Jack, the Gambling Kingpin Legendary Creature - Human Rogue (MR)
At the beginning of each player’s combat, choose a number and a random enemy creature. Reveal that many cards from the top from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the cards revealed this way is 12 or less, Jack deals that much damage to the chosen creature. If it is 13 or more, sacrifice Jack. Put the cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in a random order. 0/3
Josephine "Jo" