Design a Card

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SixFootTurkey
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 02 Sep 2016, 16:24

WP&P - only issue I have with that, is it allows multiple shuffles; I'd prefer putting it on the bottom.
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TaiyouShinobi
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 07 Sep 2016, 18:31

@SixFootTurkey - Kalastria shouldn't be a problem since the others enter with different names and lose their subtypes (i.e. Ally). Gary is a bit bigger of an issue.
I'll probably change it to a sorcery (I still like instant speed, but I can see the case against it) then and bump up the cost to be XXUW, unless that's a bit of overkill.

Does this wording work the way I think:

"Choose a target creature you control. Search your library for X creatures with the same name. You may have those creatures enter the battlefield with the name “Echo of Time” and lose Legendary and all subtypes until the end of turn. They gain haste and have ‘If this permanent would leave the battlefield, exile it instead’.
At the end of turn return all permanents that entered this way or that were exiled by an ability, back to your library, then shuffle it."

If possible, I'd like to retain the shuffling part rather than putting them on the bottom since they came from different "points in time" it makes more sense to return them to unknown parts of time. I think this wording should work, though I'm not entirely sure if this really fixes it because of flicker type effects. Do exiling and return effects get replaced by exiling alone or just happen as normal.

It's my understanding that the issue with Whip of Erebos and similar cards that had exile replacement effects fail when dealing with things that can exile themselves because it has the "instead of putting it anywhere else." So I was hoping leaving that part out would fix it, but I'm unsure.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 07 Sep 2016, 22:56

Ish...

First, need to make sure you refer to them as creature 'cards' in the library, and that you refer back to the original when referencing name ('same name as that creature').

The middle part is a bit muddled as well; they aren't entering, so 'you may have those creature [cards] enter' has no effect. Trying to think of optimal wording... Maybe 'you may put those cards onto the battlefield except they enter with the name ~ ..."?

The exile clause doesn't really fix anything; the issue is that they're new objects whenever they change zones. You could cause it to be shuffled instead of leaving the battlefield (rather than exiling it) if you must.
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TaiyouShinobi
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 12 Sep 2016, 17:09

Ok, let's try this:

Temporal Resonance -- XXWU
Sorcery
Choose a target creature you control. Search your library for up to X creatures cards with the same name as the target creature and exile them. For each creature card exiled this way create a token named “Echo of Time”, with the same base power, toughness and abilities of the exiled cards. They gain haste.
At the end of turn sacrifice all permanents named "Echo of Time", then shuffle all cards exiled by ~ into your library.

Destined — If you control a planeswalker named [name], you may choose a target Planeswalker instead and have the tokens created with the same number of starting loyalty counters as target planeswalker.

(I'm not sure how to word that last part. "Enter with base loyalty counters"? Also would it be breaking to put start of your next turn to replace the instant speed?)
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Re: Design a Card

Postby chetoos » 12 Sep 2016, 17:46

Planeswalkers always enter with the starting loyalty denoted in their bottom corner. Also, the planeswalkers would be placed into the graveyard immediately due to the uniqueness rule, so maybe have them lose their subtype for this.
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TaiyouShinobi
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 15 Sep 2016, 07:30

@chetoos While that's true, these tokens aren't copies. So they aren't planeswalkers at all. I should probably have them get the same card types too, but right now they don't have subtypes so the uniqueness rule shouldn't apply.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Atifexe » 15 Sep 2016, 20:23

Just tossing in a suggestion -

"For each card exiled this way, create a token that's a copy of that card, except it has no subtype and no name."

Perhaps not the most elegant solution, but it skirts both the Legendary and Planeswalker rules, as well as saving on card space, at the cost of not allowing these copies to benefit from subtype-based abilities.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Re'ozul » 17 Sep 2016, 06:49

I've finally decided to actually thinking about non-permanents more seriously.

Emergency Deployment 2W
Instant (Uncommon)
Emergency deployment costs 2 less to cast
if you don't control any creatures.
Reveal a creature card from your hand, until end of turn
you may cast that card as if it had flash.

I'm not sure if Uncommon might still be too rare. Scout's warning is a rare card but sooooo much better. Maybe this could just be a common?
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 22 Sep 2016, 16:21

@Re'ozul I can't say I was around when Scout's warning was in, but it does look like a good card. Yours however has a couple of drawbacks. One, to get the most out of this card you are going to have to have a clear board; two you have to reveal the card you want to cast before you cast it. This means you have to keep 1-3 mana open for the spell and however much mana for your creature open.
Revealing it to your opponent means that they know how much of your mana is (likely) locked down and can act more freely than if they didn't know the cost of the creature. You could use this card to bluff, but I feel like that would be ineffective for the cost most of the time.

