Design a Card

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SixFootTurkey
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 02 Sep 2015, 05:42

I went with tapping a creature to signify it using the fortress. Having a payment cost means you buff a single creature multiple times, which felt odd to me.
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TaiyouShinobi
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 07 Sep 2015, 17:39

Not sure if this is the best place for this question but it's kinda on topic so here goes.

I was wondering if anyone knows of any cards that have bonus effects for controlling another creature or permanent with a specific name. I am thinking of a set of spells that grant additional loyalty abilities if you control specific planeswalkers. For example a "Forge" artifact that lets you tutor for an artifact then, if you control the proper planeswalker, it gets a minus ability to put a noncreature artifact on the field or something for as long as you control it. Or an instant that let's you mill two and gives the matching planeswalker a flashback ability or whathaveyou.

Thoughts on how best to make that work? Right now I'm thinking the ability should just stay there forever (or until it changes zones), but that could be hard to keep track of so maybe as long as you control the granting permanent or if it's a nonpermanent create one a permanent that says it has that ability? I'm not sure.

(Also was thinking about calling this mechanic Legacy as in "Something left behind" but not sure how confusing that would be when considering the format. Thesaurus.com didn't give me any great alternatives either...)
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 07 Sep 2015, 19:41

There are abilities that allow you to prevent spells of a name from being cast, prevent creatures with the name from activating abilities, or search out and remove all copies of a card from a library or hand.

There are the cycles of [cardname] matters - latest seen in Magic Origins. (Cleric of the Forward Order.)

There was the Grandeur ability word cycle in Future Sight; they allowed you to discard a card with the same name to gain a bonus, in an attempt to mitigate the drawback of the Legend Rule.

There are a few cards that are tied to other cards. (The heralds of Shards of Alara, Arachnus Spinner, Renowned Weaponsmith, etc.)

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Don't worry about naming a mechanic until you've figured out whether or not it is functional. Sometimes you will completely revamp how it works, making the name you spent all that effort on completely useless.

A few things to keep in mind. Planeswalkers have limited design space, so 'taking up' an ability or more by giving a Planeswalker additional conditional abilities may not be ideal. (On the other hand, it's possible it could open up design space.) You have to be careful a card isn't parasitic; you don't want an ability that only functions within a very limited scope. Take Renowned Weaponsmith, the latest card that cares about another specific card. While it can tutor for two specific artifacts, it's also playable ignoring those two cards.

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As to your mechanic, I think I'd need to see a more concrete example to figure out where you're hoping to go with it; at the moment it just feels a bit unformed.

In general though, I would avoid anything that forces you to remember too much. Having an artifact with 'Bob gains the following ability, "[does stuff]"' is already a lot of board complexity, having to remember that ability without having a 'reminder' on the board (the artifact) is even more so.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Havtorn » 08 Sep 2015, 01:00

TaiyouShinobi wrote:For example a "Forge" artifact that lets you tutor for an artifact then, if you control the proper planeswalker, it gets a minus ability to put a noncreature artifact on the field or something for as long as you control it. Or an instant that let's you mill two and gives the matching planeswalker a flashback ability or whathaveyou.

Thoughts on how best to make that work? Right now I'm thinking the ability should just stay there forever (or until it changes zones), but that could be hard to keep track of so maybe as long as you control the granting permanent or if it's a nonpermanent create one a permanent that says it has that ability? I'm not sure.


My favorite cards in this vein are the Bogbrew Witch + Festering Newt + Bubbling Cauldron and the Throne, Scepter, and Crown of Empires. The key with them is that they all are able to do something on their own, so they're not dead cards, and then do the same thing better if you get them all on the board.

As a general rule, I think it's confusing for one card to give another card an ability. So, with your Forge idea, for example, I think the way to go about it would be to let the forge card (Or a card it tutors for) itself have the -1 ability you were thinking about but have the activation cost be "Remove a loyalty counter from <Planeswalker card>" and a static ability that says something like "If you control no <Planeswalker card>, sacrifice <this card>">.

