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

[Onderzeeboot]

Is there a difference between cards people post to The Lab and cards people post here? I've been primarily using the Lab because Taylor said something in this thread about how he'd given up on Hasbro printing cubeable cards or something, plus The Lab has a cooler name, but what are you folks using the respective threads for?

The difference, I guess, is that the starting point in this thread is the custom card created by the poster, whereas the starting point in The Lab is the problem the poster is trying to solve with a custom. Maybe you already thought of a card and needs feedback, but it could also be that you're looking for a hole to fill and can't think of a satisfying design, so you ask other Riptiders for help in the Lab.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Jeez, you make me sound so dour

What I mean by "I've given up trying to get these printed" is there are just so many things that we as players want that WotC will not do.
Mana Leak, Doom Blade, Stone Rain, Oblivion Ring, all of these cards are too strong for modern standard. You'll notice all the black removal has insane stipulations on it, cancel+ is the only option available, etc etc.

Like, lets be real here. WotC has a specific policy all their designers abide by that they cannot replicate any design someone sends in for fear of legal action. If I tweet at maro with an idea, there is now a 100% chance it will never see the light of day. These cards exist on the internet. The only way they see the light of day is if nobody at wizards actually sees them, but they happen to get printed due to chaos theory I guess. This is one of a few legal stipulations getting in the way of the game growing.

So unless it's a creature with an angle that some designer already thought of (Ie no blue savannah lions), we won't see it. The closest I've ever come with this stuff being printed is I concieved of Sudden Shock to my friends during oddessy block, and I saw someone come up with strive, ie what if random spells could target like fireball does.

So that all being said, why do we care? The print me half of the title is pretty useless, but the cube part sure isn't. Lets make some shit! Even if it is lucas' 4 ability white goblin pikers

Footnote: I've never actually been clear on the difference between the two threads, but what bootman is saying makes sense.

 

[Lucre]

The cycle-and-exile option is pretty crazy good, and might mean they rarely get played as creatures. Unless I was forced to hardcast the hero by my own super-aggression or my opponent's, I'd be waiting to cycle him for a dual once I need the land or have the leftover mana.

Even late game paying 3W for fetch dual fetch goyf at instant speed might sound better than trying to get value out of a 2/1 before you can fetch the more useful CMC2 creature. It might be more of a creature card if it says, 'search your library for a white creature card' instead

I dunno it's like 4 mana to draw two cards one of which is a land and the other is a lower impact card that you're still gonna spend mana on. Like and you even have to be playing freaking GW in your example so I feel like you've earned some kinda reward lol

I think you guys are kinda hung up on this path example too, you aren't getting to exile the second thing until you've spent like 5 mana right? They've picked out two basics of their own by then too right?

Also I feel like we need to stop looking at these cards through the lens of what's okay for white, what feels white, we're trying to expand now for a reason right?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I dunno it's like 4 mana to draw two cards one of which is a land and the other is a lower impact card that you're still gonna spend mana on. Like and you even have to be playing freaking GW in your example so I feel like you've earned some kinda reward lol

I think you guys are kinda hung up on this path example too, you aren't getting to exile the second thing until you've spent like 5 mana right? They've picked out two basics of their own by then too right?

Also I feel like we need to stop looking at these cards through the lens of what's okay for white, what feels white, we're trying to expand now for a reason right?

Man, stop thinking outside the box! We should strictly adhere to the color wheel!

Kidding aside, I still like reanimating better than regrowing though, because it's a more unique effect imo. Every color can regrow things, though most (white included in WotC's world) are restricted to certain card types. Regrowing instants and sorceries would be new for white, but blue, red and green can already do that, so that's just muddying the waters instead of giving white a new identity I feel?

 

[anotak]

Is there a difference between cards people post to The Lab and cards people post here? I've been primarily using the Lab because Taylor said something in this thread about how he'd given up on Hasbro printing cubeable cards or something, plus The Lab has a cooler name, but what are you folks using the respective threads for?

so this thread was originally "hey i want this in my cube" but it became "hey i made this card"
the lab was originally "hey look at this really experimental card" but it became "hey i made this card"

it's not really a big deal which you use
we used to have a separate subforum for custom cards

 

[Ferritovore]

I don't like white generally, outside of its combat tricks. It's the first color I'd cut if I wanted to make a 4 color cube.

