Magic Card Design Challenge #2 - Analog RoboRosewater

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TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Mikl posted:

https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Boons

:allears:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2018 16:05

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 19:05

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Mikl posted:

I knew about Healing Salve, but I had no idea there was a whole cycle that included it (and Lightning Bolt). Consider me educated.

(My card is still different It's worse, but still different.)

No worries. I like Blue Thunder quite a bit, though!

# ¿ Feb 4, 2018 19:29

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

PMush Perfect posted:

Lose life, not damage.

(damage causes loss of life)

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 02:38

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Thanks for the submissions, everyone! I'm pleased with how this contest turned out. As I judged, I was primarily looking for entries to do something more interesting than just mirror the exact text in another color. On a personal note, I also tend to prefer cards There were a lot of good submissions and picking a single winner was tougher than I thought it was going to be.

Now, on to the winners.

Honorable Mention

There are several cards I could have put here (Gifts Unforgiven, Infectious Horde, Fabritect's Will), but I'm just gonna pick two.

PMush Perfect posted:

I like this a lot, in part because it absolutely fits Red's jam and I could see it being colorshifted and put into a real set at some point. Buuuuuut Red and Green are allies, so this one is just an honorable mention.

Kuiperdolin posted:

This is a really clever take and it suits Black very well. I'd have liked to see it do something with land, since destruction is in Black's wheelhouse, but it would have been broken as gently caress at that cost, and it's already way undercosted (just like its opposing card, I'll grant you). Still, I really like what you did with this.

Third Place

Not Alex posted:

I love the simplicity of this card. I think it could actually be a hybrid card that costs W/G. Or U/G, even.

Second Place

Lack of Bear posted:

This is another card I could see getting actual print one day. I like the concept, though I suspect WotC might also consider making it red/blue. This is a card destined for EDH.

:siren:

WINNER PLACE :siren:

AJ_Impy posted:

The land continues to drown is just perfect, and shifting the effect to be landtype-changing, something blue has done several times, is a perfect change--it synergizes with Merfolk (even if it isn't one itself), it's flavorful, and it's very strong. In a contest flush with strong entries, this stood out the most. Congrats!

# ¿ Feb 12, 2018 12:34

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Mikl posted:

That's a very good suggestion, thanks. Simple and elegant, and gets rid of in the card. Right now I'm on mobile, I'll fix them next time I'm at my pc.

Yeah, then it doesn't need a keyword mechanic; you can just have each card etb with 8 life counters.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2018 20:37

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

You need to give modron God a type besides creature. If cast for CCC it has no type

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 05:38

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

I'm going with a new tribe: Wights, who appear primarily in blue-black and tend to have the Deplete keyword. Deplete is a mechanic that I've felt the game needed ever since I saw Wither/Infect, which is a way to mill with creatures.

Common Wights just have Deplete:

Uncommon Wights get other abilities, most of which synergize with Deplete:

The Wight Lord:

A support enchantment!

And finally, a big badass legendary Wight:

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 04:28

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Not Alex posted:

Double replacement effect gets into funky timing rules no? ie Wights mill instead of damaging circumventing the enchantment's replacement effect so depending on which hit the battlefield first you wouldn't necessarily double mill.

Besides that I can't believe these things don't exist. It's such a straightforward step.

Hm, fair. I could just have it double the cards placed into the graveyard and remove the wight restriction, so it's:

I think this makes for a 2-card combo win with Traumatize, but I might be OK with that?

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 05:09

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Elyv posted:

I get the idea, but I see two things I don't really like in your Deplete mechanic:
1) It's really a drawback, but you're not costing it as a drawback. People have more cards in their deck than life so you have more to get through, and there's often graveyard synergies which you'd be enabling
2) Like Infect, the cards are very parasitic, making them annoying to build with in any sort of limited format.

