General Custom Cards: The Lab

Rusje

Rusje

ravnic said:
View attachment 7995

Digside {U}{B}
Enchantment
Whenever you discard a card for the first time each turn, create a treasure token.
Whenever you discard a card for the second time each turn, draw a card.


So wizards would probably don't print that design in an eternal world I'd guess, but how good is it in self-contained 360 card environment on masters/horizon-set power level with half a dozen repeatable discard outlets and ~25 cycling cards? Doesn't seem broken to me, but a nice incentive to build around. Am I right?
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It is not broken at all. That each part triggers only once makes it balanced, maybe a tad weak. It is a a card which does not do anything on its own. The treasure bit is nice to have, but the draw is what makes it strong. Having to discard 2 cards before it triggers makes it a lot of work (but who doesn’t like a payoff after some hard work?).

Much stronger, but probably still doable would be to change the treasure to trigger on each uneven discard and the draw on each even. One has to work quite a bit to break it when it triggers multiple times.
 
Rusje

Rusje

Chris Taylor said:
Yeah if you run this, don't run any instant speed flicker.
1B, search my library for ephemerate, ephemerate this with the sac on the stack, D-tutor again, go
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Well, do not run it anyhow. Strong tutors make games boring. They always find the strongest answer. WotC fucks up many times, but they are right to ban strong/repeatable tutors. It is boring and scales, i.e., they are the strongest cards. The real question is: at what mana cost is a(n unconditional) tutor fair and fun? (Yes, if not too strong they bring a lot.)
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
In a format with a reasonable power curve (read: not mythics vs commons, similar to most cubes) demonic tutor is a pretty fair card. Impulse is not far off.
The most reasonable thing you can possibly be tutoring for is an answer, after all.
 
Rusje

Rusje

Chris Taylor said:
In a format with a reasonable power curve (read: not mythics vs commons, similar to most cubes) demonic tutor is a pretty fair card. Impulse is not far off.
The most reasonable thing you can possibly be tutoring for is an answer, after all.
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Izzit? If you are tutoring for an answer than I am a tad confused. I am used that the tutor is used to find your bomb… The problem is that the tutor scales with your power level. When 2 mana added (or spread over 2 turns) is painful then it is the right power level. Any other and it is as strong as your best card for that moment in your deck (which is strong). There is a reason that diabolic is nowhere near the demonic in power level. 4 mana is really a lot.

A final point. Mythic vs common is not the best example to point out a non-reasonable power curve. Maybe in sets these days, but in the old days commons could be as strong as rares.
 
Taamas

Taamas

Since limited decks are not going to be played a ton of times, tutors are good at increasing their consistency and letting people find their key pieces in more games. I think the (card) disadvantage of the tutors-to-top is not trivial and can make up for the strong consistency and flexibility.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Chris Taylor said:
In a format with a reasonable power curve (read: not mythics vs commons, similar to most cubes) demonic tutor is a pretty fair card. Impulse is not far off.
The most reasonable thing you can possibly be tutoring for is an answer, after all.
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You forgot to add "and no combo lines" ;)
 
safra

safra

My favourite demonic tutor variant is actually one they printed in a recent 'Alchemy' online-only release, but it's a card you can cast in paper without having to do any, uh, "translating" between digital and cardboard.



two mana is about right for a really good Impulse variant imo, though I could be talked into either one or three mana...but the tension I like the most about 'Assemble the Team' is when you:
a) look for something specific, but
b) it isn't in the top third of your deck ('top half' IMO seems pretty reasonable for Cube instead of constructed decks), so you have to
c) figure out how to get what you need out of the cards you can tutor from

It's remarkable how painful it can be these days to spend your turn 2 doing nothing on board; even casting Assemble the Team in the mid-game can be clunky and difficult, and by the time you enter the late-game, it's looking at, like, 7-9 cards, which is less digging than a single Niv-Mizzet Reborn trigger.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
safra said:
My favourite demonic tutor variant is actually one they printed in a recent 'Alchemy' online-only release, but it's a card you can cast in paper without having to do any, uh, "translating" between digital and cardboard.



two mana is about right for a really good Impulse variant imo, though I could be talked into either one or three mana...but the tension I like the most about 'Assemble the Team' is when you:
a) look for something specific, but
b) it isn't in the top third of your deck ('top half' IMO seems pretty reasonable for Cube instead of constructed decks), so you have to
c) figure out how to get what you need out of the cards you can tutor from

