General Custom Cards: The Lab

[TrainmasterGT]

I think part of the fun of the Cube: Legacy project is putting off-color abilities onto chaff creatures. Fencer Clique becomes quite interesting when it has Lifelink...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think part of the fun of the Cube: Legacy project is putting off-color abilities onto chaff creatures. Fencer Clique becomes quite interesting when it has Lifelink...

Yeah, like I said, I think that's a fine perspective, but personally I feel it's better to honor the color wheel. A lot of Magic's dynamics, it's intricate play patterns, come from the fact that not every color is equal. Fencer Clique with Lifelink plugs a hole in blue's shortcomings. You can find this exciting, that's perfectly valid, but I get turned off by massive color pie violations like that and I feel it's ultimately unhealthy for the balance of the game.

 

[Velrun]

Simic should be flash. They have always been the flash colors and flash Guild combination. And they are still the dominant colors for flash as seen recently in 2019.

That leaves an empty space for Dimir. A no easy job because Wizards hasn’t figured it out as well. I suggest Skulk. It could be a cool puzzle to solve as ‘Which creature would greatly benefit from skulk’ which is a far more interesting puzzle than ‘can’t be blocked’ which also could be Dimir.

 

[Velrun]

Yeah, like I said, I think that's a fine perspective, but personally I feel it's better to honor the color wheel. A lot of Magic's dynamics, it's intricate play patterns, come from the fact that not every color is equal. Fencer Clique with Lifelink plugs a hole in blue's shortcomings. You can find this exciting, that's perfectly valid, but I get turned off by massive color pie violations like that and I feel it's ultimately unhealthy for the balance of the game.

It is not a blue source that gives Clique lifelink. It is a colorless one. Blue can easily give Clique lifelink if they use a colorless Equipment. Blue can also run a lifelink creature if they just add them to their deck. Example: Wurmcoil Engine which is a lifelinker and very possible to play in a blue deck.

In my opinion these upgrades a colorless because they do not require you to have a certain color of land in your deck. This is one I am on the fence about though. I can 100 % respect when people respect the color pie this much. There are both up- and downsides but I would maybe cut the color requirement part because it would make the stickers simpler and easier/faster to read. Also it would never leave a player with a bad feeling when he makes the blunt mistake of snake picking a sticker he can’t use because he forgot to read the color requirement.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yeah, I thought about skulk, but... It was dropped for a reason. WotC intended for skulk to be the new UB keyword, but it just wasn't that popular and didn't have that much design space either.

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/151334136333/what-was-the-problem-with-skulk
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/145178350698/so-is-skulk-the-new-evergreen-blueblack-creature
https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/145239090433/can-you-explain-more-how-skulk-has-less-design

https://mtgstormscale.com/
Skulk sits at an uncomfortable 7 right now. To be fair, shroud has been at 9 for a long time.

Another problem I have with skulk is that I've already got those non-synergetic evasion keywords in WU (flying) and BR (menace), plus BG (deathtouch) and UR (prowess) don't exactly do a lot either. It's simply not the perfect solution. Of course, one of my own suggestions is an evasion keyword as well, it's just something that seems to fit the color pair. I do kinda like shroud for one turn, ensuring you get to untap with the creature.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

It is not a blue source that gives Clique lifelink. It is a colorless one. Blue can easily give Clique lifelink if they use a colorless Equipment. Blue can also run a lifelink creature if they just add them to their deck. Example: Wurmcoil Engine which is a lifelinker and very possible to play in a blue deck.

In my opinion these upgrades a colorless because they do not require you to have a certain color of land in your deck. This is one I am on the fence about though. I can 100 % respect when people respect the color pie this much. There are both up- and downsides but I would maybe cut the color requirement part because it would make the stickers simpler and easier/faster to read. Also it would never leave a player with a bad feeling when he makes the blunt mistake of snake picking a sticker he can’t use because he forgot to read the color requirement.

