/ccg/ Custom Card General /cct/

Whoops, I guess I missed the first ability. Anyway, Fortification as a type doesn't really have a whole lot of design space in the first place, given how Wizards keeps cracking down on LD, you can basically just get an Aura to do everything you'd want to use a Fortification for.

Yeah. I think you would have to say Fortified Land and Equipped creature to makr it clear.

Yikes. You just stumbled onto some really weird Magic wording. Hooray!

Anyway, when it comes to continually copying something, you have to use this really obscure wording that I can only find on Volrath's Shapeshifter that refers to "full text". In this case, I believe the best wording for this ability would be
>As long as the top card of your graveyard is a non-Aura permanent card, ~ has the full text of that card and has the text "Play with the top card of your library revealed." (~ has that card's name, mana cost, color, types, abilities, power, and toughness.)
Though judging by you're wording, I feel like it would be far easier to make this triggered, like say an upkeep trigger. Upkeep > reveal > copy.

>Fortification as a type doesn't really have a whole lot of design space
But that's the most fun part of designing cards, imo. Playing around with limited design space WotC isn't going to touch and seeing what you can do with it. In that card's case, it needs fortification to function.

Noted and good catch. I'll use the full text wording. The upkeep trigger might be worded more cleanly, but
>Upkeep -> Draw
So the card it's copying is now in your hand. If there isn't another copy out there in public information space, what can the enemy reference to remember what it does?

>card
Haste seems a little wrong on a Gb card. It's tertiary in both colors. I also think the card is too specific. How about making the first ability work for any creature spell or ability? It loses inteaction with Tribal cards, but opens itself up from being too narrow.

I like this card.

The trigger doesn't have to be upkeep. It could be combat or something. Or even draw step, the ability would trigger after the draw, so the copied card would remain there until you draw again.

Haste is secondary in Black. As for the first ability, it feels odd to me if the first ability was restricted to any creatures, but the second ability were still restricted to Spiders. Though I guess I could just get rid of the Deathtouch ability altogether I suppose.

>card
> Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card. Put that card onto the battlefield and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
The exile stuff just seems like unnecessary complexity.

>The exile stuff just seems like unnecessary complexity.
It's just Cascade for lands.

>it feels odd to me if the first ability was restricted to any creatures, but the second ability were still restricted to Spiders
It's your card, but I don't think so.

As a Shaman, he's in tune with all creatures (mana), but as a Spider Shaman, he's especially good at helping Spiders out (deathtouch).

1) It's really not the same as Cascade for lands, it's just a generic randomized fetch ability, and 2) that doesn't actually rebut my point on needless complexity. At least with Cascade it interacts with stuff like Grafdigger's Cage or Melek, but this doesn't.

Let me rephrase what I meant with Cascade: There's a difference between what Cascade does with exiling versus what would happen if it were literally the same but with revealing instead due to the cards I mentioned affecting stuff cast from libraries. But both of these things are effectively equal in your card since it's just moving the land to the library, thus making them functionally identical, but the exile one is just more complex.

>to the library
to the battlefield, I meant. Shit, how am I this messed up this early?

Posted last thread but got no replies, any feedback?

Thanks. The wording issues on your card have already been pointed out in terms of "fortified" and "equipped", and besides that it seems pretty neat. Cost should be about right.

Arashin Foremost, Fabled Hero, and Mirran Crusader say I can get away with it, most likely. Assuming the set it was in could support it.

Thanks. I guess not everything needs to be complex to be fun.

Gimme a sec and I'll go through these.

>Arashin Foremost
Tribal, doesn't affect itself.

>Fabled Hero
Conditional.

>Mirran Crusader
Really not the same, but I guess I can give you that one.

>Gimme a sec and I'll go through these.
Yeesh, good luck.

>Yeesh, good luck
I'll take that as a compliment.

I don't know.

Exiling doesn't really add any unnecessary complexity compared to just revealing the cards. And telling someone "it's basically Cascade for lands" makes the card more grokkable.

Also, I'll add a spider that was made in one of these threads.

Is the second ability too narrow? I'm thinking I should change it to be more representative of the colors, maybe I/S for U/R and creature for G/R?

It is a compliment. I don't want to handle those things, those the "yeesh". Here's a less ambiguous compliment: You're a better user than I am.

>I'm thinking I should change it to be more representative of the colors, maybe I/S for U/R and creature for G/R?
If you do that, you'll end up at 10+ lines of text. 9 is already enough that you should be looking to cut text, not add.

The point was more that "double strike+" on a 1CC 2/2 can be done, and Menace is fairly soft evasion, so as far as keywords go, it's a bit cheaper to tack on than other things.

Firstly, I'm going to assume the rarities are all meaningless, since most of these can't be commons.