It's remarkable how painful it can be these days to spend your turn 2 doing nothing on board; even casting Assemble the Team in the mid-game can be clunky and difficult, and by the time you enter the late-game, it's looking at, like, 7-9 cards, which is less digging than a single Niv-Mizzet Reborn trigger.
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I mean, if I had to custom this up, I would just make it "top 10 cards" and not have people do the mental gymnastics of counting their deck and then deciding what a fraction of their deck is.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
You know, if I was running a custom instead of Demonic, I think I'd run something like Assemble the team. That sounds like a cool dynamic.
I don't love multicolor impulse, even then though, so I'd still probably cost it at 1B
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Chris Taylor said:
You know, if I was running a custom instead of Demonic, I think I'd run something like Assemble the team. That sounds like a cool dynamic.
I don't love multicolor impulse, even then though, so I'd still probably cost it at 1B
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Salvaging Tutor {B}{G}
Sorcery
Search your library or graveyard for a card, put that card into your hand, then shuffle if you searched your library.
 
Taamas

Taamas

Entombing Regrowth {B}{G}
Instant
Choose one —
* Search your library for a card, put that card into your graveyard, then shuffle.
* Return target card from your graveyard to your hand.
Entwine {2} (Choose both if you pay the entwine cost.)
 
ravnic

ravnic

YBR Team Rockets Raub.jpg

Team Rocket's Theft {2}{B}{R}
Sorcery
Exile the top card of target opponent's library and a card at random from their hand. You may play those cards until the end of your next turn.
Create two treasure tokens.

I have a hard time figuring out whether this card is bad, bonkers or anything between.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Comparable to Big Score. The temp draw is a bit of a downside, but you get a whole cycle here so I imagine it's fine.

I think ideally I'd like it to not be a random card from villan's hand, but you'd need some sort of incentive system to get them to not just feed you lands, like "you get an extra treasure if that card MV 3 or less".
Possibly not worth it, that's a lot of text.
 
Mown

Mown

Big Score seems like a strange comparison to me. It's a ca-neutral card-filtering spell, this is a potential 3-for-1.
I'm not sure where I stand on the card, but if you shaved off 2 mana and cut the treasure part I would consider it about the same as Hymn to Tourach. In value oriented games it seems very good.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Yeah, at first, I thought it was comparable to Big Score, but then realized it is a 3-for-1 instead of a 2-for-2. 'They discard one at random and you draw two from their deck', basically, seems fine for a gold card at four mana and sorcery speed, BUT than there is also the ramp aspect. Imagine you are hitting a land and a scary 7-drop. That's magical christmas land territory of course, but I don't love the swingyness.

Maybe I'll just reduce it to one treasure created? That makes it harder to cast both cards, especially from decks outside of rakdos colors, but this is going to be a format with treasure tokens, a full cycle of slightly different 'triomes' and a lot of rainbow fixers, includig two 5-card cycles of lands that tap for any color if you meet a criteria.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Brad said:
I've been playing Commander lately and really enjoying it. Is this card worded correctly? I'd like to avoid the possibility of having a commander plus a background/partner plus an enhancement.
https://imgur.com/a/iPyZYW9
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1) Assemble the Vile and its ilk make me think you want to use the Conspiracy card type with a subtype and a new keyword here. For example:

Pearl of Power
Conspiracy - Enhancement
Enhance commander (If you have exactly one commander, start the game with up to one enhancement face up in the command zone.)
If your commander is monocolored, it's white in addition to its other colors.

2) Guardian of the Guildpact suggests that your use of monocolored is correct :)
3) I believe that, despite knowing it has to be monocolored, you would still write "in addition to its other colors."
 
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Velrun

Velrun

Right now your card does one thing: It makes the legendary card an additional color. Not very important in the game but sometimes it can matter



Right now your card maybe does another thing: Makes the white cards available to include in the deck.

I think you only want the last thing. I think you only want the white cards to be possible to add to the deck. Not actually also change the color of the creature in the games. Am I right?
 
Rusje

Rusje

Yes, I would change it to: if your commander has at most one colour identity, it’s identity is also white. In this case you allow also commanders without an identity to use white.

Or you could use: if your commander has at most one colour identity, then the colour identity of this enhancement is white.

or
Enhancement: colour identity white.

You may only use one enhancement and only if you have one commander which does not have more than one colour identity.
 
Brad

Brad

Rusje said:
Yes, I would change it to: if your commander has at most one colour identity, it’s identity is also white. In this case you allow also commanders without an identity to use white.
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Because this will only be played in some sort of draft or modified sealed environment, I'm not gonna worry about our colorless commanders out there.

https://imgur.com/a/w0IEfeF
Went with Onder's wording and didn't add colorS because it felt clunky to me.
 
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