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

[ben-zayb]

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

I've though about that (named them Maximize Force and Maximize Reaction) and I literally had to roll a die to decide which one to submit.

Funny how 4/5 cards in that possible cycle could have just been in Red

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

Spoiler: (don't worry about judging this, I know it's silly)

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None With Nothing 0
(B) Sorcery - MR
(This card is black.)

Two With Nothing BB
Sorcery - U
Sacrifice all creatures you control.

Three With Nothing BBB
Sorcery - C
Discard your hand, then draw 3 cards.

[Bucky]

Quargpool
Basic Land - Quargpool (Basic Land rarity)
Violet is a color with {V} as its mana symbol. (Only while a Quargpool is on the battlefield)
Quargpool is a basic land type with "{T}: add {V} to your mana pool."

[Durkoala]

Knight of Passion 1R
Creature—Human Knight U
First Strike, Hexproof from Blue (This creature can't be the target of blue spells or abilities your opponents control)
~ gets Haste as long as any player controls a blue permanent.
A flame to burn the idle.
2/2

Spoiler: For fun

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Scholar Knight UU
Creature—Human Knight U
Flash, Protection from Red
Too many people see the fury of battle and forget how destructive a patient man in the right place can be.
2/2

[BasketOfPuppies]

Knight of Passion 1R
Creature—Human Knight U
First Strike, Hexproof from Blue (This creature can't be the target of blue spells or abilities your opponents control)
~ gets Haste as long as any player controls a blue permanent.
A flame to burn the idle.

Spoiler: For fun

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Scholar Knight UU
Creature—Human Knight U
Flash, Protection from Red
Too many people see the fury of battle and forget how destructive a patient man in the right place can be.

You may want to add a power/toughness. I’m guessing 2/2?

[Durkoala]

You may want to add a power/toughness. I’m guessing 2/2?

I knew I was forgetting something!

[Ninjaman]

Necromancer's Charm - BBB
Instant - R
Choose one
- Destroy target creature
- All creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn.
- Return target creature card with converted mana cost 2 or less from your graveyard onto the battlefield.

[BasketOfPuppies]

Homashtu, the Cultivator 2G
Legendary Creature- Human Druid
Homashtu, the Cultivator gets +1/+1 for each land you control.
WUBRG: Search your library for two land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library
0/0

Continuing the “cycle” of Najeela, the Blade-Blossom and Sisay, Weatherlight Captain.

[LaZodiac]

Borrowed Cunning 1UU
Instant - (C)
Escalate 1U
- Counter target creature spell
- tap target creature an opponent controls. That creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.

[Misothene]

Creeping Dementia 1B
Sorcery- U
Each opponent discards a card.
Splice onto instant or sorcery 2B

Continues the cycle of Splicer's Skill and Everdream.

[Ninjaman]

Homashtu, the Cultivator 2G
Legendary Creature- Human Druid
Homashtu, the Cultivator gets +X/+X, where X is the number of lands you control.
WUBRG: Search your library for two land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library
0/0

Continuing the “cycle” of Najeela, the Blade-Blossom and Sisay, Weatherlight Captain.

Any reason you didn't just make it have power and toughness equal to the number of lands you control?

[BasketOfPuppies]

Any reason you didn't just make it have power and toughness equal to the number of lands you control?

This is the templating they’ve been using recently.

[Ninjaman]

This is the templating they’ve been using recently.

What's your source for that?

I gatherer searched the two effects, and the four
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/S...x]+[lands]
that do it your way are all one shot effects, while there are fifteen cards that do it the way I suggested.
https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/S...l]+[lands]

[DeTess]

Ninjaman, I'd like to point out that the version used on that card and your suggestion are not functionally identical. Doing it your way means that that card would have a non-zero power and toughness while in the graveyard, while the way the card is set up means it us a 0/0 in the graveyard. This does make a difference for several recursion effects.

[Ninjaman]

Ninjaman, I'd like to point out that the version used on that card and your suggestion are not functionally identical. Doing it your way means that that card would have a non-zero power and toughness while in the graveyard, while the way the card is set up means it us a 0/0 in the graveyard. This does make a difference for several recursion effects.

Yes it does, and Wizards have specifically chosen to do it that way. If you're choosing to design something different than how wizards would design the same effect, you're gonna need a reason for it.

Saying it's functionally different is no argument from doing something one way instead of another way, unless that functional difference is actually important. In this instance I would argue that it isn't.

Also, BasketOfPuppies did claim that was the templating wizards use currently.

[Sgt. Cookie]

Two from Dominaria. match point goes to BasketOfPuppies.

[Ninjaman]

Two from Dominaria. match point goes to BasketOfPuppies.

So technically Basket's card should say:
"Homashtu, the Cultivator gets +1/+1 for each land you control."
But I stand corrected.

Does anyone know why they made that change? Just for simplification reasons?

[Tom the Mime]

The MaRo post is kinda sparse.

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/pos...-multani#notes.

In addition to recursion and searching, it makes interactions with cards like merfolk trickster much more straightforward.

