Ravnic's Custom Pokémagic-Cube

ravnic

ravnic

GC3 Duflor 1.jpg

Sweet-Scent Gloom 2G
Pokémon — Plant Poison
G, T: Untap target Pokémon an opponent controls. It blocks another target Pokémon this turn if able.
Evolve to Vileplume 2GG
2/2


GC3 Duflor 2.jpg

Stinking Gloom 2G
Pokémon — Plant Poison
Poisontouch
Whenever this Pokémon attacks, other Pokémon you control gain poisontouch until end of turn
Evolve to Vileplume 2GG
2/2
 
ravnic

ravnic

GC5 Giflor.jpg

~Pollinating Vileplume 3GG
Pokémon — Plant Poison
When ~ enters the battlefield or evolves from an evolution, you gain 3 life.
At the beginning of your endstep, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, target Pokémon is now poisoned.
3/3


The oddish evolution line supports the lifegain and poison themes you can find in abzan/jund respectively. It also provides a little bit of generally useful stuff like ramp and green (pseudo) removal.

"Evolves from an evolution" is probably not the best way to translate "aus einer Entwicklung entsteht" lol
 
ravnic

ravnic

To really show the potential of the evolution mechanic, I designed this fan favorite as a toolbox creature.

XC3 Evoli 1.jpg

~Unsteady Eevee 3
Pokémon — Normal
Vigilance
Evolve to Sylveon 1W
Evolve to Vaporeon 1U
Evolve to Umbreon 1B
Evolve to Flareon 1R
Evolve to Leafeon 1G
Evolve to Espeon 1(u/b)
Evolve to Glaceon 1(g/u)
Evolve to Jolteon 1(r/w)
2/2


XC3 Evoli 2.jpg

~Tenacious Eevee 3
Pokémon — Normal
First strike
Evolve to Sylveon 1W
Evolve to Vaporeon 1U
Evolve to Umbreon 1B
Evolve to Flareon 1R
Evolve to Leafeon 1G
Evolve to Espeon 1(u/b)
Evolve to Glaceon 1(g/u)
Evolve to Jolteon 1(r/w)
2/2


With this distribution, every two-color deck will already have access to 3-4 eeveelutions without splashing.
 
ravnic

ravnic

blacksmithy said:
the fab art on every card in this Vileplume line is a big part of why i still love Pokémon TCG
Click to expand...
Only Vileplume itself uses art from the Pokémon TCG btw.



UC4 Aquana.jpg

~Vaporeon, Water Grace 3U
Pokémon — Water
Ward 2
U: Vaporeon can't be blocked this turn except by water Pokémon.
3/3

... for when you need a stallbreaker.


YRW Blitza.jpg

~Jolteon, unresting 3(r/w)
Pokémon — Electric
When Jolteon enters the battlefield or evolves from an evolution, you get three energy counters.
Pay three energy: Jolteon deals 1 damage to up to five target attacking or blocking Pokémon.
4/3

... for when you need to deal with a bunch of X/1s.


RC4 Flamara.jpg

~Flareon, Fire Source 3R
Pokémon — Fire
When Flareon enters the battlefield or evolves from an evolution, it deals X damage to any target, where X is 1 plus the number of attack cards in your graveyard.
4/3

... for when you have some attack cards (instant/sorcery subtype) in your graveyard already.
 
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ravnic

ravnic

BC4 Nachtara.jpg

~Umbreon, Dark Mythos 3B
Pokémon — Darkness
Menace, Deathtouch
Discard a card: Umbreon must be blocked this turn if able.
1/4

... for when you need to kill some blockers or just a discard outlet.


YUB Psiana.jpg

~Espeon, Mindgame 3(u/b)
Pokémon — Psycho
When Espeon enters the battlefield or evolves from an evolution, look at the top two cards of your library and reveal one of them. An opponent choses one of those cards. Put that card into your hand and the other into your graveyard.
3/3

... for when you want some tricky card draw.


Espeon is one of those few designs that is not really referencing any moves, abilities or poķedex entries, yet it feels like a great fit for the mysterious psychic type. It's a design I'm a bit proud of tbh.
 
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ravnic

ravnic

GC4 Folipurba.jpg

~Leafeon, Natural Beauty 3G
Pokémon — Plant
When Leafeon enters the battlefield or evolves from an evolution, untap all creatures you control. You gain 1 life for each Pokémon you control.
3/4

... for when you need to stabilize or to get an advantage in an race.


YGU Glaziola.jpg

~Glaceon, Snow Storm 3(g/u)
Pokémon — Ice
When Glaceon enters the battlefield or evolves from an evolution, tap target land. It doesn't untap during it's controllers untap step.
Whenever a Pokémon deals damage to Glaceon, that Pokémon freezes.
3/4

... for when you need to slow down the opponent.

