General Custom Cards: The Lab

[Velrun]

It's not easy getting all three land types in a single artwork Velrun, especially not since you're looking for a particular art style and existing art.

I didn’t say it was easy. I just wanted to help Chris with feedback. I also think these are fine. Not supreme but fine.

Edit: Was it the way I wrote it that made you (Onde and Jason) comment what you did? Maybe you read something between the lines that weren’t there?

 

[Jason Waddell]

I didn’t say it was easy. I just wanted to help Chris with feedback. I also think these are fine. Not supreme but fine.

Edit: Was it the way I wrote it that made you (Onde and Jason) comment what you did? Maybe you read something between the lines that weren’t there?

I'll engage here. I know you don't ever intend badly, but I think sometimes there are posts that lack a little finesse. Like, if I were to make those critiques, I would probably lead with something like:

"I think these look great Chris! If I had to nitpick, I'd say: Deepsea Triome doesn't look like a Mountain...".

Your post wasn't toxic or anything, but it only contained critique without balancing it out with any praise. So I (and maybe Onderzeeboot) felt drawn to post something to balance the discussion a bit. Because from Chris' perspective, he spent some time seeking out cohesive art and polishing it all up, and to have the only reaction he sees be 'this doesn't look like a mountain' is maybe a bit of a disservice to the effort put in.

 

[Velrun]

I'll engage here. I know you don't ever intend badly, but I think sometimes there are posts that lack a little finesse. Like, if I were to make those critiques, I would probably lead with something like:

"I think these look great Chris! If I had to nitpick, I'd say: Deepsea Triome doesn't look like a Mountain...".

Your post wasn't toxic or anything, but it only contained critique without balancing it out with any praise. So I (and maybe Onderzeeboot) felt drawn to post something to balance the discussion a bit. Because from Chris' perspective, he spent some time seeking out cohesive art and polishing it all up, and to have the only reaction he sees be 'this doesn't look like a mountain' is maybe a bit of a disservice to the effort put in.

But everything else was fine. I chose to only point him in the direction of things that he still needed
to work on.

Chris your cards look fine.

*Not need. It’s just a suggestion.*

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yeah, that's exactly it Jason. None of your points were invalid Velrun, but they were all points of critique, and they were worded in a very short and pointed manner, with no offerings of sympathy or a way forward. It fits most of the criteria of good constructive feedback, except two, I think. Let's start with the important one. Using the sandwich technique, that is flanking (or "sandwiching", hence the term) constructive feedback between two pieces of positive feedback and/or praise, helps make your post seem a lot friendlier to the recepient of your feedback. So, you know everything else was fine, but Chris (in this example) doesn't know you think that. It helps voicing that part of your opinion out loud, or in this case writing it out, to make the recepient of your constructive criticism more receptive to the criticism. Most humans are hardwired to immediately dismiss opinions that seem purely negative (even if they are constructive), and you can help shift that perspective by also including positive comments.

So, this sandwiching technique (also suggested in the link above, as the first point no less), is exactly what Jason is applying. He starts on a positive note: "I think these look great Chris!", then follows up with the constructive criticism: "If I had to nitpick, I'ld say: ...", and to wrap it up you could then end up on a positive note again, for example: "I hope you can find more fitting art in this style, because these really fit the style of the original borderless Triomes really well." Even if you don't go full sandwich mode, just starting on a positive note can take a bit of the edge off.

Another quality of good feedback is providing a way forward, in other words, giving specific recommendations how to improve. Like I said, your points of constructive criticism were very short, e.g. "Untamed Triome doesn’t look like a Forest." You can distill an opinion as the recepient of the criticism, namely that you think the art should feature a forest, but you can easily write a fuller sentence with some piece of advice on what to actually fix. For example: "Untamed Triome doesn't look like something that produces green mana, I think a more fitting art needs more prominent trees, or even a patch of forest." That gives Chris just that tiny bit more to go on if he agrees with your criticism.

