inferno390
3/3 Beast
Posts: 197
Favorite Card: Kwende, Pride of Femeref
Favorite Set: Dominaria
Color Alignment: White, Red
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Post by inferno390 on Apr 28, 2020 18:33:05 GMT
Skingraft Manipulator    Creature - Elf Merfolk  Evolve At the beginning of your upkeep, you may move a +1/+1 counter on this creature onto another creature you control. 1/3 |
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Post by Boogymanjunior on Apr 28, 2020 22:13:11 GMT
The next set is gonna be Dragon's Maze. Do we have to? Dragon's Maze was utter garbage! There's only one good card, and one meme card from it worth remembering, and that's it.
Ok, how about this:
Godawful Set Gatekeepers  Creature--Human Designer  When ~ enters the battlefield, if you're playing with any cards from Dragon's Maze, choose all-- - I'm so sorry for you.
- Good god, why?
- Punch everyone in the room's junk as hard as you can, starting with your own.
2/4
  Oooookayyy, I think I can evaluate how you value this set. But see it this way, now you have the opportunity to make the set better! Your card here would definitely have an... impact on Dragon's Maze Drafts and tournaments. |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Apr 29, 2020 0:19:49 GMT
ameisenmeister It's both funny and sad to me that Voice of Resurgence was what Emmara was originally supposed to be. At least she got her Guilds of Ravnica "block" version to make up for it. I really want to do a Nephilim reference, but alas, this isn't OG Ravnica, so... Maze Guardian  Creature - Elemental Hexproof from monocolored Multicolored creatures you control have hexproof from monocolored. 3/3 The maze is strict in enforcing its rules; only those of the guilds may compete.Based on Sphinx of the Guildpact's design but weakened to fit the corresponding cycle. While "hexproof from" technically didn't exist at the time, the technology to make it (regular hexproof and "protection from") did, so I think it would've been an acceptable introduction here.
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Post by SilentKobold on Apr 29, 2020 3:19:00 GMT
The next set is gonna be Dragon's Maze. Do we have to? Dragon's Maze was utter garbage! There's only one good card, and one meme card from it worth remembering, and that's it. I second that sentiment though I would clarify that the problem wasn't that there weren't enough good cards or meme cards, but that the set just had too much going on to be remotely interesting or memorable. Anyways this is my take on one of the set's many subthemes: Guilds vs Gateless (Multicolored or Monocolored matters).  |
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Post by gluestick248 on Apr 29, 2020 3:25:09 GMT
Gotta use those Cluestones for something Tajic, Mazerunner   Creature — Human Soldier First strike, menace Battalion — Whenever Tajic, Mazerunner and at least two other creatures attack, put a +1/+1 counter on each attacking creature you control. Sacrifice an artifact named Boros Cluestone: Put two +1/+1 counters on Tajic. 2/2 |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Apr 29, 2020 5:41:59 GMT
Do we have to? Dragon's Maze was utter garbage! There's only one good card, and one meme card from it worth remembering, and that's it. I second that sentiment though I would clarify that the problem wasn't that there weren't enough good cards or meme cards, but that the set just had too much going on to be remotely interesting or memorable. To be fair, Dragon's Maze suffered from the same general problem the 3rd set in a lot of blocks was having - not being consistently relevant mechanically or cohesive/exciting for draft. IIRC this was a problem that persisted as far back as Fifth Dawn but can even be seen in lesser degrees in "cool" 3rd sets like Conflux, Rise of the Eldrazi, and Avacyn Restored which all desperately attempt to do a drastic shakeup of the expected mechanics with varying levels of success. This was why WoTC eventually gave up on the three-block model and then the idea of a block entirely. |
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Post by kefke on Apr 29, 2020 15:16:58 GMT