[Gauntlet]

Judging will go up tomorrow or Friday.

[Unavenger]

Torment of Blades 2BB
Artifact - Equipment MR
Equip 2
Equipped creature gets +2/+0 and has menace.
Whenever a creature you control deals damage to a player or planeswalker, that player or that permanent's controller loses 3 life unless that player sacrifices a nonland permanent or discards a card.
Trapped for eternity, he poured his power into his followers' blades.

Keeping up with the "Each thing in the cycle is a different type" thing was interesting. I'm aware that Nicol Bolas, the Deciever is sort-of the mythic in the cycle, but... well, now it has something proper to top it off.

[Gauntlet]

Spoiler: Unavenger - Torment of Blades

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Torment of Blades 2BB
Artifact - Equipment MR
Equip 2
Equipped creature gets +2/+0 and has menace.
Whenever a creature you control deals damage to a player or planeswalker, that player or that permanent's controller loses 3 life unless that player sacrifices a nonland permanent or discards a card.
Trapped for eternity, he poured his power into his followers' blades.

The actual bonus of having this attached to something is far less powerful than the damage effect. It's not far off giving all your creatures +3/+0 when unblocked, which makes for a pretty scarily fast clock. Because so much of this card's power is in the triggered ability, it feels more like an enchantment than an artifact.

Spoiler: Misothene - Creeping Dementia

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Creeping Dementia 1B
Sorcery- U
Each opponent discards a card.
Splice onto instant or sorcery 2B

Continues the cycle of Splicer's Skill and Everdream.

Seems like a solid card. Unlike the other card in this 'cycle', there comes a point where splicing on more copies stops doing anything - more creatures is more creatures, and additional cards always help, but once your opponent's hand is empty then extra discard doesn't do much. I think this could probably cost slightly less and be fine.

Spoiler: LaZodiac - Borrowed Cunning

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Borrowed Cunning 1UU
Instant - (C)
Escalate 1U
- Counter target creature spell
- tap target creature an opponent controls. That creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step.

The 'freeze' effect on this is really very expensive, given that it's card disadvantage. All the modes on this feel pretty overcosted, even compared to other commons like Lost in the Mist. I'd probably take 1 off either the mana or the escalate cost.

Spoiler: BasketOfPuppies - Homashtu, the Cultivator

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Homashtu, the Cultivator 2G
Legendary Creature- Human Druid
Homashtu, the Cultivator gets +1/+1 for each land you control.
WUBRG: Search your library for two land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle your library
0/0

Seems like a solid card. You missed a rarity though. The activated ability is a bit awkward since it's a 'lands matter' effect that doesn't actually let you fix your mana because it costs WUBRG, but you can pull a lot of utility lands with it.

Spoiler: Ninjaman - Necromancer's Charm

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Necromancer's Charm - BBB
Instant - R
Choose one
- Destroy target creature
- All creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn.
- Return target creature card with converted mana cost 2 or less from your graveyard onto the battlefield.

Like Archmage's Charm, this is three effects which are efficient at 2 mana but slightly overcosted at 3 mana. I think you could probably have the third mode be Unearth rather than Claim.

Spoiler: Durkoala - Knight of Passion

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Knight of Passion 1R
Creature—Human Knight U
First Strike, Hexproof from Blue (This creature can't be the target of blue spells or abilities your opponents control)
~ gets Haste as long as any player controls a blue permanent.

First Strike fits in Red just fine - this cycle would be awkward in green or blue because the keyword isn't great there. I think having this get +1/+0 instead like the rest of the cycle would be fine - it's not like power buffs are outside Red's color pie.

Spoiler: Randuir - Gruul Ascendancy

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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.

The interesting thing here is that you can kill planeswalkers and still 'damage' your opponent. However, it feels underwhelming. 3 mana is a lot to be paying for trample and haste, and the win effect is somewhat redundant given that if you did 20 damage to your opponent you often already won. Looks like it compares pretty badly to Rhythm of the Wild.

Spoiler: Necroticplague = Nakaya Verge

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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.

The fact that this is extending mana ramp into non green colours is a bit worrying, but it's also slow enough that it's only really relevant for very controlling decks. Needs a rarity.

Spoiler: mystic1110 - Corpse-Nail Zubera

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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

I guess I can't judge the activation condition for being clunky and awkward if the cycle you're completing keys off it. The two cards in this cycle already mirror the Boon cycle (it's pretty difficult to call Bolt and Recall equivalent by any other metric) so you've broken the consistency there, but at the same time none of the other Boons would make sense which probably is why they didn't complete the cycle initially.
This is probably on a similar power level to the draw 3 but much stronger than the Bolt.

Spoiler: Bucky - Quargpool

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Quargpool
Basic Land - Quargpool (Basic Land rarity)
Violet is a color with {V} as its mana symbol. (Only while a Quargpool is on the battlefield)
Quargpool is a basic land type with "{T}: add {V} to your mana pool."