Arguing the lifelink comes from a colorless source is problematic I feel. Yes, blue can easily give Clique lifelink if they use a colorless Equipment (provided you run such a card in the cube), but that equipment is a different card, taking up a card slot in your deck. You have to draw and cast both cards, plus pay the equip cost, to get that "blue" lifelinker. On the other hand, adding a lifelink sticker to a blue card creates a true mono blue lifelinker. No other investments are needed, because you're literally modifying the card. You're not jumping through any of the usual hoops, you're just creating a card that is most definitely breaking the color pie. Again, you could be fine with that, and that's okay, but for my cube I want to preserve the color wheel and prevent those scenarios.

PS. Arguing blue can get lifelink through artifact creatures is a bit of a stretch. Wurmcoil Engine is one of exactly two colorless artifact creatures in existence with lifelink, three if you count vehicles, and the other two are rares as well (Multiform Wonder and Aethersphere Harvester).

 

[Velrun]

I like shroud for 1 turn. I have that on my Dinosaur race in my cube.

I do not think there is anything wrong with Skulk. It was more the cards it was put onto. Also if that is the logic then we should cut shroud as well.

Okay fair enough, lifelink on colorless sources is a bad example. How about all the other color pie breackagesssss in colorless artifacts that can be played in mono decks?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I like shroud for 1 turn. I have that on my Dinosaur race in my cube.

I do not think there is anything wrong with Skulk. It was more the cards it was put onto. Also if that is the logic then we should cut shroud as well.

Okay fair enough, lifelink on colorless sources is a bad example. How about all the other color pie breackagesssss in colorless artifacts that can be played in mono decks?

Yeah, I was definitely considering allowing a few of the keywords on colorless cards. Things like haste, flying, first strike have been printed on colorless artifact creatures enough times that it's perfectly fine to add stickers to those. Just because there are artifact creatures with haste does not mean haste should be added to blue creatures though. The fact that a color can access a certain keyword through the use of artifacts does not mean that color should therefore also gain access to that keyword directly. Even if you ignore the color pie here, you'ld have to acknowledge that there are simply more ways to deal with artifact creatures than with colored, nonartifact creatures. Shatter nicely deals with Snare Thopter, but can't help you agains a Snapping Drake with a haste sticker on it.

 

[Velrun]

Well Immediate Action exist to make blue creatures gain haste.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Well Immediate Action exist to make blue creatures gain haste.

It does, and it still makes for a color pie break. But we're going around in circles. Like I said, I don't mind that stuff like that exists, there is a crowd for that, and I don't judge them. For my cube, however, I want the modified cards to adhere to the color pie. It's the reason why I put phyrexian mana only on red and black cards, because it doesn't make sense to pay life for mana in other colors. It's the reason I shifted unearth to , because those are the two colors that support both haste and creature recursion. Either point of view is valid, it's just that I've personally, for the cube I have in mind, chosen to honor the color pie. View it as one of the design principles of my cube, if you will.

 

[Velrun]

Well spoken!

Now we only have the art issue left

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Well spoken!

Now we only have the art issue left

Well, dbs got my back on the art issue, so the ball is in your court

 

[Velrun]

Well, dbs got my back on the art issue, so the ball is in your court

Ehm no it isn’t. I literally ended the debate for my part with

...If you choose to continue with the ‘I will use existing card artwork on my custom cards’ you will change your mind before you have hosted two tournaments with these. You might as well listen to me now and save yourself some time

Also the majority (2 votes against 1) is not always right. If you were, you would still play Crow Storm in your cube.

However there is one thing I would say in your defense: Wizards make 1 Artifact or Enchantment each set that gives the major mechanic to other cards. In Rise of the Eldrazi it was Rebound on Cast Through Time. You used that artwork to give a spell rebound. In those cases I will agree it makes very good sense! You could do the same with Maelstrom Nexus and cascade (and 30 other examples). However Marionette Master has never been known to giver other permanents fabricate so it just fails as an artwork for a sticker that gives fabricate.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I jest Velrun, hence the stuck out tongue dbs did specifically call out Marionette Master as a good art to use on the fabricate sticker. I'm just going to say we are not going to agree here. Which, again, is fine. You've been very helpful in getting my templates in a better spot, but I'm going to ignore your feedback on the art choice, and keep using existing MtG art. I fully expect this will cause no problems at all, but if there is an art that does cause confusion, I promise I will replace that art with something else for the following draft. It's all good!

