MTG Share your Card Designs II

[Ninjaman]

Sure and right now the meme is Elk, Elk, Elk. Do you think everything is fine right now?

If a thing escalates to a point of a meme, I would hazard a guess, that yeah maybe, just maybe R&D ****ed up somewhere along the way.

But you would argue for Oko being broken with arguments, not with elk memes. I'm not saying you are wrong because you use memes, I'm saying it doesn't help your case.

Yeah. But hand disruption is slow and generally inefficient. And it can't account for topdecks, while counters can. Saying counters and hand disruption can be compared is just untrue. There is a reason why Blue was a powerful color in old times, and counters are a huge part of this (there were also draws).

It's not as universal an answer, and it's not a perfect answer, but it is an answer.

Ah yes, the low power level formats that are known as Modern, Vintage and Legacy. He's already part of the meta decks.

Well I stand corrected. I knew he was powerful but I did not expect him to see this much play in those formats.

Slap a 10 CMC (e.g. 9W) on sorcery and says it destroy a permanent and no color would play it. Hell even a 5 CMC is a hard sell for many colors.

I never said it would be good, but:
Burn it! - RRRRRRRRRR
Sorcery - M
Destroy target enchantment.

This card is still breaking the color pie, no matter how awful it is.

My point is that green was able to destroy enchantments very early in the game's development. It's a bad example. Fight would be much better.

True, but they said it too was a color bleed. And it's legal in Commander, Legacy and Vintage.

Yes, it is color bleed.

Maro himself presided over Oko, the Elk of Elks. Your point?

The fact that Maro didn't catch the broken powerlevel of a card doesn't mean that what he says about the color pie isn't relevant.

Imprisoned in the Wall - 1W
Artifact
When ~ enters the battlefield exile target creature you control until ~ leaves the battlefield.
T: Add W

I guess that they don't print 2 mana manarocks anymore, so it might be okay with a good etb 1-drop, Thraben Inspector comes to mind.
It needs to be worded so it's not just without downside if you don't have a creature.
Outside of shenanigans it seems bad.

Master Armorer - 1W
Creature - Kor Soldier - R
Vigilance
T: Add CC. Spend this mana only to cast equipment spells and pay for activated abilities of equipment.
2/2

Boros Recruiter - 1W
Creature - Human Soldier - W
Whenenver Boros Recruiter attacks, add WW. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells with converted mana cost 2 or less.
2/1

Lifestone - 2
Artifact - U
T: Gain 1 life.
T: Add W. Use this ability only if you gained life this turn.

Treasurer - 1W
Creature - Human Noble - R
Whenever the first non-token creature enters the battlefield under your control this turn, create a Treasure token.
1/2

[-D-]

But you would argue for Oko being broken with arguments, not with elk memes. I'm not saying you are wrong because you use memes, I'm saying it doesn't help your case.

I don't know the history of Vintage Magic that well. I started playing relatively late, around time Fatal Push that was Aether Revolt I believe.

The fact that Maro didn't catch the broken power level of a card doesn't mean that what he says about the color pie isn't relevant.

It's meant to demonstrate Maro isn't the Holy Father, and that he can be wrong.
Does it mean he is wrong always? No.
Does it mean he is wrong in this instance? My opinion is that he is.
And I'm willing to question the Color Pie, by adding breaks here and there.

It needs to be worded so it's not just without downside if you don't have a creature.

Ah, crud.

Would this work?

Imprisoned In The Wall - 1W
Artifact - Uncommon
When ~ enters the battlefield exile target nontoken creature you control until ~ leaves the battlefield.
T: Add W. Activate this ability only if a card is exiled with ~.

Master Armorer - 1W
Creature - Kor Soldier - R
Vigilance
T: Add CC. Spend this mana only to cast equipment spells and pay for activated abilities of equipment.
2/2

Boros Recruiter - 1W
Creature - Human Soldier - W
Whenever Boros Recruiter attacks, add WW. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells with converted mana cost 2 or less.
2/1

Lifestone - 2
Artifact - U
T: Gain 1 life.
T: Add W. Use this ability only if you gained life this turn.

