Miscellaneous Card Design Thread

Spiraling Darkness 
Instant
This spell can’t be countered if it targets a planeswalker.
Target creature or planeswalker gets -X/-X until end of turn. This affects planeswalkers as if their loyalty was toughness. If that permanent would die this turn, exile it instead.

Trying switching "The Commander" to "The Captain" because I want to try and not conflate it with the format while keeping the idea of a military rank.


The War of the Ancients
Enchantment - Saga
I: Create six 6/6 colorless Incarnation creature tokens.
II: For each creature your opponents control, each creature you control fights a different one of those creatures.
III: If you control no creatures, create a 1/1 white Nomad Soldier creature token named The Captain with indestructible. Otherwise, create a 1/1 black Demon Horror creature token named The Broker with deathtouch.

Some rough ideas here:
1) At some point, a long time ago, in an unknown place and time, a great war occurred between many deities for dominance of a strange reality. The war started off under honorable guises, but many parties, some not of this world, corrupted the war to their own selfish ends, only for all to lose in the final brutal slaughter.
2) The Captain and The Broker are from slightly different but near identical timelines where the difference is simply who survived the war. Because all records of the war are lost to time or vague legends, reality isn't 'focused' enough to distinguish the two timelines apart properly.

The Captain keeps their middling rank to remind themselves that they are merely another piece trying to survive in a larger tidal wave of conflicts.
The Broker flashes their handle as a sign of pride, and decides that if they are a piece, they will become the piece that plays all the other pieces to their own whims.

Captain is roughly , Broker is roughly . If the latter appear in a supplemental set, they will use outside-the-game/rules exploiting themes within black border limitations. ("Roughly" means their FT can show up on other color cards - I'm still not sure how closely I want to tie either of them to colors.)

Broker's Mark
Sorcery
Reveal Broker's Mark as you draft it and note the player who passed it to you.
Target player loses 2 life. If that player is a player noted for cards named Broker's Mark, they instead lose 4 life.
"You are in default, little long-haired one, and I am here to charge interest."

Recruit the Resentful
Sorcery
Search target opponent’s sideboard for a card and exile it face down. You may look at and play that card for as long as it remains exiled.
"Throwing off the 'yoke of oppression' is an idea for the young and energetic. This is a call to the old men who fought for that idea and were left to rot."

Thanks, fixed.

This is officially my prediction for Outlaws of Thunder Junction:

Frontier Gaoler 
Creature--Rabbit Soldier
Flash
Vigilance
As Frontier Gaoler enters the battlefield, exile target permanent that isn’t a basic land until Frontier Gaoler leaves the battlefield.
Frontier Gaoler’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of cards exiled by it.
: Exile target permanent that isn’t a basic land until Frontier Gaoler leaves the battlefield. X is the number of cards exiled by Frontier Gaoler.
*/*

Why Rabbit?  OTJ is based on the Old West, and have you seen how many Rabbits are out there?!  It's totally thematic.

Ban Shorthand
Instant (Silver border)
Counter target spell with a keyword in its textbox.

Zealous Shot 
Instant
This spell deals 3 damage to target attacking, blocking, or tapped creature, planeswalker, or battle. You gain 3 life.
{Boros watermark}

Advanced Necromantics
Enchantment
Whenever you unearth a permanent, create a token that's a copy of that permanent.

Truth or Trauma
Sorcery
Exile the top five cards of target opponent's library. They separate those cards into two piles. Put one pile into their graveyard. You may play the rest for as long as they remain exiled and you may spend mana to cast them as if it were mana of any type.

Just a Clone
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Whenever a commander you control dies, create a token that's a copy of that commander.
You are but one of many, unsure whether your thoughts are truly your own or if they were crafted into you to secure your originator's schemes.

Inspired by Arwen Undómiel & Oracle of Mul Daya:

Hometown Snitch 
Creature--Vedalken Vampire Spy
Whenever Hometown Snitch enters the battlefield and at the beginning of each of your upkeeps, surveil 2. (Look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)
You may play cards from your graveyard that were put there from your library this turn.
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“Other vampires feed on blood, you say? How quaint.”
2/3

Because fuck Smothering Tithe & Rhystic Study!

Gaea's Forgiveness 
Legendary Enchantment
This spell can’t be countered.
Whenever a player draws a card, they reveal that card. If it’s a land card, that player puts it onto the battlefield under their control.
At the beginning of each player’s end step, if a land didn’t enter the battlefield under that player’s control this turn, they create a Treasure token.

should be the color of both extra card draw denial, AND ensuring perfect mana!  Why the fuck is Rakdos the color of perfect draws AND perfect mana?!  It makes no goddamn sense!!!  It's like if 1992's Richard Garfield suddenly popped into the present and said "This is quite a nice bit of decades of codifying and refining The Color Pie...would be a shame if something were to happen to it!!!"

Thinking about Amiel Stanek's use of a Searzall in Almost Every led me to this:

Sear Seer 
Creature--Goblin Shaman
Whenever a source you control deals exactly 1 or exactly 2 damage, scry 1.
1/3





So, lemme set the scene for this next one: I'm playing Avant-Garde Bard* Brawl against an Omnath, Locus of the Roil deck, & was holding my own, stabilized at 16 life, until they Mirrorhall Mimicked their Omnath w/exactly 16 Elementals after SBA check--two of which were Ancient Greenwarden & Ashaya, Soul of the Wild.

God, I hate instant-win cards & combos!

Flipping Table 
Legendary Enchantment--Aura (Obvious BicycleAcorn card)
Enchant surface on which you’re currently playing
You control enchanted surface.
Enchanted surface has “, , , , , Upend this surface and sacrifice it: End the game. (Consecutive taps all rotate in the same direction.)”
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“Screw you guys, I’m going home!”

If we wanted to make this more elegant, then the first ability would read "Enchant battlefield", and all instances of "surface" would be likewise replaced with "battlefield".  However, I really wanna do a full Brechtian/'Pataphysical lampshading of the fact that it's more than just the in-game battlefield that's being affected, it's the actual gameplay surface.  Made even funnier when you're currently playing on a surface that cannot physically be flipped without miraculous, Herculanean effort, like the floor of a house, or on top of something made of concrete.

I'd love to be able to link to the definitive telling of Old Man Henderson (if you know, you know), but 1d4chan.org has been down for months.

Passionate Defect
Instant
Untap target attacking creature, remove it from combat and gain control of it until end of turn. Put a defender counter on it.


Inexorable Rage
Sorcery
This spell can't be countered.
Gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn. Damage dealt by it this turn can't be prevented. If it would die this turn, exile it instead.

An offhand comment vizionarius made gave me a stupid idea and I decided to make it into a card

I am aware. It's just that since there's an advisor type I needed to make that pun. Like I said, stupid idea I decided to make into a card