 

[Velrun]

Well I tried. We can’t agree every of the time

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Do I even need to put the Sticker label on these? I mean, they're well explained before we start the draft, so it should be clear that these things give stickers, right?

I also put in Arty Vectorization so Velrun can cast a lifelink creature in their monoblue deck

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Bob Ross and his Friends​

One of the nice things about making custom cards is that you're not bound to lore rules imposed by normal magic standards. You can make a card based on a historical event, real person, meme, or a non-hasbro IP without having to make an Un-card. This is nice for cubers because it allows us to implement our favorite Icons into our own little 360 card multiverses. In a sense, we are able to find further freedom on the canvas of cube, provided we believe that we can do it.​

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A lot of my friends and I like Bob Ross. I mean, who wouldn't? He's a wholesome artist who teaches others how to paint pictures who also happens to be in tune with nature. I realized that I could use Bob Ross as a flavorful medium by which I can communicate some lands matter and graveyard matter elements in green without breaking that color's generally optimistic tone. Without further ado, here is Bob Ross and his friends!​

This card is fairly straight forward. Bob Ross paints you a picture. He'll be your friend on the battlefield for a little while. After he's gone, the squirrels that he helped raise will still stick around and fight on your side.​

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I don't this card could see print from a mechanical perspective- I think that land tutor ability is too good in a non-singleton format. However, I think the fact that cube is a singleton format means that tutor effect is more reasonable since you only get to use it once per game without investing in flicker or reanimation effects.​

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This card is a sort of "fusion" design that probably could never make it to print in real life because it uses two separate and unrelated non-evergreen mechanics. Pursued Interest is able to act as both a way to feed the graveyard for Loam and self-mill strategies and a way for green decks to gain additional grind value. It's a loam card that doesn't actually need to go into a loam deck to make the cut, which I like quite a bit. It's also just fun to use this as an alternative win condition for reanimation decks. Even if my cheated fatties can't get you, my army of land squirrels will!​

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In addition to the cards based directly on Bob Ross, I made a series of cards inspired by the M12 Mage cycle. These cards are named after 5 colors Bob Ross uses on his color palette: Titanium White, Prussian Blue, Midnight Black, Alizarin Crimson, and Phthalo Green:​

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Originally, this card had an ability to make a 1/1 Myr token for and could be sacrificed for to make a golem. Then I remembered that the largely underwhelming Jade Mage from M12 could make a Saproling token for . I have considered using Jade Mage in my cubes before, but I always felt that the cost to make a Saproling was too expensive. I decided that a one-time golem ability wasn't powerful enough to justify the cost of making a 1/1, but reducing the cost of making a 1/1 was too powerful. Therefore, I decided that to make a 3/3 every turn was probably reasonable. I could add a rider to make this ability only able to activate as a sorcery.​

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This card is very simple- I wanted to make a looter for my Discard theme. I already had an idea for a red mage design, so I ended up making it blue. I flavored this card as being a part of the Prussian army because pre-WW1 Germany doesn't get enough love.​

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I'm not sure about this one. In my quest to create more playable zombies, I seem to have created a less aggressive Eternal Taskmaster variant. I'm not sure I costed the ability correctly, and I'm not even sure I like this ability. I would like some suggestions on how to improve this one.​

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Before you guys ask, no, this is not the only Communist card I have made. They're part of an ongoing meme with some of my friends. I'll introduce you to Alizarin Mage's other comrades later, but for now, I just want to discuss his abilities. Of the original Mage cycle, Crimson Mage is my favorite. Technically, I could have used the original as part of this cycle since Bob Ross does have a color with Crimson in the name. However, I wanted to make my own original Red Mage for symmetry's sake. I decided giving Riot to a creature was a fun effect. Riot doesn't appear on all that many cards, but I love the play patterns the mechanic enables. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to put a Riot-granting ability on one of my mages. Since I was already making some Communists, I thought it would be fun to flavor this guy as a member of the Red Army during the October Revolution.​

