General Print this Wizards! (So I can put it in my cube)

[Chris Taylor]

Eh, even if we could I'm not sure I'd want to. Coming up with entire sets is hard, ESPECIALLY entire cube sets. (No unplayables)
Making archetypes feel wholly new is insanely hard, and balancing cards against each other just makes my head spin.

 

[Jason Waddell]

are you referring to a specific one? ive seen a few of those.

this thing isnt all custom cards but they obviously are a big part

Yeah, there was one made by Ali Antrazi and Justin Parnell. I liked a lot of what they did, but thought that on the whole many cards were overly complex for the sake of being complex. Making it must have been a gargantuan task though, and I certainly appreciate the effort. I probably don't have it in me to actually pull it off.

But I do think, at some theoretical point in the future, that it would be a fun project to explore. I have a lot of ideas on environmental design but am atrocious at thinking up and designing actual cards. I think there are a lot of complementary skillsets here at RTL though, and think it could be a lot of fun to do. There'd probably be more momentum for that type of project than the budget cube idea, but we would need some strong leads. Someone like Chris Taylor to step up and help keep us moving forward.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Eh, even if we could I'm not sure I'd want to. Coming up with entire sets is hard, ESPECIALLY entire cube sets. (No unplayables)
Making archetypes feel wholly new is insanely hard, and balancing cards against each other just makes my head spin.

I would say, borrow from the existing card pool as liberally as is needed.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I would say, borrow from the existing card pool as liberally as is needed.

Then you get my cube

 

[Chris Taylor]

Yeah, there was one made by Ali Antrazi and Justin Parnell. I liked a lot of what they did, but thought that on the whole many cards were overly complex for the sake of being complex. Making it must have been a gargantuan task though, and I certainly appreciate the effort. I probably don't have it in me to actually pull it off.

But I do think, at some theoretical point in the future, that it would be a fun project to explore. I have a lot of ideas on environmental design but am atrocious at thinking up and designing actual cards. I think there are a lot of complementary skillsets here at RTL though, and think it could be a lot of fun to do. There'd probably be more momentum for that type of project than the budget cube idea, but we would need some strong leads. Someone like Chris Taylor to step up and help keep us moving forward.

Don't look at me man, I hate set design
I've been trying for as long as I've been creating cards to zero in on exactly what makes a balanced card, and when we can deviate from that, since it's a skill a LOT of card designers lack.
That narrow focus really doesn't translate well to the macro

 

[Jason Waddell]

Then you get my cube

Well, something like your cube, but I think we could be a bit more aggressive. The way I think is... one card (for example Gravecrawler) was able to completely change the way my cube performed. What if we could improve on things we didn't even see as problems? What if we could make designs that felt fresh and imaginative? Instead of just plugging wholes, start from a clean perspective and try to do something spectacular.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Don't look at me man, I hate set design
I've been trying for as long as I've been creating cards to zero in on exactly what makes a balanced card, and when we can deviate from that, since it's a skill a LOT of card designers lack.
That narrow focus really doesn't translate well to the macro

What you describe is exactly why Wizards splits things into Design and Development. There would need to be two project leads.

 

[Chris Taylor]

What you describe is exactly why Wizards splits things into Design and Development. There would need to be two project leads.

Alright, I can head up the "Tearing People's Dreams Down" committee

Also I wanna go on record here: I think one of the major problems with Ali/Justin's custom cube is they departed too far from what we know as magic.
Last I checked there was a 3/1 with no drawback, and if that card is a baseline, it's really hard to put everything else in perspective. I know why they did it, they said so in an interview: "We thought long and hard of what would make us play green aggro, and he's what we came up with"

 

[Lucre]

I made my own snap dragon

Snap Dragon 4UU
Creature - Dragon
Flying
When Snap Dragon enters the battlefield return target creature to its owners hand and untap two target labdz!
4/4

 

[anotak]

so, ideally this cube these 2 are for isn't too heavy on tribal, but there's some cards that are really neat that care about tribal, so we're thinking of assigning a race and a class to each shard/wedge and then having each tribal card care about a race and a class from overlapping 3c combinations

Gravecrawler Jr.
Creature - Vampire Shaman
Gravecrawler Jr. can't block.
You may cast Gravecrawler Jr. from your graveyard as long as you control a Vampire or a Shaman.
2/1

Champion of the Parish Jr.
Creature - Human Warrior
Whenever another Human or Warrior enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on Champion of the Parish.
1/1

 

[Jason Waddell]

Power / toughness?