If you wanted to, you could set up chain dependencies. Have the Planeswalker tutor for the Forge as a 0 ability, have the Forge be dependent on the planeswalker being in play and let the ability cards be dependent on the forge still being in play....

...holy crap, you could assemble Contraptions! :D

TaiyouShinobi wrote:(Also was thinking about calling this mechanic Legacy as in "Something left behind" but not sure how confusing that would be when considering the format. Thesaurus.com didn't give me any great alternatives either...)


Are you always going to use a specific number of cards in a combo? Because then I'd call it something like Duality or Trinity or something.

Otherwise, I kinda like Forge. Y'know, making things out of other things.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 08 Sep 2015, 17:27

My first thought for what a keyword/ability word called 'Forge' would do, is that it would allow you to put an artifact on the battlefield. (It could be creatures, non-creatures, or both. It could be from your hand, the graveyard, tutored, or a copy made from something on the battlefield. These aren't particularly relevant.)

On that note, I can see a land card that allows you to sacrifice artifacts to put an artifact from your hand onto the battlefield, or provide you with mana to cast artifacts (or use artifact abilities).
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Havtorn » 09 Sep 2015, 03:02

Yeah, having an artifact hit the field feels like it would be good for something called Forge. I sort of like idea of having specific cards named. Just for a lark I remade the Thopter Engineer with a Forge keyword instead.

Image Image

Now, I realize that filling your deck with unplayable thopters would be crappy, but I think having artifacts that you can only play via the Forge ability could be a cool mechanic. You could also do something where the Forge cost was sacrificing another named card (maybe have a cycle of mana rocks named Ingots, or something?) and it was a tap ability instead of an etb effect. Or the aforementioned "put a loyalty counter on target <Named planeswalker>.

I kind of like the idea of making your boardstate into a blacksmith's forge. The cards you actually play are things like Anvils, Smelters, Ingots and Tools and you use them to put creatures and equipment into play.

Hey, TaiyouShinobi, if this isn't what you're looking to do I might do somethign with it. :D
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 09 Sep 2015, 06:14

The problem with having cards be too focused on one another, is that the ability becomes parasitic. (Parasitic is design terminology, meaning that it does nothing outside of the set/block it was released in.)

For instance, a card that is unplayable unless you have a card that lets you play it, is parasitic. This is what tokens are for.

I like the idea of sacrificing/revealing/etc because it allows for interactions with more decks, and can allow for interesting design space.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Havtorn » 09 Sep 2015, 08:36

Well, I guess that's a difference in taste; I tend to enjoy parasitic mechanics when you know you're going to use them in enclosed environments. Like Gatekeepers, Heralds or more or less the entire Mirrodin block. And, let's face it, it's pretty likely home-brewed cards are only going to see play in pretty enclosed environments, like a home-brewed cube or the like.

The things TaiyouShinobi wanted to do regarding cards requiring specific planeswalkers and so forth would be a great example of inherently parasitic cards that I think could be pretty fun.

---

I could see Forge working as an Ally-style mechanic specific for artifacts. Have a bunch of artifacts with a Forge subtype and abilities/spells that use X in their abilites where X is the number of Forge cards you have in play. Tutor for X cmc artifacts, Tap for X artifact-specif mana, burn for X, put an artifact card with X cmc from your hand onto the battlefield etc. That would require one to make a set of them, though, but you could make them work with a bunch of other stuff.
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TaiyouShinobi
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 09 Sep 2015, 14:36

So here's some quick mockups I made to kinda give a better idea as to what I want to do with it, or at least what I think would work:

ImageImage

(Side note: On the "Temporal Anomaly" card I have it make an enchantment, but in my set it would be a "Manifestation" instead, but that's a bit out of scope for the time being so enchantment here is fine.)

