/ccg/ Custom Card General /cct/

>It's probably fine as-is but they'd likely reprint it at 2BB or 3B if they felt feisty.
And then either one is just plain useless and unplayable in modern.

Here's something I came up with at some point but didn't post because it's almost certainly busted as fuck. If you're wondering about the name, it's from a 2hu spell.

>Devoid
>Eldrazi
No. Other than that, I agree that this is too random. Making the ping do 1 damage per exiled card would lead to less luckshit wins/losses.

I think it's pretty balanced since you have to have the right combo to make it not just totally fuck you in the ass. That and it's probably a risky strat to try.

Why? It's not like the Eldrazi have a monopoly on the mechanic. Check out Void Maw for example.

Not even close to what I was thinking of. Heck, doesn't even have the same format as the Eldrazi processors.
>2R, Put a card exiled with ~ into its owner's graveyard: ~ deals damage equal to that card's converted mana cost to target creature or player.

Considering Spikeshot Goblin, I think you can remove the freeze clause and it would be fine.

Dead thread already? Jesus. OK, Victor Zsasz, Batman villain. Really just a psycho with a knife who enjoys killing people. Just trying out an ability here, no idea if it's good or not.

I'm glad to hear that.

>Really just a psycho with a knife who enjoys killing people.
Shouldn't he force blocks then? Though that's green. The randomness does gel with the "psycho" thing, but I see no reason to ever actually block him. For that reason I think infect rather than deathtouch would make more sense, but if you don't want to go there you could always go with a green activated ability to force blocks.

I feel like the artifact creature specification makes it very narrow, which is why I allow it to hit stuff in graveyards too. But it's because I feel like it's narrow that I'm unsure if I should decrease the cost or not.

>Zsasz
Hmm, think I'll take it in a different direction then. Thanks for the feedback. Oh, and I'd really like to avoid using Infect, but I have busted out the poison counters for a creature before. Still, I don't think it fits this guy very well.

>card
Jesus that's powerful. I don't even know what to think of this. Sorry, wish I could be of more help. Well, if anyone more knowledgeable does come along and say it is too powerful fore sure, you could try turning the abilities into activated abilities, which I think would help it be more balanced.

>card
I think this is just right in terms of narrownessCA tradeoff.

>Jesus that's powerful.
It's a fatty without protection that probably wins the game if you untap with it. The second ability is only there so you don't insta-lose to a wrath after it resolves.
After looking through 7cmc fatties a bit I think you're right that it's a bit too good. I'll shrink the lands to 4/4s or 3/3s for now.

Jesus, how long have I had this one lying around? OK, let's see if I can move it to the finished folder.

>Grid's
Cool, thanks.

>Yuuka
Well, part of me wonders why she's so buff. It's like that shitty GW Elf waifu being a 5/7 or whatever. instead of the 2/2 she was supposed to be.

>Little Devil
Common? Attack trigger? I think I'd make it an uncommon that discards on hit. Hell, just compare it to Miasmic Mummy.

One more thing on Little Devil: Maybe add Flying? It's justifiable by the art. Probably put it on an activated ability though.

Like the card

Making ww2 themed cube, thoughts? Ideas?

Did anyone else see the Commander 2017 leaks? What other tribes do you think will make it in?

>Well, part of me wonders why she's so buff.
Thinking about it she doesn't need such a big body, but then again she is a final boss. Changed it to a 6/6 with 3/3 lands for now.
>discards on hit
But then you can't madness removal spells to clear the path.
>flying
You gave me an idea. The evasiveness means it has to be an uncommon, but I quite like this. Thanks for the feedback.

>spoilers
Jesus H Christ
Looks like Commander 2017 is gonna be Full Dragon Attack edition.

In their honor, and since this is the ping thread, here's four blatant color pie violations and their red boss.
(Goddammit Wizards couldn't you put blue dragons near the fucking sea?)

>Looks like Commander 2017 is gonna be Full Dragon Attack edition.
IIRC, it's going to have four precon decks, each with a different tribal focus. I'd kill for some more neo-Slivers, as long as they use the M14 look. The M15 Slivers are hideous, aside from The Blue and WUBRG ones. But speaking in practical terms, Elves are a shoe-in.

>cards
I don't even know you (or if I do I can't recognize you), but I think you can do better. Make some actual in-color abilities. You could just flavor firebreathing differently. Like with Blue, cut out the damage and flavor it as icebreathing or something, make it tap directly.

Blue colored one - Tap X target creatures, give it hexproof, remove last ability. Go to 4UU and 5/5. Also call it Azure Dragon? I know it is D&D based, but its unintuitive
Black ought to have wither. Otherwise fine.
Green ought to have trample and either fight or flying creatures.
The white colored one ought to do that to an attacking or blocking creature

Is there an archive that has all the new and old card templates somewhere?

