General Custom Cards: The Lab

[Onderzeeboot]

Okay so three things:
1. Cool that it works with Demonic Pact. I worry it doesn’t work very well with it since the timing can be difficult.
2. I feel like it should be an enchantment itself OR not give the enchantment type to the reanimated creature.
3. I also feel like it should sacrifice the reanimated creature whenever it leaves the battlefield and not just when it dies. Imagine exiling this guy and because he gets exiled he doesn’t kill the reanimated creature. Same with bounce etc.

All 3 are fine but I would do them different. But I see no harm in this card. Maybe you should push it to 2/2.

Re 1: For sure, it's just a small bonus that happens to work nicely.
Re 2: I had to chose between enchantment and legendary, since the type line only has so much space (in fact, God is about the only creature type that fits on the type line together with the words Legendary Enchantment Creature, and it's the reason Chromanticore isn't legendary). I picked legendary because the card idea was based on Orpheus, but I guess I could make it non-legendary and an enchantment (which does make Zur a happy camper!)
Re 3: You are probably right. Also, ninjutsuing or Crystal Sharding (not that that card is in my cube, but still) this guy is just filthy. Ok, you're definitely right.

Also, it's still a cool combo with Crystal Shard or sac outlets in response to the reanimation trigger.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ok, time to put a non-"real word" name on this card. Also, I found out how to have my cake and eat it too! In the mainframe template, there's a way to slightly shrink the size of the type line so everything (except the Rogue creature type) fits!

Spoiler: Work in progress

Mainframe doesn't support the newly release legendary Nyx frame (yet), but I managed to mock something up in good old MS Paint

 

[Velrun]

Thumbs up

There is also the option to make it non-legendary. The original idea might come from a specific unique character but the card could very well be non-legendary if you ask me. I think it is cool it also works with Zur because it suddenly bridges several themes together like Zur, enchantment matters, reanimation, Pact and the archetype aggro a little bit as well.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Thumbs up

There is also the option to make it non-legendary. The original idea might come from a specific unique character but the card could very well be non-legendary if you ask me. I think it is cool it also works with Zur because it suddenly bridges several themes together like Zur, enchantment matters, reanimation, Pact and the archetype aggro a little bit as well.

Thanks for the help

One last question. How do you feel about this targeting any graveyard? One of the more next level plays with Necromancy (to make players feel like they get rewarded for their drafting/deck building skills) was discarding their fatty with a discard spell, then reanimating it.

 

[Velrun]

I think it is more important it suits your themes but

From a lore perspective and from Wizards’ past I prefer white being able to strickly only reanimate allied troops and black being able to either reanimate only villain troops, only allied troops or both villain and allied troops.

Examples:



..But it is not a rule. Just my opinion. It feels better and I think Wizards very often agree.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

And so we arrive at..



Nice.

Or... Shit.



I guess this is also an option? Oh boy... What do I do?

Edit: white currently has less targets for Zur than black, and also runs a historic subtheme, but can't hit opponent's graveyards.

 

[Velrun]

Black looks better if we purely talk about the colors of the frame in combination with the art.

 

[Velrun]

Does anyone know if there is a MSE template with sagas that you can customize into having a Chapter 2 and Chapter 4 (but skip Chapter 3)?

I use the Saga template for something other than actual Sagas but please take a look at the picture below.



To the left of the card text "Start of game" you can see the chapte I icon. The chapter II icon is right below. And the chapter III icon is further below next to the "Level 3" card text.

Does anyone have a way to change those I, II and III to just have II and IV?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You could at least fake it for one print by temporarily renaming the pictures in the corresponding MSE template folder, is my guess.

 

[Velrun]

You could at least fake it for one print by temporarily renaming the pictures in the corresponding MSE template folder, is my guess.

Details I don't quite understand. Is it possible you could write it down, step by step for dummies?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Details I don't quite understand. Is it possible you could write it down, step by step for dummies?

I currently don't have access to my pc, but there should be a folder in the directory where you installed Magic Set Editor with a bunch of sub folders, one for each card style/template (and then some). One of these should be the folder for the sagas, though I have no clue what it is called exactly. I expect there will be images in that folder for the Roman numerals used on the left side of the card frame. If you temporarily rename those images so that I becomes II and II becomes IV, you can then make your proxy with just two levels. Sorry, can't make it much clearer than that.

 

[Velrun]

I found this inside my "magic-m15-saga.mse-style" folder.






