|
|
Post by Jartis on Apr 11, 2020 23:22:33 GMT
Oh yeah, should probably close this one now. Judging in progress.{ qorbin }I'm not sure that this needs to be mythic, either due to power or complexity. It's also seems like it would be silver bordered, which would limit usability, unless this trend of licensed alt-art cards continues into the future. That said, Clues are a great mechanic with a lot of room to grow, in my opinion, so a card like this would certainly have its place. { ZephyrPhantom}My main concern is the wording for the upkeep ability. I assume the intention is that if you control one of each planeswalker, you still only choose one ability, but I'm not entirely sure that's clear. It could read as triggering once per planeswalker subtype, ie: I control a Narset and an Ugin, so it triggers twice. I could be totally wrong on that, which I why I think it was intended to only trigger once regardless, but it is probably not the best wording. As for what it actually does, tutoring for a planeswalker makes sense and works with the cost. I like how you integrated the flavor of each planeswalker into the abilities that they allow you to trigger, and I don't think any of them are too incredibly powerful. My only complaint, mechanically, is that you could probably get away with actually manifesting a card from your hand if you choose Ugin, rather than just giving up a card entirely for a vanilla 2/2, especially since none of them are "may" abilities. { sdfkjgh }"Soldier Warrior" is a bit of an odd typeline, just off the bat. The heroic ability works well, though it is a bit of a shame that it doesn't use the 1/1 red satyr tokens that already exist in TBD. The Aura ability is a bit weird to me, since I usually see white/green as the enchantment combo, and black hardly touches enchantments in the graveyard at all. Other than that, though, it's not a bad ability, and hey, maybe Mardu Enchantress would be fun to try. { thaneofglamis}Food tribal already has some good support, but it didn't have a commander until now, so that's nice right off the bat. I will say, black tends to care about food more than white does right now, so it may have been nice to see this character maybe with a bit of a dark side to bring him into Abzan, but I think green could carry the food side enough to just let white handle the weenie side. Plus a turn 1 commander option is always fun. { gamma3 }I enjoy that the creature both cares about Adventures and can go on an adventure itself. It does raise the question of whether you can cast the Adventure from the command zone, as we've not had a legendary creature with an Adventure yet, but even if you can't, commander has plenty of ways to put her into your hand. Just a really solid design with some fun potential. { Lady Mapi }I'm going to judge this based on intent since, as you stated, Wastes isn't a subtype, meaning the proper wording would be "Deserts and lands you control named Wastes," per Walker of the Wastes and Ruin in Their Wake. I'm going to start off by saying that I'm a bit biased towards this design, because I myself have designed a card to give deserts the activated abilities of other deserts (though on the battlefield, not in the graveyard.) I just think its a cool mechanic. I also like the activated ability to take control of a nonbasic land. Very flavorful, good use of red in the design. The passive ability makes you think a bit about when to dump a desert and when to play it, the activated ability will make your opponents think twice before bringing in a powerful nonbasic, and the body can survive a few pings without being too powerful for its cost. Great design. { Flo00 }I, too, always wanted Curses to work in commander. They're incredibly fun. You could probably have some luck with a general enchantress build, but a commande specifically for Curses would go a long way. This one in particular. It is aggresively focused on curses, but that was kinda the point of the challenge. This card also taught me that Auras and Curses don't target if they enter the battlefield without being cast, which I didn't know, but is also a tricky way to get around hexproof and shroud if I understand the ruling correctly. All that said, as for the actual design, I feel like the +1 is a bit powerful, even if you're likely to exile more cards than you actually get to use. I think the main issue here is that 5 cards is a lot of your deck to go through for a +1. The -2 is probably fine. The -X adds a bit of versatility to what is essentially a -5, unless you're deadset on bringing back Cruel Reality or Overwhelming Splendor. A fun commander that supports a fun playtype, though you do miss out on some of the fun curses by not being able to run blue or green. { gluestick248 }As someone who would like to see a return to Kamigawa, I am here for this Arcane support. It's maybe a bit too costly for its statline, but the effect is great and could lead to some really fun, unexpected plays. { SilentKobold }I'm assuming the life you pay is equal to the power needed, but that's never explicitly stated, and I think it should be, especially since Phyexian mana is 2 life for 1 mana, you couldn't blame