General Custom Cards: The Lab

[Onderzeeboot]

this is probably broken or something but i dont see how

>

On turn 3 thanks to a mana dork?

Other 7-mana instants and sorceries that are bonkers on turn 3:



None of those cards, save for Cruel Ultimatum, see any play in cube, so I think you're safe in that environment Basically you can use it as a tutor to cast an instant or sorcery with cmc X if you have a spare instant or sorcery with cmc X-1 lying around. This costs you 1 card though, so the upgrade better be worth it. So, as a tutor it's not really exciting. As a counterspell it's efficient, but letting your opponent tutor can be a big disadvantage.

Conclusion: I don't see how this could be dangerous except for yourself.

 

[Lucre]

My stance on that sort of thing is that you just include multiple cards in the pick. It's another thing to explain but it's sort of simpler and less stressful. I'm not sure how they should be distributed but I was sort of assuming you might do this with two tri coloured spells.


What are some cards or themes you'd like to cube if they had more support that was attractive to a variety of archetypes?

Does anyone have any ideas that make white weenie more fun to play or more powerful or more interactive. I know it has access to a lot of great spells through being white but often everyone else wants these cards more and boy do the wraths and balance type cards ever feel like they are not in your colour.

One of my first ideas to help white dorks feel more like a big boy deck

Glory's Guide
Creature - Spirit
When Glory's Guide enters the battlefield search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost 1 or less, reveal it, put it into your hand and then shuffle your library.
1/1

When I design cards like this I feel like they are going to be obviously too powerful and probably aren't solving the problem:


Enchantment
When CARD enters the battlefield put 2 1/1 white soldier creature tokens into play.
Creatures you control get +1/+1.

This idea is obviously open to editing though. Glorious Anthem + Exalted sounds like a fair card though.

Do white creature decks do anything particularly interesting? Is attacking with more than one creature interesting? Is protection or say burning out your hand quickly an area that can be exploited?

 

[anotak]

this WW card has been playing pretty well for me in matches against myself but i haven't had the chance to finish and draft the cube its in
Karmic Guide Sucks
Creature
First strike
When ~ enters the battlefield, return up to two target creature cards with converted mana cost 2 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
2/2

 

[Lucre]

I'm seriously considering designing variations of that card Anotak.

I would love to hear more ideas for what would make WW more interaction heavy, give it more play, help it defeat the "Little Kid" problem of not having tools to close out games or see cards, and work well with other colours and strategies (that aren't necessarily just black graveyard).

What me and MC, Anotak and Eric have discussed a little are ideas that involve:

• Figure of Destiny and Student of Warfare add mana sinks that give you more decisions and stuff to do

• Ranger of Eos, Stoneforge mystic and Revilark give you access to more cards that are sorta distinctly useful for WW

• Equipment also adds more longevity to the strategy and more ways to spend mana each turn (decision making)

• Your equipment should be bad (not amazing) if you plan on doubling up on stoneforge

• You need 1 drop density and interest over multiple colours if you want to double up on ranger

I remember listening to some players talking about WW in cube and apparently Strip Mine, Wasteland and Mana Tithe are super key to wanting to be in that deck for other people. I'm not sure what we could read into this or how to exploit it in design. Do we like that sort of shut out, go under style gameplay in our formats? I do find the idea of white creature decks being extra good with tec edge etc tempting but I'm kinda scared.

My next big idea on this line is that extort is one of the coolest recent mechanics and does a lot to solving little kid style problems while making stoneforge and ranger's rude extra cards go a little further.

 

[Changling Bob]

I think basically the thing with white weenie is that it its like RDW only instead of just fucking killing you with burn, it prisons you out to try and stay on turn 3 forever. Geddon is clearly the original way of doing this: 1 drop, 2 drop, 1 drop and 2drop, geddon so you don't get your 4s and I can keep playing my 1s and 2s. Looking to hatebears to block your opponents doing stuff is probably a good start for doing this without going straight to geddon, as are things like mana tithe. Wastemine is clearly the same idea as geddon, to keep everything on turn 3 as you spend your land drop to keep you from getting value from yours. Extort would take WW to something more like RDW that burns you out quicker rathe than stalling everyone's development, but it's not particularly quick, so it probably wants some hatebears/tithe/LD to tide it over to the point where it's enough.

I guess the other thing old school WW did was empyrial armor, where hey, I'm holding lands because I'm never planning on needing more than you need to geddon, so I've got mad buffs for sticking to my game plan. Equipment and mana sinks do that thing now, of giving you something to do between drawing geddon and needing to play it.

This has been white weenie thoughts with cbob.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Why should equipment be bad for multi-Stoneforge?

 

[anotak]

hey please everyone post your finest equipment and artifacts so i can use them

Why should equipment be bad for multi-Stoneforge?

i think he more meant the equipment should match the power level of your surrounding cards because that can be super abusive otherwise

 

[Chris Taylor]

Why should equipment be bad for multi-Stoneforge?

I assume because if all stoneforge finds is batterskull, thats MUCH better for control than WW.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Is there no middle ground between "equipment should be bad" and "Battleskull"?

 

[anotak]

Is there no middle ground between "equipment should be bad" and "Battleskull"?

if you mean in not-custom cards, there's... bonesplitter?