A couple more ideas while I still have making white more dynamic stuck in my head and I'm enthused about a mechanic I hit before wizards.

Also I feel like we need to stop looking at these cards through the lens of what's okay for white, what feels white, we're trying to expand now for a reason right?

I think ONE partof what makes white boring, is that white (typically) doesn't win by surprise / big plays. (not the only part, but I like tackling a large issue by breaking it into several smaller issues)

As far as moncolor decks go:

• red can just cast a big X spell / quite a few other "surprises"
• black also can do the X spell, as well as the similar big gary play
• green has overrun, wake-up-all-the-lands, ample supply to WIDE trample and/or VERY BIG pump in general
• blue can big bounce / big tapdown all the blockers after needling you down with some of their evasive creatures, then swing with those + their crabs and utilicreatures

White can usually do some blink/tapdown/bounce but blue gets bigger such spells or more cheaply AFAIK. has some pump, but it's usually small+keywords/riders or small+wide, and lacks trample relative to green. Swell of Courage is one notable exception not only because it can be as big as anything green has to offer, but both modes can serve as finishers for different contexts, which helps make up for the lack of trample.

Obviously player-damaging X spells a la black/red are out of the question, then again "holy strike" generally exists in the White European Fantasy with Christian Bits that MtG/D&D/tolkien/etc are drawn from. So if you're a person who doesn't mind Sunlance, maybe a slightly weaker version of red/black's player-damaging spells would be acceptable much like white has slightly weaker versions of the aforementioned green and blue "finishers"?

also of note: mono white decks can have Extort, and that's not even Planar Chaos weirdness

 

[Ferritovore]

blue can big bounce / big tapdown all the blockers after needling you down with some of their evasive creatures, then swing with those + their crabs and utilicreatures
White can usually do some blink/tapdown/bounce but blue gets bigger such spells or more cheaply AFAIK

It would possibly be fair for me to have condensed this down into "white flyers and blue flyers can theoretically win in the same way, except that blue gets access to blue spells which makes blue flyers a better deck than white flyers" lol?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think this should be a white card:

 

[whydirt]

The "freeze" effect of holding town a tap over an extra turn is pretty solidly in blue's color pie slice these days. White usually just taps once.

That said, white already has Blinding Beam, which is arguably better than Sleep on average due to being instant speed and having multiple options for casting to fit into your curve.

 

[Lucre]

The "freeze" effect of holding town a tap over an extra turn is pretty solidly in blue's color pie slice these days. White usually just taps once.

That said, white already has Blinding Beam, which is arguably better than Sleep on average due to being instant speed and having multiple options for casting to fit into your curve.

You ever been locked out with yosei and greater good?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Oh I know, it's just that, if you want to make white trickier, this seems like an excellent trick to do that.

 

[anotak]

does it make sense for white to be trickier in that particular manner though?


Sorcery
Tap all creatures without vigilance.
Rebound

 

[whydirt]

I'd like to see more and varied hate-bear style cards in white. Make it "trickier" in the sense of creating a puzzle your opponent has to solve as opposed to coming in unexpectedly with instant speed effects.

 

[Ferritovore]

Assorted white cards I've seen that seem interestingish

"I get to be awesome because you attacked"

Not sure what to make of this one, guess it keeps your lord in play?

Symmetrical laws and/or taxes (not always in the form of hatebears)
1UW Human Horseman 2/4
No more than one creature can attack each combat.
~ can't be blocked.

 

[whydirt]

How about some replacement abilities that let white exchange lifegain at the time it happens for other effects? It'd be similar to black's life payments, but fit better from a flavor perspective in white. It also helps lifegain effects become proactive instead of just dragging out the game. Here are some examples.