Check out the link to MSE in the OP.

Yeah, I figured the dragons weren't good design.
Ah well, live and learn.

You aren't just going to give up on the Dragons, are you?

>card
Yeezus, very strong. The Multikicker is what really breaks it, in my opinion.

Wait, Pro colorless? Expecting the Eldrazi to show up?

Damn, the old thread died while I was gone. Thank you to all of the anons who gave me feedback; I read it all and made some significant alterations to these commons as a result, including changing the way Imbue works. Also, I really dig the Professor Kronos cards, so thanks for those, COanon!

Here's my second swing at green's commons for this set.

That Multikicker is a bit much. It'd be fine at a 1:1 ratio honestly. It's a frigging 6/6 with First strike; hardly anything can trade with it anyway. And anything that can, it basically has protection from already.

Cute, but I agree that the "breath weapon" part is going too far. I got no problem with Dragons in every color, but they shouldn't warp the mechanics those colors get access to. Blue can do -N/-0 and tapdown/mill, black can do -X/-X, green can ping fliers, white can ping attackers or blockers. Easy peasy.

Not bad. Plays into Madness and Flashback strats, and is efficiently costed. I like it. I think it's something that should actually see print.

I think he should be smaller, cost less, and so you have to ramp him up to get the returns. You could also keep his butt big but reduce his power as well. I just think he'd play better if you had more decision-making going on with him. You could also make him RG, and make the pump +1/+1, smaller base P/T, and it's justified in that red usually hits nonfliers and green hits fliers, so him hitting everything is pretty RG.

Okay, so I did this thing. It's probably a bad thing. I did it while considering how you'd actually go about making a blue pinger. Every other color is easy. Blue is not. So I want to find a way to do it within the pie. I have an idea though.

Shit. CG10 is supposed to have a once per turn restriction. My bad. Pretend it does.
Looking at Spell Queller, I don't think that reminder text is accurate. I think you need to specifically write out that the spell's owner can cast it when Spell Lock leaves the battlefield.

Posted this in the last thread. Made a few changes as to what you can copy and the colors. The flavor is he's trying to create clones of people with a bit of Kryptonian DNA in them as well, but they don't last very long. Another version essentially allowed you to keep the token for as long as possible, but you could only have one at a time.

>Damage
You realize he's basically a twist on Balefire Dragon, right? Anyway, maybe 3RG, Trample, 4/4, and RG to pump +1/+1?

>Spell Lock
Doesn't work the way you think it does. Ertai's Meddling spells out exactly how this effect should be worded, and it's a complete pain. So much so I don't think it's even worth trying. But I will tell you right now that the spell wouldn't get cast again. As points out, Spell Queller is pretty good precedence here.

Can you post the art for this?

01 is essentially Bloodrage Brawler with upside, which was an uncommon. That card is not common.

02 is also uncommon. Common mana acceleration is almost always costed at 2+ mana nowadays.

03 is not a common. Bears that hit both are UNC.

06 still shouldn't have flash.

09 is still not a common with instant speed token creation. Probably not common even at sorcery speed.

10 is 100% not common. Also 3G 3/3 with huge upside is completely insane.

13 in what world is this not a red card.

16 could probably cost 2G.

17 two creatures for 1GG reads UNC to me. Also it tends to be creature or land at 2.5 mana. Filtering plus card advantage just seems stupid good.

18 might push for too many big green creatures.

Also you ought to have some vanilla creatures. Also I really do not understand what the fuck greens theme is? Low hand size? Why is there only one payoff card? If it's graveyard matters, why the fuck aren't there any payoff cards? If it's tokens, then why do you have token a token theme in a set where a mechanic wants you to discard creatures? Why is there a token making spell in a set with imbue? Why is there a graveyard matters theme with self-hand-exile? Why is every card so powercreeped? Why the fuck, I don't want to discard cards to activate half of green's cards? Why are half the cards like twice as complex as they need to be? Why are there 6 red flags among 20 cards?

Oh, there was an imbue change. Well, you just made your cards completely fucking broken instead.

>CG08
I still don't understand why it can only put counters on itself.

Oh yeah, might as well post this. Increased cost as per Grumps's suggestion. I also changed the wording a bit. It works basically the same as before, except it can tap creatures with summoning sickness, for obvious reasons.

And I didn't post the card because I was too busy thinking about a future card design, shit.