It's an interesting idea which is pretty much a Domain enabler, but doesn't do anything on its own beyond that. If you intend for Violet to do things on its own, what would those things be? Not sure what this really would do mechanically without more context.

Spoiler: ben-zayb - Maximize Danger

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

Seems reasonable but pretty much directly worse than Maximize Altitude, though Black has more discard synergy it also has less spells-matter effects.

Spoiler: TurboGhast - Scepter of Ruin

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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

Seems pretty weak compared to existing Scepters. Pingers are pretty good in limited, though. I'd up the cost a bit and have it deal 2.

Spoiler: Mythmonster2 - Unity

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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

Vigilance is a solid keyword to give to your team, and it's very green/white. Note that G and W already have more Incarnations than the rest of the colours, because of Glory and Genesis.

Spoiler: Personification- Line of Defense

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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.

Seems like a fair effect, although I don't know if it would get copied often, especially since damage prevention is a lot less universally useful than the other effects with this mechanic.

Spoiler: Quiddle - Incremental Frost

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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.

I like the idea, but it's a bit odd as an enchantment. In particular, this gets a lot weaker in multiples because you lose counters twice as fast.

Spoiler: Tom the Mime - Finale of Annihilation

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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.

Seems very difficult to make actually useful for less than 10. I fyou put 12 mana into a thing like this you could just be casting Finale of Devastation or entwined Tooth and Nail. I don't think this would be good anywhere.

Spoiler: Comissar - Eldritch Force

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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.

This effect is nowhere near as consistent as the other Forces but much more powerful when it happens. The fact that if you get a big card on top in your turn you can leave it there and get multiple exiles jacks up the power. Having to choose whether to mill before you reveal the card has potential to lead to some real feel bad moments.

Spoiler: sgt.cookie - Oath of Angrath

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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."

I think it's odd that the effect is very similar to Oath of Liliana (and possibly weaker, if the opponent has Treasures etc) but costs more mana.
The backlash damage is good, but I'm not sure it's stronger than Oath of Kaya since planeswalker focused decks that can afford to spend 4 mana on this are more likely to be defensive (and want the lifegain) than offensive (and want the higher damage).

Spoiler: and the winner is...

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Misothene with Creeping Dementia

[mystic1110]

Not sure what this effect is completing a cycle of. Zuberas care about the number of Zuberas that died this turn. The effect is interesting but it's pretty difficult to pull off and pretty much requires your opponent to let you do so.

You are referring to the common cycle of Zuberas. There were also two uncommon Zuberas of which my card was to complete a cycle. I matched their wording and power level: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&subtype=+[zubera]&cmc=+=[4]

[Carl]

Created a new general card creation thread for non-contest card building, thought i'd post a link.

Will probably take part in the next contest assuming it's one i can find the right inspiration for.

[Ninjaman]

You are referring to the common cycle of Zuberas. There were also two uncommon Zuberas of which my card was to complete a cycle. I matched their wording and power level: https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&subtype=+[zubera]&cmc=+=[4]

And yet you didn't make it Dark Ritual

[Gauntlet]

Post above edited and completed.

[Misothene]

Thanks for the win! The card could probably stand to cost just B to make it easier to hardcast on the opponent's last card.

Next challenge: Colored artifacts!

For the purposes of this challenge, I am looking for the card type artifact and colored mana in the mana cost- I recognize there are other ways to make an artifact with a color, but that's what I'd like to see your ideas on.

[LaZodiac]

Amulet of Aclazotz 2B
Legendary Artifact
{T}: Add B
1B: Target creature becomes a 1/1 black Bat with Flying and Deathtouch until end of turn.
Aclazotz blessing marks his servants for death. They fly with reckless abandon, spreading the fell demon's influence across the island.

[Laughing Dog]

Armaments of the Gods WUBRG
Legendary Enchantment Artifact- Aura Equipment MR
Enchant Creature
Enchanted Creature has "Creatures you control have +X/+X, where X is the number of other creatures you control that don't share a color with that creature."
Equipped creature get +X/+X where X is the number of other creatures you control that don't share a color with the equipped creature.
Equip WUBRG

[Dr.Gunsforhands]

Spoiler: Lazotep Wargear, Controversial Edition

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Lazotep Wargear - B
Artifact - Equipment R
Whenever Lazotep Wargear becomes detached from a creature, exile that creature. If a creature equipped with Lazotep Wargear would die, exile it instead.
Equipped creature gets +2/+2.
Equip 2
6BB: Return target creature card from a graveyard to the battlefield under your control. Attach Lazotep Wargear to that creature.

(I'm working on a redesign, post should appear later in the thread.)

[Carl]

Spoiler: Slave Collar Stockpile

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General notes: Actually somthing i've slid into and inspired by a larger grouping of cards i'm working on, so i admit some of the balancing is being influenced by that. Overall though red has more ways to exile cards than black does whilst blck does it much more from the graveyard. You could also obviously fit this into a B/R/W deck too. The idea is mainly to use it to copy permanents with enters the battlefield, activated, or triggered abilities that can take advantage of it. Though in theory you could also use it to provide permanents to fuel other things.