This was why WoTC eventually gave up on the three-block model and then the idea of a block entirely. ...and that, in turn, is a big part of why I find it hard to hold WotC up as the standard of design. They have a horrible pattern of taking an idea, using it poorly, blaming their lack of ability to use the idea well on the idea itself, and then tossing it out. For instance, take a look at the two primary examples of parasitic mechanics; Horsemanship and Arcane. Horsemanship is literally just Flying with a different keyword. Arcane is...well, Arcane is weird, but it's not really disruptive as it doesn't do anything by itself. In a sense, Splice is the actual parasitic mechanic, and only in those cards that have "Splice onto Arcane". Cards that splice onto other things would have been fine (I'd love to see "Splice onto " cards that support multicolor decks without being multicolor themselves). Both Horseman and Arcane could have been fixed just by...well, not making them parasitic. If WotC hadn't tossed them out entirely after their first appearance, they would have had support outside their set, and thus would not be parasitic, by definition. Really the whole concept of a parasitic mechanic, at least 90% of the time, boils down to "ideas that WotC tried, and then abandoned". Keep printing cards that either have or care about Horsemanship, and it's just a second evasion ability (admittedly, this does create an environment where decks now have to care about wings, horses, and winged horses to not have a glaring hole in their defences, but to play Devil's Advocate, unblockable and conditionally-unblockable creatures are already a thing). If you're really concerned about the impact of a second evasion ability, you adjust how it works - make it rarer, make it appear primarily on cards where it is conditional/costed, provide flexible options that can be used against either type of evasion regularly at common and/or uncommon, or even just tweak the rules to where Flying is also equivalent to Reach for Horsemanship (my least favourite, as it makes Horsemanship objectively worse than flying, and eliminates the possibility of cards with both, but doable). Print more cards with Arcane, and use it as an enabler for various abilities in sets going forward, rather than just saying, "Okay, not doing Splice ever again, so we don't need this either." and you codify the idea that some spells are special, and can have effects outside of what's printed on them. You gain a permanent way to raise the value of an underwhelming card by making it an enabler to a variety of effects...and all the effects tied to Arcane get to be non-parasitic as well, since the continuation of the type into future sets means that future sets will still have ways to enable those effects.
Sorry, not sorry, but sometimes WotC's design team are just a bunch of dumbasses. Anyway, here's a card.
City-Wide Lockdown 
Instant 
Detain all gates.
Gates do not untap during their controller's next untap step.
Speaking of card being parasitic, my submission. If I had my way, this would be a parasitic design, as Gates are very thematically tied to Ravnica, and the limited number of Gates being considered in the balancing of certain cards, so it's unlikely too many more Gates will ever be printed. However, as WotC seems determined to keep revisiting my least favourite plane Ravnica endlessly and it has probably replaced Dominaria as the "main" setting of Magic at this point, the existing Gates will likely be reprinted into eternity, and there's always room in decks for dual-mana lands. |
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Post by sdfkjgh on Apr 29, 2020 17:55:14 GMT
kefke: I would add that mutate is splice onto creature.
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Post by kefke on Apr 29, 2020 18:59:51 GMT
kefke : I would add that mutate is splice onto creature. Pretty much, yeah! |
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Post by ameisenmeister on Apr 29, 2020 19:15:54 GMT
kefke: We're kinda off topic here, but isn't the revisiting and twisting of splice on the cards Splicer's Skill and Everdream basically what you want?