That said, I didn't mean for my post to come off as negative towards you Velrun. I mainly tried to give a bit of counterbalance towards Chris, by pointing out the things I did like about the artworks you singled out. Sorry if it came off as unnecessarily hostile towards you!

 

[Chris Taylor]

Velrun your points are fair, and I wasn't offended here if that means anything.

My previous arts conveyed the 3 land types a bit better, but 100% did not fit with the other 5 triomes, so I'm trying this.

I only managed to find any because of this piece I had from old wasteland attempts. Half remembering it, I found the artist's page, and he had a few more landscapes in that style.

You BET I want ones that match closer. I'll even note that the bant one just has moss, which is a far cry from "Forest"
If y'all find more of this style let me know

 

[blacksmithy]

In Brushwagg’s Wake BG
Enchantment
At the beginning of your end step, each opponent sacrifices a nonland, non-Brushwagg permanent with the highest mana value among permanents they control.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you don’t control a Brushwagg, sacrifice In Brushwagg’s Wake.

 

[Zoss]

In Brushwagg’s Wake BG
Enchantment
At the beginning of your end step, each opponent sacrifices a nonland, non-Brushwagg permanent with the highest mana value among permanents they control.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you don’t control a Brushwagg, sacrifice In Brushwagg’s Wake.

Gotta make it cost BRUWGG to make it as close to BRU(SH)W(A)GG as possible, otherwise a fine card.

Genuinely, I kind of like this design space as an interesting expansion of tribal decks! Sure, Brushwaggs don't exactly need the support for Legacy/Vintage, but another, smaller tribe like Merfolk or Goblins might be able to use something like this. (/s)

 

[blacksmithy]

Gotta make it cost BRUWGG to make it as close to BRU(SH)W(A)GG as possible, otherwise a fine card.

Genuinely, I kind of like this design space as an interesting expansion of tribal decks! Sure, Brushwaggs don't exactly need the support for Legacy/Vintage, but another, smaller tribe like Merfolk or Goblins might be able to use something like this. (/s)

i honestly just wanted to make an enchantment that does an impression of Maelstrom Pulse for delirium purposes, but then the name came to me and i decided memeing would result in a cooler card overall without really changing how it played

 

[Zoss]

i honestly just wanted to make an enchantment that does an impression of Maelstrom Pulse for delirium purposes, but then the name came to me and i decided memeing would result in a cooler card overall without really changing how it played

Sorry, I kind of mixed the sarcasm with the serious--I genuinely like these sorts of staxy enchantments that can backfire horribly. Of course, this doesn't make you sacrifice anything, but I like the minigames that come along with rearranging the importance of various cards, like how this would suddenly make all Brushwaggs kill-on-sight.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Here's some one-off overlap cards I'd been tinkering with:

Tracker was supposed to be playable gemini engine, a rare card that provides sacrifice food and loves having +1/+1 counters, but the actual wording on that card is so dense I had to chop it down a bit.
The flavor is less here, maybe I just need to find existing art of Stangg (This dude looks like thanos and I can't unsee it) and make this a legend

Gesh is hopefully baseline strong enough to play and be nicer with artifacts
I don't run a lot of flicker, so I'm unsure of how much of Blade splicer's value is specifically in the first strike. I imagine not a ton

 

[blacksmithy]

I made a custom fetch/dual-esque manabase, but better, now with art and everything, and wanted to share. post 1/2

Spoiler

 

[blacksmithy]

post 2/2

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You are crazy and you know it

 

[blacksmithy]

i’m a simple man, i just want folks to be able to cast spells
EDIT: btw it was pretty fun trying to find/crop Bob Ross paintings to express stuff like “Island Swamp”
EDIT EDIT: after printing out 20 of these and posting them here i FINALLY noticed that i forgot the shuffle clause on Evolving Worlds. guess my players will have to use the honor system

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I thought your choice of Bob Ross artwork was excellent!

 

[Velrun]

Those are beautiful @blacksmithy !