1. I think I've been pretty aggressive at costing them with a high power, especially for black/blue. If I go too aggressive, then suddenly they're too good at killing creatures in combat. At higher rarities, I'd do more dread legion style effects, where you're emptying their hand and library simultaneously. Krastus originally had 12 power, but I liked him keying off graveyard creatures more, since hed grow continually against most decks.

2. True, but I will also admit I'm not particularly worried about that. These work well enough with existing mill strategies that they have established support in many sets from cards like Glimpse the Unthinkable or JtMS.

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Feb 15, 2018

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 12:03

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

E: Cards are done!

And also this one. Speed is relative

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 21, 2018

# ¿ Feb 20, 2018 15:22

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Lack of Bear posted:

I knew I forgot something.

you may as well just have it lose defender. It's less text and it doesn't matter if it's permanent because you have to sacrifice it anyways. And it's not a big enough bonus that if they find a way around that, it's worth preventing.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2018 17:19

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Tyrannosaurus posted:

I think conceptually it works best with defender. It is a lot of text, though.

I don't mean don't give it defender. I mean instead of "this creature can attack as though it didn't have defender," just have it say "loses defender"

# ¿ Feb 23, 2018 20:11

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Wooo! Thanks--Yeah, I agree that Haste doesn't quite work for Blue, but I didn't think it felt quite as good without it. I'll post the new contest tonight.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 01:45

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

CHALLENGE: HIT FOR THE CYCLE :siren:

Last time my challenge was mirrored pairs and I liked how that turned out so I'm doing a follow-up that expands that to horizontal cycles. Horizontal Cycles are cycles that have a card in all five colors. Here are a few examples:

They don't always get finished in a single set, though. There are some famously unfinished cycles, too:

Here's your challenge: Create or Finish a horizontal cycle. It doesn't have to be from scratch--you can complete an existing unfinished cycle (there are a few others besides the ones I've shown), or take a card (or mirrored pair) and turn it into a full horizontal cycle. I'm a big Magic nerd, so starting off an existing card/cycle is more likely to score points with me, but I'm open to original submissions. Hell, if you want to "fix" an existing horizontal cycle like the Alpha boons by replacing existing cards like Healing Salve with a new White card and Ancestral Recall with a new blue card, go for it--just let me know that's what you're doing.

What I'm looking for:
- Playability. Each card in the cycle should be roughly equally playable.
- Color pie fit. Each card in your cycle should reflect the color (or colors) its coming from, and how that makes it different from the other cards in your cycle.

Submissions are due by midnight EST on Sunday, March 3rd.

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Feb 26, 2018

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 02:36

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Mikl posted:

Heads up: I've reworked one of the cards in my cycle, Jupiter. I've edited it in the original post, but here it is:

(The original had Hexproof rather than Shroud.)

that thing is gross

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 22:18

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Thanks for the submissions! They're closed. I'll pick a winner this morning.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2018 12:20

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Thanks for the submissions, everyone! I was really impressed with the entries, and picking a single winner was tough.

Honorable Mention:
Eevil�s one-drops � These were cool, but I wasn�t sold on giving Evolve to non-Simic colors. It�s a cool UG ability and outside of maybe red (and Oddgoblin was real solid), it just didn�t work for me.
Lack of Bear�s 2-drops � I also liked these, and I liked the color-specific keyword abilities for each card. I�d have probably gone with Unearth instead of Embalm for the black one, but this was solid.

Third place:
The Gorp�s Magus cycle.

I really liked these conceptually, but their power levels are all over the place. They also feel like they should be 2/2 or at the very least 2/1, since the mark you�re up against is Leatherback Baloth, Ball Lightning, Geralf�s Messenger, Devout Lightcaster, and uh, Shorecrasher Elemental, I guess. The red one�s probably too strong (needs to only hit creatures, I think), and the blue one is probably too weak. Still, I like what you did here.