Honestly I think you could probably knock it down to 1W (and cost reduction to 1) or take out the part about revealing it and word it like Scout's Warning. I'd prefer the latter myself.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 02 Oct 2016, 06:00

I think I might have an idea of what the 3rd iteration of the morph mechanic maybe should have been in Dragons of Tarkir, instead of the underwhelming "megamorph". In short, I think there should be creatures who, when they die, revert to being 2/2 face-down creatures, so it's like a time-reversed morphing in a way.

There are three approaches that I can think of. One would just be a sort of second life as a 2/2, without any ability to turn back up (unless some other card's ability does it for them). Not sure what to label this mechanic, but let's call this one "Essence". I would word it thusly:

Essence [COST] - (When this creature dies, you may pay its Essence cost. If you do, exile it instead, then return it to the battlefield face down as a 2/2 colorless creature.)

The second variation would actually borrow from Fate Reforged's Manifest mechanic, and assign that face-down creature an ability to turn face up again. Let's call this version "Cocoon":

Cocoon [COST] - (When this creature dies, you may pay its Cocoon cost. If you do, exile it instead, then return it to the batllefield face down as a manifested 2/2 colorless creature. You may turn that creature face up at any time by paying its mana cost.)

Flavorfully I think Cocoon fits well alongside Fate Reforged, while Essence feels a bit like "When this dies, create a 2/2 token".

The last version would make this an activated ability that can be triggered while the card is in the graveyard, rather than at the moment that it dies. Let's call this version "Resurrection":

Resurrection [COST] - (if this card is in your graveyard, you may pay its Resurrection cost. If you do, put it onto the battlefield face down as a 2/2 colorless creature.)

I suppose the graveyard activation could go either way too, as to whether or not it manifests with the ability to turn face up again. So really that makes four version. But the graveyard activation doesn't feel like a morphing ability anymore, I guess. Still, if paired with other card abilities that turn over morphs for you, maybe it could make sense to have morph bodies that come out of the graveyard.

Thoughts?
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 02 Oct 2016, 21:46

[Disclaimer - sleepy thoughts, not meant to be putting any of yours down, just spit-balling my own.]

Mechanical issues:

Essence - you're combining a trigger and a replacement effect; you'll want to choose one or the other.

Other issues:

They all deal with issues regarding flicker effects - but so does morph, so leaving that aside for now. (It's definitely a development concern that limits design space though.)

They suffer from the same issue that Megamorph did; namely that they're not unique enough to really be worth their own keyword. Cocoon might as well be 'when this dies, manifest it' - making that a keyword immediately after and alongside Manifest seems like it would just cause confusion as to why it's different.

One major downfall is that you know exactly what card it is. The main strategic relevance for the morph variants is that you don't know what card you're dealing with. These versions all miss that mark entirely. Morph has less variance within what it could be, but more control. Manifest has more variance but less control. Yours has no variance or unknown and only after the fact control.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For me, I would have liked to see them go the other direction. The main difference between manifest and morph is that manifest can end up with nonpermanent cards face down, while morph cannot. So why not take that in stride? Make it a mechanic that _only_ works on nonpermanent cards.

"Foo [cost]" means "You may cast this card face down [2/2 etc] for {3}." and [trigger condition].

The main issue comes into what you make the trigger condition. You could make it when it attacks, blocks, dies, deals damage to a player/creature... Many of these don't fit a lot of strategies or color [pair] philosophies, so I'd cut them straight off. Of them, 'damages a player' is the least likely to get out of hand from a power level, but also more restrictive and harder to use from a player's perspective. It does add more decisions between what you want to block when paired with morph, but a bit less so with manifest.

One possibility is allowing you to cast the card for its 'Foo' cost instead of drawing a card anytime you would draw while it's face down. This leads to you not wanting to attack with them though, instead using them as additional resources/mana investments.

You could also have the trigger condition a different variable within the ability. (I.e., "Foo [cost] [condition]" or even forgoing the cost.) This adds complexity to the mechanic, but that additional lever might be worth it. It does start to feel like multiple abilities, though you could tie them into the clan mechanics.

