MTG - You Make The Card VII: Your Custom Planeswalker Card Died in War of the Spark

[ben-zayb]

Greener Pasture GG
Sorcery R
This spell can't be countered.
For each land you sacrificed this turn, search your library for a land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, and shuffle your library. Lands put onto the battlefield this way don't untap during your next untap step.
Splice onto green instant or sorcery - Sacrifice a land.

[Ninjaman]

Greener Pasture 1G
Sorcery R
This spell can't be countered.
For each land you sacrificed this turn, search your library for a land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, and shuffle your library.
Splice onto green instant or sorcery - Sacrifice a land.

Even by just activating a single fetchland this is an uncounterable Sylvan Scrying that puts the land onto the battlefield.
With the splice it is at worst a Crop Rotation, (That puts the card into play tapped, but it also costs 1 mana less).

Sylvan Scrying sees play in modern Scapeshift, and Crop Rotation sees play in legacy Lands.

[ben-zayb]

Even by just activating a single fetchland this is an uncounterable Sylvan Scrying that puts the land onto the battlefield.
With the splice it is at worst a Crop Rotation, (That puts the card into play tapped, but it also costs 1 mana less).

Sylvan Scrying sees play in modern Scapeshift, and Crop Rotation sees play in legacy Lands.

It's rarer than Scrying, but I guess a GG cost wouldn't hurt it.

As for comparison with Crop Rotation, IMO having the land etb tapped is a big enough deal, so much so for a green deck in Legacy. Admittedly, the card gets too crazy when paired with Loam, but that's more Loam's fault.

I suppose making the fetched land not untap next turn slows it enough, but not in a way that hoses Amulet Titan too much.

[Ninjaman]

It's rarer than Scrying, but I guess a GG cost wouldn't hurt it.

Rarity does not equal powerlevel.


It also allows scapeshift to win turn 3 if they draw this and a scapeshift.

Turn 1: Land
Turn 2: Land, Ramp
Turn 3: Land, Scapeshift spliced with this, find 8 lands, dome for lethal


What is most silly is that it makes the scapeshift uncounterable.

[Comissar]

Rarity does not equal powerlevel.

To add to this comment specifically, Rarity should usually be used as a gate on complexity, not power. The idea is that more complex ideas and mechanics are typically at a higher rarity. It's why (until War of the Spark at least) planeswalkers are always at Mythic Rare.

[Unavenger]

Rarity does not equal powerlevel.

Well, actually...

(I find this particularly egregious when they were released in the same set, and one is strictly better than the other.)

[Necroticplague]

We had that conversation last thread: while rarity and power correlating doesn’t make much sense in constructed formats, it can have a very large effect on limited formats, so some correlation between power and strength makes sense.

[BasketOfPuppies]

Well, actually...

(I find this particularly egregious when they were released in the same set, and one is strictly better than the other.)

see also: Colossal Dreadmaw and Carnage Tyrant.

[Ninjaman]

Well, actually...

(I find this particularly egregious when they were released in the same set, and one is strictly better than the other.)

see also: Colossal Dreadmaw and Carnage Tyrant.

Of both of those cards the rarer card is clearly a more complicated card than the less rare card.

Yes, rarity also exists for limited purposes, but neither the card in question nor the cards it were compared to have much limited impact, so that isn't really important.

Also, while you can make a more powerful version of a limited playable card that does nothing in constructed, at a higher rarity, the same cannot be said for low rarity cards that are already powerful in constructed.

[BasketOfPuppies]

Of both of those cards the rarer card is clearly a more complicated card than the less rare card.

Yes, rarity also exists for limited purposes, but neither the card in question nor the cards it were compared to have much limited impact, so that isn't really important.

Also, while you can make a more powerful version of a limited playable card that does nothing in constructed, at a higher rarity, the same cannot be said for low rarity cards that are already powerful in constructed.

I was not trying to argue against this point, rather give more evidence for it.

[TurboGhast]

Reflective Tutor 1G
Sorcery - R
Search your library for a card with the same name as a card in your graveyard, reveal it, and add it to your hand.

[Quiddle]

Turned Time Unwinder UUB
Creature -Zombie Wizard MR
Whenever a player begins an extra turn if the last turn they took was not an extra turn, they lose 2 life then take an extra turn at the end of the turn.
2/3

[Bucky]

Spoiler: Phyrexian Archives by Tom the Mime

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Phyrexian Archives 2B
Enchantment R
Whenever you search your library for a card, you may instead exile it. If you do, you may cast the card from exile by paying life equal to the double the converted mana cost.

Foresight for Foresight, Serene Remembrance and Tendrils of Agony. Bootstrap with Zuran Orb on the first loop if necessary.

This follows in the old tradition of black value cards that accidentally create combo decks by generating too much value. To make the Archives worth playing over rituals, you need to pay 10+ life, and in order to make it worth playing for card advantage you need to search at least 3 cards to non-hand. That basically restricts it to custom-resource decks built around it, whether of the value or loop-combo varieties.

Overall, it's not out of bounds for older formats but probably not playable in combo decks in newer ones.

Spoiler: Lightning Crystal by Dr.Gunsforhands

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Lightning Crystal - 1
Artifact - MR
Flash
Lightning Crystal can't be countered.
T, Sacrifice Lightning Crystal: Add C. If you use this mana to cast a spell, you may cast it as though it had flash and it can't be countered.

Everyone loves uncounterable turn 1 Belchers, right?

This is less a combo staple and more a middle finger to traditional control. It works just about as well for, say, turn 3 planeswalkers as for combo pieces. Combo decks aren't the only ones to get a potentially game-winning advantage from resolving one spell EoT. They'd probably benefit more from removing counterspells from the meta than from playing the card themselves.

Spoiler: Devil's Bargain by Sgt. Cookie

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Devil's Bargain
Sorcery (Black colour indicator)
Search your library for a card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Suspend 1: Pay 10 life.
"Any cost you say?"

It's an extra copy of your best hate card.

It's also a significant color pie bend, letting mono-red search up Blood Moon. I like how it's designed so that you only get to play one per game, but the steep life cost means it's best against combo decks.

Spoiler: Tumultuous Mire by Necroticplague

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Tumultuous Mire
Land-Swamp M
Tumultuous Mire comes into play tapped
Once per turn, you may return a land from you control from the battlefield to your hand. If you do, you may play an additional land this turn. Activate this ability only when you would be able to cast a sorcery.

Infinite landfall triggers?

Combo potential aside, the once per turn ability can be used as "untap a basic land", so this is the sort of two-colored-mana land they don't print anymore.

Spoiler: Immortal Fears by Gauntlet

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Immortal Fears BBB

Sorcery

Choose one:

- Search your library for a card. Shuffle your library and put that card on top.
- Name a card. The next time you draw a card this turn, reveal it. If it's the named card, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
- Draw a card. Each opponent discards a card.

Escalate - B, Sacrifice a creature.

Escalate or bust?

The intent here is pretty clear - you want to make a 'one card combo' by putting all the pieces on the same card. When used like that, it's a Natural Order variant, more expensive but more flexible. Cheat-casting Emrakul is just as big a haymaker as ever. But you also need two creatures and a mono-black manabase to pull that off.

The individual pieces also hold together pretty well, except that the middle piece is downright stupid with, say Jace TMS.

Spoiler: Empty the vaults by Randuir

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Empty the vaults 2BR
Sorcery - R
Exile any number of artifact cards from your hand and/or deck. Put a number of time counters on each of these cards equal to the number of cards exiled this way. Each of these cards gains suspend if they didn't have it already.

Straight-up 4 mana Blightsteel Colossus.

This cheats huge things into play without needing to draw them first. It's pretty broken even without the ability to search for multiple artifacts - Suspend 1 grants Haste, so the delay isn't even much of a drawback!

Spoiler: Olasti, Primal Druid by Comissar

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Olasti, Primal Druid - 2WG
Legendary Creature - Cat, Druid - MR

Creature spells you cast can't be countered.

Whenever a non-token creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may pay X where X is that creatures converted mana cost minus the number of creatures you control. If you do, create a Dinosaur creature token with power and toughness equal to that creatures power and toughness.

2/4

"They come at my call, drawn from across Muraganda to the promise of the hunt, united as one pack."

