I find myself blocking with the Artificers a lot and attacking with Golems, so I wanted to try something that had sac overlap and was a little harder to get working. I can't really see a distributed 4/4 for 1R working without some real drawbacks but the idea I had, at any rate, was a particularly hot potato you wanted gone asap. tapping a golem you control on your upkeep might be just as flavourful without being as bad in regular situations. I'm still not very good at card design but I'm trying and I'm definitely learning a lot here.
Onderzeeboot's Khans of Alara WUBGR Cube
- Thread starter Onderzeeboot
- Start date
I find myself blocking with the Artificers a lot and attacking with Golems, so I wanted to try something that had sac overlap and was a little harder to get working. I can't really see a distributed 4/4 for 1R working without some real drawbacks but the idea I had, at any rate, was a particularly hot potato you wanted gone asap. tapping a golem you control on your upkeep might be just as flavourful without being as bad in regular situations. I'm still not very good at card design but I'm trying and I'm definitely learning a lot here.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I thought it over a bit, and decided against enchantifying the splicers up. I don't think the constellation decks need it, and the flavor is so bad. I'm a stickler for consistency (which is why the 0/1 artificers don't appeal to me at all) and flavor. Well, up to a point, Force Piker is fair game 
Point is, splicers feel better as artificers that put artifact Golems onto the battlefield.
I don't think there is much leeway for a two-mana splicer. The "illusion" keyword in blue (and black, sometimes) is really the best I can think of. "can't block" isn't high on my list for drawbacks on undercosted creatures. Actually, now that I think about it, there might be a suitable ability in red: "This creature can't attack or block alone". Still doesn't prevent splicers from chump-blocking though.
Point is, splicers feel better as artificers that put artifact Golems onto the battlefield.I don't think there is much leeway for a two-mana splicer. The "illusion" keyword in blue (and black, sometimes) is really the best I can think of. "can't block" isn't high on my list for drawbacks on undercosted creatures. Actually, now that I think about it, there might be a suitable ability in red: "This creature can't attack or block alone". Still doesn't prevent splicers from chump-blocking though.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
The premise of my cube is not one Wizards of the Coast has ever entertained in this exact configuration, and not surprisingly there's a lot of holes. Given that I'm committed to make this the best tri-color cube I can, and that I want to use a shifted color wheel, I've discovered an ever increasing need/want for custom cards. Sadly this means I can no longer use cubetutor to give a good overview of my cube, as it simply doesn't cater well to custom cubes. A feature for custom scans has been on the shortlist since 2013, and I sincerely hope it'll get done soon so I can draft the heck out of this. For now you'll have to do with the visual spoiler I put up today.
Keep in mind it's still a work in progress. I've been through white, blue, black, golgari and the shards (though there are a few cards missing there as well), but red, green and the other color pairs are still no more than an outline of what I'ld like to include. There's going to be some tough cuts when I get to that part, so don't expect every card to stay That said, take a gander. There's even a few unspoiled customs in there as well
Keep in mind it's still a work in progress. I've been through white, blue, black, golgari and the shards (though there are a few cards missing there as well), but red, green and the other color pairs are still no more than an outline of what I'ld like to include. There's going to be some tough cuts when I get to that part, so don't expect every card to stay
That said, take a gander. There's even a few unspoiled customs in there as well 
I can't give any real insightful commentary except that it looks pretty fun to draft. The cycles of the custom cards helps take down the level of complexity just a bit, so it feels like it'd be fairly easy to get into all the new cards (not harder than reading some new spoilers). There might might be some powerband issues, but I see some similar stuff in the charm cube and that one is doing just fine I think so maybe it won't be an issue?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Getting closer to a full list! I cut the artifact subtheme from red entirely. It's fun, but other themes take prevalence in the new color combinations. Man, cutting down to low numbers is always the hardest part!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ok, still unhappy about a few picks, and I got to cut a green card (which will be replaced by an updated version of Zotan because the four-spot is really crowded, probably Silklash Spider can be replaced?). But, I'ld like to hear some opinions on a few new cards I haven't yet showcased. Fair? Interesting? Broken?
Edit: Updated Spider Replicant and Vaporization Trial based on comments below.
Edit: Updated Spider Replicant and Vaporization Trial based on comments below.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
No feedback? Does that mean these are all okay?
Laz
Developer
Spider Replicant seems... confusing? Should it simply read something like 'when Spider Replicant is put into a graveyard from play, you may sacrifice an artifact, if you do, return Spider Replicant to the battlefield.'? Or is there some reason you don't want the ETB trigger? This version also doesn't have the strange interaction of gaining any +1/+1 counters that were on the target artifact. You could add that line if it was important.
I suppose the question is what are you trying to with this card in broad terms?
