galva94
2/2 Zombie
Posts: 123
Favorite Card: Cryptic Command
Favorite Set: Kamigawa
Color Alignment: Blue, Green
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Post by galva94 on Jan 17, 2019 11:20:53 GMT
Hello I was thinking of making a new type of card, called Fortress, in my Lord of the Ring theme set ( magicseteditor.boards.net/thread/588/lord-ring-theme-set ). I found that others have had the same idea (Daij_Djan in his set Penada magicseteditor.boards.net/thread/110/penada-clash-tribes-archive ) but I have thought of something slightly different:   To not make them too similar to planeswalker, I made Fortress as loyalty-based cards, but with static/activated/triggered abilities instead of the classic plus/minus abilities. Now, the thing is: I'm not sure about the fact that says "Creatures can’t attack you as long as you control a Fortress card". Can't figure out if it's too game changing or not. My guess is not, because this permanents can't gain loyalty by their own, so they can be easily destroyed. Can someone give me some feedbacks about this? |
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Post by Daij_Djan on Jan 17, 2019 15:19:54 GMT
Fortresses! 
OK, first of all some wording suggestions. You never refer to permanents on the battlefield as cards, also you can indeed target all permanents with fitting spells and/or abilities unless stated otherwise, and finally card types (compared to subtypes) aren't capitalized in rules text - so I'd reduce the reminer text to: (Creatures can't attack you as long as you control a fortress. This permanent can be attacked by creatures.)
That aside, I'm obviously a fan of the concept. My approach actually brought two cards into MSEM where they have seen some play. Previously they had the same attack restriction, but after some discussion this was dropped for gameplay reasons indeed (and Fortresses then reflavored into a subtype as well). It might be because Kalro was too pushed anyway, but the attack restriction really hurt some decks archetypes. Your designs not being able to increase their "loyalty", might indeed help this though.
All in all, playtesting will most likely be the key here  |
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Jan 17, 2019 22:31:46 GMT
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galva94
2/2 Zombie
Posts: 123
Favorite Card: Cryptic Command
Favorite Set: Kamigawa
Color Alignment: Blue, Green
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Post by galva94 on Jan 18, 2019 13:12:05 GMT
Thank you for the suggestions. Just a curiosity: how do you "playtest" your cards or expansions? By printing all the cards, or just by proxying the cards and add them in some random paper-deck to see if they work?
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Jan 19, 2019 1:36:18 GMT
I personally use the Playtest template, print the cards out, and sleeve them with legitimate cards for playtesting.
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galva94
2/2 Zombie
Posts: 123
Favorite Card: Cryptic Command
Favorite Set: Kamigawa
Color Alignment: Blue, Green
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Post by galva94 on Jan 13, 2021 22:00:02 GMT
Hello! here I am, writing on this old post of mine. Lately I worked a lot on my LORD OF THE RINGS custom set (check it out there if you will!) but a thing that I still struggle to figure out are Fortress. My current attempt is this:  This has a problem, though, and it's in the "lore": this fortress permanents have nothing to do with planeswalker! They definitely feel like something else: land? artifact? an entirely new type of card? We are here to figure out. Magic offers an artifact type that may fit: Fortifications. But I don't find them brilliant designs honestly. Anyway this is another attempt, inspired by crew. The idea is to make a strong defensive card that can be turned on tapping creatures. The "crew" can happen by power or (maybe more flavorufully) by toughness.  The most experimental one is the next one: the idea is to make a sort or "mutate" but on a land, to turn it into a planeswlaker type of card. But I see a lot of troubles on this one  I would like to hear the opinion of the community about this topic |
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jverse
3/3 Beast
Posts: 195
Favorite Card: Animar, Soul of Elements
Favorite Set: Shadowmoor
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by jverse on Jan 14, 2021 23:00:03 GMT
I play test on Cockatrice by exporting the card file and images. I play each deck archetype against each other one and then keep a checklist of cards that are balanced and ones that need adjustment. It takes some time, but it works.
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Robot_Face
0/0 Germ
they/them
Posts: 20
Formerly Known As: Robot_Face
Favorite Card: Charging Badger
Favorite Set: Khans of Tarkir
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by Robot_Face on Jan 15, 2021 8:50:30 GMT
Re: non-flavorful planeswalker type, I never liked the switch from fortress to planeswalker for this exact reason, and the benefit of custom magic is that I can ignore that!
The format you have for fortresses in the first post of this thread look good to me. They're essentially short-lasting enchantments with "gain 4 life" tacked on. Something I've tried is having them as toughness-only blockers that always block as many creatures as possible each combat, so they are a little more survivable, they have a counterplay (flying) already built into the game, and they feel a bit more distinct from planeswalkers. But then I realized that they ended up having almost no distinction from... walls with defender.
And I honestly think that's the best way to do it. Maybe introduce it as a new creature type if you think fortress fits better than wall, come up with a cool mechanic that they could all share (such as blocking any number of creatures) and do a ten card cycle, and there's your flavorful and resonant fortresses that don't require introducing a whole new card type.
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jverse
3/3 Beast
Posts: 195
Favorite Card: Animar, Soul of Elements
Favorite Set: Shadowmoor
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by jverse on Jan 16, 2021 3:31:51 GMT
You could also just make them auras that enchant a land and give them the creature type "fortress". They could also come in with X number of counters and then whenever a creature would deal damage to you, you just prevent that damage and remove that many counters. When there aren't any left, you sacrifice the fortress aura. An even easier idea is to do the same thing but on a land itself (not requiring the aura). Simple enough, but I have to agree that making them walls is probably the simplest option.
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galva94
2/2 Zombie
Posts: 123
Favorite Card: Cryptic Command
Favorite Set: Kamigawa
Color Alignment: Blue, Green
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Post by galva94 on Mar 9, 2021 18:31:09 GMT
Ok, I have it!  What do you guys think? |
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Post by dangerousdice on Mar 10, 2021 2:53:41 GMT
I like it!
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jverse
3/3 Beast
Posts: 195
Favorite Card: Animar, Soul of Elements
Favorite Set: Shadowmoor
Color Alignment: Blue, Red, Green
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Post by jverse on Mar 10, 2021 11:49:38 GMT
Good solution, but I would probably give them something at early levels as well. Getting a do-nothing artifact for 2cmc seems a bit steep.
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"When in doubt, do a common." 