>Sentinel
Well, I'm not the biggest fan of this design because it goes against playing the game normally. What I mean is, you usually want more than one wall on the field and nothing else, especially in a draft. So it's feel-bad in that way, though outside draft I suppose a control shell would consider it, even though it's a bit expensive for that, since they usually pay 5-6 mana for their wincon. So I don't know what place this would have.
>Horizons
Wording needs work. I'm not sure it can stay as it is either; I think it might need to ETB tapped. It just doesn't have the same limitations as Command Tower.
>Orrery
Check your wording; name is wrong in the rules text. Honestly, this is too expensive, especially the activated ability. You can flat draw a card for 4.
>Catacomb
Too good in its tribe decks, I think. It catches up to the missed turn on the second turn it produces mana, and in black Vamp aggro this would be nuts.
>Quality
It'd be better as -1/-1 and +1/+1 unless it's in a set where there are a preponderance of 2/2 tokens. Not 100% sure on costing but I think it's fine.
>Archives
Too expensive for what it does. Could easily cost 2U or potentially GU. If it were one-sided, it'd be more expensive.
>reinforcements
Wording. Use create now as the action word for tokens. Rations feels weak to me, and getting the "full effect for 6WB is really underwhelming to me. It's only really scary with a sac engine and if you have one going this isn't what you're casting most likely.

So this ability word; too binary or potentially inteersting? Wanted a cross between Domain and Delirium, as a replacement for Domain because it's very limited design space for creatures.

Eminence is already (going to be) an abilityword and doesn't relate to what you have going on. All of them have
>As long as [CARDNAME] is in the command zone or on the battlefield, [EFFECT].

>"double strike+" on a 1CC 2/2 can be done
I never said it couldn't. I was disputing having Menace plus everything else specifically. And for what you say about Menace, it's doesn't excel as much as say Pro Green and Black does on Crusader, but it's certainly more reliable.

>card
Really odd that it looks at names rather than land types. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not.

Have you seen the stuff I make? That argument doesn't really dissuade me at all.

Have there been any more Eminence cards spoiled so far other than him and the Cat?

>Have you seen the stuff I make? That argument doesn't really dissuade me at all.
Then you are a bad card designer. It's in the OP pic for a fucking reason.

Just those two so far, but they'll stick it on the other two Commanders. WotC loves a cycle.

Oh no, I violated one of the sacred rules in the OP! What's going to happen to me? Absolutely nothing, because I can't bring myself to give a fuck.

I still find it odd that Wizards is making four decks for this Commander set rather than the standard five. But when they don't all fit nicely into the color pie, I guess there's a bit of logic to it. I just can't want to find out what the other two creature types are going to be. People have been theorizing that because of the Cat, the other tribes might be less popular tribes getting some support to make them viable in Commander.

Ah fack. Screw you WotC. I'll have to come up with something else.

Reason I didn't do "land type" is that would only check for basic lands and things like Lairs and Deserts. If you had a Transguild Promenade, for example, it'd be useless concerning that ability word.
>Oath
Hm. Punishes aggro decks pretty well. I am not that good at judging the power level of Oaths because I hate PWs and everything related to them. I feel like this might be a touch too punishing all told, but you'd need to playtest it. I just picture this dropping turn 4 or 5 and leading to a massive swing in the game, which while fun for you, is complete dildos to your opponent, and the name of the game is trying to make games exciting, not swingy and too unpredictable. I dunno, I'm probably not the best person to ask about it honestly.

Prototyping some general mechanical identity for White in a more graveyard/sacrifice focused set I'm working on. Wanted to make sure White had something that fit both the ideas of the set along with its color, and some of the more sacrifice based effects don't often mesh as well.

The "as" timing on Exhume feels a bit strange, and sort of limits it to permanents only, unless you do a "as ~ resolves" thing for nonpermanent spells, which could work, though "resolve" is usually a term to avoid. I can't really judge too much about the grand scale of things and the success of the flavor or not until I see more colors.

Eminence changed to Territorial. Couldn't come up with a better name.

Well, currently my plan was that Exhume would mainly show up on creatures, and would also mainly be creating tokens. Sort of akin to cards that return low power or CMC creatures to the battlefield in white, but a bit better defined as tokens. While it may show up on spells, I figured it wouldn't be a strict keyword anyway, more like an Ability Word, so the exact wording could change with the type of card if I wanted to put it on a sorcery or an instant. The general function is exiling a creature card from the graveyard for an effect though.

As for other colors, I had planned on BRG getting Devour, or at least similar effects based on sacrificing creatures more directly. BG might have Scavenge on smaller creatures to serve as fodder, while smaller Red creatures would more likely have Haste or ETB effects so their value is more front-loaded.