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Post by kefke on Apr 30, 2020 0:47:57 GMT
kefke : We're kinda off topic here, but isn't the revisiting and twisting of splice on the cards Splicer's Skill and Everdream basically what you want? It is much like what I was saying about how it would be neat to see more exploration of how the mechanic could be used. However with my broader points, I was more making the assertion that WotC's design process is the reason that mechanics become "parasitic". So I'd say that while they're a good example of how a mechanic that would otherwise die can be kept in the game and still work, they do have an issue in regards to the overlying argument. While they manage to preserve Splice as a mechanic, they do so at the expense of making Arcane even more vestigial and unnecessary. Grant you, that wouldn't be a problem if WotC hadn't created two mechanics to serve the purpose of one. Thus forcing the two to be either preserved as a linked pair, each supported separately going forward, or for one to be rendered "parasitic". |
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Post by gluestick248 on Apr 30, 2020 5:01:13 GMT
kefke : We're kinda off topic here, but isn't the revisiting and twisting of splice on the cards Splicer's Skill and Everdream basically what you want? It is much like what I was saying about how it would be neat to see more exploration of how the mechanic could be used. However with my broader points, I was more making the assertion that WotC's design process is the reason that mechanics become "parasitic". So I'd say that while they're a good example of how a mechanic that would otherwise die can be kept in the game and still work, they do have an issue in regards to the overlying argument. While they manage to preserve Splice as a mechanic, they do so at the expense of making Arcane even more vestigial and unnecessary. Grant you, that wouldn't be a problem if WotC hadn't created two mechanics to serve the purpose of one. Thus forcing the two to be either preserved as a linked pair, each supported separately going forward, or for one to be rendered "parasitic". Just gonna add my take here. Mechanics are parasitic when a deck needs to play more of the same kind of card. Splice onto Arcane is parasitic, but so are Slivers and infect. Once a mechanic is parasitic, WotC has two options: either leave it isolated or keep making more, essentially making it evergreen. Especially in areas with low design space, that first option makes much more sense for the game as a whole. One thing the designers at WotC worry about is complexity. If a set is too complex, it makes for bad gameplay. If Theros Beyond Death, for example, kept devotion and constellation and escape, but now Slivers and landfall and graft all mattered too, it would be impossible to balance. The flavor would take a hit too, and every set would start looking and playing the same. On the topic of Splice and Arcane, they used Arcane for other things too. Loads of cards in Kamigawa block trigger off casting a Spirit or Arcane spell, and Splice’s Arcane restriction was likely to avoid extra confusion, just like how you can only mutate into non-Human creatures. If WotC didn’t phase out mechanics every set, complexity would keep going up, and would be impossible to keep in check. The way we have it now, we can get new things every set, combine them in interesting ways when we build decks, and get excited when new cards come out that play with the theme. Also, Horsemanship was just a way to get evasion into Portal Three Kingdoms, as the source material didn’t have flying transportation. Some of the cards are even direct analogs to existing cards with flying (see Lu Xun, Scholar General compared to Thieving Magpie) |
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Post by Flo00 on May 2, 2020 20:22:47 GMT
There was supposed to be a cycle of these in the set. It just didn't fit between all the other stuff crammed into it: Soft-Feather Nephilim  Legendary Creature - Nephilim Whenever Soft-Feather Nephilim deals damage, create that many 1/1 white and blue Bird creature tokens. 4/4 |
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Post by Boogymanjunior on May 5, 2020 22:00:10 GMT
I try to judge tomorrow, but if I don't fet to this, it will unfortunately be postponed until the weekend.
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Post by Boogymanjunior on May 11, 2020 1:37:40 GMT
{@sdfkjhg}@sdfkjhg So, I could say that it's pretty funny, I could also say that the only ones playing it would be masochists or liars who use the non-testability of the power of the punch in their own junk for inbalanced hurting. Which would both underscore it's intention of set hate, while simultaneosly undermines the cause of the set hate by too being not a card one would play. I could say all that, and I did say all that, but of course it doesn't fit into Dragon's Maze. Which I think is compleeetely unexpected for you! { ameisenmeister } ameisenmeister Hey, not even good with some Battle Hymn, Dragonrage and red "Wraths" like Wrath of the Gods? Well, okay then. This is definitely better; balanced Legend, being a more agressive counterbalance to Trostani while taking inspiration from Emmara, with a good flavour text. The only thing would be that I don't find Legendaries with just an ETB effect very appealing, since there is not really a incentive to have multiples on the battlefield anyway. Of course, in Commander it would be a slightly