 

[Lucre]

I tend to go by eric's cube for some raisin when designing here (probz because the cubes I play otherwise are either peasant or don't at all embrace the design ideals we have here) and most of eric's cards are on a very flattened sort of power level and don't really support a lot of game states.

Wargear is in that niche, but eric has banned that. People hate protection swords and decide they are too colour hateful. Jitte is widely known as being GRBS. People think good equipment + SFM is the bees knees so I tend to be of the "boil the water slowly" when dealing with controversial ideas. I want to make stoneforge mystic feel like a fair card that lets white see more cards, I don't really just want to enable more mtgo cube style play. People will also gradually understand swords and whatever are fine when you slowly integrate them into the new paradigm right?

I'd probably be thinking about multiple bone splitters, collar, mask of memory, haunted plate, mortarpod, wargear, adventuring gear... I dunno one sword? I'm sure I could fit a utility one in there too. Maybe someone could help me out a little

 

[Lucre]

I'm also maybe too big of a fan of skull clamp

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I will never be a fan of the Swords. Modern Masters is a blast to draft and play until your opponent casually drops a Sword of Your Colors. Real fun that. Not.

 

[Lucre]

I will never be a fan of the Swords. Modern Masters is a blast to draft and play until your opponent casually drops a Sword of Your Colors. Real fun that. Not.

I think you mean swords in limited, but anyway, I address that. I know Jason feels they are over rated but I am aware how most cubers feel about their power level and how swingy their impact can be. They also tend to be really powerful in environments with a suppressed power level. I appreciate the input but I'd love more I can work with.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Insane:


Fair:


Neigh Unplayable:
Basically everything else

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh yeah, certainly, they are awesome in constructed. What I like about the swords are the saboteur abilities, the p/t boost, and the semi-evasion they grant so that you can actually get a hit in. I don't like that they tend to randomly invalidate one or two decks during a draft.

 

[Suicufnoc]

Are these OK?

Sting R
Sorcery
~ deals 1 damage to target creature.
Draw a card.

Toxic Rodent B
Creature
Sac a creature: put a -1/-1 counter on target creature.
1/1

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Given how playable Plagued Rusalka is in limited formats, I would say Toxic Rodent is incredibly pushed. Sting is probably a mana off, compare to Magma Jet, which draws only ~half a card but deals 2 damage. Zap, on the other hand, was a wholly unexciting card, so three mana seems to much.

 

[Jason Waddell]

We classify wargear as broken?

 

[anotak]

i had to cut wargear for being bad because i had too much that interacted with artifacts

 

[Lucre]

The fair section is pretty shite Chris.
I feel like you should have a section between broken and fair that includes bonesplitter and wargear.
Hating on wargear is really popular in this age of "I am cutting all my artifact removal and most of my artifacts". We live in an age with an unprecedented number of Oblivion rings and stuff like abrupt decay, tochling and reclamation sage. People are even putting tezz in their cubes and artifact lands in their side drafts.

I dunno maybe aggro and tempo decks are doing too well to give them stuff like wargear in your environments, the card is really amazing but like your players are aware it exists right? I found a lot of what was nuts about that card was how under everyone's radar it always seemed. People would let it get around the table and people would not be making sure their deck knew how to deal with an aggressive, persistent, non-creature permanent after they've played enough drafts without batterskull/swords/jitte.

But yeah, it is a wrath deck hoser, so if your wrath or UB 1for1 decks are terrible maybe don't cube with wargear or maybe make your control decks less terrible so your white deck has something that isn't totally bunk to look for with stone forge.

 

[Chris Taylor]

We classify wargear as broken?

Maybe I'm using the wrong word, but it was better than swords in most of the decks I've had it in. And less game ruining!

The fair section is pretty shite Chris.

That's kinda my point

Splitter and Wargear are the ones I run and am happy with, I run Runechanter's Pike and it works from time to time.

Literally every other piece of equipment in my cube is custom.

 

[Eric Chan]

I agree with Chris's assessment of Grafted Wargear as being in the insane pile, even if it's maybe a half-tier below the other pieces of equipment. It varies, though. If you run stuff like Smash to Smithereens and Viridian Shaman, you probably have more outs to it, so it becomes closer to fair. But if you want to cut down on narrow answer cards like Nature's Claim, Wargear gets a lot better. Either way, it's pretty swingy.

I find that Adventuring Gear is closer to unplayable, sadly. The fair list is really small.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I agree with Chris's assessment of Grafted Wargear as being in the insane pile, even if it's maybe a half-tier below the other pieces of equipment. It varies, though. If you run stuff like Smash to Smithereens and Viridian Shaman, you probably have more outs to it, so it becomes closer to fair. But if you want to cut down on narrow answer cards like Nature's Claim, Wargear gets a lot better. Either way, it's pretty swingy.

I find that Adventuring Gear is closer to unplayable, sadly. The fair list is really small.

Yeah I don't know why everyone drafts your fetchlands so highly, but assuming your group doesn't gear is okay. But it kinda just becomes bonesplitter, so...

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Empyrial Plate has been good here, as has Bonehoard. I also doubled up on Bonesplitter.