/ccg/ Custom Card General /cct/

The problem is that triggered abilities often need to know something about the triggering object, which leads to lots of shenanigans. Yes, undefined information has defaults, but the scope of this is pretty narrow.

Also, we're not /r/custommagic. We rarely stand on artist credit here.

I know, but I wanted to get into the habit of crediting so people could find it themselves without me having to source and it's just sort of a nice-ish gesture.

I have to apologize; I'm tired and am not quite following the issue with forcibly triggering a triggered ability. What sorts of triggers do you think could/would cause a problem?

Consider something like
>Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent, that player discards a card.
If I trigger its ability with a Mote, there's no "that player" to reference. Technically the rules handle this and nothing happens.

Or Metallurgic Summonings
>Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, create an X/X colorless Construct artifact creature token, where X is that spell's converted mana cost.
Which will make a 0/0, because unverifiable information defaults to 0. Technically it works.

The problem is that these are technically working things that I think make for awkward design. Yes, there are lots of abilities that never reference some facet of their trigger, but many do. They either need the triggering entity to direct that effect, say
>Whenever a creature you control attacks, that creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
Or need part of the triggering event to qualify or quantify it
>Whenever a creature deals combat damage, you gain that much life.

Ahh okay, derp. I get what you mean now.

I guess my main issue is that since you can choose to sac a Mote to trigger an ability, you'd probably not want to do it on something that doesn't work or make sense. Player agency kinda moderates the issue, or at least one would hope. Though in the last two cases, I can see how it might cause issues anyway, especially with new players who wouldn't get how that works exactly. I guess I would just have to either change it to copy triggered abilities, which is what the original concept did, or fiddle with it more. I just have the same issue now as I did then; copying triggered abilities shows up on rares only. In fact, most references to them show up on rares. That kinda limits the Mote mechanic on a whole if I had to go with copying.

Anything glaringly broken with her? Criticism/comments for her design?

I'd prefer if it didn't have hexproof it costed 1 mana, and was a 1/1, the mana cost for the ability is really enough to balance it on its own

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You could make the Motes trigger a specific subset of abilities, like only ETB abilities, since those won't need additional information to function, but that's obviously going to make things wordier.

Definitely isn't a great idea as-is 'cause of all the rules complications.

Does this seem like it could be useful, or at least somewhat interesting?

>card
Screams rare. I know what you said about complexity, but still. Yeah, what the other guys said, it doesn't work very well like this. I'd make it like Strionic Resonator and say
>Discard a card and sacrifice this enchantment: Copy target triggered ability from a creature source you control. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Also, it's odd to me that the token is a colorless enchantment. Kinda wondering why it isn't an artifact.

I guess it's "copy target triggered ability yada yada" after all. Course if I wanted to make it trigger etbs exclusively I'd just make it flicker stuff.

This card is supposed to inspire chaos, as the character does. Not sure I get the idea across well though.

Bump. I hope this is good enough to effectively cheat out creatures, but not so good it's OP. Oh, and I did check, the first ability will return the card to its owner's hand even after Beast Boy transforms into a copy of a creature, and therefore loses that ability. Hmm, actually, should I have him also gain the activated ability again so he can transform multiple times?

Another .hack// Avatar. There may or may not be a theme of "verbing nouns this way doesn't cause abilities of ~ to trigger."

That one doesn't recurse, you can leave off the does not trigger clause.

I think it needs to be there because a "control gaining" event occurs even if you already control that creature. Control changes continue to stack and simply apply top down, so I think it does actually recurse.

The gaining control effect happens, yeah, but it won't recurse because you're gaining control of a permanent you control unless they're idiots and steal it back before the trigger resolves. Trigger condition is only gaining control of something an opponent controls.

>Trigger condition is only gaining control of something an opponent controls.
Hurr durr, you're right. Brain fart on my part.

Does this work with anything other than Treason effects?

Turns all control-changing effects permanent, but otherwise no.

