General Custom Cards: The Lab

[sigh]

Why wouldn't I bring up this perfectly relevant topic, for exactly that reason? I don't know all of yall's playgroups, so why assume anything about them, including that they conveniently sit in the camp that liked the block?

Neat little article I found about exactly this topic:
https://whelpie.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/lessons-from-odyssey-block/

 

[anotak]

you know putrid imp was actually one of the first magic cards i ever saw and i thought it was totally sweet.

i guess i didn't say it in my last post but i meant to say that that most cube players tend to lean toward liking odyssey. at least compared to j random mtg player

 

[Aston]

I did a 3x Odyssey draft just this past weekend, and it was strange to play with but not in a bad way. Weird stuff like calculating how many lands you can sacrifice for essentially no value to enable threshold whilst still being able to cast spells. I really liked it.

 

[sigh]

I can't argue that the right audience can love the design concept behind Odyssey. But it's still an important lesson in design that involves multiple pieces that interact in weird ways.

 

[whydirt]

Empty Two Warrens
Sorcery
Surge -
Put four 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens onto the battlefield.

Empty a Warren
Sorcery
Surge -
Put two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens onto the battlefield. If the surge cost was paid, creatures you control gain haste until end of turn.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Empty #2 should have surge 1R come on
Be a pal

 

[Suicufnoc]

Surge is way underexplored still, we should make a ton of them

 

[Suicufnoc]

I broke it.


I do kind of want a 5 color fetchable in my cube.

 

[sigh]

I think Utopia Channel would be a lot cleaner with the wording from this (switching color for basic land type):

Very cool concept though. A painland for any deck.

 

[Suicufnoc]

Oops, the second elvish miner draw your deck with the gitrog monster.

 

[psly4mne]

Sigh, did you check the oracle text on Transguild Courier? Also, did you miss that you can untap Utopian Channel multiple times in a turn. That's pretty broken.

 

[sigh]

Sigh, did you check the oracle text on Transguild Courier? Also, did you miss that you can untap Utopian Channel multiple times in a turn. That's pretty broken.

Wotc is obviously still ok using this sort of trinket text if they'll do it with devoid and changeling, and five colored dots is a lot cleaner than 6 words that don't fit on the type line.

True about the ability tho. Should probably have an "activate once a turn" clause.

 

[psly4mne]

Legal-themed one-shot conspiracies:


Room 641A I suggested as a continuous effect a while back. Even as a one-shot it's still probably not good for the game, but worth thinking about maybe.

I think Actual Innocence and Immunity would play well. There's no guarantee that they will be relevant even if you draw the named card, but if they are it can swing the game. Maybe the guessing game of "is this creature the one with free hexproof" is bad gameplay, but maybe it's fun. I think I really like the idea of these two.

Writ of Attainder is kind of a weird one. It makes scouting explicitly have value, which is kind of a bad thing, but it can be played around. At least, it is an example of creative new stuff you could do with Hidden Agenda.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I broke it.
View attachment 994View attachment 995View attachment 996View attachment 997

I do kind of want a 5 color fetchable in my cube.

All of these seem right at home next to channel in a pack, if that's what you're going for.

 

[Suicufnoc]

All of these seem right at home next to channel in a pack, if that's what you're going for.

All of them?

 

[Chris Taylor]

I mean the regrow landy one is enough to spark my curiosity. He's gotta go infinite somehow right? Or at least do something really broken?
The rest absolutely

 

[Suicufnoc]

Discard land, regrow land guy draws your library with the gitrog monster. It has to be once a turn max at least

 

[Chris Taylor]

I mean if it's a cube where channel is the average card maybe it doesn't actually

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Still looking for that elusive land design that is balanced, and fixes both colorless mana and two colors. How's this effort?



Yeah, it's basically an instant speed, colorless Night's Whisper, but one of the cards you draw is a guaranteed land (provided there's one left in your library). Not sure that it's balanced, but I keep trying! Maybe I could put a mana cost on the cycling cost?



Now it'll cost you a land drop to fix your mana on your next turn, unless you can already provide one of the colors it searches for. A bit better I think, but still possibly strong. On the other hand, Night's Whispers is but an uncommon, right? :eek:

 

[sigh]

Free card advantage? Count me in! This is still very powerful. Lands in your deck that enter untapped, search for other lands, and can be cycled to get 2 cards in your hand? Wow.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Free card advantage? Count me in! This is still very powerful. Lands in your deck that enter untapped, search for other lands, and can be cycled to get 2 cards in your hand? Wow.

Yeah, it is. It's hard to design fair lands. I don't really mind the etb trigger though, as playing out a colorless land is a very real cost. You can only play one land per turn after all, and colorless lands that do nothing else are quite horrible. Plus it costs 2 life as well. Maybe if I up the cycling cost by another colorless? That would make it closer to Krosan Tusker. Yeah, that might work...

For reference, the current design on the right. That design is very, very strong. I like how it plays, but I'm not happy at all that it's something Wizards would never consider printing. It's way over the allowed power threshold for nonbasic lands I think. Maybe that one is easy to fix though, by having the fetched land etb tapped, but then it would be much better in midrange and control decks than in aggro decks. Then again, so is the new design. Argh!

 

[sigh]

I just think you are packing too much into one unit, especially since the unit is a land. On the base, it's a waste++, and then it offers you bunches of options, some of which can grant you card advantage!

The very first idea that popped into my head is having a generating land with Land A cycling, and Land B cycling, maybe for 1 hybrid mana A/B

Agree that designing lands is/seems quite difficult.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I just think you are packing too much into one unit, especially since the unit is a land. On the base, it's a waste++, and then it offers you bunches of options, some of which can grant you card advantage!

The very first idea that popped into my head is having a generating land with Land A cycling, and Land B cycling, maybe for 1 hybrid mana A/B

Agree that designing lands is/seems quite difficult.

To be fair, any land that produces colorless mana (and there's been a lot of them) are a Waste++ if you discount the fact that those lands aren't basic. Riffing off your suggestion, how's this?



The triggered ability goes on the stack after the cycling ability, so you'll draw the land you searched for. Yeah I know, I keep pushing the limits, but this way they're more interesting with Life from the Loam

 

[sigh]

That's a pretty cool land. The secondary problem becomes that the lands cease to be seen as something that can generate , because that flexible draw half is so good.

Luckily I think I (again) found a design solution (tongue in cheek incoming):

 

[Onderzeeboot]

That's a pretty cool land. The secondary problem becomes that the lands cease to be seen as something that can generate , because that flexible draw half is so good.

Thanks! Also, sometimes you'll need the land drop, sometimes you'll need to stay on curve, and sometimes you'll need the colorless mana. If it's turn four and you have a Thought-Knot Seer in hand, you have a pretty compelling incentive to just play the land, even if the cycle ability is awesome!

Luckily I think I (again) found a design solution (tongue in cheek incoming):

Hahaha, fair enough. I'll have you know that I already run these though:



I was kinda lying when I said I was still looking for a good colorless + multicolor land design. I was actually looking for a second design I'm pretty happy with the cycling land as a second design. It plays nicely with a few cards in my cube (Life from the Loam, Worm Harvest, Knight of the Reliquary) without boosting Titania, Protector of Argoth to unmanagable levels, and it even "fetches" nonbasic fixers. And the best thing is it avoids life payment (which is already features on the Crater Lake cycle and the shocklands), and doesn't play anything like the other fixers, while still being a clean design. Thanks for brainstorming with me Sigh!

Final question: You could also word the cycler as below, but does that read better or worse than the design in my previous post?