General Custom Cards: The Lab

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm second guessing the map frame for my sticker cards. It can be a bit unreadable at times because of the muddled background color. I tried the tall token frame, and I must say, it looks a lot clearer. Added benefit is that the frame signals color requirements for the modified card a lot better thanks to the hybrid frame. Compare:




No doubt less sexy, but a lot clearer imho.

 

[Velrun]

You’re getting closer and closer to my original suggestion by every update you’re making

Now you have also decided to cut the (admittedly cool) Ixalan transform land card frame and you have cut mana costs in the upper right corner. High five!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm toying with the idea to print proxies of all the custom cards, which takes a bit of time, admittedly. I'm unsure of whether I should have a laptop ready to use after the draft, but I do think it looks a lot less messy in play. Right now I'm going with three tweaks to make modded cards recognisable (both during play and during future drafts).

• Add a star before the card name for each mod (there's a max of two mods per card)
• Change the rarity to rare for cards with a single sticker, and mythic for cards with two stickers
• Mirror the art

Anyway, these mods (as I'm currently calling them) are doing delightful things to my first test draft. I had some of the players put all their eggs in one basket, and some spread the love around. A few examples:


Selesnya Evangel has been absolutely smashing in this incarnation! I also loved the change to Glassdust Hulk, as the Improvise mod (for blue or red cards) currently adds 1 mana to the casting cost to offset the potential cost reduction. This brought the card right into Treasure Mage range

 

[Velrun]

This is so cool!

I am still worried about the everlasting part of these stickers. I run upgrades that lasts for the entire tournament and then get cleared at the end of the tournament.

How are you distributing the negative effects? Such as ‘Etb discard a card’ or ‘-1/-0’?

Do players get exactly equally many positive buff stickers and negative nerf stickers?

Or do you run a sort of ‘you have to add a negative nerf to one of your own cards in order to obtain this specific positive buff sticker’?

I must admit I still prefer the ‘Stickers last only for this tournament but may break color pie’ over ‘stickers last forever but remain true to the color pie.’

 

[Chris Taylor]

Which do you like better?




Or in this case, what do you think is the better statline?

 

[Suicufnoc]

First, second, tie, no idea. Probably #2? That card could be garbage in my almost clueless format can the ability be changed to "for each artifact "?

 

[safra]

LRLR

 

[Onderzeeboot]

LRRR for me

This is so cool!

I am still worried about the everlasting part of these stickers. I run upgrades that lasts for the entire tournament and then get cleared at the end of the tournament.

How are you distributing the negative effects? Such as ‘Etb discard a card’ or ‘-1/-0’?

Do players get exactly equally many positive buff stickers and negative nerf stickers?

Or do you run a sort of ‘you have to add a negative nerf to one of your own cards in order to obtain this specific positive buff sticker’?

I must admit I still prefer the ‘Stickers last only for this tournament but may break color pie’ over ‘stickers last forever but remain true to the color pie.’

Some of the stickers indeed apply a nerf in order to obtain a benefit. There's a mod that lowers the casting cost of a creature by but also applies -1 power, for example. There's currently no purely negative stickers.

Also, the entire premise of a legacy game is that you make lasting modifications, so these mods are permanent by design. Maybe you should be able to switch them around during the tournament, but at the very least your changes are set in stone the end of the day.

 

[Chris Taylor]

First, second, tie, no idea. Probably #2? That card could be garbage in my almost clueless format can the ability be changed to "for each artifact "?

Yeah the suggestion was made for an "Abzan clues" archetype, so we were brainstorming ideas.
It's only sorcery speed because you could hold priority, sac 3 clues and bolt 3 things. This forces you to ramp it up

 

[Chris Taylor]

LRRR for me


Some of the stickers indeed apply a nerf in order to obtain a benefit. There's a mod that lowers the casting cost of a creature by but also applies -1 power, for example. There's currently no purely negative stickers.

Also, the entire premise of a legacy game is that you make lasting modifications, so these mods are permanent by design. Maybe you should be able to switch them around during the tournament, but at the very least your changes are set in stone the end of the day.