I posted the First Phase, Skeith, last thread. So I guess I'll post the Second Phase, Innis. Cost and body up for debate, because some of these effects are so incredibly weird.

Phase 3. Originally Propagated when you placed counters and Proliferated when you made tokens, but that put him in Bant (and I later switched them to color pairs and not shards/wedges) and took too much space from my idea for Innis, so he got toned down.

Probably the weakest and/or most boring of the eight, because he's just a fancy Doubling Season that lets you redistribute the counters as opposed to them going directly on the original.

What is the flavor of these things? All I see is the Xzbit meme. "Yo dawg, I heard you like to get counters. So I made a card so you can get counters while you get counters!"

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Haven't really worked on any cards other than Beast Boy and Scarlet Witch, so have some reprints.

Eh, not sure about this, mostly because damage turning into draw is more of a GU concept to me. Actually, maybe just throw some Blue in there. No idea on balance though, sorry.

So in .hack//, the flavor is like nested three levels deep. .hack// is a game about a fictional game based vaguely off a (fictional) incomplete epic poem about the forces of light and darkness uniting to fight off a terrible foe known as the Cursed Wave. The Wave has eight phases, as described in the poem:

>Unknown where the Cursed Wave was born…
>After the stars doth cross the heavens,
>The sky in the East doth darken and air doth fill with mourning.
>From the chosen land beyond the forest, a sign of the wave comes.
>Riding the wake is Skeith, the Shadow of Death, to drown all that stands.
>Mirage of Deceit, Innis, Betray all with the flawed image, and did aid the Wave.
>And by the Power of Magus, a drop from the Wave doth reach the heavens, and creates a new Wave.
>With the Wave, Fidchell, the power to tell the dark future, hope darkens, sadness and despair rule.
>Gorre schemes when swallowed by the Cursed Wave.
>Macha seduces with the sweet trap.
>Wave reaches the Pinnacle, and escape none can. Tarvos still remains with more cruelty to punish and destroy.
>And with the turbulent destruction after the Wave. Only a void remains. From deep within the void arrives Corbenik.
>Perhaps then the Wave is just a beginning as well.

So the original .hack// quadrilogy (IMOQ) is based around an MMO called The World. The World was created by an insane genius to (secretly) create the ultimate AI (Aura), as overseen by a less ultimate AI called Morganna. Realizing that she would be purposeless if Aura was ever born, she goes slightly insane and creates eight fragments (based off the phases of the Cursed Wave) to stall Aura's birth, which end up being eight big bosses that punctuate the four games. Each one gets introduced with a fancy title,

>Skeith, the Terror of Death
>Innis, the Mirage of Deceit
>Magus, the Propagation
>Fidchell, the Prophet
>Gorre, the Machinator
>Macha, the Temptress
>Tarvos, the Avenger
>Corbenik, the Rebirth

Also this is Knollspine Dragon, Sorcery Edition, so its actually solidly red. Might be too strong at 2R, as hyper aggressive decks can easily put out 5 or 6 damage turn three and then refill with that.

First, it's functionally different. Second, one card does not prove precedence.

Its a conditional wheel, and wheeling type effects are red even if they're not symmetrical. Discarding your hand to fuel draw effects is often enough to push otherwise blue or green draw effects into red, on both spells (Dangerous Wager) and creatures (Bedlam Reveler), and on continuous effects.

This effect could be UR, or maybe even BR, since it counts self-damage (or more so if it counted life loss instead of damage), but I don't think its anywhere near UG.

Didn't say it was GU. I was just saying how turning damage into draw reminds me of GU, which is why I recommended changing it to UR, since I realize GU is a bad fit, and I felt that UR works better than RG.

>Gorre
Honestly, I don't even know how to judge any of these cards. They're all so situational and reliant on other effects to do anything. You would have to make a commander deck out of these things for them to actually see a lot of use, I think. Honestly, kinda thinking it would be better to go back to the drawing board on this one. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

>You would have to make a commander deck out of these things for them to actually see a lot of use, I think.
Well, "wacky commander legendary" drives a lot of my designs, actually. As does "how far can I push a terrible mechanical theme". This happens to be a terrible intersection of the two, with the mechanical theme being "recursive triggered abilities." Since the flavor on the actual phases is suuuuper loose, it became more an exercise in uniquely fitting color pairs than anything.

