General Custom Cards: The Lab

[Onderzeeboot]

I want a cubeable pilgrim's eye, and I'm not sure how powerful the card is at base

A cubable Pilgrim's Eye should probably just have its power sharpied into a 2.

I think adding looting onto a reanimation spell essentially just makes it green There's not a huge amount of difference between Planned Awakening and Dramatic Entrance (for you anyways)
Weather or not it's too easy it kinda just feels wrong
I like Stirring Memories better, though the power maxer in me wants to call it useless since it can't bring back Iona, and if you're playing reanimator why are you reanimating 4 drops? (Why are you even running 4 drops?)

Yeah... Not being able to resurrect all creatures kinda sucks. I'm looking for a mode that feels fair on a 3-mana spell though, something to accompany Necromancy. Maybe the Reanimate drawback? Or the Makeshift Mannequin drawback? Or maybe just make it an Exhume? Hmm... That could actually work.

Stirring Memories
Choose one --
* Draw three cards. Then discard two cards unless you discard a creature card.
* Each player puts a creature card from his or her graveyard onto the battlefield.

This looks like it wants an entwine cost.

Entwine

Or am I being greedy now?

 

[Chris Taylor]

A cubable Pilgrim's Eye should probably just have its power sharpied into a 2.

You're probably right, but I'm hoping more for an earlier spell that specifically doesn't trade all that often, rather than the slightly later spell with 2 power.
You figure 1 would be okay? Colorless Flying Sylvan Ranger? I guess Sylvan Ranger kinda sucks...

Yeah... Not being able to resurrect all creatures kinda sucks. I'm looking for a mode that feels fair on a 3-mana spell though, something to accompany Necromancy. Maybe the Reanimate drawback? Or the Makeshift Mannequin drawback? Or maybe just make it an Exhume? Hmm... That could actually work.

Stirring Memories
Choose one --
* Draw three cards. Then discard two cards unless you discard a creature card.
* Each player puts a creature card from his or her graveyard onto the battlefield.

This looks like it wants an entwine cost.

Entwine

Or am I being greedy now?

Super Greedy
Again, it just feels green mate. I know the temptation, but don't just hand your players a solution, reanimator is a deck all about putting puzzle pieces together. I think I'd prefer the Mannequin or Reanimate clause, because exhume always felt like cheating to me, since basically it had the same text on it your whole deck did: "This card becomes infinitly worse lategame", but played early it had essentially no drawback

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You're probably right, but I'm hoping more for an earlier spell that specifically doesn't trade all that often, rather than the slightly later spell with 2 power.
You figure 1 would be okay? Colorless Flying Sylvan Ranger? I guess Sylvan Ranger kinda sucks...

Sure, 1/1 flying would work.

Super Greedy
Again, it just feels green mate. I know the temptation, but don't just hand your players a solution, reanimator is a deck all about putting puzzle pieces together. I think I'd prefer the Mannequin or Reanimate clause, because exhume always felt like cheating to me, since basically it had the same text on it your whole deck did: "This card becomes infinitly worse lategame", but played early it had essentially no drawback

Alright, alright Mannequin option might be feelbad on a sorcery card though? I already got Life // Death in the cube though, so another reanimate option feels somewhat redundant? Then again, on a 450 pool, does it really matter? Three mana is certainly a fair spot for a modal Reanimate.

 

[Aoret]

I've been testing Mindshrieker and it has felt a bit lackluster; paying 2 to hit land feels pretty terrible in a higher powered format. I thought through a handful of tweaks and I think I may have hit upon a decent, if wordy, design:

Modded Mindshrieker

Flying

: Target player puts the top two cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. Choose one. Mindshrieker gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the chosen card's converted mana cost.
1 / 1
Other rejected iterations that I came up with were:

• Cost the ability at 1 instead (cool because it works better with graveyard stuff, but then the power ceiling becomes too high)
• Give it 2 power instead of 1 (suddenly it's the best two drop ever, while still not addressing how lame it feels to brick with the ability)
• Give it +2/+2 if it hits land (a bit on the lower power side, probably still does enough, but doesn't help graveyard stuff as much as my other design)

Thoughts on my proposed design? Is 2 the right number of cards to mill? Is the card strong enough this way to run? Any math junkies want to calculate the distribution of the effect you'd buy with your two mana in a standard riptide cube? Is the templating correct? (assume I can shrink the text sufficiently small enough to get all of that onto a card)

 

[safra]

milling 2 is so so strong! If you get to six lands, that's six cards milled every untap; it's probably turn 8+ so you only need to defend the mindshrieker for 3-4 turns, including the one you cast it on. That kind of ability to take over the game / abruptly change Villain's priorities is huge. For the same reason I really wouldn't reduce the ability cost either.


What about each player mills one, choose one card for +X/+X? Maybe a 1/2 flier for ? idk! it's a real issue, I had some of the same problems.


e: wait, at this point it's a huge flying monster and you don't need to win through mill, nvm. I think your chosen design is probably the best.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Thanks for the help Chris! I'll be testing this when I get around to cubing again:

 

[Aoret]

milling 2 is so so strong! If you get to six lands, that's six cards milled every untap; it's probably turn 8+ so you only need to defend the mindshrieker for 3-4 turns, including the one you cast it on. That kind of ability to take over the game / abruptly change Villain's priorities is huge. For the same reason I really wouldn't reduce the ability cost either.