different thing, but there too it suffers a bit from being used as flashy combat trick while being visibly in a Zone for every opponent to see. { inferno390 } inferno390 I gonna go ahead and assume you mean "from" instead of "on". It could be also read as "on this creature or onto another creature", but this would take more fantasy since then the wording would have to include the creature the Manipulator is getting it from. So, it's unfortunate that I didn't read the cards completely through beforehand, but I' going with the first option. It's a good card, using Evolve as more of a tool for others than for itself, similar to it's predecessor Graft. The similarities with Simic Fluxmage are just too strong for my taste, and also it does look pretty weak, since it's (inherently well-playing) abilities only start turn 5 normally. { ZephyrPhantom } ZephyrPhantom I can see the midget hexproof coming up in the set, so this is fine to me. But while you showed a nice way to incorporate the Sphinx into the Maze Creature's cycle, it appearing in Ravnica Allegiance means it co-existing with the Guardian, so yours suffers a bit from the similarity. On it's own though, it's power is reasonable, as board hexproof can get pretty nasty (don't know if that would be a common actually). I also think it should be an artifact. But also, I like the flavor of backing up the Implicit Maze's rules. { SilentKobold} SilentKobold It's a clean card with a striking flavor, that's nice.Only thing would be that in a set with more gold cards than non-gold ones in a block where the other two sets are not much different, the impact of this should make it rare imo. { gluestick248 } gluestick248 He's a good dude, who's Battalion starts with some attacking creatures, but also becomes better the more do. Unfortunately, I find sacrificing a named artifact not an exciting design choice, which of course hurts his power level as well. { kefke } kefke Obviously, your entry was born through the small controversy here, so it's should not be unexpected when I find critique for it- it having it's sole effect of hating against a minor theme makes it too niche for me, which I would say could have been mostly eliminated by sticking it on a somewhat accetable body. Besides from that, I find the flavor good (except that detaining buildings is quite strange), and a soft but fitting land disruption spell in unusual colors is interesting. A flavour text is lacking. { Flo00 } Flo00 I, of course, like the Nephilims too, and would appreciate to see more of them. But they are notoriously hard to design. Not only do all four colors have to make sense, but the effect should be distinct enough from the existing ones to warrant it. I'd say that yours have problems with both- red would fit here while black and blue (minus the token's color, naturally) not so much + Dune-Brood Nephilim is pretty similar. I'm not saying that all the existing ones fit each of their colors especially well, and I'm certainly not saying that yours is bad, because it is balanced as well as showing a bit of room to play with without the "combat" damage clause though. As a small side note, it certainly lacks a flavor text though. Thanks y'all! |
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Post by SilentKobold on May 11, 2020 3:29:32 GMT
Thanks for the win  Anyways your next challenge is a blast from the past: Torment
Additionally, your card cannot be black (It may have a black colour identity if you like) |
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Post by kefke on May 11, 2020 14:46:50 GMT
I decided pretty much immediately that I would make a Red card, and I noticed that there are no Red instants with threshold. So I decided to do that. Then, since I was already trying to fill a gap in Red, I decided to lean into that. Red has a lot of aggressive cards, but nothing to gain card advantage. So in typical Red fashion, I went for a self-destructive means of gaining temporary options, also playing against the idea of dangerous or destructive research (I pretty much had the name pinned down at this point). For the threshold effect, I wanted something simple, that would play into the primary effect. Giving mana back seemed like a good option, helping you to play those spells you fish up in the late game before you lose them.  |
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Post by sdfkjgh on May 11, 2020 18:27:40 GMT
Boogymanjunior: I'm just surprised you took my angry protest shitposting so seriously. Thanks for the laugh.
Pardic Ambush Instant Create a 1/1 red Barbarian creature token with “When this creature enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to its power to any target.”
Madness—, Pay 2 life (If you discard this card, you may cast it for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard.)
Flashback—Discard two cards, Pay 3 life (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
Whenever you cast this spell for its madness cost or from a graveyard, you may copy it. |
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Post by Boogymanjunior on May 11, 2020 21:16:53 GMT
Boogymanjunior : I'm just surprised you took my angry protest shitposting so seriously. Thanks for the laugh.
Pardic Ambush Instant Create a 1/1 red Barbarian creature token with “When this creature enters the battlefield, it deals damage equal to its power to any target.”
Madness—, Pay 2 life (If you discard this card, you may cast it for its madness cost instead of putting it into your graveyard.)