Activated ability costs a lot, don't you think?
Too good, you just never pay it's mana cost. Mill it, sacrifice 3 guys, peanuts 6/6 guy turn two.
I like when players get to cast spells after turn 4.
Provoke, ~ can be only blocked by one creature.
I really dislike how this has no counterplay whatsoever.
So narrowwwww.
You slam 4 of this in a draft, empty your hand and then swing. Not a common, not a fun card.
Don't make the card better jesus christ.
Ah, yes, good old "stack every keyword on the creature." Boring.

>new Imbue
I'm on the fence about it, since it seems you've kept it on generally cheap stuff, which means if you cast it early, it's not going to be anything but what it is since there's nothing in your yard. But late, you can get value. And on that note, it actually makes CG02 kind of bad because you may run into a situation where you want your cheap, early dork but it won't make mana because you have no creatures to exile. Just some thoughts. I just think it's going to be kind of hard to get in a good place. Exiling a card from your hand is a heavy cost, but exiling from your yard isn't even really a cost when it's just one card. Creature cards are going to be the most common kind available to exile generally, but again, you need a few turns under your belt before you'll have some, so do you look at Imbue and say "well this sucks because I don't want to lose card advantage for two counters or some green mana."? Could be a feelbad situation.
>Surge
Still not a fan of this. Did you address the concerns raised about it last time? I forget; I'll have to go back and check. I still think Dash is a better choice if you're sticking with Enlightenment.
>CG10
This plays into your Imbue mechanic decently, so suppose it's alright. I feel like it might be an issue that it doesn't require a tap and could be degenerate somehow. I'm not sure WHAT could break it, but it's a concern.
>CG12
Okay so... now you want sparse/empty hands in green? If green is going to row row fight the power against full hands, Enlightenment is really going to struggle I fear.
>CG13
I had to think about this for a second because I forgot green can do this.
>CG17
At odds with stuff like CG12. Both being themes are going to make for some odd bedfellows.
>CG18
Much better.

>CG10
Ah, okay. And based on it sounds like I'm better off just dropping it. I can't believe I forgot about Spell Queller though; it's too recent to derp that hard on.

>same set as englighten.
Oh wow, what the actual fuck. You have a theme of huge hand size and small hand size in the same set? Both of the mechanics played really unfun and rated poorly, why do you want to reuse them?

>Activated ability costs a lot, don't you think?
Obviously not. Imagine a blind painter, asking people for advice on his work, like which colors he should use, what shapes he should make, etc. That's me.

>Provoke, ~ can be only blocked by one creature.
>I really dislike how this has no counterplay whatsoever.
Yeah, I'm just gonna scrap the design.

>So narrowwwww.
Obviously. I mentioned this. I also mentioned that I'm wondering if I should lower the mana cost because of this. Do you have any suggestions? Actually, I don't want to sound like a dick or anything, but do you ever read the text that people post next to the card, or do you just read the card?

>Oh wow, what the actual fuck. You have a theme of huge hand size and small hand size in the same set?
His set basically breaks down to WU large hands vs. BRG small hands. But yeah, I'm not sure how it'll play. It reminds me of AVR, with Soulbond vs. Loner. And everyone hated Loner.

>Damage
Nope. Having a bad day checking stuff I guess. But I do like the sound of that a bit better, yeah.

Sure. I'd normally post a link but Google Images turned up jack and shit for a reverse image search so I have to burn an image post. Sorry all.

>Damage
Cool, I'll do that.

I wasn't the user who requested the art, but thanks. I was trying to find it with GIS and SauceNao too, but couldn't find anything either.

I almost never read the stuff next to the card text. The cards need to stand up on their own.

Target creature becomes an artifact, you gain control of it at 3UB? What's the flavor supposed to be.

The program itself was last updated in 2011 and the last template update was in 2015.

>I almost never read the stuff next to the card text. The cards need to stand up on their own.
How is the text going to affect how you rate the card?
>I thought your card was pretty shit, but after reading your beautiful prose, I think it's a lot better now.
I realize that's ridiculous, but that's the first thing that popped into my head.

>Target creature becomes an artifact, you gain control of it at 3UB? What's the flavor supposed to be.
Ripping an artifact creature in half, basically. The artifact side becomes a pure artifact with no creature, the creature side becomes a pure creature with no artifact. In lore, the picture is Cyborg having his cybernetic implants ripped out of his organic body, fully separating the two. This was done by Grid, pic attached.

Anyway, as far as flexibility goes, you gain control of target artifact or creature, but if it's an artifact creature, you get the tokens? I'm totally fine dropping the flavor entirely and even using it on a non-CO card.