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And yes, I did quote Marx on a Magic card.​

Right Wing Destroyed. Take that, Ben Shapiro!​

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Last mage. I wanted to make a Mana Dork for green. This felt like appropriate cycle to do it in. Originally, I gave this card 2 abilities to tie in with Titanium Mage's old ability suite. I streamlined this card down to one ability when I changed Titanium mage. I gave Phthalo Mage a land untap ability to tie in with my green/blue super-ramp theme. I needed this to feel different than Paradise Druid, so I replaced hexproof with gaining a small amount of life. ​

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I don't like how appears nowhere in the text box for this card. Since I'll be replacing the Bounce Lands with my custom lands (Train Lands? Ross Lands?), it might be worth exploring replacing this card's ability with one of the following:​

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-: Add one mana of any color. You gain 2 life.​

-, : Untap target land. You gain 2 life.​

-, : Untap up to two target lands. You gain 1 life.​

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Finally, I'm going to be using Bob Ross art on some of my Nonbasics to tie everything together. Not every Bob Ross painting is suitable for cardart, and not every color pair has a suitable matching Ross art. I will use Train art in those circumstances. I will be using the name of the original Bob Ross art to name my nonbasic lands where Ross is the artist.​

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Thanks for reading!​

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[Chris Taylor]

Riot stacking might be a bit much for our communist friend.

5/5 haste grizzly bears

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Riot stacking might be a bit much for our communist friend.

5/5 haste grizzly bears

Ugh I didn't realize he could do that. Is there a way I can template it so that it can only give riot to each creature once? Like: "The next creature spell you cast this turn without Riot gains Riot?

 

[Chris Taylor]

You could make the ability activate only once per turn?

 

[Velrun]

Do I even need to put the Sticker label on these? I mean, they're well explained before we start the draft, so it should be clear that these things give stickers, right?

I also put in Arty Vectorization so Velrun can cast a lifelink creature in their monoblue deck

Wait!! Now you are ALSO distributing MtG art with absolutely no connection to the sticker ability?



Assassin’s Strike is a direct spot removal in mono black. Your Concealment sticker is almost the opposite. An anti spot removal upgrade in multicolored.

 

[Velrun]

Train that whole Bob Ross post is really cool.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Wait!! Now you are ALSO distributing MtG art with absolutely no connection to the sticker ability?

Sorry, that's placeholder Art. I was planning on using non-MtG art for this one because it's a new ability, but it was late and I couldn't find any I was satisfied with before I went to bed

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Here's two for Onderz:

I never was able to find a Naya gold card that I really liked, so I decided to make my own! This guy ended up basically being a Selesnya/Boros/Gruul gold card more than a true Naya card, but that's ok because those three gold slots are consistently the ones where I have the least amount of flex space anyway. It was kind of interesting designing a card which had characteristics of 3 different 2-color gold pairs while still being appropriate in the vacuum of any of the three 2-color pairs it can be played in.

I thought it would be kind of funny if there was a card where a dinosaur brought a bunch of random artifacts into play. Green usually doesn't make treasure tokens, but I thought they are an appropriate token for a green deck because ramp.

I updated the Alizarin and Midnight mages. Alizarin can only riot once per turn now, while Midnight Mage Surveils instead of disentombing. I think I like this format of the Midnight Mage much better than before.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Here's two for Onderz:

I never was able to find a Naya gold card that I really liked, so I decided to make my own! This guy ended up basically being a Selesnya/Boros/Gruul gold card more than a true Naya card, but that's ok because those three gold slots are consistently the ones where I have the least amount of flex space anyway. It was kind of interesting designing a card which had characteristics of 3 different 2-color gold pairs while still being appropriate in the vacuum of any of the three 2-color pairs it can be played in.

YE OF LITTLE FAITH! HOW HAVE YOU NOT FOUND SALVATION IN OUR DINOSAUR OVERLORD AND SAVIOR ZACAMA, PRIMAL CALAMITY! IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO JOIN THE CARNAGE!