Hybrid mana Thought Scour seems cool.
Chainhaunt Gaoler seems boring, but effective. Is the ability to tap down artifacts a big deal?
The two Wrath variants are pretty cool in idea, but pretty weak. On Vaporization Trial, I am not sure how many cubes are slow enough to be considering Decree of Pain, but I suppose taking a mana off the cost in exchange for colour intensity is pretty fine. I presume the ideal follow-up with Chain Reckoning is a token producer, which makes it pretty comparable to something like Kirtar's Wrath or Phyrexian Rebirth, gaining the flexibility of being able to cast a card draw spell, or something else afterwards seems worth the increase in colour intensity. All of the comparator cards that I have listed are pretty weak though, so you have some room to manoeuvre if you want.
I suppose the question is what are you trying to with this card in broad terms?
Hybrid mana Thought Scour seems cool.
Chainhaunt Gaoler seems boring, but effective. Is the ability to tap down artifacts a big deal?
The two Wrath variants are pretty cool in idea, but pretty weak. On Vaporization Trial, I am not sure how many cubes are slow enough to be considering Decree of Pain, but I suppose taking a mana off the cost in exchange for colour intensity is pretty fine. I presume the ideal follow-up with Chain Reckoning is a token producer, which makes it pretty comparable to something like Kirtar's Wrath or Phyrexian Rebirth, gaining the flexibility of being able to cast a card draw spell, or something else afterwards seems worth the increase in colour intensity. All of the comparator cards that I have listed are pretty weak though, so you have some room to manoeuvre if you want.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Sweet feedback Laz! Thanks!
Spider Replicant is partly inspired by the barely visible art. I think I need to make it a touch less dark
Anyway, the idea is a creature that reassembles itself from metal scraps (other artifacts) when it dies. It uses +1/+1 counters to interact with proliferate and other +1/+1 counters. If it grows, it'll stay bigger until you run out of artifacts. It's sort of modular (Arcbound Ravager), but it can put the counters on noncreature artifacts as well.Chainhaunt Gaoler is a hole filler, it's not terribly original I'll concede, but it does the trick. There aren't a lot of targets for the artifact half of its tap ability, but it can be relevant (Bow of Nylea, Icy Manipulator, artifact mana (before the main phase).
I'm surprised you call the wraths weak. I thought they might be too strong, but I wasn't really sure how to evaluate. Considering that Martial Coup is also in my cube, and monocolor, you are probably right that Vaporization Trial at least is too expensive. I think I'll try putting it at
and putting one card in your hand, how does that sound?I think Chain Reckoning can't be much cheaper than six though. Considering that the baseline wrath costs 4 mana, you are getting a lot of value for only 2 more mana.
- Replicant is worded weirdly. I'd go with Laz's suggestion to sac an artifact on its death to reassemble itself. More flavorful and sounds cleaner? The way you worded the death trigger just sounds off.
- Sweet art and hybrid choice on Devour Intellect.
- Esper wrath is expensive and too little payoff for that cost. Costing it at 5 and 1 card seems about right. Don't see anything wrong with the Jeskai one, it's powerful and costed appropriately. Maybe make it so you can play spells from any yard? Would be an EDH all-star
- Sweet art and hybrid choice on Devour Intellect.
- Esper wrath is expensive and too little payoff for that cost. Costing it at 5 and 1 card seems about right. Don't see anything wrong with the Jeskai one, it's powerful and costed appropriately. Maybe make it so you can play spells from any yard? Would be an EDH all-star
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Great, I changed Replicant Spider and Vaporization Trial, see post above.
Some... no, that's not right... a lot more things I'm trying:
Thoughts?
I made commands to keep Ojutai's and Silumgar's Commands company. I think they follow the rule that both colors star abilities the other color hasn't access to, so I continued that here. All three pretty much reflect the nature of their guilds and try to capture a bit of character flavor as well. I was looking for a sweet card to return with Ojutai's Command as well, and came up with Soothsayer Owl.
I still love Gathering of the Clans as much as I did over in the Print this Wizards... thread. It's awesome
Edit: Tasigur's Command should probably read "return a permanent card...", see Nature's Sporal, and it would maybe be "better" (as in: read better) if it just milled a fixed amount.
Edit 2: Tasigur's Command updated.
Some... no, that's not right... a lot more things I'm trying:
Thoughts?
I made commands to keep Ojutai's and Silumgar's Commands company. I think they follow the rule that both colors star abilities the other color hasn't access to, so I continued that here. All three pretty much reflect the nature of their guilds and try to capture a bit of character flavor as well. I was looking for a sweet card to return with Ojutai's Command as well, and came up with Soothsayer Owl.