Like Tarvos, who really is UR, but UR was taken by Fidchell (), and who I thought was far too neat to rework. And I was struggling to come up with a vengeance-evoking recursion, so it got a sort of red punisher mechanic, and black for more... edgy punishment. A discard doubler was also considered, but discard got taken by Gorre, who I guess could have ended up as just a bounce doubler, but then I had a lot of just straight effect doublers (and Gorre was in itself competing with Skeith).

There's one more, who probably has the most rules text in a single ability of any of the eight. And that's saying something, since none of them are simple.

Also depending on the bodies and costs, I think I would play the shit out of most of these in EDH. Except Macha, maybe. But I love janky mechanical tribal, like Yasova Dragonclaw Threatens and Sakashima the Imposter Clones.

So it's Hive Mind for abilities? Well, sans the "may", which is honestly part of the fun. At that cost it's probably fine.

I had to read this a few times to get the gist of it, but essentially it's a spellcast triggered Browbeat effect that each player can use? Could be fun in EDH I suppose. I feel like the effect is begging for her to have Prowess, even though Wanda doesn't really get any better when there's magic around, unless she got some upgrade that I am not aware of.

It depends; does he display the ability to shapechange on the fly? Because if so, then maybe he should be able to? I'd imagine his cost would go up at that rate.

These are just so goddamn narrow and strange that I don't even know how to judge them.

This one is actually more approachable. I wish you had at least attempted to cost him though, because I'm not sure what you're looking for regarding board presence. His ability alone is worth 4 or so mana, most likely.

I chuckled at Incremental Growth.

Again, not sure how to rate this, but I feel like there is little in the way of red here.

So compared to recent posts, this card is pretty boring. Not 100% sure on costs but it seems passable compared to Visara. Open to tweaks to make it play better. I know ditching the legendary clause would make it stronger but it's a flavor thing, I'll admit.

>Again, not sure how to rate this, but I feel like there is little in the way of red here.
Scry is primarily in U, then secondarily in red, and I wanted to avoid mono-color ones, so he ended up being UR.

Body-wise, they were originally about 4/4s and then those got shuffled around, but I think putting them all as 3/4s is a decent place for where I'd want their board presence to be. Being boltable six-mana plus creatures just feels awful.

As to their narrowness, I know full well they'd never see the light of day outside of an incredibly strange Commander deck. But I figured they would be an interesting if unusual design attempt. I've been feeling a bit dry on ideas lately, so doing something incredibly wacky has helped drive some of that creativity.

>card
Last one. It recurses your recursion, for that double Xzbit memery. Ignore the giant cannon in the art, wasn't even going to attempt capturing that bit of flavor from GU. It took about 45 hours of gameplay to get to the point where it makes sense, so yeah, not touching that with a 20 foot pole.

>Pheomne
She can target herself to be a 3/5 first strike deathtoucher on demand, but that does take 2R, so it might not be too crazy. I like it, though.

This one is more approachable too. I think of all of them I like him the best. Cost and body seem fair to me, mainly because at 6 mana in two colors, you are about at that threshold where you can go nuts and do almost anything. The body is still relevant though, so that's nice. Could possibly be 4/4.

Oh, and glad you like Pheomne. Admittedly the self-targeting trick was something I didn't even notice myself till after I finalized the design.

>Pheomne
I don't get the vampiric untapping ability.

>Cosmic Tuning Tower
I'll drop "may" then.

>Beast Boy
I think so? I'll probably add rapid changing regardless of whether or not he does it in lore.

>I chuckled at Incremental Growth
So did I.

>Pheomne
Already mentioned how strange I find the untapping. The rest seems fine, though being able to target herself is something I'm still not sure on.

