phazedplasma
Member
really? even with all the colorless ramp? I think that will see play.
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Magic: the Gathering - Battle for Zendikar |OT| Lands matter (but nothing else does)
- Thread starter SigmasonicX
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really? even with all the colorless ramp? I think that will see play.
There's also Unknown Shores and Crumbling Vestige at common, so four common lands that produce colorless mana. Wastes are the fallback plan unless you have something that cares about basic lands. Wondering if Terramorphic Expanse / Wilds will show up in the Gatewatch boosters.
Etrian Oddity
Member
|OT| Diamonds are forever (and so is Jace)
Wulfric
Member
Played against Affinity, Living End, and Merfolk at last night's modern FNM. Abzan aggro just isn't fast enough to deal with those decks. 
Not to mention the prize support is awful (pack per win for $5 entry), so it's not even worth buying into a different deck. I just want to win a little more often. I have most of the WGB staples excluding Lili and Goyf.
Not to mention the prize support is awful (pack per win for $5 entry), so it's not even worth buying into a different deck. I just want to win a little more often. I have most of the WGB staples excluding Lili and Goyf.
Played against Affinity, Living End, and Merfolk at last night's modern FNM. Abzan aggro just isn't fast enough to deal with those decks.
Not to mention the prize support is awful (pack per win for $5 entry), so it's not even worth buying into a different deck. I just want to win a little more often. I have most of the WGB staples excluding Lili and Goyf.
What does your list look like?
Giant Panda
Member
Playing against 8-Rack with Loxodon Smiters and Wilt-leaf lieges felt really good last night. I got to attack with a Smiter on my turn one, which was probably the highlight for me.
SigmasonicX
Member
Working on a custom magic set, here's some preview cards of a mechanic I'm working on:
Ignoring that fact that there might be some layers issues with it being a static ability, I think you have to keep in mind what kind of gameplay you want from these cards. Do you really think it makes for better gameplay if that first creature doesn't have trample if you activate its ability twice? Is there really any merit to the second creature having balance instead of adding "haste until end of turn" to the ETB ability? Are you sure you want to discourage non-instant power boosting for the legendary creature?
I'm not sure that making balance a static ability on creatures looking at themselves is a good thing. If you want square stats to matter, perhaps you could change balance to "If you control a creature with power equal to its toughness" or "If the total power and total toughness of creatures you control are equal".
Looking at it out of context, sure. There will be enchantments/artifacts that look at Balance creatures and give them more benefits. It's a voltron-type keyword, where other things will benefit from seeing it active on creatures. Balance looking at itself on these creatures to get the job done quick is totally red in my eyes.
And I totally believe yes that if you pump Strikeclaw once and make it trample is fine, considering that if you pump it afterward with straight pump it still has trample. By itself however, it will either be a huge attacker without trample, or a 2/2 with. Balanced, imo.
Raketalon gaining haste is just so he's a limited bomb. I may change the haste and give it to him naturally, however. Perhaps Haste naturally and first strike for balance.
With the balance creatures, I want to encourage play of -X/-0 cards, and slight shifts in power/toughness to "throw them off balance".
And I totally believe yes that if you pump Strikeclaw once and make it trample is fine, considering that if you pump it afterward with straight pump it still has trample. By itself however, it will either be a huge attacker without trample, or a 2/2 with. Balanced, imo.
Raketalon gaining haste is just so he's a limited bomb. I may change the haste and give it to him naturally, however. Perhaps Haste naturally and first strike for balance.
With the balance creatures, I want to encourage play of -X/-0 cards, and slight shifts in power/toughness to "throw them off balance".
acheron_xl
Member
Working on a custom magic set, here's some preview cards of a mechanic I'm working on:
That guy looks like a guy in my set!
As for the mechanic - I like how it's implemented on the common. Big fan of making a card that can exploit it's own mechanic to cut down on parasitism.
charlequin
Banned
I don't think there's actually a way to make this work in the rules. You're either stuck with something ponderous and awful like "When ~ attacks, if its power is less than its toughness, it gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is equal to its toughness minus its power" or else you have to set its base stats ("~ has base power and toughness 5/5 until end of turn") and hope that squares it off.
I think this mechanic is nifty conceptually but it feels to me like it's probably too narrow to get it working without a lot of gimmicky designs. Is it really important that it represent balance? I think you could turn this into "if its power is greater than its toughness" and have a more flexible (and more red-feeling) mechanic.