The main issue I have with this whole concept, is that it adds a creature that can affect another's combat math...
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 04 Oct 2016, 19:44

I got started thinking of other new mechanics, and I'm wondering whether I can get some help on this one, as I fear dialing in the power level may be a bit tricky.

Essentially, I'm wanting a variation on the Pact cards, where you got to cast them for free as long as you paid their high mana cost the next turn. In my version though, you give up your next draw step in that you put the card back on top of your library to trigger its effect. The triggered effect can be somewhat less than the card's normal effect, but it has to be something worthwhile enough to give up a card draw (there's a bit of the "Epic" feel to this as well, since it might end up being the only thing you do for the rest of the game).

So here's my prototype card with the "DEFER" mechanic:

Image

Is this hitting the right power levels? Is the design space too constricted? Also, is there a way to deal damage, as it doesn't seem like there would be a proper source of the damage when triggered by the defer action...
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 07 Oct 2016, 01:21

Oof, that's going to be one major pain after another to develop.

Any time they've done recursion (epic, buyback, etc) it's been quite problematic to develop - both limited design space _and_ power level issues.

This one lets you cast any number of these spells for free without any noticable downside... Putting something on top of your library after casting it for free is _not_ a downside - in fact most decks would pay extra for this effect. At the very least I would say it needs to have a cost associated with deferring it. (You could just have it be exiled and you skip your next draw step.)

You can absolutely have something deal damage - just look at Kozilek's Return; at the time it's dealing the damage, the card's already been exiled even though it triggered from the graveyard.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 07 Oct 2016, 05:04

I can see doing the associated cost thing. It would then be rather similar to Forecast, which gave a weak version of the spell and put it back in hand. Going back to top of library would be effective deck tech against milling opponents, I guess, or for dredge players... but I'm working on this for a set of custom cards that doesn't support either of those strategies.

Another way to go might be as a Delve variant: "Defer - Each card that you return from your hand to the top of your Library pays for 1 of this card's mana cost." The question there is whether it's worth it to set your draws back several turns in order to fire off a big spell early.

Thanks for the input!
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 07 Oct 2016, 14:09

One thing I forgot to point out that it's a bit problematic in that you have to deal with revealing the card in order to put the ability on the stack... since you need to verify that the ability does indeed trigger - but the ability is worded such that it only ends up revealed as the trigger resolves.

Putting other cards from your hand onto your library is an interesting way of going about it - and depending on the cost you could even tweak how much (maybe it's reduced by {2}, or maybe it varies per card - probably not but it's a thought).
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 07 Oct 2016, 18:43

Yeah the more I think about it, the more I like the Delv-ish variant and will go that route. One of the other mechanics in my environment is one that exiles cards from top of library to set them aside in a kind of pseudo-hand, so I may amend it to include returning cards either from hand or from exile to top of library. I don't have any other means of exiling cards, so this "processing" would not be abused.

Or maybe I just keep it as hand to library.

As for varying the power... I kind of think a flat rate is best, but one possibility would be to reduce by 1 for each of the returned card's colors.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 07 Oct 2016, 22:38

So long as you aren't returning cards you own from exile.

Processing is only functional because you can't rely on your opponent processing in a way that is favorable for you. Being able to get something back your opponent exiled is... problematic is an understatement.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 08 Oct 2016, 05:16

I'm going with just the simple return from hand to library version, never mind the exiled stuff. I already have Cycling in the set as a way to help out the other mechanic, so there's some card draw to offset the hand depletion. I don't really need to think of the exiled cards as resources.

Another thing I realized is that I can limit how much a player can defer by means of casting cost. A creature that costs 2WW for instance could only have two cards deferred, and would cost WW at a minimum, which makes design a bit easier. It will be a lot harder to end up with a one-mana 5/5 zombie fish!

Here's a card with the fixed Defer, plus another new mechanic I'm considering called Sparring. Sparring is intended to encourage the opponent to not block the creature, a form of evasion. The only difficulty with it is knowing how to cost the creatures. Thoughts?

Image
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 24 Oct 2016, 16:33

RB Mechanic I'm working on. I think it's okay, but not sure about the wording.

Seethe 1 (At each end step, if this creature attacked this turn, remove all +1/+1 counters from it. Then, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature for each creature blocked by this creature, this turn.)

Thinking about a range from 1-5 for the value, 5 being very rare. Thoughts?
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 25 Oct 2016, 16:27

I like the name, Seethe... very flavorful!