Treasurer - 1W
Creature - Human Noble - R
Whenever the first non-token creature enters the battlefield under your control this turn, create a Treasure token.
1/2

You know, I like all of these cards.

My nitpicks are:

• That there should be an Aura or Enchantment version of Master Armorer.
• Boros Recruiter doesn't produce RW - Admittedly it's a flavor nitpick
• What does W stand for in "Creature - Human Soldier - W" (from Boros Recruiter). Common?

[Androgeus]

Why are people discussing Maro in relation to the actual power level? Vision/set design has very little to do with the power and balancing of cards. That’s play design’s job.

Boros Recruiter - 1W
Creature - Human Soldier - W
Whenenver Boros Recruiter attacks, add WW. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells with converted mana cost 2 or less.
2/1

Is this meant to only be useful for flash creatures? Or does it want to say something like ‘at the beginning of your post combat step, if ~ attacked this turn....’

Here’s my lazy 5 minute white mana ramp idea.

Spears to Pruning Hooks 1W
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature has base power and toughness 0/1 and has “{t}: add {W}”, and it loses all other abilities.

[noob]

Why are people discussing Maro in relation to the actual power level? Vision/set design has very little to do with the power and balancing of cards. That’s play design’s job.



Is this meant to only be useful for flash creatures? Or does it want to say something like ‘at the beginning of your post combat step, if ~ attacked this turn....’

Here’s my lazy 5 minute white mana ramp idea.

Spears to Pruning Hooks 1W
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature has base power and toughness 0/1 and has “{t}: add {W}”, and it loses all other abilities.

All the suggested white mana producers here are so much vastly inferior to paradise mantle(which is colourless and also cheaper and also does not gets rid of the creature nor weakens it and can also make mana of any colour) that it just looks weird.

[Androgeus]

All the suggested white mana producers here are so much vastly inferior to paradise mantle(which is colourless and also cheaper and also does not gets rid of the creature nor weakens it and can also make mana of any colour) that it just looks weird.

Comparing it only to paradise mantle misses one of the this the card can do. It’s basically a hybrid Arrest/Darksteel Mutation and Path to Exile. Maybe should have let the enchanted’s controller choose the colour it adds when it etbs, but I was being lazy. It should probably cost WW seeing as loosing abilities is better than just not activating abilities.

[Gauntlet]

It's meant to demonstrate Maro isn't the Holy Father, and that he can be wrong.
Does it mean he is wrong always? No.
Does it mean he is wrong in this instance? My opinion is that he is.
And I'm willing to question the Color Pie, by adding breaks here and there.

Just FYI, MaRo's job is to design cards, not to balance them - that's the job of the Play Design team. Making sure cards are at an appropriate power level is not actually part of his responsibilities, while dealing with the colour pie and making mechanics / rules that work appropriately within the colours is.

[Ninjaman]

It's meant to demonstrate Maro isn't the Holy Father, and that he can be wrong.
Does it mean he is wrong always? No.
Does it mean he is wrong in this instance? My opinion is that he is.
And I'm willing to question the Color Pie, by adding breaks here and there.

But you're trying to demonstrate that he can be wrong in one regard by showing that he is wrong in a completely different regard.

Imprisoned In The Wall - 1W
Artifact - Uncommon
When ~ enters the battlefield exile target nontoken creature you control until ~ leaves the battlefield.
T: Add W. Activate this ability only if a card is exiled with ~.

You could do something like:
As Imprisoned in the Wall enters the battlefield, exile it or a creature you control.

You know, I like all of these cards.

My nitpicks are:

• That there should be an Aura or Enchantment version of Master Armorer.
• Boros Recruiter doesn't produce RW - Admittedly it's a flavor nitpick
• What does W stand for in "Creature - Human Soldier - W" (from Boros Recruiter). Common?