someone for assuming the same thing for this ability without any further explanation. I'm also not entirely sure if the intent is to allow you to crew a vehicle partly with life and partly with creatures or if you have to go all in on one or the other each time you crew something, so that could use some clarification as well. Assuming it is 1 life to 1 power, and assuming you could mix paying with life and by tapping creatures, I think it's fine and adds a bit more nuance to vehicle decks. { Xenozfan2 }I'm not sure the cost reduction ability actually works, since you will have already spent mana to cast the Arcane spell you're splicing onto. The exile tutor effect is fine. If the top ability works as intended, it probably needs a "cannot reduce the cost to less than 1" clause (even though it's already assumed that you aren't reducing colored costs, it's still nice to future proof and specify). Assuming the top ability works, the design is good. Assuming it doesn't, the design is alright, and will probably still get you where you need to be in an Arcane deck. { MacabreAurora }I like the attention to detail in including both Gold and Treasure tokens (They should probably be errata'd into the same thing, honestly. The tap clause that differentiates them isn't enough to make the distinction worth it, imo.). I like the theme of a hoarding dragon being more powerful as its hoard grows, and like how it introduces the firebreathing mechanic of just increasing power. Thematically, I understand not being able to sacrifice those tokens, but I think considering the massive mana advantage you're giving up, it should maybe get +2/+0 for each, instead. That said, you will be generating a ton of tokens with the creature death clause, and you won't be getting rid of them, so I suppose that might make it too big of a threat (although it does have defender, so that mitigates the power issue a lot.) {Winner}I got a lot more entries than I was actually expecting, and I thought there were a lot of really fun designs in this set. I'm gonna give the win to gamma3 for just an overall clean design, with Flo00 , Lady Mapi , and gluestick248 as very close runners up in no particular order. |
|
|
|
Post by Lady Mapi on Apr 12, 2020 2:22:54 GMT
Woo, I'm actually kinda glad I didn't win - it'd be awkward to bounce back to judging so quickly. Anyway, good job gamma3. |
|
Xenozfan2
3/3 Beast
Posts: 161
Favorite Card: Phage the Untouchable
Favorite Set: Innistrad
Color Alignment: White, Blue, Red
|
Post by Xenozfan2 on Apr 12, 2020 3:24:54 GMT
Jartis: You announce which cards you are splicing before you total the cost of the spell, so it works as intended (see below). Since splice is a cost added to a spell and not an activated ability, reducing the cost to  would be fine as spells can be free but activated abilities should not be. Thanks for judging! Steps to casting a spell: Place on stack, modes, splice, alternative/additional costs, variable costs, hybrid mana costs, Phyrexian mana costs, targets, division of effect, game checks legality of spell, total up costs [mana or alternative cost, plus increasers, minus decreasers], lock in cost, activate mana abilities, pay costs in any order, priority is gained by active player.
|
|
|
|
Post by kefke on Apr 12, 2020 5:06:08 GMT
Xenozfan2 - Slight quibble. The "activate mana abilities" step can actually come at any point before paying costs. People often forget about the mana pool, as it is no longer referenced on cards, but it is still a part of the rules. So as long as the phase/step hasn't ended (or if you've got one of the rare cards that keeps the mana pool from being emptied in play), it's perfectly valid to generate mana early. As an aside, the Comprehensive Rules don't say that a player is required to pay costs once they have started casting a spell, so one could technically choose not to pay when it comes to that step. This would make casting the spell an illegal action, as the spell cannot be cast unless its cost was paid, and the game would revert to just before casting the spell was declared. If mana was generated prior to announcing the spell would be cast, that mana would still be generated, but any mana abilities activated after the casting was announced would be rolled back. I'm not sure there's a practical use for this in game, I just think it's a neat fringe case.
|
|
|
|
Post by gamma3 on Apr 12, 2020 5:39:26 GMT
Oh my, I won! I was not expecting that. I would think that one could cast the adventure from the command zone and that casting the adventure would follow the normal commander tax rules. Anyway, I gotta come up with a challenge. Not sure if it's been done before, but:
Design a noncreature, nonplaneswalker commander
In other words, make an Artifact, Enchantment, Land, Instant, or Sorcery with the text, "This card can be your commander." Note that if you make a land, you open up the can of worms that is, "How the heck does commander tax work with this thing?" Good luck folks!
|
|
|
|
Post by SilentKobold on Apr 12, 2020 10:40:56 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by sdfkjgh on Apr 12, 2020 20:50:38 GMT
Ever wanted a commander for a Lands deck?