>Wanda
Honestly not happy with the design. I'll try something else. God I hate vague powers. She went from Black Cat to reality warping, who knows what her actual powers are, they change with the writer.

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Meh, seems OK.

Unsure, kinda begs for a way to get them onto the field.

Drawback seems very harsh. Maybe bounce instead? At least make it sac only for spells and abilities opponents control, so you could save your stuff through thing like Hexproof spells.

>Unveiled
Come on, you're not even trying.

Rats is nonsensical, given that it gives you creatures then asks if you have any creatures.
Watchful flat out doesn't work, given that you cast it on your turn, then sacrifice it because no opponent attacked you on your turn.
Weakening is overpowered as fuck.

All in all, they are shit.

This is neat.

This is hard to cost, given that Asceticism is 3GG.

Lunar Glyphs is alright. Fiend's Market is awkward, and I don't care much for black casting anything out of its yard.

Tons of wording issues, but I'm not on my conp so I can't go through them. I can say a few things though. First, you capitalize subtypes like Plague. The R one seems very weak due to being self-defeating, and the G one seems like an absolute nightmare to deal with if playing multiples. They would cripple any deck that isn't running colorless, or mana rocks/dorks.

Lunar needs wording help. I'd make a replacement ability, so if it fulfilled the conditions, you'd just gain control of the spell.

Fiend's is... weird, really not liking it.

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So a worse self-mill?
That should be a fair bit cheaper, or out of bolt range at the least.

I'm not sure what this breaks or not, but I have a concept for a hatebear.

Keeper of the Ineffable WW
Creature- Cat Cleric
Cards in libraries and graveyards have no types, colors, or names.
2/2

If someone drops a Gifts, can they pick any four cards, or can they pick no cards, because no names aren't different names? Would it be better to split it up somehow, (no names on one, no types on another, etc.) and if so, how?

Also, weird experiment.

Scornful Heir 4WW
Creature- Advisor
~ costs 1 less to cast for each tapped creature on the battlefield.
Other creatures you control get +1/+1 and have vigilance.
0/3

>If someone drops a Gifts, can they pick any four cards, or can they pick no cards, because no names aren't different names? Would it be better to split it up somehow, (no names on one, no types on another, etc.) and if so, how?
>201.2a Two objects have the same name if their names are identical.
>201.2b If an object has more than one name, it has the same name as another object if there are one or more names that both objects have in common.
>201.2c Two or more objects have different names if there are no names that both objects have in common.

Nameless objects by definition share no names with anything else, so they can pick any four cards.

Heir seems like it wants to be an enchantment.

Thanks.
The original erased CMCs and hit hands as well, then I realised that that made cascade absolutely insane and let you force people to discard lands.
>you were supposed to fuck with dredge and combo, not enable them.jpg

I think I'm starting to stray from my original idea for this.

>Worse self-mill
No, it's worse card draw. The idea is you play him when you have open mana and essentially draw cards then play them.

Needs to cost 2RR. Almost draw 2 with a 3/2 ontop is way too strong at 3 mana.

The problem is that you rarely control when that creature leaves the battlefield, so its super easy for your opponent to ruin those draws. If it gets Shocked otherwise killed on your end step or on your opponents turned, its just mill 2, unless you're lucky and pull an Instant from the top.

Kinda wondering if I should make the ability some sort of protection/removal instead of tutor.

I think its fine, although the first and second abilities might be too similar. Hard to tell.

>card
Old Ajani.

I like it.

Yeah, I think I will change the second ability to protection or removal. Still need to come up with a name for him too.

>Ajani
Mirrodin Elspeth is 3WW and has the same first ability as a +2. Maybe upgrade to 2 life for each creature, or keep the lifegain as-is and make it +2. 0 is interesting. Not entirely sure on how to balance it though, but I think if the first ability were just +1 it would be fine. Emblem is cool. This might be a nitpick, but I think you should find art that at least hasn't bee used in a card. There's some good fanart out there too.

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Significantly too powerful, because it shares the issues that instant-speed discard has.