>01
Finding the right balance between Imbuing it and not imbuing it has been difficult. I'll continue working on it.
>02
For mana acceleration with no strings, sure. This doesn't work turn one unless you exile another creature card from your hand, which is a decent cost in limited, I feel.
>03
What would you put the body at, at common?
>06
Why shouldn't it have flash, if it's costed appropriately?
>09
It's a color shift of Icatian Crier, which is common. Time Spiral, sure, but Time Spiral was awesome.
>10
I meant to put a once per turn restriction on it. I can cut the body too, if necessary.
>13
Similar effects have been put on green stuff recently in cards like Rabid Bite. Aerie Ouphies does this as well, but specifically targeting flying creatures. It felt like a natural progression.
>16
You think? I'll consider that.
>17
I'll consider raising the cost. Beast Hunt is 3G and can net three cards.
>Themeing and power level
The theme for Jund is low handsize matters. Maybe I enabled too hand and didn't payoff enough; I'll work on that. As for power level, these are all still works in progress, so balance is something that is and will continue to be tweaked. That's why I post them here; so people can yell at me when I do something silly or broken.
Is exiling creature cards for additional value broken? In limited, you wouldn't be able to until later in the game. Exiling from the hand is a steeper cost, but allows you to get the effects earlier. That was the idea, anyway.
The idea is a versus setup. Jund small hand matters versus UW large hand matters. I feel that other handsize-matters stuff was too extreme, from Saviors' seven cards in hand stuff to hellbent, which is why they were so unpopular; they hardly ever did anything. I tried to mitigate requirements on both ends so that stuff happens more often.

Cont.

>Is exiling creature cards for additional value broken?
I believe what he means to say is that it's too easy to trigger now, there's almost no downside to it.

Forgot to give feedback on this. I really do prefer it in RUG much, much more. I dunno if it needs haste though. Up to you; he's hard enough to cast that I think he can keep it but I just personally wouldn't do it.

I agree that Hellbent and "full house" were too extreme, but I am just worried that including both, even if toned down, in the same set, might be a bit too hard to get feeling and playing right. Have you considered going for one or the other, and then trying to differentiate the two factions as to how they play with it? I just don't want you to deal with the tug-of-war it seems like is going to happen between two themes that strive against each other so much.

I agreed with him at first but upon consideration all the creatures are cheap, so you have to decide if you want the expensive effect early by losing a card or the cheap on late to give a card you wouldn't normally play a bit more value. Now, I think as it is it might be too good, but I'm not sure exactly where it sits, because it calls for a specific card type, whereas Delve doesn't. The issue he's going to have is that Imbue is "harder" to use, because creatures are going to make up 50-75% of your deck, but they are still plentiful enough that it's not really too hard to use. And them all being cheap means new players would have a tough time evaluating them.

Also, I think I figured out blue ping. Either way, I really like the card. I conservatively costed the ability so hopefully it's not bonkers.

Card flavor, mechanics, intent ect. shouldn't be explained. They should be conveyed through the card and card only. When I open a booster of AHK, I don't have MaRo next to me blabbering his mouth off how the two mechanics have nice interplay.

What about sth. like this for the rip-soul thing.
Overcosted.
>03
2/3 for 4.
>06
You have it 100% backwards. When designing anything, the question isn't "why shouldn't it have that" but "why should it have that" cull everything that isn't necessary, then cut 10% more.
>09
Nobody in this thread is NOWHERE close to being good enough at design to even come close to emulating TSP.
>17
Beast Hunt hits like, 1.3 creatures on average in a limited deck. Your card hits about 1.6 creatures on average (I know you have a 70% chance of hitting two creatures and 93% chance of hitting one creature).

I want to play my spells. Not have them sit in hand or exile the imbue. Stop making it the suboptimal play to cast my spells.

This turning the creature into an artifact makes no sense to me. I feel like it should be Spirit token, Zombie token if you're separating someone's soul from their body. Corpses aren't artifacts.

Continued

>I still don't understand why it can only put counters on itself.
Putting counters on other things repeatedly at common isn't really a thing as far as I know or could find. It's a lot less complex if it only builds itself up.
>Mark of Prey
I'd like it better without the you don't control clause, but it's probably necessary. Seems solid.
>New Imbue
I agree that it's going to be hard to balance, but I feel like it has potential. That might be creators' bias speaking, though. I'll continue working with it as-is and see how it feels; if it doesn't cut it, it will be adjusted.
>Surge
Yeah, I addressed this. Jund wants a small hand, which is why I included Surge. Dash would be counterproductive to that endeavor. UW wants a large hand and wants every player to have a large hand, which is why they have Enlightenment and Parley.
>Enlightenment is really going to struggle I fear.
UW will have plenty of ways beyond Parley to get and keep cards into peoples' hands. Bounce effects, effects that slow down casting like Eidolon of Rhetoric, Remand-style counters, tax effects, other each-player-draws stuff.
>CG17
It gets creature cards into your hand or graveyard to imbue, and has "up to" wording so that you don't have to take more cards than you want. Since I'm having Jund blow through cards quickly, they also need ways to not run out, right? That was the thought.
I just don't want you to deal with the tug-of-war it seems like is going to happen between two themes that strive against each other so much.
The tug-of-war was the idea, though. I thought that one player striving to empty his hand while his opponent keeps casting spells that refill both players' hands would be an interesting give-and-take. It's definitely going to be a pain, though. I'm still in the early stages, so if I keep at commons and it doesn't go as well as I hope, I'll scrap it.
>Card
Cool, flavorful, and useful. Extra comma after hand, I think.