For Blue, the main concept I had thus far was self-bounce effects, along with cards that cared about leaving the battlefield to function with both those and death, as well as cards that cared about discarding, focusing more on the hand-graveyard interactions more than field-graveyard like the other colors.

Decent. Respectable. I like it.

Another CO card, this time Hellion. Been trying to get this guy down for a while. He's a telekinetic, and he mostly uses that power to create barriers and grant flight. Basically he's using that to pick people up and throw them through the air.

>card
Sorry, it's just hard for me to judge without knowing how Territorial plays. I want to say it's OK, but I don't know for sure.

What do you guys think about land tokens?

Land tokens are fine. But as for this, should say
>Put target nonland permanent on the bottom of its owner's library. Its controller creates a colorless Forest land creature token.

Could be alright. Only works really well with tokens that serve as basic lands though, and at that point you also have to ask if searching your library for one wouldn't be better.

The one you posted is an alright example. In some ways it might even be a bit overcosted, since it's Land destruction, but doesn't hurt their curve in most cases.

Thanks for the better wording!

I do think that non-basic token lands could be used too, but mostly on flavorful ways like creating desert tokens or something like that.

Also, my card can't really be used as land destruction since it can't really hit lands. It's a weaker Path to exile that can hit artifacts, enchantmants and planeswalkers.

It's not a creature, and if it was it would need a power and toughness like dryad arbor.

So remove the "creature" from that box

Ah, I mixed up the intent with it. Still, I do think it is a tricky to use mechanic.

I could see it as a way to make really powerful lands that would have more downsides on them, like making a dual land token, but needing to actually cast the spell and pay whatever other costs to create it.

Here's another example, guys.

Whoops. I just copied without looking at it properly. Consider it done.

Yes, I think that it's a tricky design space, but it has lots of potential for powerful or at least interesting cards.

Oops, sorry. It wasn't my intention to make it a land creature, habit I guess. Too tired to be posting right now.

How the fuck do I balance this?

I'm not married to the concept of "sacrifice, then create tokens". I just want to use the artwork for something.

Yo /ccg/ I have a challenge for you.

I want you to post a picture you think would make good card art. Something pretty, or interesting, or just something you want to see, and give me a color and rarity for it. I'll make a card out of it and post it.

I wanna do this to challenge my cardsmithing skills, so let em rip!

3BB
Amad, cruel pacifist
Planeswalker, starts with 4 loyalty
+1: Until the beginning of your next turn, up to one target creature cannot attack
+/-0: Each player loses 2 life and draws a card
-5: You gain an emblem with "Whenever Amad, Cruel Pacifist is destroyed, you win the game"

>+1: Until the beginning of your next turn, up to one target creature cannot attack

I really wouldn't call that a black effect.

>-5: You gain an emblem with "Whenever Amad, Cruel Pacifist is destroyed, you win the game"

That's more a white effect as well. It's also an effect that is staggeringly easy to trigger for the player running him. Especially in Black.

3BW then

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Some kind of black enchantment, maybe BR, uncommon or higher.

Alright, here's my first thought on it. Something to represent old school vampire +1/+1 counter stuff.

The order of mana symbols is wrong. Mana costs follow the WUBRG order. It should be WBG.

Also this looks more like WU than WBG. Nothing about it seems very "cursed", nor does it have much green things.

Could use Defender and more toughness.

First, that's not correct at all. Wizards has always used a bit of odd ordering for the wedges. Before Khans, the order was to start with the enemy color, then the allied color in standard order. After Khans, the order starts with the second ally, the enemy, then the first ally. Compare Anafenza to Doran.

Second, MSE automatically orders the colors. There's not much that user could do to change it.

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Did this a while ago, decided to update it a bit. And yeah, it's basically meant to be what Lightning Diadem should've been.

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Fuck I forgot something

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Apparently, Wizards is going to make a card for Unstable called Sword of Dungeons and Dragons, which makes a Gold Dragon token. So I decided to something inspired by D&D as well. The entire purpose is a downside creature. I'm unsure of the ETB part though, I feel like maybe more emphasis should be placed on the reward.

It recurs every single turn? Eh, I guess I'd be more OK with it if it weren't for the minus one part. Though on the other hand, I'm not sure why it's not just an enchantment that triggers on ETB and upkeep.

I feel like the mana cost is too high for all the downsides. You're giving each opponent 3 1/1 tokens and 3 free mana once it dies. I feel like it could be pushed a bit more.

Perhaps rather than Haste, something like Trample would fit better? Allow the mana cost to be lower without letting it swing immediately?

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Yeah give it trample as well

Good point. Replace Haste with Trample, 2RR?

Either that, or what suggests with giving it trample on top.

Part of it is just that 6/6 with flying and haste for 6 isn't too far ahead of some other Red dragons that already exist.