It's an odd attempt to find design space in red, mostly. I'd toyed with "red vigilance" before and hit upon it while at work. I thought I might test the waters. It struck me as potential keyword material as well.

>vague powers
This is why I don't port stuff into MtG. Too much undefined shit or too many square pegs and round holes.

Super cool. I am actually mad I didn't think of this for a set I was making way back when. Would have been perfect.

I agree that bounce is a better drawback.

Lunar Glyphs is cool, assuming it gets the wording tightened up. Maybe
>Counter target noncreature spell. If it's your turn, gain control of that spell instead.
Or something similar?

Neat/10. I love Clone variants.

So.. one less card than Act on Impulse but you get a 3/2 as well? Way to efficient. Maybe one card.

I like cards like this and Soul Bleed and stuff, but they can't seem to find a good spot for them cost-wise. This one is alright. I also like opponent's choice cards too, so it covers all the bases for me.

Well, sad you didn't include any of my feedback on this but hey, it's your card after all. I'm not a fan of the hard tutor, since I find it bland, but it's probably balanced overall. I dunno if you want removal since you already have that in the ult; it increases the chance that nobody will ever ult with it if the removal is any good.

I think the 0 is a bit much, but overall I like the feel and simplicity of it. Kudos.

This is super-oppressive. I think it needs to be toned down a lot. I like the first ability a lot, but the second one either needs its own card or to be neutered, I feel.

This doesn't come off as a RW card to me. More like BR. It's also very very strong.

Weird Angel idea I just had. Not even sure about the costing, because it's relatively easy to give it a pretty high toughness. I like the flavor of it though.

A changeling gives it 235 toughness.

Whew, well that's a glaring problem. I didn't even consider that. Suggestions for keeping the flavor? Just count creatures? Count different CMCs? Something else?

Honestly, it's not really an issue. 235 toughness is a lot worse than indestructible, and a 2-3 power flyer at cmc 5 is already pretty mediocre.
If somebody wants to combo off it, they'd need three cards and lots of mana.

I thought it might be too good at 3W since, even if you don't do the Changeling trick, you can pretty easily get a lot of toughness out of it since many creatures have two creature types, and there are plenty with three even. Figure it's good where it's at or should I push it?

Also, you can imagine my amusement that a 235 toughness creature is "not really an issue". I get why you say that, but it's still sort of funny.

Magical christmasland would be hitting a different basic land each turn, and getting out a two typed creature each turn on curve with zero type overlap.
Even then, when everything went perfect, all you got was a 5/9 flyer that's prone to sudden death when something else bites it. Honestly, I'd rather have a Serra Angel.

High toughness is also a LOT less meaningful than high power.

>This is super-oppressive. I think it needs to be toned down a lot. I like the first ability a lot, but the second one either needs its own card or to be neutered, I feel.
Imo it looks fine, powerful, but really only worth the cost when combined with milling.
>instant speed discard
Instant speed discard is a one card soft lock, this card isn't.

Why those different values? Why not make both Domain, or both Changeling.

>This is why I don't port stuff into MtG. Too much undefined shit or too many square pegs and round holes.
At this point, I think it's more a test of my own design abilities, I just have to come up with a good design that incorporates the idea of randomness/chaos.

>Well, sad you didn't include any of my feedback on this but hey
Were you the one who said that the tutor should go to the top of the library, and that the ult would leave some permanents behind, right? Well, I am thinking of just changing the second ability altogether. Not entirely sure what to though. And I'll probably make some adjustments to the ult. But as for the tutor, I originally wanted it to go to hand rather than the top of the library since the original Lili puts it on top of the library.

>but really only worth the cost when combined with milling.
you're a casual, aren't you?

>Instant speed discard-like effect
>Control what card is on top of opponent's library
>Lantern control
>Full knowledge of opponent's hand
>Also it is a Sensei's Divining Top
>Also it is an unblockable creature

>Instant speed discard is a one card soft lock, this card isn't.
You're right, it's TWO cards!

>incremental growth
I am amused.