 

[anotak]

oh, the same as the originals whoops

 

[Jason Waddell]

These seems like Sr.s not Jr.s

 

[anotak]

they learned from their dads and then added some new tricks

 

[CML]

“Pity the student who does not surpass his master.” -- yoda

 

[Lucre]

Tell me more about how race and class extend through a wedge and how this makes things interesting.

I also wonder how this addresses intersectional privilege problems and feminist issues within your cube.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I also wonder how this addresses intersectional privilege problems and feminist issues within your cube.

Ahhhhh I love this forum.

 

[anotak]

Tell me more about how race and class extend through a wedge and how this makes things interesting.

while its not an explicitly tribal cube, it adds another axis of synergies which means more people will want x or y card without everyone wanting every card just because of raw power.

 

[Lucre]

Lol tumblr and every other site is clamoring to abuse that term as much as humanly possible, I figured we might as well too. My facebook is jam-packed with people who try to cram hegemonic into unprecedented parts of a sentence and that's the way I like it.

Okay, Anotak, I gotta ask you to get a little more down and dirty with the way you are cutting up this pie and how thorough you are being. I'm having a hard time understanding it.

 

[anotak]

well we're still brainstorming and planning out how this is all going to work

but ideally the tribal stuff ties back into mechanics and themes we are trying to push. like how gravecrawler supports sac themes, and riptide lab can help support blink themes.

heres a snippet from my conversations with the other guy:

race possibilities (mainly going by just sheer numbers per color on oracle):
colorless - golem or construct (errata blade splicer/wing splicer and any artifact creatures and suddenly its a really mild theme). or eldrazi? (no thanks imo)
goblins - jund
zombies? vampires? - grixis. there's sort of an inherent problem with zombies having classes though. gravecrawler as a vampire cleric or something?
merfolk - esper
birds? angels? rhino? kithkin? - bant
giants? - naya (cant think of anything)

faeries - bug
elves - junk, unless you want treefolk
humans - america
elementals? really dont know - rug
? - rbw

classes
(sorry i dont know where knights fits in)
wizards - esper
rogues - grixis
shamans - jund
warriors? - naya
monks? - bant

clerics - junk
soldiers - america? really weird that u would have more soldiers than g or b
rebels - WBR? there are no non white or black rebels? red makes the most flavor sense to me, but mechanically green makes the most sense. we need rebels
ninjas? - bug? there are no non-dimir ninjas though
scouts? - rug?

errata all ninjas to be rogues?

the idea was to have 1-6 cards that care about each but preferably care about both a race and a class.
also we were talking about letting delver flip off of Wizards too

honestly the biggest reason i wanted to do this like this is to give a direction to design instead of "well i'll just put this because it looks cool", and if it doesnt work out then we can just undo

 

[Lucre]

I made a card that is way too fair for us but maybe the other sites might like it.

Wizard Pal
Creature - Human Wizards (C)
Flash, flying
When Wizard Pal enters the battlefield draw a card.
1/1
"Maybe I ought to be a faerie or merfolk or zombie."

 

[Jason Waddell]

Riptide Lab
Legendary Creature - Hound (C)
2/2

 

[anotak]

Another Blue One Drop
Creature - Zombie Wizard
If a spell or ability an opponent controls would be countered by a spell or ability you control, put a +1/+1 counter on ~ instead.
2/1

daze is now a combat trick i guess

 

[Lucre]

Yeah, there was one made by Ali Antrazi and Justin Parnell. I liked a lot of what they did, but thought that on the whole many cards were overly complex for the sake of being complex. Making it must have been a gargantuan task though, and I certainly appreciate the effort. I probably don't have it in me to actually pull it off.

But I do think, at some theoretical point in the future, that it would be a fun project to explore. I have a lot of ideas on environmental design but am atrocious at thinking up and designing actual cards. I think there are a lot of complementary skillsets here at RTL though, and think it could be a lot of fun to do. There'd probably be more momentum for that type of project than the budget cube idea, but we would need some strong leads. Someone like Chris Taylor to step up and help keep us moving forward.

Please put more of your environmental design notes and schemes somewhere some time.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Another Blue One Drop
Creature - Zombie Wizard
If a spell or ability an opponent controls would be countered by a spell or ability you control, put a +1/+1 counter on ~ instead.
2/1

daze is now a combat trick i guess

Wait, how does the "instead" here work? Does that keep the spell from being countered?