You could probably do the same thing with Auras or Enchantments.
Boros Recruiter was supposed to be Wojek Recruiter, but I forgot what Wojek was called. It could be any other faction of whatever plane it would be on.
That's a typo, it should be R.

Why are people discussing Maro in relation to the actual power level? Vision/set design has very little to do with the power and balancing of cards. That’s play design’s job.

That's a good point.

Is this meant to only be useful for flash creatures? Or does it want to say something like ‘at the beginning of your post combat step, if ~ attacked this turn....’

There was meant to be a "doesn't empty from your mana pool" clause, but it might be right to trigger post combat instead.

Here’s my lazy 5 minute white mana ramp idea.

Spears to Pruning Hooks 1W
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature has base power and toughness 0/1 and has “{t}: add {W}”, and it loses all other abilities.

It's two bad halves, but it's very flexible.
I think I would like it better if it made it into a plains.

Calatine Chanter - 2WW
Creature - Human Cleric - R
At the beginning of your postcombat mainphase add W for each creature that attacked this combat.

I sadly think it's more red.

[-D-]

Just FYI, MaRo's job is to design cards, not to balance them - that's the job of the Play Design team. Making sure cards are at an appropriate power level is not actually part of his responsibilities, while dealing with the colour pie and making mechanics / rules that work appropriately within the colours is.

Right, so if GDS participant designs this card:

Best Boi - R
Instant - Mythic
Deal 10 damage to a player.

that's broken, and you're supposed to just let him pass because he isn't Play Design?


Play Design may stop some mistakes, but a 3CMC planeswalker with two + abilities, one of which is removal, didn't raise eyebrows
To be fair, maybe they did design him... To sell packs. That seems the only logical answer. Either that or they have employed Howler Monkeys as Play Design, and Maro is OK with that.

[Ninjaman]

Play Design may stop some mistakes, but a 3CMC planeswalker with two + abilities, one of which is removal, didn't raise eyebrows
To be fair, maybe they did design him... To sell packs. That seems the only logical answer. Either that or they have employed Howler Monkeys as Play Design, and Maro is OK with that.

How do you know he was originally CMC 3? How do you know he originally had two + abilities?

[-D-]

How do you know he was originally CMC 3? How do you know he originally had two + abilities?

I'm discussing the end result. I mean a 3CMC walker is Modern level playable. A two + ability walker is super strong. And a quasi removal is on a + ? There is a forest of warning signs.

Was Play Design asleep at the wheel? Did they forget to feed them or did they feed PD after midnight, causing the PD to turn into Howler Monkeys?

One way or another I'm fairly certain lead designer is the one in charge of overseeing it. Whether this is incompetence or malice, time will tell. Overall, I suspect incompetence, but I don't discount greed.

[Morphic tide]

Remember, this is the company that thought a Toughness reduction on an Equipment with a powerful on-death trigger was a downside. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest that Oko was broken because they literally didn't think of the Elkening as removal. They've also gone on record as having completely lost track of why they balanced a card a certain way, resulting in Siege Rhino, which was supposed to counteract something they wound up axing and they just never removed the abilities in question that no longer had a competing mechanic to balance them out.

There's a very real possibility they'd started with Broko being 3 mana, with the experience of War of the Spark 3-mana 'Walkers being overwhelmingly played and intending Broko to be a universal inclusion in Simic Food, as a result of Blue Artifact + Green Food, and proceeded to end up breaking him with simultaneously increasing his starting Loyalty and increasing his Loyalty generation somewhere along the line.

Perhaps the intended outcome was that you wouldn't be using the Elkening as constant removal because they weren't expecting people to be easily defending from that stream of 3/3s, but lost track of token generation, ramp totals and the overall commonality of bigger creatures and greater threats that negated that bit of design by having the 3/3 Elk be an easily-dealt-with result and less of an issue than what you turned it into from.