OK, but that sounds like it's a lot easier to do in a set rather than a bunch of one-off cards. I guess I'm just used to talking about the cards I post because people tend to ask what the lore is behind them. Sure, when I have cards that are supposed to be looked at together, like with Superman and Bizarro, people get it. But it doesn't work so well when you post JSA D-lister Number 5 in a vacuum.

>Rip Essence
Eh, sorry, not really feeling it. Also, you don't have to say it becomes an artifact, you can just make it exclude being a certain card type, pic related.

>I thought that one player striving to empty his hand while his opponent keeps casting spells that refill both players' hands would be an interesting give-and-take.
One player is casting inherently overpowered spells (because they have to be because they're card disadvantage) and the other guy is durdling around. I wonder who's going to win that tug of war.

Just like I said before, it's a repeat of Soulbond vs. Loner, and Loner sucked.

If you look at modern sets, most cards make some semblance of sense, even in a vaccuum. To prove this, I randomcarded until I hit a NWO common. Hit Frost Lynx, which tells a pretty good and coherent story. There's no need to explain that it's "a cat that freezes creatures" because that's what the mechanics convey.

>Imbue
I mean the set's in alpha so having it right out the gate would be weird. Let me ask you this: what's the goal of Imbue? Are you looking to do "spell improvement" or "empty hand"? Because if you are doing the former, there are better ways. If you are doing the latter, then I'd suggest something that empties the hand, but gives value. The idea of exiling a creature card from your hand is going to be easier to stomach if you get a really good deal out of it. And it can play into green, red, and black "devouring" things for power, so I'd suggest perhaps making it Devour from the hand. Change the name, set a number beside it, so when you do it, you can pitch a creature and you feel like you're getting your money's worth out of it. It's something of a rehash, sure, but it always does the same thing, plays into your theme, and it does something simple but valuable so you never have to worry about whether the effect you stapled to it is "worth it" or not. Plus, if you're going with an Aztec theme, it'd convey the "sacrifices make us powerful" flavor they have, without retreading an existing mechanic. Of course, Devour is also an option, but doing the hand exile thing means you didn't have to cast the creature first, saving you mana and creating efficiency in the long run, assuming you get the numbers where they need to be.
>Surge
Fair enough then. I just worried that it played against Enlightenment too much, as I said. Hopefully you can sort it out.
>UW
I suppose I'll see then. I guess I can't really judge how things will pan out with two colors' commons worth of cards.
>CG17
Fair point.
>tug of war
Alright, well kudos for not shying away from a challenge.
>Phantom Dancer
Thanks. I guess 2U for the ability was the right call to make.

>You have it 100% backwards. When designing anything, the question isn't "why shouldn't it have that" but "why should it have that" cull everything that isn't necessary, then cut 10% more.
You misunderstand. I have plenty of reasons as to why it should have flash; otherwise, I wouldn't have given it flash. I was asking why you seem adamant that it CAN'T have flash.
>Nobody in this thread is NOWHERE close to being good enough at design to even come close to emulating TSP.
Which is not at all a reason not to try to do cool things. Creative pursuits are a continual process of growth, of trial and error. Why shouldn't everyone try to make the best, most interesting, and most fun cards possible?
>I want to play my spells. Not have them sit in hand or exile the imbue. Stop making it the suboptimal play to cast my spells.
>One player is casting inherently overpowered spells (because they have to be because they're card disadvantage) and the other guy is durdling around. I wonder who's going to win that tug of war.
I'm not making it suboptimal to cast spells. Imbue cards very specifically do not require an exile, and the goal is for both options (imbued and not imbued) to have balanced merit. The UW cards endeavor to fill and refill hands organically, rather than stagnate play. The mitigated handsize requirements leave room for both sides to cast spells. I've considered all of this in the construction of the set. I read articles about sets with similar themes and mechanics, about what worked and what didn't, and I'm attempting to address that in my cards. If I'm missing that mark, that's fair. I'll keep working on it. As I said, I'm still very early in this set's design process.
That's a fair comparison, except I hope neither of my set's options are as inherently bad as loner.
That's fair for generic cards. Legends based on specific source material benefit from some explanation, as not everyone is familiar with that material.