Tektonik, the Land Reborn Legendary Land   , Sacrifice a land: Return target land card from your graveyard to the battlefield. If that land is nonbasic, it enters the battlefield tapped. Add one mana of any type that land could produce.
 or      : Until end of turn, Tektonik, the Land Reborn becomes an X/X white, blue, black, red, and green Elemental Incarnation Avatar creature with trample, where X is the number of land cards in your graveyard. It’s still a land.
Tektonik, the Land Reborn can be your commander.
The way I see it, there is no can of worms, as it's treated the same as if it was a regular commander with mana cost of , with some slight variation: if Tektonik would enter the battlefield from your command zone, you may pay the commander tax. If you do, it enters the battlefield. If you don't, it never leaves the command zone. |
|
|
|
Post by Jartis on Apr 12, 2020 22:19:38 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by burntsquirrelman on Apr 13, 2020 0:52:06 GMT
I have some ideas on what I would do with Fortify, and this is me experimenting with one of those ideas.  |
|
|
|
Post by ZephyrPhantom on Apr 13, 2020 3:55:44 GMT
Frostspire  Legendary Artifact - Equipment Flash This spell costs  less to cast for each tapped creature you control. When Frostspire enters the battlefield, attach it to target creature you control. If that creature is legendary, you may counter target spell. Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has hexproof. Equip  Frostspire can be your commander. "Embercleave selects those who conquer the lands; Frostspire selects who safeguards their reign." - Gadwick, the WizenedMeant to be a take on The Sword In the Stone (which isn't always Excalibur) combined with the spear Rhongomyniad, weapons that were both used by King Arthur. The idea is that creatures tap in an effort to pull it out, but only the true king (a legendary creature) can wield it effectively. It works pretty well if played alongside its sister sword, but there's enough flexibility in the cost lowering to allow you to do something very different with it either in the 99 (think Azami, Lady of Scrolls) or as a Commander ( Gigadrowse, Chief Engineer, etc...)
|
|
|
|
Post by Flo00 on Apr 13, 2020 6:58:37 GMT
Svogrosh, the Fire Blade Legendary Artifact - Equipment  Combat damage dealt by equipped creature counts as commander damage dealt by Svogrosh. Equip legendary creature Svogrosh, the Fire Blade can be your commander. --------- Blade Dance Instatn - Adventure Blade Dance deals 3 damage to any target. This counts as commander damage dealt by Svogrosh. I'm not sure killing with commander damage should work when Svogrosh is not your commander. Would be a fun feature I guess? |
|
|
|
Post by kefke on Apr 14, 2020 23:02:06 GMT
Since this is a kind of weird challenge already, it feels like a perfect time to revisit my desires to bring both back colorless creatures and spells, and the World supertype.  Naturally, this card is made with the assumption of an environment where both World and Colorless have more support. I'd like to see Colorless properly adopted as a "sixth color", the way it sort of was when the story was focusing on the Eldrazi (and I do think that Lovecraftian/reality-breaking cards are a good focus for colorless). I also think that the World supertype, which is supported by the rules so it can be used in legacy formats, but unused in modern sets, deserves to be revisited. In this hypothetical environment, there would be a lot more World cards, used as a both a "better than Legendary" classification, and in a similar way to Yu-Gi-Oh's Field Spells to set battlefield conditions. World spells would be used as things that can carry a strategy, but are difficult to get into play either due to high costs or special restrictions. The idea being that getting one out is a significant event, and that they have to be played carefully due to the rule that each new one replaces the one before it - so having a deck with multiple means that you're competing with your own cards, but also gives you an answer to your opponents' World spells. In this environment, having a World Sorcery as a commander would be a double-edged sword. It could disrupt an opponent's strategies and avoid being disrupted itself, but also limits the strategies your own deck can employ. Fractured Veil makes up for this by allowing the caster to dynamically adjust their strategies. Detrimental keywords can be placed on opponents' creatures, and helpful ones can be distributed among the caster's own. However, it's important to commit to a strategy early, before the cost gets too high...though that's also the best time to bring in another World spell for the endgame. |
|
|
|
Post by Lady Mapi on Apr 15, 2020 3:29:51 GMT
Here's a weird first draft. It's way too wordy. The Chimerical Obelisk - Artifact , : Exile the top card of your library. If it's a nonland permanent card, it gains Mutate X until the end of your next turn, where X is its converted mana cost. , discard a card, : Until end of turn, target permanent loses all types and becomes a Snake Creature with base power and toughness 1/1. You may cast cards exiled by The Chimerical Obelisk for their Mutate costs. The Chimerical Obelisk may be your commander. Is your head hurting yet? Because mine is. |