---

Also, I second the on-attack mana needing to be RW, if not RR, and it doesn't work as intended because the mana occurs upon declaring the attack, so the Flash creatures it goes with (because the mana leaves the pool as the declare-attackers step ends) won't be able to do any attacks. The extreme narrowness of when you can spend it and lack of ambush access means it can get away with not being restricted to CMC 2 or less, as you can only use it on Flash creatures, vastly preferably with Haste, which is a very narrow selection. Lastly, the hardcore aggression of it and lack of defensiveness means it isn't a good fit in White in the slightest Combining these issues and fixes for them:

Boros Recruiter 1w
Creature - Human Soldier
At the beginning of each combat phase, add RW. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells.
2/1

---

I'm still uncomfortable with this, though that's because this sort of mana (situational and/or temporary ramp) is actually in Red's color pie as recently as Eldrain with Irencreg Feat, so the continued color pie bend has less justification. I'd prefer the effect be "At the beginning of each combat phase, add R. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells, and creatures cast with this mana cost W less". Discounts seem to be fine in any color, as long as what they're discounting is in-color to cast easier. It's also innately more restrictable than adding mana, as one can easily exclude generic or colored costs as desired by having it be inapplicable discounts, and even discount colorless-specific costs like Eldrazi without affecting generic costs.

However, the usage of highly specific ramp in replacement of limited-use discounts can be more clear and usable, as mana does clear out of pools as steps and phases end, while you can still keep to firmly on-color effects. For an example of this style of color pie bend:

Response Procedure wwuu
Enchantment
Spells cast when the player who cast them would not be able to cast a sorcery cost 1 more. Whenever a spell's cost is increased this way, add U to your mana pool.

In effect, this discounts Blue instants cast in response to a greater number of enemy instants, but as it emulates this effect with adding mana (also breaking the symmetry of the tax if you have something else to spend that mana on), it naturally constrains the overall discount to same-phase, without additional wording.

[Tvtyrant]

Spike, the Hateful- 1RW
Planewalker-M
+1: Destroy target artifact.
-2: exile all cards from all graveyards.
-5: Put an emblem in play. It says "all
lands lose all abilities except mana abilities."
3 loyalty

[PhantasyPen]

These are all based on a former PC of mine in a past D&D game.

[Androgeus]

First ability probably wants the restriction to be if he hasn’t activated a loyalty ability since you last upkeep rather than just once per turn.
Is the second ability exiling a card from anywhere or is it just an o ring effect?

Red counterspell? No. would be fine costed as ~ RRUU though (see Esscence Backlash)

What is this? A effect that only last the turn? Then it should be an instant or sorcery. An aura? Then it should have the sub type and enchant creature. A recurring effect that you can change each upkeep? Then it needs an actual trigger condition, like “at the beginning of each upkeep”.

Also your mana costs are written backwards. It’s not important but I don’t really understand how you can get that wrong when every card has it written in the same order.

[-D-]

The problem with this planeswalker is that it's busted in multiplayer games. In a four-player matchup, he starts at 6 and you use his abilities each turn, getting him to 10 on your next turn. Also, he has two + loyalty abilities. That's powerful and you should be wary of such planeswalkers. I think it might be better if one of his first two abilities was a -1. Probably his second.

Sadly red doesn't get counters anymore. Blue is the only color that can counter now.

This needs to either be an aura or one turn effect via sorcery/instant.

Also your mana costs are written backward. It’s not important but I don’t understand how you can get that wrong when every card has it written in the same order.

Honestly, why bother learning this? I recommend for PhantasyPen to get Magic Set Editor and it will automagically correct the prices.

[Ninjaman]

Sadly red doesn't get counters anymore. Blue is the only color that can counter now.

The only stuff red ever countered was blue stuff and artifacts.

[-D-]

The only stuff red ever countered was blue stuff and artifacts.

Oh, right. I didn't notice it counters any spell.

-----------

Thoughts on following land:

Ancestral Church
Land
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may pay 2, if you do draw a card.
T: Add W, B or G

What would you rate this card as broken, uncommon or rare?

[Ninjaman]

Thoughts on following land:

Ancestral Church
Land
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may pay 2, if you do draw a card.
T: Add W, B or G

What would you rate this card as broken, uncommon or rare?