 

[blacksmithy]

i have been brewing a ton of customs lately with the idea of letting my players vote on customs to rotate in and out of the cube, keep things a little fresh without having to buy more cards. doing 5ish for each color, here’s white’s roster:

Spoiler

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Wow, that's a bunch of cool cards! With the current wording of the Plutocrat, I would be more comfortable with the 1/1 Servo instead of the Treasure. You're basically going to choose Treasure every time in the early game, and I don't think that white should get a Llanowar Elves like that. The benefit is way too big in the early game to consider not paying the , and I don't think that makes for a healthy play pattern.

Sundrifter is a really cool card. The evoke ability should be on a separate line from the flying though. See, for example, Mulldrifter. Also, it should be "where X is the amount of mana spent to cast it." See, for example, Gyrus, Waker of Corpses. Also "or a white card". What a cool design though!

Yuuki is quite gnarly at 4/4 in stats (6/6 when blocking or blocked) for 2W. With flash too, that's eh... certainly something!

 

[blacksmithy]

thanks! i do appreciate everyone who has chimed in and helped me hammer out the designs here/in the discord, i am not great at fine tuning so it really helps, especially since i’m designing cards for a cube that’s only a notch or few below “fairmax,” where the line between “playable” and “GRBS” is really thin.
case in point, here’s some blue cards. (I FREAKING LOVE THE OLD FRAME ON BLUE CARDS AHHH)

Spoiler

 

[Lady Lynn]

Here's a manabase I think is cool:

Spoiler: Three cool custom lands

It's like the bounceland manabase, with similar interactions and similarly providing a lot of gameplay agency, but it is a lot more aggro friendly. They can also be fetched, so you could also run some or all of these in place of shocks in a traditional fetch/shock manabase.

Speaking of fetches, here's one I just came up with, that you could also run alongside the lands above:

Spoiler: A cool custom fetch

It's kind of like a cycling land? It takes up a land drop instead of mana, which is generally going to be worse if you had another land you wanted to play, but better if it was the only land in your hand regardless. And hey, it's also a fetchland, capable of doing all the cool things fetchlands can!

...And no, I can't be arsed to figure out names and find art to finish these cycles rn. That's thirty-one names and pieces of art to figure out...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

View attachment 4530

Moon Temple is a convoluted way to make Temple of Enlightenment better

The other two lands are strictly better than ABU duals. That's uh, that's pretty powerful!

 

[Lady Lynn]

Moon Temple is a convoluted way to make Temple of Enlightenment better

The other two lands are strictly better than ABU duals. That's uh, that's pretty powerful!

Indeed! Those three are basically just several existing lands combined, either letting you choose between traits from the components or combining them.

Astral Church = Tundra + Azorius Chancery

Moonlit Fields = Tundra + Irrigated Farmland

Moon Temple = Hallowed Fountain + Temple of Enlightenment + Campuses

 

[blacksmithy]

i think in most cases it’s a net positive to include better-than-ABUR manabases in your cube tbh
EDIT: regardless of the power level of your non land cards

 

[Lady Lynn]

I think that you can easily shift the power level of the lands in a cube without breaking anything. Lands, in the majority of cases in both constructed and limited, do not need to be balanced against nonlands, only against the other lands in the environment(and i think you can break even that in draft environments).

The exception is when lands actually share roles with nonlands. For example, Celestial Cannonade could definitely create problems in a low-power environment because it can turn into a creature far too strong for the environment. In comparison, Taiga and co, arguably the best duals in the game, probably wouldn't cause any problems, because all they do is fix mana. They can't compete with your nonland cards, only support them.

Just like how Tinker is only as good as the best artifacts in your cube, mana fixing, as well as card draw and scry, are only as good as the cards they enable you to cast.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Indeed! Those three are basically just several existing lands combined, either letting you choose between traits from the components or combining them.

Astral Church = Tundra + Azorius Chancery

Moonlit Fields = Tundra + Irrigated Farmland

Moon Temple = Hallowed Fountain + Temple of Enlightenment + Campuses

I was referring to the fact that Moon Temple mentions Temple of Enlightenment in its text, instead of itself

I agree with the others above that having premium fixing isn't necessarily problematic (and might even be a boon to your cube).