General Riptidelab mostly-custom cube attempt #1

[Chris Taylor]

I think that's just an oversight. The Mage can't cast weapons, because all of them are non-Mage class cards, and the weapon-wielding classes can't cast Mana Wyrm because it's a Mage card. The only way to achieve this scenario is to copy a Mana Wyrm with Faceless Manipulator, or to steal it with Sylvanas Windrunner, then play a weapon I think?

Nah not mana wurm, Mana Addict. The one that gets the temporary +2/+0.

I got the choice of it (a 2 mana 1/3 in my warrior deck, it turns out, as I had only weapons and a single cleave as targets)

 

[Chris Taylor]

I'm pretty sure weapons aren't countered by Counterspell in HS.

They do sadly, as I found out in my first arena.

I think you're almost spot on in your evaluation, though Windfury is decidedly less good than double strike because the creature doesn't deal first strike damage. I also worded divine shield such that you can't use proliferate tricks, you remove all the counters as a replacement effect

I like overload, divine shield and combo the best. Silence and enrage have memory issues, though silence has a very nice effect on the game. Weapons are intuitive and complicated at the same time. I do like how they inhabit actual new design space that never has been explored before in this way. Taunt and stealth are kind if low impact, though stealth, like divine shield, pairs very nicely with provoke, and provoke is an awesome mechanic that I would love to see in a custom cube.

Enrage does indeed have memory issues, but I've got silence worded right now as it exiles the creature and gives a token with the same P/T
That way it gets rid of all the auras, +1/+1 counters and such, and gets rid of abilities as well.

Yeah stealth is essentially "Hexproof until it attacks" but I still think it would be way cooler in hearthstone if it hid what the creature was.

Also: You know what taunt's closest magic mechanical twin is? The flagbearer mechanic

 

[Lucre]

Guys these mechanics are pretty far removed from the themes we were all on board for earlier. We don't need to spend this much thought debating porting hearthstone mechanics do we?

Is this supposed to include your opponent's shit?

Bloom Creeper
Creature - Plant Mutant
Whenever a permanent enters the battlefield under your control from anywhere other than your hand put a +1/+1 counter on Bloom Creeper.
1/2

Magical Man
Creature - Elemental Wizard
Flying
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery spell from anywhere other than your hand you may draw a card.
1/3

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Guys these mechanics are pretty far removed from the themes we were all on board for earlier. We don't need to spend this much thought debating porting hearthstone mechanics do we?

What, you don't think there's room for more mechanics that promote interesting play in a 360 cube than the few we arrived at?

 

[GenericZero]

What, you don't think there's room for more mechanics that promote interesting play in a 360 cube than the few we arrived at?

In a normal cube, I say cram as many fucking mechanics as you want. In a CUSTOM cube, where most of the cube is already gonna have custom cards with custom mechanics...we DO have to be careful not to put too many new things on the table. Go too deep with your ideas and they'll cave in around you and crush you alive due to the area around your ideas exerting too much pressure on the outer hull of your submarine which is just completely irresponsible and reckless because some of those guys who went out to sea with you on that U-boat had families to go home to. Kids and wives left without fathers due to a careless explorer's lack of a reasonable level of sanity leading him down a path in which the only thing that mattered is going the distance until he died. Did your crew mean nothing to you? Are you some sort of sick sociopath? How will you respond to your superiors in the afterlife when they ask you for your tale of how this tragic accident happened? It will have been all your fault. It's too late now, though. Their lives have come and gone. The damage is done. The only true way you can redeem yourself at this point is to make a lengthy apology and spend the rest of your days fine-tuning the world around you rather than trying to discover atlantis.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Are you some sort of sick sociopath?

No comment.

Anyway. We haven't really settled on any mechanics have we? Landfall and landstorm are the only ones that have gained any traction so far, so there's definitely room for more.

 

[Chris Taylor]

In a normal cube, I say cram as many fucking mechanics as you want. In a CUSTOM cube, where most of the cube is already gonna have custom cards with custom mechanics...we DO have to be careful not to put too many new things on the table. Go too deep with your ideas and they'll cave in around you and crush you alive due to the area around your ideas exerting too much pressure on the outer hull of your submarine which is just completely irresponsible and reckless because some of those guys who went out to sea with you on that U-boat had families to go home to. Kids and wives left without fathers due to a careless explorer's lack of a reasonable level of sanity leading him down a path in which the only thing that mattered is going the distance until he died. Did your crew mean nothing to you? Are you some sort of sick sociopath? How will you respond to your superiors in the afterlife when they ask you for your tale of how this tragic accident happened? It will have been all your fault. It's too late now, though. Their lives have come and gone. The damage is done. The only true way you can redeem yourself at this point is to make a lengthy apology and spend the rest of your days fine-tuning the world around you rather than trying to discover atlantis.