I still love Gathering of the Clans as much as I did over in the Print this Wizards... thread. It's awesome
Edit: Tasigur's Command should probably read "return a permanent card...", see Nature's Sporal, and it would maybe be "better" (as in: read better) if it just milled a fixed amount.
Edit 2: Tasigur's Command updated.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I think it's ready! That means the entire cube is now under review @ http://khansofalara.blogspot.nl/.
So, the shard are meant to roughly support the themes below. :
: Control, artifacts matter
: Value train, graveyard matters, zombies
: +1/+1 counters, sacrificing minions, ramp
: Beatdown, enchantments matter
: Tempo, spells matter, control
This list is also meant as a short introduction to my cube. What do you think? Do the themes "click" when you scroll through my cube? Am I missing themes in this list?
So, the shard are meant to roughly support the themes below. :
: Control, artifacts matter: Value train, graveyard matters, zombies: +1/+1 counters, sacrificing minions, ramp: Beatdown, enchantments matter: Tempo, spells matter, controlThis list is also meant as a short introduction to my cube. What do you think? Do the themes "click" when you scroll through my cube? Am I missing themes in this list?
Laz
Developer
Ok, lots going on here.
Gathering of the Clans: Mechanically good, flavour doesn't mesh. Clans is really a tribal warrior feeling thing (though my impressions may have been shaped by having Khans fresh in my mind), Prowess is a Monk-oriented thing. Human Monk is fine as a token type (see Kithkin Solider/Faerie Rogue precedent), but getting the flavour to match Rebound might be an ask.
Sanguine Acolyte seems fun, Night's Whisper is a solid card. A decent modal card, but I am not convinced it needs the activated ability. Then again, I can see the activated ability as being needed to reduce the inclination to sacrifice the Acolyte straight up, as it seems unlikely that you will have a better sacrifice option than your fresh 1/1.
Soothsayer Owl is... interesting. UW is hardly the 'dump your hand' colour combination, which makes it difficult to evaluate. Seems like an ok-ish late game top-deck, but then you would likely have the mana to pay for a more expensive form of it anyway? I feel it will often play as a life-gain card, with potential to be Unearthed later in Esper. I wonder if giving it Delve is interesting with the cost increase ability? Also, that ability isn't Channel, as the ability doesn't match an ability on the card, it reads like Cycling to me. Why is this an enchantment? It lacks a both a static enchantment-like ability and Bestow.
Arcstrike Eidolon is cool. It is a little more aggressively costed than Ghostblade Eidolon, but it is not like that card is ruining games. Double strike being a RW ability makes this guy feel very natural. Should the frame be silver?
The Commands are hard to evaluate, give them a play-test, see what modes are being used and why, and go from there I guess.
Gathering of the Clans: Mechanically good, flavour doesn't mesh. Clans is really a tribal warrior feeling thing (though my impressions may have been shaped by having Khans fresh in my mind), Prowess is a Monk-oriented thing. Human Monk is fine as a token type (see Kithkin Solider/Faerie Rogue precedent), but getting the flavour to match Rebound might be an ask.
Sanguine Acolyte seems fun, Night's Whisper is a solid card. A decent modal card, but I am not convinced it needs the activated ability. Then again, I can see the activated ability as being needed to reduce the inclination to sacrifice the Acolyte straight up, as it seems unlikely that you will have a better sacrifice option than your fresh 1/1.
Soothsayer Owl is... interesting. UW is hardly the 'dump your hand' colour combination, which makes it difficult to evaluate. Seems like an ok-ish late game top-deck, but then you would likely have the mana to pay for a more expensive form of it anyway? I feel it will often play as a life-gain card, with potential to be Unearthed later in Esper. I wonder if giving it Delve is interesting with the cost increase ability? Also, that ability isn't Channel, as the ability doesn't match an ability on the card, it reads like Cycling to me. Why is this an enchantment? It lacks a both a static enchantment-like ability and Bestow.
Arcstrike Eidolon is cool. It is a little more aggressively costed than Ghostblade Eidolon, but it is not like that card is ruining games. Double strike being a RW ability makes this guy feel very natural. Should the frame be silver?
The Commands are hard to evaluate, give them a play-test, see what modes are being used and why, and go from there I guess.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yeah, I contemplated Human Monk tokens. There's also a token on Nechebe's command, and Nechebe is a monk as well, so I should probably change that! In this case Human is important mechanically, but Monk is important for the flavor. I'll go hunt for better art so I can retheme the card.