|
|
|
Post by ZephyrPhantom on Apr 15, 2020 17:57:58 GMT
Here's a weird first draft. It's way too wordy. The Chimerical ObeliskArtifact , : Exile the top card of your library. If it's a nonland permanent card, it gains Mutate X until the end of your next turn, where X is its converted mana cost. , discard a card, : Until end of turn, target permanent loses all types and becomes a Snake Creature with base power and toughness 1/1. You may cast cards exiled by The Chimerical Obelisk for their Mutate costs. The Chimerical Obelisk may be your commander. Is your head hurting yet? Because mine is. So if you put an enchantment or artifact without power and toughness on the top, it effectively becomes an artifact/enchantment with all the inherited abilities in a One with the Stars fashion? I also like the use of the Turn to Frog-esque effect to make Humans mutable if needed. It might be cleaner to have the Mutate cost be always available and tie the UG 'discard' cost in too, as in: Because I think the current version is going to create memory issues (or at the very least, a lot of moving cards from under the Obelisk to exile) and I think it's more intuitive to 'store' mutations this way. I also think it's better if the UG ability exiles the card instead of discarding it in this sense, to wrap the whole package together. If you keep the original version though I'd suggest changing it to "it gains Mutate X until the next end step" because otherwise I can see confusion when you do it on your turn, wait until your next turn late in the game, exile something else, and then start having the memory issues after some big counterspell war happens at the table. |
|
xylophone
1/1 Squirrel
Posts: 51
Favorite Card: Hymn to Tourach
Color Alignment: White, Blue, Black
|
Post by xylophone on Apr 17, 2020 18:19:48 GMT
Argent Zeppelin  Legendary Artifact - Vehicle Flying, first strike, vigilance Crew 5 : Untap each creature that crewed ~ this turn. After this main phase, there is an additional combat phase followed by an additional main phase. Activate this ability only when you could cast a sorcery. ~ can be your commander. 5/5
|
|
|
|
Post by gamma3 on Apr 18, 2020 18:14:28 GMT
Judging in progress. The challenge is closed at this time
|
|
|
|
Post by gamma3 on Apr 20, 2020 4:41:20 GMT
SilentKobold - I really dig the flavor here. The only thing I question is the sacrifice in the cost of the card, which makes it feel more black to me. I'd maybe have tapped a certain number of creatures you control instead. sdfkjgh - While I'm not totally happy with the way you handled the commander tax thing, I find it adequate enough to ignore. I also appreciate that you found a way to solve the "I always have a land available" issue by requiring to already have other lands to produce mana. It's an alright design, but I feel like you could have had a more interesting payoff than turning into a really big creature Jartis - Loving the callback here, even though it's just a flavor thing. The flavor text is a nice touch. I'm a big fan of double-edged-sword type cards, and this is beautiful in that way. Yes, your hand becomes an unlimited resource, but the more you use it, the more it hurts. All around good looking card. burntsquirrelman - An interesting way to get around the "Why move the fortification" question. I'm not sure the payoff is really worth it though. It does help with card advantage some, giving white an easy mana sink when it runs out of cards, but I think most games, it would sit in the command zone, and there's more interesting cards for that, even in mono w ZephyrPhantom - I like this card a lot. A sometimes-counterspell is a neat deterrent in the command zone, and this still requires work to pull off, which I like. It seems like a really fun build-around card. Flo00 - This is about what I was expecting an Equipment commander to be. "I can be on any creature, and it will do commander damage." This is screaming to be slapped onto Marit Lage. I kind of with that instead of the adventure, it had some sort of other boost to the equipped creature. The adventure feels like an afterthought to give the card color, rather than a cohesive part of the card. kefke - Everyone say it with me now: "Colorless is not a color." I do agree that colorless can have a unique flavor, but the rest of this card is kind of a mess. I dislike the concept of a World non-permanent card; it just doesn't seem congruous with what the permanents with the supertype have. Additionally, there's a reason WotC doesn't use it anymore: it leads to a lot of feel-bad moments. The text on this could be extremely shortened, but it's in the long form to give it the 5-color identity, and at that point, why not just make it a 5 color spell? Also, there's the issue of what keywords actually are. For example, you could have a creature with an etb Scry effect. Scry is still a keyword. Which means this could, in theory, put a Scry 2 counter on something, and then someone has to answer the question of, "Well what the hell does that do?" and the answer is probably nothing, but it's better to not have to ask that question in the first place. This card has a neat kernel, but it's far obscured by some of these pet ideas. As is often said, you have to kill your darlings. Lady Mapi - Good lord, this is a lot of wackiness. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of insanity that I love out there, but this, man. Mark Rosewater has talked about how problematic the possibility of giving everything Mutate can be, because now you have to playtest way more possible combinations of cards. On top of that, your card has a method of getting around the non-human rider on mutate by giving humans mutate when exiled and allowing you to temporarily turn humans into non-humans, which creates a whole new rules issue of what happens to the mutate stack when there's a human in it. On a much more nitpicky note, ability costs go in the order of "mana, or  , other actions." xylophone - I like that you went with a vehicle. I found it disappointing that since vehicles aren't creatures during deckbuilding, Parhelion II and The Weatherlight and such can't be commanders. The extra combat step ability is interesting in that it only works on creatures that crewed the zeppelin, meaning that you have to over-crew it to get extra attacks out of other creatures if you wanted them and have the mana. I do think the activated ability would probably be fine at instead because of this. {Winner:}Getting a top four was easy, picking one of them was hard. I'll give Jartis the win for the sweet, sweet flavor that works well with the mechanical execution, with ZephyrPhantom and xylophone and SilentKobold as runners up, in no particular order.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jartis on Apr 20, 2020 9:03:17 GMT
Oh, wasn't expecting to win again so soon. Well hey, thanks for that.
The next challenge will be design a 3 color commander with Partner. It can be "Partner with" if you want, in which case you'll need to design the other card as well.
|
|
|
|
Post by Flo00 on Apr 20, 2020 15:24:30 GMT
Daegonath, the Timestopper Legendary Artifact Crature - Wizard Skip each upkeep step. Partner (You can have two commanders if both have partner.) 3/3 Maybe I'll come up with a good flavor text later, but I doubt it. |
|
|
|
Post by kefke on Apr 20, 2020 17:17:55 GMT
gamma3 - Say it with me, now; "We do not work for WotC. We are not constrained by how they do things." Oh, and say this one too; "Judging a contest is not licence to be a condescending jerk." Maybe it's because I'm running on three hours of sleep, but I feel like being particularly unkind about this. This is one of the worst criticisms I have ever received. Why not make it a 5 color spell? Seriously?! First of all, because the effect would be overcosted at any CMC that would allow a 5 colours to be squeezed in there! Secondly, because that's not what I was designing for. Colorless spells and permanents already exist, regardless of what you think of them. A basic land for Colorless already exists. I was designing for building off of that framework. As for your "issue with what keywords actually are", no there really isn't. A keyword that doesn't work, doesn't work. Kind of like how if you create a token of a permanent with a morph ability, it can't morph because tokens have no reverse face? Would you say that WotC should have never printed cards with Morph, because copying permanents already existed? Or should they have never printed cards that could copy other cards, because there might eventually be some situation where the copy would have a weird interaction? Oh, and let's take a moment to dissect the idea that World cards are bad because "it leads to a lot of feel-bad moments". You know what else leads to a lot of feel-bad moments? Almost everything! Destroying permanents? Nah, that feels bad for the person who got their permanents destroyed. Oh, but cards with Indestructible also feel bad because you might not be able to do anything about it. Getting your spells countered sure feels bad. So does taking a lot of damage at once. How about not having enough mana to play a spell that could help you? That sure feels bad. Almost as bad as drawing cards that don't help your strategy. Oh, I know! Let's make every draw a tutor, and all cards can be CMC 1. That'll put a stop to "feel-bad moments" for sure! ...oh wait, no it won't, because losing the bloody game feels bad. Guess we all have to stop playing Magic and just post theorycraft decklists online. It's the only way.  Or perhaps, if wasn't apparent from my blistering sarcasm, Magic isn't one big continuous dopamine rush from beginning to end. Perhaps strategic gameplay, risk of failure, and the occasional bout of 4D mental chess with your opponent are an inherent and necessary part of the game. And while I'm throwing out hypotheticals that aren't really hypothetical, perhaps the way things have been done in the past isn't the only way to do them, let alone the best. Perhaps just because WotC does something "for a reason" doesn't mean that reason is a good one, or that there can't be another way to do things. Perhaps, just perhaps, the only "darling" that needs killed here is your rigid viewpoint. (...and let me just stress that this is still me being more polite than I'd like to be.)