Wut

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I enjoyed it. Especially because it seemed tailor made for my username

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Say what you will of MaRo but he's got a couple of sets under his belt and he makes the same point quite often, better to focus a couple of themes than overload on complexity. People will probably have to navigate and evaluate the cubes contents on the fly anyway, no need to punish those who wants to try a new cube

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I think something like 2-3 new mechanics, and 1-2 old mechanics would be reasonable.

WOTZ also seems to have a good idea of the environment first before they dive in and start making cards. Maybe establish exactly what the mechanics are going to be, what themes and sub themes you want for each color, and if this is going to be a tempo or card advantage driven format ect.

 

[Lucre]

I have a couple of idiotic ideas:

Triumph of the Ghoul-King
Instant
Target creature get's -3/-3 until end of turn and you gain 3 life.
Landstorm (If a land entered the battlefield this turn you may copy this spell choosing new targets)

Triumph of the Ghoul-King
Instant
Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn and you gain 3 life.
Bloom (If you spent no coloured mana other than black to cast this, you may copy this spell choosing new targets for the copy)

Ghoul-Goat
Creature - Goat Zombie
Whenever Ghoul goat enters or leaves the battlefield you put the top 2 cards of your library into your graveyard.
2/2
(This could easily be on attack or block too, a ghoul goat living in a cellar of a tavern was made reference to several times in a collection of stories and essays in honor of jack vance)

The Big Idea:
Self milling etc is a great way to get things moving and get people concerned with the zones Library and Graveyard. Milling off the top also puts some pressure into availability of your library concerned effects. You are also much more likely to have things like lands etc in your graveyard to start moving around on the regular and so cards with "return target ______ from you graveyard" riders to start slowly generating advantage.

Dusty Highway
Land
: Add to your mana pool.
, Put the top 3 cards of your library into your graveyard and sacrifice Dusty Highway: Search your library for a plains and put it onto the battlefield.

^ Imagine this fucker with the regrowth + reshuffler card I made before
(this could easily be dropped to 2 cards or turned into exile)

Forbidden Arts
Sorcery
Choose one - Return target black creature from your graveyard to play; or search your library for a black card, reveal it, and put it into your hand.

Intollerant Edict
Instant
Name a colour. Each player sacrifices a creature of the chosen colour.
Bookmark (You may reveal and play a card for it's bookmark cost from your library whenever you search your library.)

 

[silasw]

They do sadly, as I found out in my first arena.

When was this? It could have been an early bug. I am 99% sure it doesn't happen now. (I can't test it right now...)

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I don't like Bookmark for reasons previously stated by others. Getting any effect stapled on to a fetch, even if it costs mana, is insane! To offset this the Bookmark cost should be significantly higher than the spell would normally cost. The spell itself should probably cost more as well. The fact that your Intollerant Edict is probably better than Diabolic Edict, since you can single out a creature of a certain color doesn't help, doesn't help Bookmark's case. I do like the card without Bookmark though, seems really sweet!

Self milling can be cool, if we decide to tie one or two mechanics, like Delve, Flashback or Threshold, to it. It has been done recently though, as it was a pretty big theme in Innistrad.

 

[Chris Taylor]

When was this? It could have been an early bug. I am 99% sure it doesn't happen now. (I can't test it right now...)

Literally days ago, I only recently started playing

I enjoyed it. Especially because it seemed tailor made for my username

I GET IT NOW. THIS IS LIKE REALIZING THE WORD "Heroes" IS IN THEROS!!!

I have a couple of idiotic ideas:

Triumph of the Ghoul-King
Instant
Target creature get's -3/-3 until end of turn and you gain 3 life.
Landstorm (If a land entered the battlefield this turn you may copy this spell choosing new targets)

Yeesh! I think the lifegain is a bit insane on this one. Even going land, this is double bolt + gain 6, and god forbid you have other landfall triggers. Without the lifegain I think it's fine though. Should probably be double black, as if this is killing 2 creatures this easily it likely shouldn't be splashable. I like it though!

Triumph of the Ghoul-King
Instant
Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn and you gain 3 life.
Bloom (If you spent no coloured mana other than black to cast this, you may copy this spell choosing new targets for the copy)

Bloom is interesting! REALLY cool idea for a hybrid-y set actually, maybe it's right here?