Doing 10 more, no flavor text considered.

Geist Trappers - It's ghostbusters! They have specific tools to kill spirits, that are flying that they're sharing while soulbound.

Sewn-Eye Drake - Complete miss flavor wise IMO. Blind creature that can block, yuck.

Amass the Components - You're in such a hurry to get your stuff together that you drop a component. Onto the bottom of your library.

Surge of Zeal - Phew, it's one of the only radiance cards that make sense. One of your creatures gets really angry and that's haste in MTG universe. Obviously his buddies get really angry too, because empathy.

Grizzly Bears - I mean, that's so iconic that I think it arguably gets a pass.

Woodwraith Strangler - "Eats" dead stuff to not die. Yum!

Transguild Promenade - Place where all the guilds meet so obviously it makes WUBRG. Duh. 1 or sac is developmental, but if you reach, you could say it's to stop all the guilds from arguing and destroying the place. Needs slight understanding of Ravnica to work best, but I think there's some flavor even in a vacuum with that name.

Aim High - That one's obvious. You shoot stuff out of the sky. Aim High!

Bull Rush - Well, it does make sense. You get angry, so you get more attack. Kind-of a miss though, but that's mostly from the card being bland.

Moorland Inquisitor - Yep, that's a miss. I don't see why Inquisitors have first strike specifically. Protect themselves from vampire bites maybe? That's a stretch.

10 cards, 2 misses, 1 half-miss. I think I proved my point that even simple cards can stand up very well on their own

>I have plenty of reasons as to why it should have flash
Okay. Shoot.
>Why shouldn't everyone try to make the best, most interesting, and most fun cards possible?
Enlighten and Imbue are not fun mechanics.
> Imbue cards very specifically do not require an exile
So I have the option of playing my cards without utilizing the mechanic.
>and the goal is for both options (imbued and not imbued) to have balanced merit.
Impossible or damn near close to it.
>The UW cards endeavor to fill and refill hands organically
Literally none of the white commons really kept your hand filled, they were mostly cheap small creatures.

Your mistakes have already been made by Wizards. You have been told that this is a bad idea. You will not be able to pull it off.
>Legends based on specific source material benefit from some explanation
If you need to explain your design for me to get it, the card was garbage.

Except it's not in a vacuum. The name includes Frost, which by itself implies cold or freezing. And what ability has Magic used many times over the years to convey freezing? That's right, the very mechanic the card has, what a surprise. Also, you're talking about a common, basically a throwaway character, a crowd filler. How about we look at a legendary creature? Now, let's actually put it into a vacuum.

Huh, this Taigam guy seems neat. OK, he makes instant and sorcery spells uncounterable and he gives them a cool keyword. Wait, I thought Wizards were supposed to be the ones who did stuff with spells. And I'm not really sure why it's that keyword, since he has to attack, I guess I assumed it'd improve him somehow. But why does he randomly mention Dragons? What does a Monk have to do with Dragons?

Of course, once you know more about the source material, it's easy to answer these questions. And guess what, the source material for Magic doesn't often cover the source material I'm drawing these CO cards from.

If it just turns right into an artifact, why have it be a creature at all? Why not just make a token that's a copy of the creature except it's an artifact?

Might as well post a new version of Grid's card. Included R for exiling artifacts. I think this works reasonably well for what it's supposed to do.

Every card exists in the context of magic history.
Also commons are thebackbone of Magic and the most important part of any set. Calling them "filler" is completely misunderstanding what Magic design is.

And yes, real Magic sets have the luxury of seting. We don't.
Look at ie. and tell me it doesn't convey a story in card form. Every card posted here should be like that.

...

The goal for imbue was to enable the small hand matters theme Jund is going for. I wanted it to be a much more specific Imprint, or a sort of imprint-exploit hybrid. The difference being that imprint cards are generally useless without exiling something, and exploit has an inherent cost since you have to cast creatures before you can utilize it. Devour-from-the-hand isn't a bad idea, but it just strikes me as so boring. I suppose I could do some counters-matter stuff, but it doesn't excite me. That might be a personal thing, though; I like more complex interactions, perhaps to a fault.
>Transguild Promenade - Place where all the guilds meet so obviously it makes WUBRG.
What guilds? Why do guilds mean multicolor? See, if I was a new player completely unfamiliar with the source material, the card would make zero sense. That's why Wizards includes flavor explanations on info cards and inserts in products, and it's the same reason why COanon gives brief overviews of characters' backgrounds. The other cards you listed are all general; legends, especially legends based on obscure outside source material, benefit from some explanation. That seems obvious to me. "Card must convey its flavor perfectly in a vacuum or its garbage!" seems like the most obtuse of overgeneralizations.
>Okay. Shoot.
Flash allows you to alter your handsize on the fly and gives additional value to a body that would otherwise be lackluster for the cost. It also allows you to generate instant-speed card advantage without forcing you to put cards into your hand.
>Enlighten and Imbue are not fun mechanics.
Why?
>So I have the option of playing my cards without utilizing the mechanic.
Yes, and it's up to you as a player to decide when. Making decisions is fun. Utilizing resources for bigger effects is fun.
>Literally none of the white commons really kept your hand filled
What about these?
>You will not be able to pull it off.
Maybe not, but I'll have fun trying.