So what do I do now?
The way I see it, I need to Google and somehow find a picture to replace one of those chapters with. But it will probably look odd. Also it looks like there are 5 different chapters available already but I can't seem to change my Sagas in MSE.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

1. Rename the 'chapter1' image to 'chapter9'
2. Rename 'chapter2' to 'chapter1'
3. Rename 'chapter4' to 'chapter2'
4. Rename 'chapter9' to 'chapter4'
5. Make your proxy with two chapters
6. Export the image
7. Reverse the changes to the image file names

The only thing I don't know, is whether you can make a saga with only two chapters, but if you can, the above should work.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

And so we arrive at..

View attachment 3053

Nice.

Or... Shit.

View attachment 3054

I guess this is also an option? Oh boy... What do I do?

Edit: white currently has less targets for Zur than black, and also runs a historic subtheme, but can't hit opponent's graveyards.

I think temporary reanimation is more black than white, and I think a black deck can more easily make use of the ability of this card.

 

[Velrun]

So this is the best I could do



The only thing that I wish I could still change is the Chapter 2 that I sadly have in duplicate.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

So this is the best I could do

View attachment 3064

The only thing that I wish I could still change is the Chapter 2 that I sadly have in duplicate.

Ah, I think I have a "solution" for you These are png images right? You could use a clear png image, no image at all really, just a clear, transparent background!

 

[Velrun]

Ah, I think I have a "solution" for you These are png images right? You could use a clear png image, no image at all really, just a clear, transparent background!

Thank you so much! You have been very helpful!

Which one do you prefer?

 

[anotak]

yo whats happening on that mechanically

 

[Velrun]

yo whats happening on that mechanically

Here is a link to my cube blog (Warning, wall of text)
https://riptidelab.com/forum/threads/the-coliseum.2715/

It is a rogue-like Magic format. The format is a blast to play and it rewards skills and good choices. But it also tramples upon bad choices I have found the best Magic player always wins.

It is a Race card which means it is one of the skills a player can have. We have a level up system where winning games yields experience tokens which can be spend to level up. Besides races they are also classes and talents. This specific card is called Dryad and is given to players before the very first game begins. Each player begins as a level 1 character and as you can see the Dryad really goes live at level 2 (This is the Saga chapter number that Onde has kindly helped me with). From top to bottom:



Dryad has (like most races) an ability that only works outside combat. This one gives you more lands and better lands whenever you level up. Discover is like drafting a card except it is random and always within your colors. Abandon means cutting the card from the tournament.



This ability is fairly simple. It does what is says. It means that Gingerbread Cabin always enters the battlefield untapped. This ability is always active as long as the player is level 2 or higher. It requires 2 experience tokens to reach level 2 and winning a game yields 2 experience tokens. However a player cannot level up while he is on a winning-streak because he needs to sit outside in the deck construction to level up.



This ability requires the player to be level 4 to be active. That will take quite a while. Players begin at level 1 and earns enough experience tokens to reach level 2 after a single win (but they have to lose to actually level up). Reaching level 4 usually requires 4 wins and a loss at some point afterwards which will take some time due to the balance structure of the format. I say usually because players who fall behind will earn more experience tokens if they break winning streaks.

At the end of my cube blog there is a link to the visual spoiler of the entire cube.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Which one do you prefer?

Oops, I glossed over the question. I think I prefer the right one. It better matches the relative alignment of the IV image and its corresponding text box.

 

[psly4mne]

My attempt at a rules-cleaned-up X. Don't know if this is a good idea, but I might try it out at some point.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

My attempt at a rules-cleaned-up X. Don't know if this is a good idea, but I might try it out at some point.

Besides the card looking like there's missing a space in front of the X in some places, this templating definitely doesn't work, because the "you" in the last ability references the owner, and you just switched ownership.

 

[psly4mne]

this templating definitely doesn't work, because the "you" in the last ability references the owner, and you just switched ownership.

That is not correct. "You" refers to the player who activated the ability (see Xantcha, Sleeper Agent), and the added activated ability can only be activated by the player who activated the original ability (see Martyrdom). It is true though that the "this ability" at the end is ambiguous between the added ability and the main ability, I'll have to make that clearer.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

That is not correct. "You" refers to the player who activated the ability (see Xantcha, Sleeper Agent), and the added activated ability can only be activated by the player who activated the original ability (see Martyrdom). It is true though that the "this ability" at the end is ambiguous between the added ability and the main ability, I'll have to make that clearer.

Ah, right, the last part is not between quotes, so who 'you' refers to seems to alternate multiple times in the text, but it doesn't...? You have not made this card easier to understand o_O Is there a reason why you can't just use the original?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Maybe like this?