Flashback—Discard two cards, Pay 3 life (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
Whenever you cast this spell for its madness cost or from a graveyard, you may copy it. Well, to be clear on this, I didn't took it serious in that you were really upset, but I thought that your card still deserved some judging that it's design character deserved.  And you're welcome, you also can always write a list of sets you rant about.^^ |
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Post by Boogymanjunior on May 24, 2020 20:10:17 GMT
Madness, which was introduced in Torment, proved to be overpowered relative to other mechanics at the time, most notable on Circular Logic, Basking Rootwalla and Arrogant Wurm. With Wild Mongrel as a really strong enabler, it became quite a force. That's why I designed another Doggo which already heralds the emerging power of green and white in Judgement. All the while it also hates against most Flashback stuff which was introduced in the set before Torment, Onslaught. Although Pianna and The Order is white-aligned, I thought I could maybe stretch the flavor a bit to green, since Pianna and The Order had at least some affection towards the forests. And mayyybe, some stayed loyal to what she stood for even after her death in Onslaught. As done most often, old template with current wording.  |
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Post by SilentKobold on May 24, 2020 21:06:42 GMT
Almost forgot about this one, glad it got bumped up. I'll judge this sometime tomorrow just to get a couple more entries in.
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Post by Boogymanjunior on May 27, 2020 8:29:23 GMT
Almost forgot about this one, glad it got bumped up. I'll judge this sometime tomorrow just to get a couple more entries in. After three days since then without new entries, I'm not really sure if there will come along more in an approbiate time span. Maybe this comment will serve as a 2nd reminder but I kinda doubt it, so I'd suggest that you could start to judge soon, if you can. |
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Post by SilentKobold on May 29, 2020 4:30:21 GMT
Judging is up. { kefke }Nice flavour here, effectively capturing the obsessive draw of Mirari. Balance-wise this is a little too much card advantage at two mana, even without the free Pyretic Ritual. Decreasing both the card advantage and mana generation by 1 may help remedy this (see Manamorphose) though I'd probably also slow this to sorcery speed. An old bordered render also wouldn't have hurt in the spirit of the challenge { sdfkjgh }Loving the internal synergy of the ambush, though the madness is severely under-costed (dropping tempers and rootwallas of mongrels was already quite pushed). Perhaps this is can be balanced by simply removing the copy ability, though I would prefer an increase in both madness and flashback costs. Otherwise, this perfectly captures the flavour of sudden and persistent of the ever-present barbarian raiding. { Boogymanjunior }Flavour-wise, I can't take much issue with the bleed into green with the order's intervention in Krosa, especially on a hound to hunt out the wild beasts from the forest. However, as you hinted, I'd argue this is a better fit into Judgement itself for a couple of reasons. Firstly being full multicoloured (as opposed to just multicolour-identity) is a little out of place in the block, though an argument could be made for it's inclusion into judgement to the set focus on green and white rather than the monocoloured focus of torment. In addition to this, a multicolored card in the set's two least common colours is quite a problematic design from a limited perspective, as it discourages supplementing them with the more dominant colours. Thirdly, the sleuth would act as a key 'hate piece' for Tormet's dominating mechanics creating space for new innovations at Judgment's release. All and all I really like this design, just not for Torment. {Winner}Boogymanjunior for a well-balanced entry with appropriate Odyssey block flavour, even if it may have slotted better into the next set. |
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Post by Boogymanjunior on May 29, 2020 8:48:58 GMT
Wow, didn't expect that- thank you! The next set will be Urza's Saga. Please do not imitate the power level it was known for, just, you know, power level as usual.  |
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Post by sdfkjgh on May 29, 2020 21:56:00 GMT
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HvT
1/1 Squirrel
Fugitive Wizard - Jim Nelson
Posts: 98
Formerly Known As: Heads vs Tails
Favorite Card: Foil Island
Color Alignment: Blue, Red
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Post by HvT on Jun 2, 2020 22:19:01 GMT
Choir Maestro Creature - Human Cleric Vigilance Echo Whenever you pay the echo cost of a permanent you control, you gain 4 life. 2/2 |
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Post by viriss on Jun 3, 2020 2:26:27 GMT
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Post by Boogymanjunior on Jun 5, 2020 4:43:28 GMT
I aim to judge this weekend. But, given the low number of entries and that I am free of work the next week(s), this may extend to early next week. Let's see.
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Post by sdfkjgh on Jun 7, 2020 19:27:47 GMT
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Post by Boogymanjunior on Jun 9, 2020 23:56:34 GMT
Sorry for the delay, try to judge tomorrow.
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Oooookayyy, I think I can evaluate how you value this set.
And you're welcome, you also can always write a list of sets you rant about.^^