Oh wow, it's a big dumb creature that eats creatures. I wonder if the story behind it is that it's a big dumb creature that eats creatures. Jeez, that was a hard one to solve.

Daxos the Returned. It's easy to see why he cares about enchantments since he's from the block that was enchantment focused. But how would you know why enchantments are important to him just by looking at the card?

And what about Siadar Kondo? I'm still trying to figure that guy out.

As an aside to you, your card does look pretty cool. Though I think I'd put a mana cost on the recursion, probably something like 2BG, or make it recur to hand.

Dunno, thought it was funny for some reason.

So it's like FOW but without the card disadvantage? If you're going for the spellshaper approach, it would be
>T, discard a card, exile a blue card from your hand, pay 1 life: Counter"

Yeah, I forgot about discarding. Though brainstorming a bit, I think I prefer this design. Think it gets across the flavor well enough. And if I'm right, I'll just need to make sure the costs are all appropriate. For those wondering about the second iteration, it taxed everyone who tried to use a nonblue spell or permanent. Doesn't really fit Grumps that well though, I haven't seen him wine about Blue getting depowered like I see from others.

Cheap, effective looting.

...

Weird card. I get that you made it monobrid so colorless decks can run it, as well as off-color artifact decks, but since it cares about colored artifacts so much, this comes off as odd. Plus blue is the big artifact color, so I feel like full monobrid is too far. 2/U2/UU would make more sense to me. Not the biggest fan of it all told, but I can't really say it's broken or anything.

>Imbue
Yeah I was the user that pointed out the Imprint+Exploit thing with your initial version. I feel like that had more potential than what you have now, honestly. The issue is that there is only one card right now that feels as though the Imprint part really shines through. The other feels like "hand devour" and the last is basically spellshaping. So it feels disjointed, if you want to come at it from that angle. Go back to basics. Do Imprint+Exploit. Make sure the card you're exiling always shows through somehow. It'll feel better and ensure you're getting your value out of the lost card. Nix the graveyard stuff. That's my thought after all that conversing.

Okay. So you want to do "make an artifact and a creature out of a creature" right? This is what I would do. Exile the creature, then create two tokens. The first is a colorless artifact token that has all the activated abilities of the exiled creature. The second is a white Citizen token (so that it can be any race) that has P/T equal to the exiled creature's P/T. Boom.

Kek.

This feels way too good. The draw slapped on feels over the top.

Hm. Man I don't think this'd fly, as much as I think personally it's actually semi-reasonable.

It's intended as Scarecrow tribal. It's based off a character found in several Shadowmoor flavor texts.

I like the fluff, but this seems really bad. Geist of St. Traft no longer sees play in any format, and this is so much worse.

What if it was "whenever this becomes the target of a spell or ability your opponent controls, return this to your hand and X." Give it flying and it becomes a very hard to remove threat with an illusion theme.

...

...

Ah, okay.

>worse than Geist of St. Traft
That's fine by me. Its an uncommon. I could change the cost of the bounce to make it more efficient, but what you're suggesting is a different card, not a fix. It's also possible to make the ability just an activated one that bounces the Dancer, then if it was attacking, make an attacking Illusion. What do you think of that as a compromise?

Glad you liked the flavor of it though. It was kinda hard figuring out how blue could possibly "ping" something.

This is such an odd card. If it's the "mother of monsters" why does it make Chickens?

Pretty good dude. I love scry as a mechanic so this appeals. I also like how it works so it's not do-nothing if you don't have anything else on your board.

I don't know what it is, but I have a thing for Archaeomancer variants.

I think that would work as a compromise, or make it much cheaper (1/1 for U seems pretty fair.)

From a chicken based set I have been working on, and chickens are monsters. Ia it not said "beware that you do not look into the chicken, for the chicken also looks into you?"

I like this one, very elegant deck manipulation.

I'll mock the compromise and cheaper ones up and post them along with the original and see which people prefer. I also considered making the token 2/2 as well. What do you think the costs would be were I to make it more expensive? Course, at that rate it stops being a "pinger", so that'd be a shame.