|
|
|
|
Post by gamma3 on Apr 20, 2020 19:34:25 GMT
kefke I apologize that I came off as condescending, that was certainly not my intent. I feel as though your perception of the critique was colored by the first sentence, and I admit I could have written something to that effect with significantly less snark, had I put in the effort. Additionally, I regret not saying more about the parts of your card that I did like; I was trying to avoid making my comments on it too long, and I'm afraid I ended up cutting most of the positive aspects and focusing on the negative. I also could have been more clear about my feelings on colorless cards in general. I do think they are cool, and I like the unique flavor. But having a unique flavor does not, in my opinion, qualify it as a third color. It would need some kind of mechanical identity other than "everything colored cards can do, but worse." That doesn't mean I hate colorless non-artifact cards; I didn't like this one. On the topic of colors, I did not mean the card, as is, should just be switched to a casting cost of wubrg and call it a day. Perhaps it could remove the additional cost per creature and do so, or a dozen other tweaks. The specific thing that I disliked was the apparent shoe-horning in of a 5-color identity. The wording feels forced to fit this template so that the card can helm a 5-color deck. If this weren't the Commander game, and you didn't have to have that "This card can be your commander" text, I'd probably have rated this card differently, where it could have said "one mana of that creature's color" and nobody would be thinking, "man, I wish I could actually play colored cards in a deck with this." On the topic of feel-bads, yes, there are effects that don't feel great to play against. And in the more egregious cases, those have been toned back or removed from the game. See land destruction, for example. On his blog, Mark Rosewater has talked about all sorts of mechanics that were changed because of too many feel-bads. In future sight, they made a whole ability word to try to deal with the feel-bads of having multiple copies of the same legend, before commander took off. Yes, there are abilities that can be unfun, but it's a valid reason to not make World cards. To your other point, yes, we are not WotC. But I still believe there is a reason they do the things they do, and that we should do our best to understand them before breaking from their convention.
|
|
|
|
Post by ZephyrPhantom on Apr 20, 2020 19:53:02 GMT
gamma3 - Say it with me, now; "We do not work for WotC. We are not constrained by how they do things." Oh, and say this one too; "Judging a contest is not licence to be a condescending jerk." Maybe it's because I'm running on three hours of sleep, but I feel like being particularly unkind about this. This is one of the worst criticisms I have ever received. Why not make it a 5 color spell? Seriously?! First of all, because the effect would be overcosted at any CMC that would allow a 5 colours to be squeezed in there! Secondly, because that's not what I was designing for. Colorless spells and permanents already exist, regardless of what you think of them. A basic land for Colorless already exists. I was designing for building off of that framework. As for your "issue with what keywords actually are", no there really isn't. A keyword that doesn't work, doesn't work. Kind of like how if you create a token of a permanent with a morph ability, it can't morph because tokens have no reverse face? Would you say that WotC should have never printed cards with Morph, because copying permanents already existed? Or should they have never printed cards that could copy other cards, because there might eventually be some situation where the copy would have a weird interaction? Oh, and let's take a moment to dissect the idea that World cards are bad because "it leads to a lot of feel-bad moments". You know what else leads to a lot of feel-bad moments? Almost everything! Destroying permanents? Nah, that feels bad for the person who got their permanents destroyed. Oh, but cards with Indestructible also feel bad because you might not be able to do anything about it. Getting your spells countered sure feels bad. So does taking a lot of damage at once. How about not having enough mana to play a spell that could help you? That sure feels bad. Almost as bad as drawing cards that don't help your strategy. Oh, I know! Let's make every draw a tutor, and all cards can be CMC 1. That'll put a stop to "feel-bad moments" for sure! ...oh wait, no it won't, because losing the bloody game feels bad. Guess we all have to stop playing Magic and just post theorycraft decklists online. It's the only way. Or perhaps, if wasn't apparent from my blistering sarcasm, Magic isn't one big continuous