Completely bonkers.

It could only tap for colorless and I still wouldn't think a land that cantrips was a good idea.

[-D-]

Completely bonkers.

It could only tap for colorless and I still wouldn't think a land that cantrips was a good idea.

Interesting reaction. People on Discord thought it was good.

Second, could you explain why?

I thought 2 mana would be a fair price for card draw. But I might have underestimated the bundling effect.

Lastly. Would it work better if it was a draw and discard a card?

[Ninjaman]

Interesting reaction. People on Discord thought it was good.

Second, could you explain why?

I thought 2 mana would be a fair price for card draw. But I might have underestimated the bundling effect.

Oh sorry, I read it wrong. I thought it said pay 2 life. If it's pay 2 mana then unless you have a dork you can't get the draw before turn 3, and that's all really bad.
It's really bad early game, but quite good late game, though you might not need the land that much by then.
Tapped trilands did see standard play though, so I would probably keep these at two colors.

[Tvtyrant]

Interesting reaction. People on Discord thought it was good.

Second, could you explain why?

I thought 2 mana would be a fair price for card draw. But I might have underestimated the bundling effect.

Lastly. Would it work better if it was a draw and discard a card?

Lands can draw cards, but it should cost 4 or 5 mana. Arch of Orzaca is 5 mana but can be used repeatedly, I think 4 is right.

[-D-]

Lands can draw cards, but it should cost 4 or 5 mana. Arch of Orzaca is 5 mana but can be used repeatedly, I think 4 is right.

Yeah, but keep in mind that Arch enters untapped, effect is repeatable and instant speed.

Land I made is worse in all the other aspects.

[Ninjaman]

Yeah, but keep in mind that Arch enters untapped, effect is repeatable and instant speed.

Land I made is worse in all the other aspects.

I don't think it needs to be 4 mana, but you're really underplaying that your land tri-fixes.

[-D-]

I don't think it needs to be 4 mana, but you're really underplaying that your land tri-fixes.

I'm not saying the ability couldn't cost more or that I will leave it on a tri land. But tri-land that enters tapped isn't powerful enough for Modern. It's too slow.

[Ninjaman]

I'm not saying the ability couldn't cost more or that I will leave it on a tri land. But tri-land that enters tapped isn't powerful enough for Modern. It's too slow.

I never said they weren't.

I did, however point out that the tapped trilands saw play in standard, so you probably don't want to equip them with a very relevant upside.

[Androgeus]

Would the bi-cycle lands (Irrigated Farmland ect) be a good reference point for these? For no land types which is a big thing to lose you get and extra colour an you can cycle it ‘into play’.

[Ninjaman]

Would the bi-cycle lands (Irrigated Farmland ect) be a good reference point for these? For no land types which is a big thing to lose you get and extra colour an you can cycle it ‘into play’.

Losing land types is rough, but gaining a color is a big plus. The difference between cycling and cantripping is that cycling is neutral, while these lands provide card advantage.

[-D-]

Thoughts on this land:

Secret Laboratory
Land - Common
CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped unless you pay U/B.
T: Add U or B.

[Tvtyrant]

Thoughts on this land:

Secret Laboratory
Land - Common
CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped unless you pay U/B.
T: Add U or B.

There is a land taps for all colors at common that enters untapped for <>. This is significantly worse.

At one point the pauper discord thought etb tapped, creates a <> when it etbs, tap for 2 colors would be fair.

[-D-]

There is a land taps for all colors at common that enters untapped for <>. This is significantly worse.

At one point the pauper discord thought etb tapped, creates a <> when it etbs, tap for 2 colors would be fair.

Hm. I couldn't find that land at common. Closest I found was Transguild Promenade and Survivors Encampment. First requires paying 1 or sacrificing it. Second taps a creature you control.

Pauper Discord is nuts. Tap for two colors is insane and requires some kind of sac or tempo reduction. There are lands that produce two mana, but they return a land to hand.