Okay all, I need your input on which of these you like the best. No number is the original from upthread. It's the one that's most in line with the spirit of the challenge. The rest are suggested alters or possible changes. Thoughts? Additional suggestions? This is actually one of my favorite cards I've made in a while, so input is greatly appreciated.

Returning to hand seems really shitty for what it does. Also, I'm not sure if you caught this, but the way it works makes it seem like the token is pretty much unblockable since it'll ETB after blockers are declared. I think I'd say
>Whenever ~ attacks, you may pay [cost]. If you do, remove ~ from combat and create a 2/2 blue Illusion creature token that's tapped and attacking.
Or if you want it to bounce, just boost the effect. I'm thinking Aetherplasm. Granted, the effect might be so strong you'll have to change the costs, I dunno, sorry.
>Whenever ~ attacks, you may pay [cost]. If you do, return ~ to its owner's hand. You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped and attacking.

Oh right, forgot to add that the token would have the typical Illusion drawback. I was also thinking of changing the second proposed design to make it so the creature becomes an Illusion and gains the Illusion drawback too, but it's up to you.

>i'm not sure if you caught this
It's how I designed it on purpose. It's one reason I made the cost to bounce on the first one so spendy. Maybe too spendy though. It's supposed to be a blue "pinger", but since blue can't just tap to deal damage like the Timmies of old anymore, I had to get creative. So I want to keep that functionality.
>remove from combat
Do you think it can do Gustcloaking in monoblue? That's a white thing.
>boost the effect
That's why I included a 2/2 token so it hits harder. Not enough? I didn't want to go full Ninjutsu because that's not the point of the card and it's not suitable for an uncommon as you have it, since you can cheat out a LOT with that.

I just thought about it, and since red can pay 2R for a creature that just sits back and deals 1 damage a turn to someone, would this be able to do what it does for free at 2U to cast? It's not as good as a pinger, but it's blue, so it probably shouldn't be, and the token is permanent so it's technically persistent every time you do it. I dunno, I just feel like the costing on this thing is so weird.

Wew lads been a while.

Here's the new info since I've been gone!

Decided that I am only going to introduce three of the faction mechanics in the first set. This means that Grandeur & Guide are no longer present, but will (or some variant of them) be present in set 2 of the block.

Will post a few more cards in a bit.

Anyways, how's everybody been?

Hm, I knew I hadn't seen you in a while. This card seems pretty over the top. I think it actually might be a little too suicidy. It breaks even first turn if you go first, but after that if you swing with it it trades, deals 1 damage to the opponent, then bites you for 2. I mean I suppose that can put you in a good place but I just dunno. Also not sure it's common material.

>Also not sure it's common material.
Ye will probably end up uncommon/rare if it sticks. Just fidding with ideas now. "Pinger edition" inspired etc.

No changes since last post. Because I plan on using a similar transform mechanic for a few other cards, I'd really like to know how viable it is. Put counters on the front to transform it, use counters on the back for an ability, and when you run out of counters, it transforms back again.

Oh yeah, and as stated before, I'm basically just making up my own names for the Marvel/Shazam Family heroes since DC hasn't gotten off their asses yet to name them individually.

I've been OK. You?

but he only needs two syllables before the lightning

Unfortunately my sense of humor has been severely weakened by lifelong exposure to bad jokes, so I'll have to ask you if you're seriously suggesting that, or if you're just trying to be funny.

Gotcha. Fair enough.

Why is Billy a 2/2? He's a kid, with literally nothing going for him except transforming into Shazam/Captain Marvel. I think I recall you saying something about wanting to make all your cards better than "average Joe 1/1"s but it still feels strange to see a 2/2 kid. Also I kinda agree that since he says "Sha-ZAM!" that two counters might be more interesting. Could increase the counter cost to compensate. Transformed side is typical fare for what you've been making. Big, tough, and Timmy-gasm inducing.

You've never played Zelda, have you?

We're back!

Anyways,
me here

Here's a few cards, a small reminder of set mechanics + a few support things for them.

Thought;
Is there any better way to word the "Opponents draw one card, you draw two" effect? Is this effect too confusing for a common? (I don't think it is, but feedback would be nice.)

Other than that, comments welcome!

>I've been OK. You?
I've been v good. Just celebrated Towel Day getting drunk on my friend's god-awful / seriously it is genuinely atrocious pan galactic gargle blaster recipe.

Fun times.

>Just celebrated Towel Day getting drunk on my friend's god-awful / seriously it is genuinely atrocious pan galactic gargle blaster recipe.
>Fun times.
youtube.com/watch?v=AS-07dh9-NA