Frozen is another status change, just like poisoned it is shown with it's own signaling emblem/token. It says "This Pokémon doesn't untap and loses all abilities." It can only effect non-ice Pokémon.


WC4 Feelinara.jpg

~Sylveon, Heartbeast 3W
Pokémon — Fairy
Sylveon has lifelink as long as it has no +1/+1 counters on it.
Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on Sylveon.
Whenever you lose life, remove a +1/+1 counter from Sylveon.
3/3

... for when you need your lifegain synergies get going.
 
spicewitch

spicewitch

Youngster.png
tortle.png
saw these in the custom magic discord
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

ravnic

ravnic

Got it in the mail this weekend and sleeved it up. I am so incredibly happy.

https://imgur.com/a/YwX49lv

Didn't get to draft it yet but build some decks I've drafted on 'cobra before and everything seemd to work really well, mechanically, and I didn't discover any huge power outliers so far. We will have the first big draft on the 17th of june, so less than two weeks. I can't wait.
 
ravnic

ravnic

So, it happened this past weekend. We played 8 rounds best of one. I should be super happy, but in the end, I had some mixed feelings.

First Draft Decks
https://imgur.com/a/t2gPwnb

And that was not really my cube's fault. People loved the flavor and references and humor. The games were decision rich but played out relatively fast. Themes and mechanics worked out better than you honestly would expect with almost no playtesting before. Yet it ended with some bad vibes.

My friend Tobi went for the {B/G} poison archetype, the first decklist you see above. The poison mechanic is a hit - it says that a poisoned Pokémon gets a -1/-1-counter each upkeep - and the cards that worked as payoffs by rewarding you for poisoning opposing Pokémon were pretty effective. However, poison doesn't affect poison type Pokémon, which meant that the heavily green based five color deck piloted by Patrick with a lot of plant/poison type Pokémon was a perfect antidote for his deck. Especially Venusaur seemed unbeatable. That made Tobi a little grumpy after the second game. But things got even worse.

My friend Sami went for a {U/B} splash {G} discard deck. He had some pretty nutty synergies, but was pretty slow with very little early game Pokémon. That was not optimal for using attacks, as the additional cost of tapping a creature hurts more with a 4-drop than with a 2-drop. Sami went 4-4, worse than he usually does.

In the last round he fought my {R/W} aggro deck which utilized double spell and support (whenever another Pokémon you control attacks alone, ...) synergies. But more noteably, it also had bunch of evolution lines in it. I was able to evolve my 1-drops and 2-drops into Raichu, Machoke or Arcanine. That was powerful, but honestly not (much)more than the dfc creatures from MoM. Sometimes I didn't evolve one Pokémon the whole game, but in that last one it really helped me beat Samis slow deck. Now he was mad too, even more so than Tobi.

TL;DR

The result was a rant from two of my best friends. I asked for critique afterwards, of course, but they did it in a pretty harsh way. They only focused on the one (poison) or two (attacks, evolutions) problems they felt they acknowledged, not saying one word to the all the many things that went incredibly well. They also jumped to conclusions that were impossible to have reached after 8 games against 4 opponents. It was quite hurtful.

However, they apologized within the next few days. It was quite unexpected, but we all make mistakes, so of course I'll forgive them and they'll be there for the next draft.

Also, I'm not ignorant to their claims: I will probably reduce the amount of poison types in green (17/33 is too much), buff some particular attacks and make some evolution abilities more expensive.

On a different note: My girlfriend tried for the first time in her life to draft a five color deck aaand it didn't went too well. She was lacking earlygame stuff to stay alive. She went 2-6 but claimed that she still had fun.
 
B

blacksmithy

sorry that that happened.
it's really, really hard to design your own stuff, even harder when people get overly emotional and give you angry feedback about stuff that you made yourself in hopes of providing them with a good time.
im glad your friends apologized and i hope you dont give up!
 
ravnic

ravnic

Of course not!

Not only did I invest so so much time and effort already, I also have every right to be proud of and happy with the results so far. The negativity was a the result of a mixture of slight imbalances that can be fixed with a little tweaking and also one player trying to draft a reactive deck in an environment where creatures (Pokémon) and playing to the board are very important, resulting in him performing worse than usually. And both players admitted that the negativy was disproportional to what wasn't good and that they did have in fact a lot of fun for the most time.
 
japahn

japahn

Sorry it didn't work out, but to be fair, if the first playtest of hundreds of custom card had gone smoothly, that'd be surreal :) Don't be hard on yourself, just the fact that you put together a cube is incredible. Refinement takes iteration!

You don't have English versions of your cards, do you? I wanted to look at the whole set but AFAICT the Cube Cobra list is where the cards are (besides some cards being in posts in this thread).
 
ravnic

ravnic

Thanks, pal! I will test and iterate, for I want this cube to be the very best (like no one ever was). We will draft again in the 8th of July and then I might already get the first patch done.

