with both unearth and devour, after watching the all foil alara draft, so I'm kinda set on unearth
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 17 May 2016, 06:21

To me, the 'risk' of Devour, is that you are putting all of your eggs into one basket; if you feed all of your creatures to a devour creature, you won't have any there for the next one, and if you lose that creature you lose all of the investment that went into it. A devour creature that breaks apart into smaller ones is already inherently bypassing its weakness - one that does so even if you exile it feels like it may be too much.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 17 May 2016, 21:14

What if it left behind skeletons ONLY when it gets exiled (i.e. after unearthing)? So you have to go through a full cycle... first you cast, devour X creatures, die and get nothing, then unearth, devour Y creatures, and exile to get Y token skeletons (or maybe 2 times Y as you now have it). Maybe instead of getting a multiple of Y tokens upon exile, instead you get 1 token per creature card in your graveyard.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Aaron9797 » 20 May 2016, 08:14

mother fin' urza 2/W 2/U 2/B 2/R 2/G
planeswalker - urza 6

converge/sunburst urza enters the battlefield with an additional loyalty for each color used to cast it

+3: look at the top 5 cards of your library you may reveal a planeswalker and add it to your hand and send the rest to your graveyard if you dont put them back an any order

0: move any number of loyalty counters from target planeswalker to another target planewalker with the same controller

-1: until your next turn prevent all damage to planewalkers you control and they gain hexproof and indestructible

-15: search your hand, graveyard and library for up to 3 plasewalkers put them on the battlefield with double loyalty counters and there loyalty abilities can't be activited this turn
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 21 May 2016, 13:11

Turn 4* [any planeswalker]
Turn 5*, Urza and ultimate [other planeswalker]
???
Win

*Or earlier with ramp.

In short, power level isn't really worth trying to fix.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 21 May 2016, 19:22

The Urza design there seems plainly broken, as TwoYardTurkey points out... just cast this guy (even with colorless mana, hello tron lands!) and you ssentially get to power up another p-walker to ultimate right away, by moving his counters over. Or, if you've got the WUBRG to sunburst him out, then you just borrow a few loyalty from Tibalt and do his ultimate right then.

That being said, I do like the one concept of a p-walker who has an ability to gain loyalty by robbing it from others. To avoid the broken scenarios, though, I think it has to be "0: Move any number of loyalty counters from another target planeswalker you control onto [CARDNAME]." In fact, maybe that could be the only "plus" ability! Give him a mild -1 ability and then a sweet expensive ultimate, and flavor him maybe as a "poser" who leeches off of others but who actually does have some unique understanding of the multiverse. Or, maybe this p-walker is actually an Eldrazi! Who has found out how to break containment and visit planes at will, and goes around screwing things up. Anyways, I think it's a worthwhile concept.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Phi » 24 May 2016, 12:35

New rare / mythic I thought about:

Scourge of Scourges
2BB
3/4
Whenever a creature your opponents control would deal damage, it deals that much damage to itself instead.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 24 May 2016, 22:13

Did I mention that Urza works with Doubling Season? Talk about developmentally problematic... okay, I'm done. >.>

It would be 'If a creature...." I would probably put another limit on it though. Maybe 'damage to you' or 'damage to a creature you control', or even just 'combat damage' or 'noncombat damage'.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Re'ozul » 29 May 2016, 12:38

I just had a thought.

Rho Aias 4W (Kind of want a secondary color but am not sure which one)
Enchantment Aura
When Rho Aias enters the battle, put 8 petal counters on it.
Whenever a source would deal 2 or less damage to attached creature, prevent that damage.
Remove a petal counter from Rho Aias, Choose one:
- Regenerate Rho Aias
- Regenerate the creature Rho Aias is attached to.

Alternatively to the activated ability:
Whenever a source would deal 3 or more damage to attached creature, you may remove a petal counter from Rho Aias. If you do prevent that damage.
Whenever Rho Aias or attached creature would be destroyed by a spell or ability, you may remove a petal counter from Rho Aias. If you do, counter that spell or ability.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 29 May 2016, 22:14

Wording tweaks (w/o any changes):

"""
Rho Aias 4W
Enchantment -- Aura
Enchant Creature
Rho Aias enters the battlefield with 8 petal counters.
If a source would deal 2 or less damage to enchanted creature, prevent that damage.
Remove a petal counter from Rho Aias: Regenerate Rho Aias or enchanted creature.
"""

There are two small functional changes within the rewording: 1) The counters no longer cause a triggered ability to go on the stack. (I find this to be cleaner.) And 2) You choose which to regenerate as the ability resolves rather than on activation. (This change is cleaner, and I find the difference negligible.)

Alterantive rewrites:
"If a source would deal 3 or more damage to enchanted creature, you may remove a petal counter from Rho Aias. If you do, prevent that damage."
"If Rho Aias or enchanted creature would be destroyed, you may remove a petal counter from Rho Aias. If you do, it isn't destroyed." (Functional change, but you have a hybrid trigger/replacement that also counters a spell/ability that may be doing far more than destroying one creature - i.e., a wrath.)

----------------------------------------------------------------
Thoughts:

I would probably add green as the secondary; green and black are the primary regenerate colors, and black is less likely to be dealing with protection or an external regenerative boon.

The card feels a bit _too_ focused; it has two abilities, and both are built around keeping a creature alive.

My gut says the card will most often do nothing. If there are ways to exile in the format, the card twiddles its thumbs. An expensive aura is always vulnerable to preemptive removal, even if it makes the enchanted creature hard to deal with once it's attached. Any reasonable bounce/flicker spells will also greatly limit what it can do. On the off chance the format has something like a 5/1 with hexproof and trample and no good way to exile enchantments though, it could be broken. I don't see it doing much in between...
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Re'ozul » 10 Jun 2016, 02:30

Yeah, your rewrite is cleaner I like it.
Green was my first choice as well (regenrate and all that), but I wasn't entirely sure.

The card is basically supposed to be incredibly focussed. I intentionalle let it blank against exile effects. Its just there as a literal ablative shield on something. I didn't think about bounce effects. But I think adding a "whenever it would leave the battlefield" clause would automatically make it too good.
--------------------------------------------------------------
(Taken from I Shall Seal The Heavens)

Copper Mirror (3)
Legendary Artifact (Mythic)
Whenever a non-token nonland permanent enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay X where X is that permanents' converted mana cost. If you do, put a token onto the battlefield under your control that is a copy of that permanent.

(Basically a different Prototype portal)

Bedevilment Pill (R/B)
Artifact (Uncommon)
tap, exile Bedevilment Pill: Target creature gains +5/+5 and menace. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 10 Jun 2016, 06:29

When I say too focused, I mean it feels like a card that would be put in as a safety valve. Most safety valve cards tend to be very simple though, so players don't get sad if they don't get to play with them; whether or not they will see will depend entirely on the format they are found in, and they're seldom developed to intentionally see play.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby type_omega » 16 Jun 2016, 20:16

I don't always play counter magic but when i do...

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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 16 Jun 2016, 22:20

Initial template cleaning:
* Put the Morph ability first.
* '1/1 counter' should be '+1/+1 counter'

Power/balance:
* The morph cost should at least be that of a standard counter spell, be a limited counter, or even both. (Personally I like making it 'target spell that targets Gluttonous Spell-Eater or you.')
* Recurring counter magic in a single card is... nonideal. I know it's cool, but being cool doesn't inherently make something healthy. ;)

Random thoughts; I'm a bit sleepy to make sure the X value carries through, but "Morph XU / When ~ is turned face up, counter target spell with CMC X" has a nice ring to it...

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