Wulfric
Member
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-03-15-junk-yard/
The deck is based off Jacob Wilson's Pro Tour FRF deck, so it's a little dated. It's a solid deck, but going 1-2 or 0-3 every night is getting a little old. I also have 3 Dark Confidants to use, but no copies of Verdant Catacombs or Horizon Canopy.
acheron_xl
Member
Me too. Had a good run with the Legendary Cube, but I'm fucking atrocious in Vintage Cube.
I love drafting vintage cube, but I just flub when playing out the games.
I do love the variance though especially compared to the legendary cube.
In the first round I played against a u/w balance stax deck with crucible of worlds and armageddon (I played horribly but still won narrowly)
The second round I played against mono blue high tide storm (somehow won vs 24 goblin tokens in play.)
The final I played against Eureka of all things! (too bad for him I had blightsteel colossus in hand twice.)
I do love the variance though especially compared to the legendary cube.
In the first round I played against a u/w balance stax deck with crucible of worlds and armageddon (I played horribly but still won narrowly)
The second round I played against mono blue high tide storm (somehow won vs 24 goblin tokens in play.)
The final I played against Eureka of all things! (too bad for him I had blightsteel colossus in hand twice.)
Wulfric
Member
Think the deck would work without Tarmogoyf and Liliana? Spending close to a grand for a few cards isn't really an option for me.
Ah there's the rub, the mechanic is actually bleeding into the other colors from White in my set. So it's actually unusual that red gets this (it's a small amount of red that does) at all to be sure.
And I'm sure I can bend the rules a bit to make that seem less clunky by the wording. It basically makes you benefit if you attack first, he pumps himself into Balance territory, then you pump him.
As an insight to the flavor of the set, I have some uncommon cards that get better if you cast them for WW.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I swear Bobby Nixon has to be the most underrated card in Standard. I'm winning with this dude in my control deck fucking constantly. It's not even questionable that he's better than Dragonlord Silumgar in every real way since there's so few reliable ways to kill Planeswalkers.
I had a guy Infinite Obliterate all 4 of my Dragonlord Ojutai and still won the game handily with an Ob Nixilis token and frustratingly annoying Shambling Vent.
Tarmogoyf and Liliana are the reasons to play the deck.
I had a guy Infinite Obliterate all 4 of my Dragonlord Ojutai and still won the game handily with an Ob Nixilis token and frustratingly annoying Shambling Vent.
Tarmogoyf and Liliana are the reasons to play the deck.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Maybe I'm crazy dude, but a 3/3 with upside for WW is overpowered.
hmm, I was thinking 1WW then. I initially had it at WWW.
SigmasonicX
Member
I find the white focus of the set odd, but you aren't restricted by Wizards' drafting rules.
Anyway, besides what Grimace mentioned, it's odd that the black part of the cycle gives deathtouch. It'd be better if the black one had lifelink, the green one had vigilance, and the blue one had flying.
Anyway, besides what Grimace mentioned, it's odd that the black part of the cycle gives deathtouch. It'd be better if the black one had lifelink, the green one had vigilance, and the blue one had flying.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The problematic thing is thing is that there isn't any reason to play the normal casting cost. They're just Grizzly Bears.
I've gotten my Tiny Cube to the point where I'm almost ready to build it in paper. Trying to get as much feedback as I can beforehand.
http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/42074
http://www.cubetutor.com/draft/42074
A Serious Man
Member
These are more interesting if they have first strike, vigilance, etc. if they don't have a +1/+1 counter on them.
So you're saying, small with abilities, large with +1/+1s instead, so you can choose bigger body over abilities?
Why is Spider Spawning there, am I missing something?
Not a huge fan of off-colour Kicker/Flashback costs being slotted as monocoloured card but that's OCD speaking.
Yes - right now there's no choice involved. You run them in a mono-white deck, or you don't run them at all,. By putting a choice in the design, it gives the player options and enables them to be used in either mono-white deck or in the original choice colours.
One thing I would also suggest re card design - don't use "out of border" designs on common cards like that. They look cool on individual cards, but at common level will be seen a lot of will detract from the overall coherence of a set visually. I'd save that stuff for rare, big hitting cards. It's wasted on a cycle of bears.
acheron_xl
Member
Also, be very careful that you aren't breaking the color pie. I have colorless creatures in my set, as well as creatures that are colored, but can be cast with entirely off-color mana (thanks to the twobrid). Designing them was like walking a tightrope. The first version of Messenger to Wilfurn, where playing it with white mana gives it deathtouch is something I'd try to avoid. The version with lifelink is much more in-line with the pie. But then, designing a cycle based around one color, and not snapping the color pie in half doing so is setting yourself up for a lot of repetition in mechanics.