If you can sticker any card, not just ones in your pool, pure negative stickers could be interesting

 

[Onderzeeboot]

If you can sticker any card, not just ones in your pool, pure negative stickers could be interesting

Yeah, there's no incentive to put the positive ones on your opponent's cards. There's an idea floating around in my head for 'scars' (as they were called in one of the articles I read for inspiration), which are negative stickers that you can apply at any moment without using the stack, somewhat like unmorphing a card. You could dish out a -1/-1 in the middle of combat that way and wreck combat math. That's not for the first iteration though, I feel. There's a lot of stuff you could do to expand in the basic idea, and that's stuff you can perfectly put in those quest packages you typically see in legacy games. I've already got plans for a quest that changes the Vivids I put into my cube to no longer enter the battlefield tapped, for example.

Oh, by the way, here's the cube I'm currently playing around with: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/heritage

 

[Velrun]

Vote 1: Dryad of Masks. Art is better. P/T should either be 0/1, 1/1 or 0/2. It is not a Shapeshifter because it doesn’t change form. It is a Shaman.

Vote 2: Neither if you ask me. But if I had to choose, I would go with the can’t block.

Vote 3: Right art

Vote 4: 4/2 100 %

 

[Velrun]

LRRR for me


Some of the stickers indeed apply a nerf in order to obtain a benefit. There's a mod that lowers the casting cost of a creature by but also applies -1 power, for example. There's currently no purely negative stickers.

Also, the entire premise of a legacy game is that you make lasting modifications, so these mods are permanent by design. Maybe you should be able to switch them around during the tournament, but at the very least your changes are set in stone the end of the day.

I have been running upgrades and with great succes as well. And they weren’t everlasting, non-reversible. Instead they were conspiracies like Immediate Action. I believe it is fundamental for a cube that players kind of know what they can expect before they sign up for a tournament.

So what does this mean? It means that if you have a small playgroup of people then you can offer them the opportunity to alter the cube slowly over time because they are the ones getting affected by those changes the next time and every other time after that one as well. However it also means you cannot allow such changes if random strangers/potential new friends want to join in on the tournament. That is like start watching a movie from the middle.

So the question one must ask themselves; which one am I?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

There’s a lot of regulars, and I always send a link to my cube beforehand. I do need to be sure to keep my cube updated

 

[psly4mne]

Which do you like better?

Left, but I'd prefer Nantuko Channeler for the name.
Right. Blocking and recurring for nearly no cost is too much, even if it's every other turn.
Left. It captures "herald" better.
Right. But the wording is "Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery."

 

[Velrun]

When I make custom cards I use “Sorcery speed.”

 

[Chris Taylor]

I should have clarified: just the art. The final design wont be able to block

I'm seeing a lot more votes for the nantuko then I'd thought.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm seeing a lot more votes for the nantuko then I'd thought.

The male fantasy aspect in that art is a little too on the nose, and while the background shows a bright palette of "land types", I don't know what that mask is doing for the actual ability to mimic organic matter.

To be fair, it's hard to find better art... Maybe this?

https://www.deviantart.com/sinto-risky/art/Grovewalker-739739940
https://www.deviantart.com/medok81/art/Dryade-142388997

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Which do you like better?
View attachment 2869View attachment 2870
View attachment 2871View attachment 2872
View attachment 2873View attachment 2874

Or in this case, what do you think is the better statline?
View attachment 2875View attachment 2876

Choice on the right all the way across.

 

[Velrun]

It happens rarely that the artwork we can find online is so straight on the nose as the Thespian Dryad. We all know what thespian means (Thespian Stage) and the Dryad is a perfect artwork for that effect. The Nantuko art could literally be anything.

 

[Bumibu]

I am going to try this in my cube. Seems overpowered as a card in todays standard, but I think it could be an ok card in my cube. What do you guys think?

 

[Velrun]

That’s Grixis!

The artwork might still be fine although it is double flavor fail (Grixis is defined by not having green nor white mana & Phyrexia never invaded Grixis)

About the card: I say it is pretty simple and sweet but I fear it is too powerful if I compare it to Toxic Deluge and Day of Judgment. Aggro will have a hard time defeating an Orzhov control player unless they also get some extra good stuff.

 

[Suicufnoc]

I'm thinking cost of 1/P 1/P 1/P B/W B/W

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm just gonna say it: Please do not make a colorless 0 mana wrath under any circumstances

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm just gonna say it: Please do not make a colorless 0 mana wrath under any circumstances

Yeah, that doesn't sound healthy at all. Like, I'm pretty sure Toxic Deluge is too strong for its mana cost, and this custom is cheaper in most circumstances, if we ignore the color intensity for a moment. Let's be fair though, mana in our cubes is often excellent, and that color intensity shouldn't be too much of a problem.