Ghoul-Goat
Creature - Goat Zombie
Whenever Ghoul goat enters or leaves the battlefield you put the top 2 cards of your library into your graveyard.
2/2
(This could easily be on attack or block too, a ghoul goat living in a cellar of a tavern was made reference to several times in a collection of stories and essays in honor of jack vance)

In limited this is probably just the right balance of enabler and dangerous. Good show! Especially interesting in multiples.

The Big Idea:
Self milling etc is a great way to get things moving and get people concerned with the zones Library and Graveyard. Milling off the top also puts some pressure into availability of your library concerned effects. You are also much more likely to have things like lands etc in your graveyard to start moving around on the regular and so cards with "return target ______ from you graveyard" riders to start slowly generating advantage.

We can finally get the random raise deads you've always wanted!

Dusty Highway
Land
: Add to your mana pool.
, Put the top 3 cards of your library into your graveyard and sacrifice Dusty Highway: Search your library for a plains and put it onto the battlefield.

^ Imagine this fucker with the regrowth + reshuffler card I made before
(this could easily be dropped to 2 cards or turned into exile)

Given the sweet synergy with both landfall and the GY stuff above, this should probably have an activation cost of 1-2 mana.

Forbidden Arts
Sorcery
Choose one - Return target black creature from your graveyard to your hand; or search your library for a black card, reveal it, and put it into your hand.

Regrowing a black creature seems overcosted here. Split card?

Intollerant Edict
Instant
Name a colour. Each player sacrifices a creature of the chosen colour.
Bookmark (You may reveal and play a card for it's bookmark cost from your library whenever you search your library.)

Bookmark is an amazing mechanic! Love the name, love the flavor, but I think we do need to start overcosting it. As said above, free anything off fetchlands is going to be really good, so I'm thinking bookmark can be here or somesuch

 

[Lucre]

Yeah, these things can all be edited. It was merely an idea. I like to think of these more like arcane spells or flashbacks though. Remember that not all library searching comes up for 0 mana. Just like how Ichor Slick is actually pretty expensive off a Thirst for Knowledge and this is cube right? Please also keep in mind we don't have to necessarily hold ourselves to the high standards wotc sets when designing things for our custom cube. These need never ruin modern.

Well the idea with self milling is it interacts in very subtle ways with the lands mechanics but very overt ways with library mechanics, which we were all excited about earlier. I think it's just too dumb and blatant to base a cube off threshold + self milling.

I really like the idea of moving lands (or other cards) between hand graveyard and play more regularly and giving them neat things to do from places other than play, and I think self milling could easily help enable that.

Landfall to me is like the tip of the iceberg. Playing lands to have thing happen is a little more shallow than what I was hoping for here.


Sorcery
Put a land card from your graveyard into play
Bookmark


Sorcery
Put a land card from your graveyard into play
Flashback


Instant
Choose one or both - Search your library for a basic land card and put it into your hand; and / or return a land from your graveyard to your hand.


Creature - Lizard
When CARD enters the battlefield put a land card from your graveyard into your hand.
3/2


Creature - Human Scout
When CARD enters the battlefield you may reveal a land card from your hand, if you do, draw a card.
3/2

Beast Talker
Creature - Human Shaman
, : Reveal the top card of your library, if it is a creature card, you may play it as though it was in your hand.
2/2

Study Session
Instant
Draw a card
Bookmark

Retelling the Tale
Sorcery
Return target card in your graveyard to your hand then shuffle a card from your graveyard into your library.

Comforting Prayer
Instant
Gain 2 life and shuffle Comforting Prayer and target card in a graveyard into their owner's libraries. Draw a card.

A Vision in the Flames
Sorcery
A Vision in the Flames deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Until end of turn your may play the top card of your library as though it were in your hand. Play only one card this way.

Eerie Belfry
Land
: Add to your mana pool.
Contract - , Discard Eerie Belfry from your hand: Put 2 1/1 white spirit tokens with flying into play.

Vandal Camp
Land
: Add to your mana pool
Contract - , Discard Vandal Camp from your hand: Destroy target artifact or land, play this as a sorcery.

Forgotten Altar
Land
: Add to your mana pool.
Contract - , Discard Forgotten Altar from your hand: Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn.

Sunken Settlement
Land
: Add to your mana pool.
, Put the top 3 cards of your library into your graveyard and sacrifice Sunken Settlement: Search your library for a Swamp and put it onto the battlefield.

Dig Site (possible cycle?)
Land
: Add to your mana pool
When Dig Site enters the battlefield you may pay to return an artifact or land card from your graveyard to your hand.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

Maybe this is all being discussed over skype, but did you guys decide on any concrete theme or story setting? You know, like "multi-color set, in a plane divided between 10 guilds, each identifying around a different color combination that shows a unique philosphy. Each guild has its own keyword or ability associated with it, which are: <x> <y> <z>. In this world of political intrigue, join famed planeswalker Zapp Brannigan as he navigates a guild power struggle, in order to defeat the rising menace of the pacifist guild."