Your wording though doesn't seem to work. It requires a creature to have attacked this turn, as well as blocked this turn...

Are you going for the effect of "if it attacked, change out the number of counters based on how many blocked it"?

Or are you going for "if it attacked, do one thing, or if it blocked, do another thing"?

I'm guessing it's the first, which feels more red-black to me.

Does the number mean that, say, for Seethe 2, you'd put put on two +1/+1 counters per blocker?
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Re: Design a Card

Postby AdmiralMemo » 25 Oct 2016, 19:28

Sounds like it gets counters by blocking and removes them by attacking.

So it can vary between being a great attacker and a great blocker.

So it sits back for turns and turns, blocking. It "seethes" and builds up counters if it blocks. Then, you get one big attack where it burns all of them off, and then go back to blocking and build-up again.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Atifexe » 25 Oct 2016, 19:54

If Memo is correct (and that is how I understood the ability as well), then I feel like a lot of clarity could be added by simply removing the "then", which would make it two checks sharing a timing as opposed to making it seem like getting counters from blocking is dependent on having attacked.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 26 Oct 2016, 10:07

Yes, Memo is correct. Everytime it blocks it builds itself up and then smashes in, unleashing its pent up anger. Then it cools off and goes back to normal.
Also, yes, Seethe N means it would get N counters per creature it blocked this turn. So if it has some clause that it can block more than one it gets a bonus, provided it survives.
The reason I had the "Then" is because I wanted to make sure counters were removed when it attacked before it checked to add counters. I was pretty sure I read somewhere that effects happen in the order on the card, but wasn't sure if they resolved that way. It didn't occur to me that it would then require an attack to trigger the second.
---------------------------
Regarding "Defer", I think you can cost permanents slightly above the expected value if they have strong abilities attached (Having a 3/2 beater or 5/4 on turn two is pretty good.) The main thing you have to be concerned about is timing. If your player opts to blank their next X draws is that enough of a cost for playing something that could heavily tip the scale in their favor. Additionally shuffle effects and cards that care about the top of your library, are going to combo very well with this.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 26 Oct 2016, 16:31

Thanks for the feedback on Defer; the 3/2 example creature I've already determined to be slightly too powerful, and dialed back to a 2/2. That's not because of the defer mechanic, but rather the Sparring. So in this case you'd have a 2/2 with a form of evasion (sparring deters blocking) on turn 2 if you defer, or turn 4 if you don't.

I do have a fair amount of cycling in my format, and I like the interactions with Defer. I'm leaning towards limiting the range of defer by having on spells with only 1 or 2 generic mana in their costs, rarely 3.

***

For Seethe N, I'd write it as:
Seethe 1 (At each end step, if this creature attacked this turn, remove all +1/+1 counters from it. If it blocked this turn, put one +1/+1 counter on this creature for each creature blocked by it.)

Note that "one" is written out, to make it more clear what the N affects; it would be more obvious on greater values of N. One thing I'm wondering about, though, is maybe the blocking counters could be added as soon as it blocks... "When this creature is assigned as a blocker, put one +1/+1 counter on it for each creature it blocks." just a thought.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 27 Oct 2016, 12:15

To start, it would be simplest to make Seethe two different abilities rather than combining them together:

"Seethe N" means "Whenever this creature attacks, remove all +1/+1 counters from it at the end of combat" and "Whenever this creature blocks, at the end f combat put a +1/+1 counter on it for each creature it blocked." (Alternatively "Whenever this creature blocks a creature, put a +1/+1 counter on it at the end of combat." could replace the latter.)

Reminder text won't really save space, but I'm not seeing a way to cleanly have it work as one ability without just making it harder to read.

A few thoughts about Seethe:

First, it's an entire mechanic built around playing defensive. There's basically no value to attacking until you're going to win in one hit. After attacking with it once, it's effectively a vanilla creature. Perhaps make it only lose counters if it deals combat damage to a player, so at least it can't get chump blocked, and you're rewarded for attacking aggressively into creatures that might consider trading.

It also relies on your opponent attacking - and not with things that will either eat your creature or have evasion. Also with them not having any tricks/removal to respond to whatever you're going to do to save your creature.

I would consider removing the ability to get multiple counters combat step; while it adds a small amount of design space and a small amount of synergy, I'm not sure it's worth the extra complexity of wording. That or remove scalability - having both seems like it makes it a bit too complex.

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