And no, sadly there are no english versions yet. I would love to share them with all of you, but it would be A LOT of extra work do create english versions. Remember I am creating these in Photoshop, not card conjurer. I hope I'll find the time for it some day.
 
ravnic

ravnic

Last friday, we had the third draft with this cube. After the second, which went much better already, this on truly was what I envisoned during the endless hours of developing and designing. It was a blast. At this point, my regulars fully understand the mechanics and how they play out. Everyone was capable of drafting a really solid deck that worked out well, mechanics and flavor really showed how they harmonize within many designs.

One example card that really showcased that, was this one from my friend's {U/B} sleep deck:

Y3U Traunfugil.jpg

Misdreavus {1}{U}{W/B}
Pokémon — Ghost
Flying
When ~ enters the battlefield, target Pokémon falls asleep. (Effectively a freeze tap and it counts as asleep until it untaps)
At the beginning of each upkeep, if no Pokémon is asleep, return ~ to it's owner's hand.
3/3

You have this scary ghost, that puts something to sleep when it enters, but also withdraws as soon as everyone is awake. Just to come back and haunt you again and again.

Beyond that fitting flavor, it also just plays really well. You have that undercosted flier, that by itself can only attack once before it's bounced, but it also taps things down for a turn cycle everytime. And you could also keep it around with other sleep effects. Their was the right kind of tension and it was super fun to even play against this card.

However, it wasn't just this card. I loved my deck, which was, attention, a black-based mardu five color ramp deck.

XN2 Vulkanorden.jpg XN3 Drachenorden.jpg

Volcano Badge {2}
Artifact — Badge
~ etbs tapped
{T}: Add {R}

Dragon Badge {3}
Artifact — Badge
{T}: Add X mana of any one color, where X is the number of badges you control.

With six of the eight badges, I was able to cast my 7-mana zapdos, my 9-mana mewtwo and even my wubrg 8-drop Mew:

Y5 Mew.jpg

Mew {3}{W}{U}{B}{R}{G}
Pokémon — Psycho
Flying, Vigilance, Ward {3}
Mew can be the user of every attack.
{3}: Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. If it's a Pokémon or attack card, you may cast it with out paying it's mana cost.
8/8

I had a total blast playing this deck, even though I lost all three rounds with a super close 1-2 each. I even would've won a round 2-0 if I didn't misplay in the worst possible moment.

The draft was won by a {G/U} deck build around getting your evolution lines together and evolving your early drops. This could be an indicator, that evolving is a tad too powerful if it can beat other synergistic decks like my girlfriends moist abzan lifegain deck or my other friend's sleep deck.

Right now, I am working on the first patch. Although it seems that only 4 cards are really broken and needed to be emergency banned. That's not that bad of a ratio with 360 cards I guess :D
 
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ravnic

ravnic

So, I am working on version 2.0 currently. The reason I don't say 1.3 or something and big difference is, that I will get rid of evolving as a mechanic.

It was cool when it worked. Paying some mana in the mid-late game to transform your 2-drop into a better Pokémon you got from your deck played out well, but there were two big downsides to it:

1. Memory issues

Drafting was highly affected. You always had to keep in mind to pick up some evolution lines in addition to all the other stuff you have to pay attention to while cube drafting. It was fun but also very challenging, even for me and other experienced players and other line my girlfriend said that it was a bit too much for them. It also massively rewards you for knowing the cube better, which is bad. When picked up a Charmander you better knew what both Charmeleon and Charizard do to have a grasp of what cards you would want to pick.

2. Design issues

With evolution in the environment I was always forced to have the "critical mass" to make sure people could actually draft them. Also, I kinda had to have evolution lines complete. With every three step evolution I was adding five cards that were either all forced to be in the same color, or, if split over two, were all essentially like gold cards in draft.

Now, I can do stuff like that:

RC1 Larvitar.jpg BC6 Despotar.jpg

Larvitar {R}
Pokémon — Rock, Ground
{2}, discard a card: Draw a card.
Whenever a land card is put into your graveyard from anywhere, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
1/1

Tyrannitar {4}{B}{B}
Pokémon — Rock, Dark
Menace, trample
Sandstorm — At the beginning of your end step, put a -1/-1 counter on each Pokémon, that isn't Rock, Ground or Steel type.
6/6

That's all I am going to add from this evolution line. I am not forced to have a second Larvitar or two Puppitar, I can have those here be a red one-drop and a black six-drop that don't have to work super well together.

Designing for this update has been so fun, restrictions restrict creativity sometimes.
 
gaytransmulldrifter

gaytransmulldrifter

This feels like the right call to me, I've never really understood why so many people's attempts at this kind of thing always try to have an evolution mechanic. Like yeah it's an iconic part of the franchise but it's not like Pokemon are constantly evolving in the middle of a battle in the games. And it just doesn't seem like it gets very well with Magic's mechanics. Congrats on figuring out that you were better off without it.
 
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