I think things on permanent cards would work well because it can have the reminder right on the card. The issue comes when I have it on non-permanents as I would have to create a reminder somehow. Here I've just had it create a permanent, but it's a bit clunky I think. I could have it be a flash enchantment with an EBT or something but then it would just be weird having something sitting around on the battlefield doing nothing (Which I guess is what the created perm already does :/ hmmm).

I like your suggestion of having it be a cost on the cards, Havtorn, but I feel like if it were a cost of the permanent and not the planeswalker, the player could activate another loyalty ability separately and basically get two, which is not quite what I want since I'd want it to feel like another ability but not be able to double-up.

I don't think that this mechanic would be as parasitic as you might think at first glance SixFootTurkey, because all the cards are intended to do something on their own, just have bonus stuff if you've got the matching planeswalker. And because I use the PW types instead of their name, if there were different variations of them, the cards would work for all of them.

As for the name "Forge" I really like it since it ties in with the name of the story my sets are based on, "Forging Destiny", but flavorfully, it would be more about "creation" rather than the ability that gave these PW's the legacy they have yet to fulfill. These are intended to be things they learn as they grow rather than things they already know or can create so simply... Actually... the more I type, the more I like Forge as a name... :D I don't know... maybe I'll flip a coin, lol.

(Additional unrelated side note: Havtorn, If I were doing contraptions I think I'd set it up so that creature card types would represent roles that a team would need. Riggers build them, you need Mechanists to use them in some fashion and maybe Designers that could tutor and add abilities to the contraptions. But I'd have to delve a bit deeper before a good balance could come about, haha!)
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 09 Sep 2015, 14:56

I really dislike having tokens with complex rules text. If you must have the above effect, I would make the card an enchantment with the Legacy effect, give it flash, and an ETB trigger for the initial effect.

On being parasitic, I had meant to mention that we'd need to see how much design room there is without it becoming so. My concern with giving a planeswalker type an extra ability, is that all future planeswalkers of that type must be balanced around that ability. (And with limited walker space, you may have just killed off a walker if you mess up the balance.)

As for the name, I'd say 'Legacy' definitely needs to go. The way you describe it, 'Destiny' or 'Fate' would make more sense to me.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 09 Sep 2015, 16:39

I really like the direction that Master's Forge is going, in terms of being an artifact that gives a planeswalker an additional ability. That seems to underscore the value inherent to an artifact, as well as the power of the planeswalker's spark, in that the PW can gain extra utility from the valuable object.

I'd just encourage it to be slightly less parasitic, and instead of having the card name a specific planeswalker, let it be sort of like the Soulbond mechanic, in that you bind the artifact to a planeswalker of your choosing. You could attach conditions to that, if you want to place limits; maybe granting a direct-damage loyalty ability would best be limited to red planeswalkers only. Or maybe you use the artifact's color identity as a limiter in all cases, so the ability is always worded as "if you control a [red] planeswalker, you may [bind] [cardname] to it.."
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Re: Design a Card

Postby AdmiralMemo » 09 Sep 2015, 17:19

Also, planeswalkers tend to have emblems rather than tokens.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 09 Sep 2015, 17:37

If you go that route, keep in mind that an emblem is inherently more powerful than a token.

Also, most emblems tend to be either extremely straight forward, or are game ending. An emblem that slightly modifies the game state in an odd way...
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Re: Design a Card

Postby AdmiralMemo » 09 Sep 2015, 18:37

So I was trying to figure out if a "Choose Your Own Dual Land" could work without being game-breaking...

So I'm thinking about something like this:

----

Metamorphic Meadow

Legendary Land

Metamorphic Meadow comes into play tapped.

T: Add W to your mana pool.

When Metamorphic Meadow enters the battlefield, choose a basic land type. Metamorphic Meadow is that land type in addition to its other types.

----

So, it doesn't intrinsically have basic land types, so you can't fetch it. It's Legendary, so it won't get just auto-4ed into decks. It enters tapped unconditionally, so it's just like the tri-land fixing.