dopamine rush from beginning to end. Perhaps strategic gameplay, risk of failure, and the occasional bout of 4D mental chess with your opponent are an inherent and necessary part of the game. And while I'm throwing out hypotheticals that aren't really hypothetical, perhaps the way things have been done in the past isn't the only way to do them, let alone the best. Perhaps just because WotC does something "for a reason" doesn't mean that reason is a good one, or that there can't be another way to do things. Just to interject a different perspective here (as speaking as someone who did a whole World set before but never released it beyond a few playtest drafts) accounting for World's ability is something you have to do because it's very similar to how how the Kamigawa to Magic 2014 version of the Legend rule works (and they got rid of that interaction for a reason). To quote Sam Stoddard: "While it was useful to use the "legend rule" and clones to kill your opponent's hard-to-target legends, or to play your Planeswalker to kill your opponent's, the general feeling within the Pit was that this interaction was not how we wanted games to be decided. I don't feel that the old version of the rules was inherently bad, but it did end up making interactions between players who shared legendary permanents a game about who could use his or her permanent as a terror more often and not about the cool things the legendary permanents or Planeswalkers themselves could do."So following from that line of judgement, the idea that it creates a feel bad isn't the problem with World, but the consideration you have to make for World is that it's treated as a situational removal. I think Fractured Veil shows pretty well why World has never appeared on a non-permanent type - it's because it's potentially a 2-for-1 that just shafts World permanents by resolving and doing its thing and removing the previous high-impact World permanent. Your pitch for more World cards is understandable but without those World cards for context I feel World is a type that already gets shafted pretty often - I as a designer would not want to reinforce how easily shafted it is to a larger audience, and would try and find a different World card to submit to the competition to prove its merits. So a "neat idea obscured by other ideas" isn't wrong - I think you tried to present something interesting but picked a way to present it that most people wouldn't "get" if you showed them this card in public with no context. Other than that, I think the rest of the criticisms are fair - there's a reason WoTC writes out every current evergreen keyword ability every time a card like this pops up and it's because you can't really safely infer that someone will understand putting a scry counter on a creature does nothing. (If you've ever had anyone asking if a Forest taps to fetch another Forest because they don't know what Green mana is, or coming from Yugioh and asking if their creatures can attack other creatures, and so on... turns out Magic does have a learning curve, basically.) Also, regardless of how much either of you view Colorless as a color (which I think is a fairly contentious mess of an argument by itself, given people's views on Purple in the past), I think it's fair to ask "What exactly does the Colorless cost contribute here?" All I see is that it makes the deck that wants to use it (5-color decks) have a harder time using it. Nothing about this card communicates Colorless's color identity to me, unlike the various Eldrazi cards that weren't 100% into that pitch but still tried to have a cohesive Wastes/Scions-matter colors-don't strategy/theme. Again, there's an interseting idea here, but this could've costed and I would've assessed the card pretty much either the exact same way (or the same but better). I also appreciate your desire to be polite but if you feel someone's being difficult or unfair, perhaps the way to go about it is not to be passive-aggressive back at them. Just a thought. |
|
|
|
Post by sdfkjgh on Apr 20, 2020 20:43:38 GMT
Madam Mactans Legendary Creature--Spider Assassin Reach, deathtouch
: Target Spider creature gains deathtouch until end of turn and fights up to one target creature with flying.
: Tap any number of untapped Spider creatures you control. Each Spider tapped this way deals damage equal to its power to target creature. That creature deals damage equal to its power divided as its controller choses among any number of those Spiders.
Partner 3/5
Although she doesn't have "partner with", she does have a partner:
Lady Latrodectus Legendary Creature--Spider Shaman Reach, vigilance
Other Spider creatures you control have vigilance.
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, create a 1/2 green Spider creature token with reach.