Sanguine Acolyte felt like it should be at, but anything over 1/1 would be too good I think at that cost, and without activated ability it's pretty much auto-saccing itself, so yeah, you pretty much divined the reason for the activated ability
Soothsayer Owl is an enchantment creature, pretty much for the same reason Courser of Kruphix is. I wanted to up the enchantment count a little (for constellation, which is in mainly, but also a little bit in white) but wanted a creature as well. If I had used cycling I would have to use wording like on Krosan Tusker, which took up a little bit too much space and didn't make the card more readable. In the end I went with channel, which mechanically does exactly what I want. The tie-in between static ability and channel effect is actually purely a choice on the part of the designers. The effects are loosely tied on all 12 channel cards, but tenuously so on, for example, Shinen of Fear's Chill. Since it does tie together the discard ability nicely, and I don't feel like dreaming up a new keyword that mechanically does exactly the same, I'll just stick with channel. Unearth is a good tip though, I should probably make space for that!
@Arcstrike Eidolon's frame: I'm afraid I'm stuck with that border, it's straight from MSE.
I'll try to remember to take notes on the commands
Sanguine Acolyte felt like it should be at
, but anything over 1/1 would be too good I think at that cost, and without activated ability it's pretty much auto-saccing itself, so yeah, you pretty much divined the reason for the activated ability Soothsayer Owl is an enchantment creature, pretty much for the same reason Courser of Kruphix is. I wanted to up the enchantment count a little (for constellation, which is in
mainly, but also a little bit in white) but wanted a creature as well. If I had used cycling I would have to use wording like on Krosan Tusker, which took up a little bit too much space and didn't make the card more readable. In the end I went with channel, which mechanically does exactly what I want. The tie-in between static ability and channel effect is actually purely a choice on the part of the designers. The effects are loosely tied on all 12 channel cards, but tenuously so on, for example, Shinen of Fear's Chill. Since it does tie together the discard ability nicely, and I don't feel like dreaming up a new keyword that mechanically does exactly the same, I'll just stick with channel. Unearth is a good tip though, I should probably make space for that!@Arcstrike Eidolon's frame: I'm afraid I'm stuck with that border, it's straight from MSE.
I'll try to remember to take notes on the commands
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Now with more Human Monks!
I like Pick the Wrong Fight as a cardname
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Hey, nice art on the monk token! I've got that exact same image waiting to be used!
Also Lol at RW snapcaster
I might steal Nechebe, that design is super sweet, and I've got an unhealthy obsession with Standing Troops after Priests of Norn won me so many drafts
They all sound like sweet cards. I feel like there's some accidental whitespace somewhere on the command, but I couldn't tell you where (the font looks super small)
Pick the wrong fight is a better name than before. I've got it in my cube as "Temple Watch"
Also Lol at RW snapcaster
I might steal Nechebe, that design is super sweet, and I've got an unhealthy obsession with Standing Troops after Priests of Norn won me so many drafts
They all sound like sweet cards. I feel like there's some accidental whitespace somewhere on the command, but I couldn't tell you where (the font looks super small)
Pick the wrong fight is a better name than before. I've got it in my cube as "Temple Watch"
Pick the Wrong Fight is awesome all-round. Hats off to you, sir.
Probably needs a Monk lord now.
Probably needs a Monk lord now.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Thanks for the comments
Yeah, Laz's suggestion definitely paid off, human monks with prowess are much more flavorful than humans with prowess!
Yeah, Laz's suggestion definitely paid off, human monks with prowess are much more flavorful than humans with prowess!
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Because it's good. Good cards in this block are rare and up
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
That's selling short some great cards in this block! My cube is a bit off-beat, I'll admit, but in addition to the rares I run (excluding reprint Duress) an astounding number of commons and uncommons from Khans of Tarkir block!
Fricking 25 nonrares! I love Khans of Tarkir block, despite the mediocre morphs!
The "real" reason Pick the Wrong Fight hasn't been printed of course is that Rebound and Prowess weren't in the same sets
Chris Taylor
Contributor
I'd be a bit cautious to include treasure cruise as a "strong common" in that it was a horrible developmental mistake (Come to think of it, delve specifically is really hard to balance it looks like...)
(Come to think of it, delve specifically is really hard to balance it looks like...)
It's by no means broken in either limited or standard - the two formats they actually test - so I think it's actually pretty cool when they print cards that scale up with the power level of the format, even if Cruise made Modern boring for a few months.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Yeah, I don't think Treasure Cruise is a mistake. It's definitely a good common by any standards, but nothing to be scared about in cube (or standard). I hope WotC never stops to push the envelope for fear of what cards might do in Legacy!
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ok, I'm in the process of actually putting together the cube, and still coming across a few holes. Most of these are pretty much the filler you get late in spoiler season, but I'ld still like to here any opinions you guys mught have
PS. Geyser of Wisdom idea shamelesly stolen from Lucre! I needed another blue enchantment for Zur.
PS. Geyser of Wisdom idea shamelesly stolen from Lucre! I needed another blue enchantment for Zur.