I do feel like Trample works better though, both from mechanics and flavor. You spend the 4 mana to play it, but your dragon is going to be lurking for a turn to get ready. Your opponent gets 3 tokens in return, and has that turn to spend trying to kill your dragon before it can do much damage. If they do, they get a lot of rewards. If they can't, then they're dealing with a 6/6 in the air that'll go through chump blockers with ease and kill them pretty quickly. Of course, once they stop it, they suddenly get a surge of mana to try and help them recover.

Very fitting for Red's risk/reward outlook, and very fitting for the idea of questing to slay a dragon.

Might need some tweaking and balancing to make sure it's all fair and it works, but I think it's a solid idea.

You know, I was actually thinking of giving the tokens Reach to block the Dragon, but with your response, I think I like the idea more of letting the opponent prepare for the attack by himself. And thanks for the feedback!

No problem! Glad I could help.

This would be pretty good vs Show and Tell in Legacy

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Bonus points: Enchantment with mana cost W that would see play in Standard, but not eternal formats.

Uncommon black instant that targets a creature you control. Strong draft pick.

Removal spell that kills in an unusual manner.

Best of luck.

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B/R, rare.

Green/Black, uncommon

Would love to play this as my commander

For those who'd like to credit artists:

Carmen Sinek

Chris Cold

Daniel Kamarudin

Jeremy Carver

Hopefully obvious.
(James Zapata)

Marta Sokołowska

bump

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Alright, here's my pile of them so far! I'm not super familiar with standard and eternal format metas, so Glimmer of Hope might be wildly off base, but these are just rough ideas. I also was particularly reminded of Leyline of the Void by that second Jeremy Carver piece, so I stole some effects.

Keep posting them, this is really fun!

And of course, after posting them I get a bunch of good ideas for flavor text and better names/wordings. I'll repost them after I get a few more to do, make it a nice big contribution.

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I really like this one.

Wow, looks like you did all of them (except the first one with the butterflies, but whatevs), nice.

>Sanguine Majesty
Makes for an odd interaction if you don't control the enchanted creature, and I feel like the Menace ability just combos too well with the counter ability.

>Hollowhill Cavalier
Eh, not really feeling this one. I might actually take a crack at this one myself, I really like the art.

>Glimmer of Hope
Eh... I get what it's doing, I just feel like there's a better way to go about this. Maybe an Aura?

>Basaltic Burst
Feels way more Red than Black to me, as it's basically a twist on ping-strike. I do think the ability has merit though. Also, you don't have to put "attacking or blocking" since it's implied by only affecting creatures blocking or blocked by that creature, and that can't really happen if it isn't attacking or blocking.

>Martyr's Charge
Really easy to manipulate to fuck over your opponent, just cast in the middle of combat.

>Pinnacle of Void
Meh. Should be instant.

>Ishar's Spite
I think better wording might be something like
>~ deals 4 damage to target creature. ~ deals 4 damage to that creature's controller unless he or she sacrifices a permanent.
Anyway, I'm not really sure on this one.

>Silence of Roses
Kinda interesting. But I think I'd rather have Black cause the controller to lose life rather than ping.

>

Decided to attempt a new take on the Scarecrow "color matters" theme. Couldn't find any precedence for checking what type of mana was used to pay for a cost, so if anyone can fine any, please let me know.

>..., you may pay R and/or G. If R was paid, [R effect]. If G was paid, [G effect]. (Do both if RG was paid.)

I think that wording is technically correct. It's just that most color checks like that usually apply to the spell itself instead.

is probably a much cleaner phrasing though, and also means you can pay R instead of 1R in a deck without Green

I actually was thinking of having the player pay 1R or 1G to get one of the effects, for the sake of balance. But if you think it's fine to split it up, I'll do that.

Oh yeah, and I guess I might as well throw up some art for another challenge. How about... baby Hydra? Might be interesting to play around with Green's iconic a bit.

I was actually tempted to use that art for an actual set, though it might be difficult to balance a Hydra that's designed to start really small.

Well, might as well give it a shot myself. Obviously the ideal use is to combo it with spells that hand out counters.

I ended up going in a weird direction with mine. I wanted to stick with the idea of it being small and newborn, but still involve +1/+1 encounters. I feel like I may have pushed it a bit, but I liked the idea of using Double Strike to represent its many-heads, with Undying to imitate the mechanic some larger hydras get by preventing damage with +1/+1 counters.

That is unusual. I feel like DStrike is a bit much here though.

Perhaps, but it was the most straightforward way to have it be threatening without being big. Hound of Griselbrand is a similar card I would point towards. The main differences are this starts smaller, getting less raw power out of double strike in the end, gets trample, so less of double-strike's power is wasted when it gets blocked, and is multicolor, so it's a bit harder to cast.

I think those are somewhat reasonable tradeoffs for being 1 mana less.