What about each player mills one, choose one card for +X/+X? Maybe a 1/2 flier for ? idk! it's a real issue, I had some of the same problems.

e: wait, at this point it's a huge flying monster and you don't need to win through mill, nvm. I think your chosen design is probably the best.

ooooh I didn't even notice the ability to mill the opponent. Tbh that wincon was never really my intent. I think I'd be okay making it only mill the controller.

 

[Chris Taylor]

You can't really be serious about mindshrieker milling 2 being too strong...

 

[Aoret]

You can't really be serious about mindshrieker milling 2 being too strong...

CT do you think my proposed design works? Intent is to be an evasive beater with a chance of generating some yard value

 

[Chris Taylor]

Probably? I'd lean toward it being better when you miss, like a 2/1 but smaller or static pump

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Mind Shrieker is just naturally a high variance design. Sometimes you mill Overseer of the Damned and swing for eight, sometimes you whiff and hit for 1. If you want to make sure you don't always whiff I would suggest:

: Target player reveals cards from the top of his or her library until he or she reveals a nonland card, then puts those cards into his or her graveyard. Mind Shrieker gets +X/+X until end of turn, where X is that card's converted mana cost.

A little more expensive, but a near guaranteed boost.

 

[Aoret]

I'm okay with it being high variance as long as it's feeding synergy into the rest of the deck. Like if, in addition to alternatively swinging for 1 and swinging for 8 I'm also putting bloodghast or 2shieldz in my yard, I'm okay (which is why I'm inclined to make it mill more as part of my tweak).

I do think having it be a 2/1 with a smaller pump also works, but it's just less synergistic that way.

 

[Chris Taylor]

What if it activated to mill someone until they hit a land without any pump?

Or am I just missing the point here

 

[Aoret]

@CT I just realized I never replied to this, yeah, that kinda misses the point of what I'm trying to do. It's not meant to be a mill thing (though I guess I wouldn't be mad if that happened). Finally rendered and printed it up last night and will be testing this weekend.
And now a new idea!

U/G U/G
Enchantment - Aura

Enchant land
Enchanted land has hexproof.
Whenever enchanted land is tapped for mana for the first time each turn, untap enchanted land.

 

[blacksmithy]

(b/w)
Instant
Search target player's library for a card and exile it face-up, then that player shuffles his or her library. You may put the exiled card in its owner's graveyard.
Flashback 2(b/w)

 

[Aoret]

Double entomb seems like it might be a little on the too-good side. Especially if I can play it in nonblack decks. I also worry that the cranial extraction effect is a trap (because those effects always are)

 

[blacksmithy]

Well, i do want it to better than entomb, since it'll likely be taking a gold spot. Flashback might be the wrong bonus to give it. But i like having the option to extract, since you can use it game 1 to just go digging in their deck and see what they're on about.
What if, when you used the non-entomb mode, it cantripped, instead of having flashback?

 

[Aoret]

cranial cantrip (crantrip?) seems workable

It starts to feel a little more UB than BW in that case though. Do you just want this effect or are you working towards a BW design specifically? I guess it might help overall if I knew what your goals/needs are with the design.

While we're at it, any thoughts on mine? Is it fun? Too weird? Boring? Busted?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Well, i do want it to better than entomb, since it'll likely be taking a gold spot. Flashback might be the wrong bonus to give it. But i like having the option to extract, since you can use it game 1 to just go digging in their deck and see what they're on about.
What if, when you used the non-entomb mode, it cantripped, instead of having flashback?

Hybrid mana isn't gold at all, you know that, right? It's more flexible than a monocolored spell, and hence a lot better than Entomb, and that card is already plenty playable in cubes with a strong reanimation component. In fact, this effect is a lot more powerful than Entomb's period. And it has flashback.

@Skrap: I like the enchantment. Nice hybrid!

 

[blacksmithy]

I also like the enchantment. Land-untapping is a really sweet effect.

In re: my friggin' sweet entomb card, i read a post in cube lists where FSR was lamenting the lack of a good w/b hybrid at 1 mana and i thought, "i can make one."

 

[Aoret]

@OZB I was thinking it over a bit more and I'm actually not sure I want this to be hybrid. Are we okay with giving (non-green) blue control decks a better-than rampant growth effect? I'm thinking no, but UG seems like kind of an oppressive cost (although probably fine in my cube with fetches getting handed out like candy)

I guess I could cost it at 1UG and make it better, but the first thing that comes to mind then (because of the simic thread) is to give it flash, and I'm afraid it's just disgustingly powerful if I do that. It's already pretty damn broken that I can use the land on my turn, pass, counter whatever you do, and then still play a brainstorm or something.

@blacksmithy I think FSR meant a 1 drop hybrid creature, but I could be wrong. Either way it's an interesting design space

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

So inspired by someone else on this board I don't remember who:

Would you play these sweet gold cards if they were modded to be heavy color commitment mono cards?

 

[Aoret]

Probably not, but I might play them if they were modded to be double hybrid cards.

 

[Suicufnoc]

Probably not, but I might play them if they were modded to be double hybrid cards.

Something like that.
At CC they fit into more decks, but are probably harder to cast in those decks than they would be in BW decks

Can I have them as 2/1's for 1C? Maybe 1/2 or 1/3 for sculler?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

You can have it at 1/1!