Gettin' back into this for a bit maybe probably. Anyways, uncommon stuff.

New mid and ult abilities.

W making B tokens strikes me as odd, especially when they could easily be W. I guess I'm missing some flavor. Speaking of, why all they all journeys "in"? Why not "to"? Nitpicky, I know. Mechanically, I think the cards are pretty good, though the W one may be too efficient at that cost. Oh yeah, and they should all say
>When ~ has three or more travel counter on it, sacrifice it. If you do, [effect].
For the odd situations where it leaves the battlefield on the trigger, or the trigger gets copied or something.

You made the Citrus-Eye lady, right? How long have you been working on this set anyway? It just seems like you started it quite a while ago. It's primarily a focus on wedges, right?

>You made the Citrus-Eye lady, right?
Ye she's dead right now because mechanics changed but yes that was me.

>How long have you been working on this set anyway?
It's been a hobby of mine for a while, nothing I'm really heavily focused on. Just some fun. I work on it sporadically, off and on.

>It's primarily a focus on wedges, right?
Yes.

Hmm...

Uncommon, maybe?

Yes, but I like it.

Moved to uncommon. Replacement for the common keyword slot.

So an easier to trigger storm? What could possibly go wrong.

>What could possibly go wrong.
>Ha ha! It's finally time to trigger my win condition! The NEW AND IMPROVED Grapeshot! I have it at FULL POWER!
>Casts spell
>6 damage to face
>Opponent ramps into Dragonstorm
oh wow such power.

Show him the cards you have Insight on to convince him you have no intention on making it as OP as Storm.

I'm concerned with the power levels of a few of them. Painting the Sky, in particular, I'm watching closely. The rest of them are generally tame. I'm intentionally avoiding Mind's Desire-type effects and trying to pull in downsides where possible, to make it more of a risk/reward type thing than a raw power thing.

is a good example of what I'm going for.

I guess I'll be more clear, but this keyword is going to be an awful strain from a design stand point.
You'll need to have the set be saturated with multicolor spells, or everything is going to be at best a "cast it twice" keyword. If you try to make enough multicolor support for the keyword to shine it'll strain creativity and most likely result in some color pie bleeding. Wizards struggled to do the later halves of Khan's block because of how much multi color they needed to ship out, and resulted in what many considered a terrible draft and standard environment.

My point is, the keyword isn't going to just strain the ability to balance for the cards with it only, but the whole set shared with the cards. Too many 3+ colored cards in the set? They keyword is bonkers value. Too little? Practically useless outside of the niche broken few.

Assuming that multi color won't be super saturated in the set, all of these are fine. An over costed divination that is sometimes a draw 3 isn't going to be insane. Forgery feels a little under costed for what is usally 2 clones for 6, but clones are getting stronger with time so It's fine. It only gets above standard when you get 3+.

In the world of, the average hit is 3+, the draw and clone get a little unfair. Creative can be a blow out sometimes during combat, but that's what you expect out of decent battle tricks.

No, it's one card. Just trigger it in their draw step and put all their lands/usuable nonlands/not shit stuff on the library. Doesn't last forever, but can easily land screw somebody for a good two or three turns on its own.

Hmm. I think multicolor love is just as hard to make as monocolor love. Each already has intrinsic advantages and disadvantages, it's hard to make something else that isn't just tacked on. I think Devotion was pretty cool though, for monocolor. I don't know about Sunburst, but Converge didn't go very well, though that might just be because of the cards were bad, not the mechanic.

Multicolor love doesn't work well for the reasons I listed before. Things like COnverge and Sunburst aren't so bad, sense you can just cheese it by running a few basics in the other colors and usually be fine. But ye, a lot of the cards were just under powered.
Devotion is a great color based mechanic, though it is just a more specific version of Chroma from Eveningtide.
Devotion can work as a multicolor mechanic as well as mono, as the god's well showed.

I think you should roll the first strike into the first ability. You can already get global haste for 3 mana, so there should be something extra for your additional mana expenditure.