 

[Lucre]

@ Chris:
Thanks for the great input!
Forbidden Lore is supposed to reanimate a black critter.
Also remember my version of landstorm can only ever copy the spell once.

@Grillo
I think we are aware anotak and jason and I agree that land mechanics (landfall etc whatever) and library playing like courser and chandra etc were super sweet in that they interacted via brainstorm abilities and fetchland style. I think jason and anotak are also into life payment. Theme hasn't boiled out yet. People seem to like wizards and savage land and maybe afterlife but I can't really speak for everyone.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

So, shuffling, top of library (TOL) manipulation, and landfall or custom varients. Maybe a tribal theme with wizards. Maybe make a key name (finally) for TOL cards. Those are usually represented flavor wise with nature seers in green or mystics in blue. If you have a wizards tribal theme, who are the other tribes? Perhaps split them up flavorfully, much like the black zombies and blue skaabs in innistrad.

Storywise, if you want to tie it in with the ripetide project:

The Riptide Project was a conglomeration of blue wizards established around 4305 AR on an island off the coast of mainland Otaria. It was founded by Empress Llawan as a means to further the understanding of magic of both the surface dwellers and the Mer Empire, in an attempt to repair relations between the surface and the Empire following the actions of Aboshanand Laquatus. The most significant piece of research undertaken by the project was the study of slivers, based on fossilized remains discovered in Urborg. The project succeeded in recreating slivers, but without the control of the Sliver Queen, the slivers ran wild and slaughtered most of the researchers. They then escaped the island and made it to mainland Otaria, and soon they spread rapidly over all Dominaria.
It's been hinted that the Cabal also had an interest in the Riptide Project, but it's unknown if they were spying on the research academy simply out of curiosity or for more sinister reasons.
Of all the researchers that came to Riptide, seemingly only one survived the Slivers devastating onslaught - a wizard called Pemmin, known for his enchantment spell called Pemmin's Aura.

I would imagine you would have it set after the destruction of the riptide labs, focusing on Pemmin.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Zapp Brannigan
Planeswalker - Zapp
+2: Zapp Branigan deals 2 damage to you.
-1: Put three 1/1 red creature tokens with haste and "All creatures able to block this creature do so" onto the battlefield. Sacrifice those creatures at end of turn.
-5: Sacrifice all creatures you control. Zapp Brannigan deals damage to each creature and opponent equal to the total power of the sacrificed creatures.
3

 

[GenericZero]

Zapp Brannigan
Planeswalker - Zapp
+2: Zapp Branigan deals 2 damage to you.
-1: Put three 1/1 red creature tokens with haste and "All creatures able to block this creature do so" onto the battlefield. Sacrifice those creatures at end of turn.
-5: Sacrifice all creatures you control. Zapp Brannigan deals damage to each creature and opponent equal to the total power of the sacrificed creatures.
3

This looks awfully familiar to a Planeswalker I designed in the skype discussion group...In fact, mine looked like:

Dalina, Battlemaster
Planeswalker - Dalina
+1: Target creature gains +1/0, vigilance and haste until end of turn.
0: Deal 2 damage to target player.
-x: Put X 1/1 R/W soldier tokens with haste onto the battlefield.

Starting Loyalty: 3


Did some alterations in its design take place while I was absent?

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Ha, no! I modeled Zapp after the Futurama character of the same name: white because he's in the good guys' army, red because he is impulsive. He's further known to be incompetent (+2 does damage to yourself), and he's the king of pyrrhic victories, as most of his "accomplishments" have been achieved by sending his crew to their deaths (both minus abilities reflect this).

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think you're all in crazy town. For the cost of a free edict, see:

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I just think Bookmark in general is a horrible mechanic. Imagine starting each game with a hand of 11 cards, but four of them you can't look at, you just have to remember what they do. Except when you get to cast them, then you can look them up and figure out whether you want to cast them. I just seems like a major headache to play with, bogging down every search your library action (which already cost enough time as is). Also, every time you draw a new card, you have to figure out it's impact on the current game state. If you draw a fetchland (or other search effect), suddenly you don't have to figure out one card, you have to figure out the impact of all Bookmark cards you play as well. Without getting to look at the cards.

 

[Jason Waddell]

Yeah, I could see there being like, one Panglacial card in a set, but more than that is overkill.

 

[Jason Waddell]

What returning mechanics do people like?