If you would gain life, you may instead:

• put a +1/+1 counter on target creature
• Scry 1 (or more, depending on the rest of the card)
• put a 1/1 white soldier token creature on the battlefield
• search your library from a basic plains and put it in your hand
• return target permanent card with CMC N or less from your graveyard and put it on the battlefield
• have target creature/creatures you control gain flying/first strike/vigilance/etc
• flicker a thing

Unlike Ajani's Pridemate, I feel like these could go onto an on-curve body and not feel so terrible if you're not triggering the ability.

 

[anotak]

doing some aimless musing
see thinking about it, white has brave the elements and whatnot, harm's way, etc, it's got plenty of tricks but that's not really what's doing it for anybody.

what does white have that makes it unique, that really makes people get excited for it.
i mean what does it really

white's got this whole 'forced equality' thing w wraths, balance, taxes, etc. white's got this you-hurt-me-i-hurt-you thing going on, you know an eye for an eye and all that. white's got healing/life gain? white's got some sort of collectivism going on. but mechanics based count-how-many on that tend to be a bit win-more and adding a ton of tiny shit to the board is pretty fucking inelegant anyway. religion seems like it's been played up a bit, going with collectivism, there's devotion, but the existing white devotion cards are not-so-interesting, and devotion has a lot of the problems i just mentioned. there's other ways you could go with that, like self-sacrifice for the team, but in general that seems to be a black thing (confusingly enough, as black is the color of individualism)? Can we play that up without treading too hard on black?
in general, all the mechanics for creatures teaming up in magic have various problems (banding, soulbond, bestow).
Team Player: A Sketch
Creature
Tap an untapped creature you control: That creature deals 1 damage to an opponent. Activate this ability only if ~ dealt combat damage to an opponent this turn.
1/1
speaking of religion, there's not really a white mechanic for converting others to your cause

white's got defender and vigilance, so along with the retaliation theme, is it a defensive color? well, no.
intolerance seems like it would be a white thing, but most of the cards I can think of that call that to mind are very black. sometimes people bring up that "oh, white doesn't put down other things, it just pulls itself up", but this is similar to the rhetoric of real life actual racists.
the whole retaliation theme sort of is the exact opposite of first strike, like maybe we can play up "preemptive strikes" somehow, the phrase seems like a very white thing, but i don't know in what manner. the things in magic that could be considered preemptive strikes are often black or red. thoughtseize, stone rain, cradle to grave and whatnot

could ninjutsu with a different name be a white thing. fits with blink, fits with teamwork

white seems to represent a large organization very often, but large organizations very often have secrets, but spy networks are confusingly exclusively blue and black. reconnaissance seems like it would be a white thing maybe, but again, it's exclusively blue and green, maybe red. or maybe not reconnaissance, but watchful surveillance, big brother. shouldn't a secret government installation be a white thing? but somehow it's instead black or blue. somehow there's this idea that white is good and open and honest, but then it's simultaneously a big overbearing religiously fueled intolerant government? often seems wotc people perhaps don't know the differences between communism and fascism and can't seem to decide which they want white to be.

so what does white have, it's well organized? what does that even mean in the context of magic. does that mean it's efficient? i guess that fits with 2/1s for somewhat. but white is often tied to inefficient bureaucracy. like we're given this idea of a big machine of white's government (who are also often The Good Guys), but then the taxation aspects are treated as something that simply slows everyone down, instead of something that fuels white. which is confusing at best. like being more efficient implies to me that "you can do more with less resources", but white never seems to really do that to any significant degree. white gets untapping basically everything except lands, which would be like the one thing that would represent that.

so white creates an extremely complex system of laws, right? but there's never been a lawyer character in magic as far as i can recall, just judges. seems a bit odd.

white supports whatever the status quo is, it is conservative. is there any way to express this mechanically

 

[whydirt]

Also, Harm's Way is a great white spell for trickery if you have a creature deck focused cube. It's like a one-mana shock-sized Lightning Helix that can also save creatures.

edit: oops, missed that you linked this in your post above mine. I still think Harm's Way is a powerful spell that often gets overlooked.