And I'll echo Maledict that the M15 Clear frame seems like an odd choice for those. I'd be tempted, were it my set, to have an appropriately colored frame, but the trim would be white (which you can do with the M15 Extra template). A custom frame of sorts would probably be ideal, but they don't grow on trees.
Human error. Don't know how I missed that.
charlequin
Banned
I know Magic has one of the most impressive creative outfits in hobby gaming and they certainly do a great job world-building in general so don't take this as a comprehensive critique, but the choice to absolutely bar anything even a little bit goofy is so irritating. Rosewater's talking today about how they can't make Atogs now because their design is "too silly" and so if they were going to bring them back it'd have to be with a brand-new look (which I'm sure would be just as stunning a success as the M14 "slivers.") It's so absurd that this element that was so foundational to the game (whose early aesthetic was practically defined by this interweaving of serious and elegant fantasy with lighter, sillier elements) is still considered off-limits.
WotC has certainly softened on this overall from the "magepunk" era of spiky outfits and the banning of "girly" creatures like unicorns, but it still feels like this entirely unnecessary tryhard seriousness a lot of the time.
WotC has certainly softened on this overall from the "magepunk" era of spiky outfits and the banning of "girly" creatures like unicorns, but it still feels like this entirely unnecessary tryhard seriousness a lot of the time.
GregLombardi
Member
Couldn't agree more. They are definitely taking themselves too seriously and could use a bit of humor...the early game was rife with ridiculousness...and they think that is something they should have removed? Or something that didn't resonate well with people like me that have played since 94? Some of the greatest cards in magic history are silly...Polar Kraken & Leviathan come to mind as cards that were both made fun of AND increased latent interest in magic itself.
Which would be all well and good if I didn't want to emphasize that these cards are the first, a preview, a message of what's to come.
Interesting, I've got another better design then if you think it works this way:
I love this. I'm not beholden to WOTC's design paradigms. I can make whatever design choices I desire befits the story and mechanics I'm trying to convey, meaning I can try to help players interpret the feel I'm going for.
keeblerdrow
Member
There's actually an entire subreddit for this stuff. That would be a large audience for you to bounce stuff off of. https://www.reddit.com/r/custommagic/
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
There will be a backlash, eventually. We just have to ride out the grimdark storm.
SigmasonicX
Member
Let's look back at this older Blogatog post. This is from when he answered questions Jeopardy style, providing questions to answers.
Out of black discard spells that will be in the new Standard and currently see play, Duress and Kolaghan's Command discard, but Transgress the Mind exiles.
There are a decent number of cards in the new Standard that allow you to discard a card (not necessarily ones that see play), including Jace, Avaricious Dragon, Erebos's Titan, Liliana, Macabre Waltz, Tormenting Voice, and most notably, the middle ability of the leaked Chandra card.
And flavorwise, if the story really is about angels and other things going mad and attacking people, then madness seems like a good fit, especially if Emrakul is involved.
This was posted in April 2015, so this is referring to Shadows over Innistrad. My guess is that the mechanic in question is madness.
Out of black discard spells that will be in the new Standard and currently see play, Duress and Kolaghan's Command discard, but Transgress the Mind exiles.
There are a decent number of cards in the new Standard that allow you to discard a card (not necessarily ones that see play), including Jace, Avaricious Dragon, Erebos's Titan, Liliana, Macabre Waltz, Tormenting Voice, and most notably, the middle ability of the leaked Chandra card.
And flavorwise, if the story really is about angels and other things going mad and attacking people, then madness seems like a good fit, especially if Emrakul is involved.
acheron_xl
Member
Grave Scrabbler reprint incoming.
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Madness is a pretty dumb mechanic that just so happens to have a flavorful name: http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/7
GoutPatrol
Forgotten in his cell
I agree. Fire Creative and salt the earth on which it stood.
Madness is amazing, it's tech against hand attack and just so happens to fuel cards that make you want to discard to get more benefits. I like the design space.
Already way ahead of you, but more eyes are better than some eyes.
Already way ahead of you, but more eyes are better than some eyes.
I had only returned to the game for a month at this point, and I nearly got thrown out of a WOTC store because I got in a screaming match with a judge because of the "play a land" loophole in Madness that I just couldn't fathom being a real thing. I'm really thankful they closed this loophole in 2006, but in an era where Shroud can't exist because it's too complicated/inelegent for new players, the fuck are they doing bringing back Madness?
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