Art Description - A Sabre-toothed catfolk stands clad in tribal, saurian leathers. He points dramatically off-screen. Hordes of smaller theropods surge forward around him. To his left, larger and larger dinosaurs follow. In the background, an Imperiosaur is crashing through the tangled jungle.

I don't have a quip for this one, it's a sweet value card where the dinos pay for more dinos until it baits a sweeper. It doesn't seem to have much combo potential beyond 'cast efficient creatures'.

Spoiler: Unbound Nest by mystic1110

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Unbound Nest XG
Enchantment R
Unbound Nest enters the battlefield with X charge counters on it.
Whenever you cast a spell search your library for up to X cards, where X is the amount of charge counters on Unbound Nest, with mana costs that contain X, and put those cards into your hand, then shuffle your library, then remove a charge counter from Unbound Nest.
3: Place a Charge counter on Unbound Nest.
Have you ever seen the spawning of a Hydra's clutch? Don't.

How many X-spells can you play in a deck, anyway?

This represents a sweet value build-around - cast it for X=3 or 4 and follow with any spell and it refills your hand with X-spells. Later copies are dead unless you have something like Zeniths, but you can also (if X=4+) reasonably fetch the rest of your Nests and discard them to hand size.

Spoiler: Greener Pasture by ben-zayb

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Greener Pasture GG
Sorcery R
This spell can't be countered.
For each land you sacrificed this turn, search your library for a land card, put it onto the battlefield tapped, and shuffle your library. Lands put onto the battlefield this way don't untap during your next untap step.
Splice onto green instant or sorcery - Sacrifice a land.

Insane ramp with Suspend 2.

I think the main intent here was Scapeshift, which it breaks pretty hard. But it generates a lot of land-based value whenever you're splicing it repeatedly, and Scapeshift is just the best big sorcery to ramp into and make uncounterable.

Consider a turn 4 that goes like this: "Splice 2xPasture on Saproling Migration, sacrificing the tapped lands. Splice Pasture onto Pasture, sacrificing a newly fetched land." Ignoring the Migration, you're up 7 nonbasic lands of your choice from where you started. And that's Standard, with no fetchlands.

Spoiler: Underworld Tutor by TurboGhast

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Underworld Tutor 1B
Sorcery - R
Search your library for a card with the same name as a card in your graveyard, reveal it, and add it to your hand.

Color-shifted Regrowth.

Sure, it's better if you're getting value from the card in your graveyard, and worse if you've drawn all your copies. But it's mostly just a black Regrowth.

Spoiler: Turned Time Unwinder by Quiddle

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Turned Time Unwinder UUB
Creature -Zombie Wizard MR
Whenever a player begins an extra turn if the last turn they took was not an extra turn, they lose 2 life then take an extra turn at the end of the turn.
2/3

Double your extra-turn fun, but no chaining.

This is a tricky one to place because it requires its deck to be chaining extra turns, but not too much since it only works once per regular turn. It also has some confusing memory issues trying to reconstruct which turns were extra.

Spoiler: winner

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Gauntlet with Immortal Fears.

[Ninjaman]

You missed my card.

[Bucky]

Fleeting Commander, tribal aggro lord? I didn't think it satisfied the prompt. But yeah, it got lost in the copy-paste dance.

[Ninjaman]

Fleeting Commander, tribal aggro lord? I didn't think it satisfied the prompt. But yeah, it got lost in the copy-paste dance.

That was for the last challenge.

This one:

Contract with Dark Powers - UB
Sorcery - R
Exile the top 7 cards of your library.
Return an exiled card you own to your hand.

[Gauntlet]

Spoiler: Immortal Fears by Gauntlet

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Escalate or bust?

The intent here is pretty clear - you want to make a 'one card combo' by putting all the pieces on the same card. When used like that, it's a Natural Order variant, more expensive but more flexible. Cheat-casting Emrakul is just as big a haymaker as ever. But you also need two creatures and a mono-black manabase to pull that off.

The individual pieces also hold together pretty well, except that the middle piece is downright stupid with, say Jace TMS.

Spoiler

Show

I figured that a three card 4+ mana combo (Jace/Brainstorm + this + draw spell) was enough hoops to jump through that this wouldn't be too overbearing, given that Brainstorm style effects are of limited availability in Standard.