Partner 4/6 |
|
|
|
Post by ZephyrPhantom on Apr 20, 2020 20:51:55 GMT
{old} Sidolith, the Incongruous Guide  Creature - Eldrazi Horror Partner Flash When ~ enters the battlefield, target creature gains protection from colored spells until end of turn. 2/2 It enlightens escape artists by opening bizarre broke-paths.Creature - Human Monk Partner Flash When ~ enters the battlefield, up to three target creatures or spells get protection from instants and sorceries until end of turn. 2/2 |
|
|
|
Post by SilentKobold on Apr 20, 2020 21:01:30 GMT
Garrath, Aged Mentor Legendary Creature - Human Wizard Other legendary creatures you control get +1/+1 and gain haste. Sacrifice ~: Legendary permanents you control gain indestructible until end of turn. Partner 3/3
|
|
|
|
Post by hydraheadhunter on Apr 25, 2020 6:36:06 GMT
So, I made another Kaalia...  Kaalia, The Wings of Vengence Legendary Creature - Human Cleric Flying Partners with angels, demons, and dragons (When this permanent enters the battlefield, target player may put an angel, demon, or dragon into their hand from their library, then shuffle. If this is your commander you may treat angel, demon, and dragon cards as though they had partner.) Whenever Kaalia attacks, you may reveal any number of angels, demons, and dragons from your hand. For each angel revealed, create a 2/2 white angel with flying and lifelink, tapped and attacking. Do the same for each demon revealed and a 2/2 black demon with flying and deathtouch, and each dragon and a 2/2 red dragon with flying and menance. 2/2
{Personal Thoughts and Notes Related to the Card but not Represented on the Card} Partners with [type]: I played a bit with openning the design space of "partner with" to creature types, thinking in the vein of Sol, Advocate Eternal, which I know isn't a legal card and is just an RnD proof of concept / fever dream, but I thought yeah, there's some space to play with there. Because of spacing restrictions, I had to exclude "If this is your commander you may treat angel, demon, and dragon cards as though they had partner," from the reminder text because it's already too many damn lines long, and one more line that only effects deckbuilding would murder the look of the card. Hopefully your satisfied with this meeting the partner requirement. Looking at it now, I'm realizing that partners with [type] is a bit too strong for angels, demons, and dragons all at once, but I figure I already made the card, might as well share it. Creation Process: I'm bad at making up characters wholecloth, and first instinct was a Temur Sarkan that partnered with dragons, but that was too weird because Sarkans a planeswalker, and planeswalker commanders always almost always feel a bit forced to me. But I really liked the idea of partners with dragons, and because I'm bad at whole-clothing, I thought what other characters like dragons, and Kaalia came to mind, and from there she had to partner with angels, demons, and dragons. But I figured what the hell, and went with it. After deciding to do Kaalia, I knew I wanted something that respected the gamefeel of the OG kaalia of the vast while being somewhere between the OG and Kaalia, Zenith Seeker in terms of power level and also having its own emergent strategy. I started from the basic 2/2 human cleric with flying and partner with a.d.d. Just tutoring felt like it'd be too weak, but tutoring and then getting a free etb on what you searched up felt too strong, plus it's Kaalia: She has to do something when she attacks. So I thought, okay let's figure out how to give her board state while not giving her free immediate access to her entire library with a haste source. The solution I came up with was giving her tokens based on how many a.d.d.s were in the players hand. Then it was just the hell of figuring out how to template creating upto three completely different tokens that are all tapped and attacking. I think I did about as well as I could, but I'm open for suggestions on how to trim it down. |
|
thaneofglamis
8/8 Octopus
Thane's activated abilities can't be activated
Posts: 444
Favorite Card: Slimefoot, the Stowaway; Phyrexian Rager; Swarm Shambler
Favorite Set: Midnight Hunt
Color Alignment: Green
|
Post by thaneofglamis on Apr 25, 2020 6:47:44 GMT
I think this Kaalia might let you have three commanders, with Regna as Kaalia's partner and Krav as Regna's partner. |
|
|
|
Post by hydraheadhunter on Apr 25, 2020 7:14:24 GMT
I think this Kaalia might let you have three commanders, with Regna as Kaalia's partner and Krav as Regna's partner. Interesting point. Maybe that type of interaction is okay (I'm all for polyamory as a general rule), but more likely the nitty-gritty game rules for 'partner's with [restriction other than name]' in the commander format would say something along the lines: If a legendary creature or planeswalker has "Partners with X" and is your commander, you may select at most one other card which meets requirement X to be your a second commander. So, I think it's a cute idea don't think it'd work that way. You could though have both Regna and Krav in the deck and switch them between the second commander slot. That'd work since both fit in Kaalia, the wings of vengence's color identity. |
|
|
|
Post by Daij_Djan on Apr 25, 2020 9:02:30 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Lady Mapi on Apr 25, 2020 14:51:42 GMT
Hey, let's riff on the good ol' Brothers YamazakiSisters Yeleva - Legendary Snow Creature - Human Wizard Flying Partner with Sisters Yeleva If there are exactly two permanents named Sisters Yeleva on the battlefield, the "legend rule" doesn't apply to them. : Each creature you control named Sisters Yeleva gets +2/+0 and haste until end of turn. 2/2 |
|
, where X is its converted mana cost.
"When in doubt, do a common."