Is a cycle of these still too powerful, though?
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Re: Design a Card

Postby WP&P » 09 Sep 2015, 21:02

What if, instead of just a free choice of basic land type, you had to go search through your library for a basic land and then exile it, in order for it to gain that land type? So you'd need to pair these with basics, thereby forcing some of your land slots to be sub-optimal to offset the high utility of this one. The fact that it still taps for some kind of mana means it is not a dud if you fail-to-find.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Havtorn » 09 Sep 2015, 23:08

Memo, I think that land is fine, albeit a bit tricky rules-wise. So it taps for white, right? When I play it I choose Forest. Since it doesn't have it's own land type it's now just a Forest that also taps for White?

I like what WP&P suggested about exiling basics. That has the added benefit that if you exile them and put them under your land you have a reminder of what colors it taps for.

I don't really see these to be so powerful that you need to make it legendary, though. Making a land legendary strikes me as something you'd only do when the land itself does something, not just when it's fixing.

TaiyouShinobi wrote:(Additional unrelated side note: Havtorn, If I were doing contraptions I think I'd set it up so that creature card types would represent roles that a team would need. Riggers build them, you need Mechanists to use them in some fashion and maybe Designers that could tutor and add abilities to the contraptions. But I'd have to delve a bit deeper before a good balance could come about, haha!)


I think the main hurdle would be to get over what the heck the Assemble mechanic would do and what a contraption actually is. Is it several cards with synergy, a bestow/voltron-like mechanic or flip/transform cards or what?

Personally I'd go the voltron route. Maybe have a central pilot module or whatever and then attach cards to it with the assemble mechanic. Maybe let the pilot module decide what the trigger condition is, like "Pay {3}: Activate all attached contraption" and have contraption be something like "When this contraption is activated, draw 2 cards".
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 10 Sep 2015, 12:22

I'm with Havtorn; exiling a basic 'under' your legendary land is a pretty sweet way of remembering which color was chosen. (I like design decisions that reduce board complexity.) While you need to include some more basic lands, it works like a fetch in that shuffles and thins. (Shuffling does mean you'd have to be conscious about what other shuffles are in standard, but as we're designing without a specific timeslot/standard in mind, that's not super relevant.)
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Asthanius » 10 Sep 2015, 13:12

AdmiralMemo wrote:When Metamorphic Meadow enters the battlefield, choose a basic land type. Metamorphic Meadow is that land type in addition to its other types.


The way this is worded, it doesn't work the way you want it to. Let's say you choose Mountain. That means that you now have a Mountain with no other abilities. Think of the way that Blood Moon works.

Now, I like the idea of exiling a land from your library, because it allows you to do this:

As Metamorphic Meadow enters the battlefield, search your library for a basic land card, exile it, then shuffle your library.
Metamorphic Meadow enters the battlefield tapped.

{T}: Add {W} to your mana pool.
{T}: Add to your mana pool one mana of any type a land exiled with Metamorphic Meadow could produce.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby steric hindrance » 10 Sep 2015, 14:45

Asthanius wrote:
AdmiralMemo wrote:When Metamorphic Meadow enters the battlefield, choose a basic land type. Metamorphic Meadow is that land type in addition to its other types.


The way this is worded, it doesn't work the way you want it to. Let's say you choose Mountain. That means that you now have a Mountain with no other abilities. Think of the way that Blood Moon works.

Now, I like the idea of exiling a land from your library, because it allows you to do this:

As Metamorphic Meadow enters the battlefield, search your library for a basic land card, exile it, then shuffle your library.
Metamorphic Meadow enters the battlefield tapped.

{T}: Add {W} to your mana pool.
{T}: Add to your mana pool one mana of any type a land exiled with Metamorphic Meadow could produce.