Here's your next challenge:

Make a card that continues a cycle.
Plenty of cards could be extended to be parts of a cycle. Obvious examples would be the Swords, Kaya's Guile, or Archmage's Charm from Horizons.
You could also make a new Oath like Oath of Teferi, or anything else that extends currently printed cards into a pattern or continues an existing pattern. The cycle you're continuing should be reasonably obvious from the name and functionality of the design.

[mystic1110]

Corpse-Nail Zubera 2BB
Creature - Zubera Spirit U
When Corpse-Nail Zubera dies, if 4 or more damage was dealt to it this turn, put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.
3/3

[Necroticplague]

Nakaya Verge
T:C
2,T,Sacrifice Nakaya Verge: Search your library for a Swamp card and an Island card, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library.

[DeTess]

Gruul Ascendancy GR
Echantment-R
1GR: Creatures you control have trample and haste until end of turn.

Whenever a creature you control deals one or more points of damage to an opponent or planeswalker, put that many stomping counters on ~.

At the beginning of your upkeep, if ~ has twenty or more stomping counters on it, you win the game.

[Comissar]

Eldritch Force - 5CCC

Creature - Elemental - R

At the beginning of each upkeep, you may put the top card of your library into your graveyard. Reveal the top card of your library. If it has a converted mana cost of 7 or more, exile target coloured permanent.

7/7

Bathed in eerie light, Eldritch dreams alight. In full moon's sight, prepare to say goodnight.

Art Description - A glassy, half real looking tentacle monstrosity languishes beneath Innistrad's full moon. Wherever its tentacles touch matter dissolves into corrupted pink and blue matter.

[Sgt. Cookie]

Oath of Angrath 2BR
Legendary Enchantment R
When Oath of Angrath enters the battlefield, each opponent sacrifices a creature or artifact.
Whenever a source an opponent controls deals damage to a planeswalker you control, Oath of Angrath deals that much damage to that source's controller.
"For the sake of my family, I will keep watch."

[DeTess]

"For the sake of my family, I will keep watch."

If Angrath where to ever join the gatewatch, that'd definitely be the oath he'd swear. Excellent flavor!

[Tom the Mime]

Were you inspired by the morphling cycle finally being complete?

Finale of Annihilation XCC
Sorcery MR
Each opponent sacrifices X/2 permanents, rounded up. For each land sacrificed this way, create a 1/1 colorless Eldrazi Scion creature token with"Sacrifice this creature: Add C."
If X is 10 or greater, you may search your library or graveyard for an Eldrazi creature and put it onto the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.

[Quiddle]

Incremental Frost 3UU
Enchantment - R
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield tap target creature, tap and put a frost counter on another target creature, then tap and put two frost counters on a third target creature.

At the beginning of each player's upkeep tap each creature that player controls with a frost counter on it, then remove a frost counter from each creature tapped this way.

[Personification]

Line of Defense W
Instant - U
Prevent all damage dealt by target permanent until your next turn. Then that permanent's controller may pay WW. If the player does, they may copy this spell and may choose a new target for that copy.

Okay, technically it isn't really a cycle yet, but theoretically Chain Lightning and String of Disappearances could become part of one.

[mythmonster2]

Unity 2WG
Creature- Incarnation (U)
Vigilance
As long as Unity is in your graveyard and you control a Forest and a Plains, creatures you control have vigilance.
4/3

Reference to the Incarnation cycle, like Anger.

[TurboGhast]

Scepter of Ruin RR
Artifact R
R,T: Scepter of Ruin does one damage to any target.

"These new sources of mana can be bent to our will the same as any other."

-Aclavus, the Sojourner

The other members of the cycle.

[ben-zayb]

Maximize Danger B
Sorcery C
Target creature gets +1/+1 and gains menace until end of turn.
Jump-Start

Might change my entry since it's a little unexciting

[Tom the Mime]

Maximize Danger B
Sorcery C
Target creature gets +1/+1 and gains menace until end of turn.
Jump-Start

Might change my entry since it's a little unexciting

Complete the full cycle with 3 cards - maximize momentum with trample for green and maximize reflexes for first strike and white?