 

[Ferritovore]

often seems wotc people perhaps don't know the differences between communism and fascism and can't seem to decide which they want white to be.

white supports whatever the status quo is, it is conservative. is there any way to express this mechanically

omfg <3

I feel like wotc really knocked this out of the park with Elesh Norn, Grand Racist and Blind Obedience, but then they felt obligated to make white the goodguys, because I don't know, the dictionary definition of "white" is "good", right, and also it's the color with angels in it?

Going in this direction of outwardly-good-for-reasons-of-obligation/shame/"sin"/order&law could really do a lot to differentiate white thematically from green. Since green has several actual hippies in it, it can be the actual-leftists faction, or at least primitivists with a light splash of pinko sympathies.

And if white was doubling down in the law&order thing it opens up a little bit of thematic space for red to represent passions other than "rage" and "smash", like love or friendship or freedom or even Punisher-style vigilante "justice"?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Wizards has played with the concept of white not being "the good guys" in the past, most notably, I think, in Kamigawa block, where Konda, Lord of Eiganjo was the bad guy, and Toshiro Umezawa was one of the protagonists. It's just that white's values (for the greater good, together we're strong, etc.) lend themselves better for the good guys role than black does (I put my own interest before others). It's when white plays with "the end justifies the means" type of logic that it most easily falls into the bad guy role I think.

 

[Lucre]

one of the problems I have with turning "return a card with cmc 1 or less" to permanent is that it sorta limits the usefulness to decks that are excited about replaying fetchlands or aggro decks. The same with colour coding it as it makes it only interesting to aggro decks or decks with mother of runes or very specific premium removal spells.

Some of my other favourite abilities are extort and detain but I was trying to give white more agency regarding it's own cards and interesting deck construction.

Anyway I feel like some of this stuff may have been lost on you guys in the sea of card text I confronted you with but maybe I can break it down. I often use land cycling + small body to make a card more interesting to the range of tempo, aggro and control decks. Adding a graveyard ability to a creature gives it a good awkwardness/ delay I like but making it very acessable on the land cycle gives a certain privilege to decks playing it in the midgame or interested in making their land drops, something I feel is kinda deserved.

Most of the cards in that vein are a combination of a couple cycles of proto-souls of (PLANE) I made and this bad boy


Instant
Make a 2/2 white knight token.
Plains Cyling
Flashback

I sorta prefer stuff like this to giving white one dimensional hammer creatures and effects or making them rely on planeswalker value to fill the gaps of their kinda blatant cards.

Anyway I've got some more bad ideas!

Like what about this hero?


Creature - Knight
Lifelink
Contract , Discard NAME from your hand: Counter target spell that targets you or a creature you control.
2/1

Endless iterations of that idea can be had

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I love the contract knight, it's awesome. I can also see what you're getting at with the cmc 1 thing allowing all card types. It does broaden the card's potential.

Edit: I love conditional counterspells in white by the way. Mana Tithe is awesome, but so is your example. It just feels white to tax people or protect your assets like that. I wish they would bleed that ability into white more often.

 

[Lucre]

Instant
Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature
Draw a card


Instant
Exile target card in a graveyard
Draw a card


Instant
Counter target spell unless it's controller pays


Creature - Human Soldier
Flash
: NAME gains flying until end of turn.
2/1


Sorcery
Put the top two cards from your library into your graveyard.
You may return a creature or land card from your graveyard to your hand.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Yes, maybe, yes, neat Righteous Blow "variant", oh lord yes! Cute designs Lucre! I love the one especially!

Your Force Spike made me think of a card I had in my cube when it was still supporting WU that you might like.

Force Piker
Creature - Human Soldier
Contract -- , Discard Force Piker: Counter target spell unless its controller pays .
2/1

 

[Laz]

Instant
Counter target spell unless it's controller pays

Is there room for Anotak's (IIRC) awesome card idea here?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Is there room for Anotak's (IIRC) awesome card idea here?

Gosh that's beautiful!