Memo's templating actually does work. Blood Moon says, "Nonbasic lands are Mountains." This takes away all abilities and subtypes of nonbasic lands and replaces them with "{T}: Add {R} to your mana pool," and "Mountain," respectively. Memo's land works like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, which says, "Each land is a Swamp in addition to its other types." Urborg simply adds the subtype "Swamp" and the ability "{T}: Add {B} to your mana pool."
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Asthanius » 10 Sep 2015, 14:54

Right, I totally forgot about how Urborg works. Regardless, I still like exiling a basic land so you remember the color.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby TaiyouShinobi » 11 Sep 2015, 15:34

I like the concept of Metamorphic lands, but I wonder if they need to be legendary. If you add a cost like exiling a basic land as others have suggested, or something akin to it they could probably not be legendary, but that's up to you really.

As for mine I went with flash ETB types and changed the mechanic name to "Destined". I think that should work...
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Phi » 21 Sep 2015, 13:47

After a "if you were a planeswalker card, what would you be?" sort of talk with a friend of mine, I came up with this:

Atratus, Winnower of Souls
3 W U B
5 loyalty
+1: Put a 3/3 Illusion creature with vigilance onto the battlefield. It has "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it."
-2: Exile target creature. You lose 2 life.
-9: Creatures your opponents control deal damage to themselves equal to their power. If a creature would die this way, it is exiled instead.

How is it in terms of power level? I don't want it to be too powerful.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Mara Kalat » 21 Sep 2015, 14:09

Phi wrote:After a "if you were a planeswalker card, what would you be?" sort of talk with a friend of mine, I came up with this:

Atratus, Winnower of Souls
3 W U B
5 loyalty
+1: Put a 3/3 Illusion creature with vigilance onto the battlefield. It has "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it."
-2: Exile target creature. You lose 2 life.
-9: Creatures your opponents control deal damage to themselves equal to their power. If a creature would die this way, it is exiled instead.

How is it in terms of power level? I don't want it to be too powerful.


I like it. It would perhaps be too powerful, but the 8CMC (in three colours no less) allows for a lot.
The illusions might be a bit on the large side though, just getting a 3/3 with vigilance every turn seems strong. Especially since the ultimate -9 seems situational to pull off properly. What if you'd also gain life off of the ultimate? E.g. "Creatures your opponents control deal damage to themselves equal to their power. If a creature would die this way, it is exiled instead and you gain life equal to its toughness."

Mara.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby Phi » 21 Sep 2015, 14:15

Mara Kalat wrote:
Phi wrote:After a "if you were a planeswalker card, what would you be?" sort of talk with a friend of mine, I came up with this:

Atratus, Winnower of Souls
3 W U B
5 loyalty
+1: Put a 3/3 Illusion creature with vigilance onto the battlefield. It has "When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it."
-2: Exile target creature. You lose 2 life.
-9: Creatures your opponents control deal damage to themselves equal to their power. If a creature would die this way, it is exiled instead.

How is it in terms of power level? I don't want it to be too powerful.


I like it. It would perhaps be too powerful, but the 8CMC (in three colours no less) allows for a lot.
The illusions might be a bit on the large side though, just getting a 3/3 with vigilance every turn seems strong. Especially since the ultimate -9 seems situational to pull off properly. What if you'd also gain life off of the ultimate? E.g. "Creatures your opponents control deal damage to themselves equal to their power. If a creature would die this way, it is exiled instead and you gain life equal to its toughness."

Mara.

I could make the illusions bears instead, but wouldn't the life gain make it too powerful? This can potentially be a lot of life for a quasi one-sided board wipe effect. Also note that the CMC is 6, not 8.
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Re: Design a Card

Postby SixFootTurkey » 21 Sep 2015, 20:31

Damage based on power is a red/green thing. I don't believe self damage has been done, but it feels BR, or maybe you could stretch it into BG. Definitely doesn't feel WUB.

You could simplify the effect by having it destroy all each creature opponents control with power greater than or equal to its toughness. (This would also keep it out of RG.) You could get the exile by tying in an emblem that exiles creatures when they would die, or just outright exiling them; it is an ultimate after all.

Side note, the only three cards with "Winnower" in their name are elves from the plane of Lorwyn. (Elves being the BG tribe in the block.)

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