Second Place:
Nebalebadingdong�s sweet train set. I really, really liked these, and I think making them transform was the right call. The only reason they didn�t win was because they�re really complex, and while normally that�s not a deal-breaker, the winning submission had simplicity going for it. The �repeat the following for each X in your graveyard� is a neat idea, but it�s a lot to tack on top of a transforming card that already has a lot going on. I also felt like you could have dropped the �Transforming back� clause.
And because it�s a pet peeve of mine, I have to point out that it should be �fewer� instead of �less� for all of these on the re-transform clauses.

First Place
Torchlighter�s 1drop hybrids:

This was real close between your entry and Nebalebadingdong�s, but in the end I liked the simplicity of these. I also appreciate the work that goes into making cards that have a fixed cost. They all feel pretty on-point power level-wise for a 1-drop hybrid, except for maybe the Orzhov one, where having Extort and Flying and an ability is probably too much, even for an uncommon.

Congrats, Torchlighter! I look forward to seeing what you propose as a contest. Also thanks again to everyone who submitted.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2018 13:24

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Lack of Bear posted:

I like this, but it's too weak. You should consider making the created tokens 2/0 or lowering the cost to 1BB.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 12:56

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Here's my entry, replacing the placeholder:

And also this guy, who isn't super-complicated but I wanted to try and make an Uncommon that would work:

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Mar 7, 2018

# ¿ Mar 6, 2018 15:10

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Hardcordion posted:

Here's a card I've been mulling over. Again, feedback appreciated.
pre:
Spell Vessel                                      UU
Play with the top card of your library revealed.

Spell Vessal gets +X/+X, where X is the converted 
mana cost of the top card of your library.

When Spell Vessal dies, draw a card.
                                                 0/0
Potential to be a big creature as early as turn two, offset by the risk of revealing a land every time you draw or shuffle and therefore destroying Spell Vessel. Scrying could help you avoid the former. If the first card revealed is a land, welp, that sucks but at least you get it into your hand for free.

Edit: Maybe it should have scry 1 as it enters the battlefield to hopefully avoid being destroyed instantly?

It needs to Scry 1 on cast for that to work as intended (not on etb).

I agree it's a slick idea but I'm not sure it works as intended given that there's a 1/3 chance of losing it every time you draw a card

# ¿ Mar 8, 2018 03:35

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Mikl posted:

This is a neat concept. Two suggestions:
1. It should probably be blue-green, because that ability is simic as hell
2. You can go ahead and cost it at UG (No X) and just let a player move nay number of counters onto it as it enters the battlefield (Templating for that is probably 'as an additional cost to cast -, you may remove any number of +1/+1 counters from creatures you control. ~ enters the battlefield with that many +1/+1 counters on it.'

The drawback of needing 2 colors of mana plus counter on a creature to move onto it is enough that the additional mana cost per counter isn't necessary.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2018 11:48

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Lack of Bear posted:

The second ability just puts top back in your hand

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 14:34

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

BizarroAzrael posted:

Unless you respond to the ability with something else that changes the top of the library, either randomizing it with a fetchland shuffle or just reordering it with a second Top.

I understand you can circumvent it, but by itself it's just a confusing way to return top to your hand. It's a bad way to fix the card

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 14:46

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

lot of people ignoring the "from 1998 onward" stipulation

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 17:31

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Kuiperdolin posted:

I honestly read it as "banned or restricted after 1998", not the date of the card's creation.

that's a fair read, but Moxes and Darkpact were restricted/banned well before 98

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 18:12

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Takin a stab at a few older cards that were pretty much degenerate by themselves (except Memory Jar, but it was a day zero banning)

e: Also, intentionally using old templating on these guys

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Mar 14, 2018

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 19:00

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Nebalebadingdong posted:

How do I know what was banned before '98?

Just don't pick any cards from before Exodus, because the only cards banned/restricted between Legends and Exodus were like, Necropotence and Zuran Orb

e:

Tyrannosaurus posted:

There are dates on the link. I forgot the '98 thing was even a stipulation of the prompt.

The reason for it is that collector's numbers didn't exist until 1998

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Mar 14, 2018

# ¿ Mar 13, 2018 19:49

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

# ¿ Mar 21, 2018 01:38

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Nebalebadingdong posted:

e: in hindsight, this is so obvious i'm sure its been done before

Neat idea. I will see it and raise you:

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Mar 21, 2018

# ¿ Mar 21, 2018 13:07

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

xanthan posted:

So why wouldn't I just cast this on myself so that I can only die to enchantment removal, decking, or possibly stuff like lab maniac or infect if the format has them?

You totally would. That's intentional

Aabcehmu posted:

This would basically force every deck in the same meta to include semi-consistent enchantment removal, wouldn't it?

Hm. this is a fair criticism, and it's probably undercosted. So let's change the hand size limitation to make it something that will eventually cause you to lose as your body decomposes

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Mar 21, 2018

# ¿ Mar 21, 2018 14:30

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

AJ_Impy posted:

Also, sacrifice a permanent plus play from graveyard on the same card makes for a really easy and exploitable upkeep.

Ah, poo poo you're right. Dammit. OK, back to the drawing board with this card.

Nebalebadingdong posted:

If you enchant your opponent, they can't sacrifice it because they don't control it. So you'd never be able to actually beat them and they'd just sit there with nothing on the board

This actually owns, but I'm gonna rethink how I want to represent being a zombie with this card in a way that isn't just "less lovely lich"

e: Hmmm.... maybe I could have it exile cards from the top of their library, so they eventually run out of library

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 15:05 on Mar 21, 2018

# ¿ Mar 21, 2018 14:49

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

OK, I've got a version that works!

In times like these, I really wish that Poison counters were called Infect counters, but this'll do. The spell either provides a slow kill condition for an opponent, provided they can't remove the enchantment and you can, doesn't stop a player from losing from having 0 life.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2018 01:21

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

It's not super-powerful, but It's not really a card that I'd push. I see it as more a card you run in EDH

# ¿ Mar 23, 2018 02:20

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Form of the Saga or Saga of the Form
Enchantment - Saga
I - Create a form enchantment token. You are that token
II - Wait, that doesn't work. Do it over
III - Ok, no this time I've got it, seriously

# ¿ Apr 3, 2018 18:33

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Neat! I'm going to make a cycle of uncommons. Here are some placeholders:

Blue
U
Instant
Return target creature to its owner's hand. Its controller draws a card.

Red
R
Instant
~ deals 5 damage to target creature. Its controller draws a card.

White
W
Instant
Destroy target attacking or blocking creature. Its controller draws a card.

Green
G
Instant
Destroy target artifact or enchantment. Its controller draws a card.

Black
B
Instant
Target player sacrifices a creature or planeswalker. That player draws a card.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2018 12:32

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Not Alex posted:

Shame planeswalkers don't have as convenient templating as "Haste."

You can template it as "you may activate the loyalty abilities of that planeswalker twice this turn rather than only once" and then you get a bonus activation if your opponent hasn't already activated their PW when you use it

# ¿ Apr 4, 2018 20:52

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Ok, ironed out and created cards for my cycle of commons:

# ¿ Apr 6, 2018 01:04

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

Lone Goat posted:

why are some of these may and some not?

Probably because I did the blue and green ones a day later and didn't remember that I'd used may for red/white/black. I'll fix it at some point

# ¿ Apr 6, 2018 11:18

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

The Gorp posted:

Destroying creatures is a big no-no for green

vvv yeah I'm thinking the same thing, but it should probably be +2/+2 if it's white

TheChirurgeon fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Apr 8, 2018

# ¿ Apr 8, 2018 02:04

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 19:05

TheChirurgeon: Aug 7, 2002; Remember how good you are; Taco Defender

The Gorp posted:

Does beast within and every artifact destruction card just get away with it on technicality then?
More news to me, time to fix it.

artifact destruction is fine. Beast within is a single card and a break that they've said they won't do again

e: Except flying creatures. Green can kill those

# ¿ Apr 8, 2018 02:16

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Game Room > Magic Card Design Challenge #2 - Analog RoboRosewater

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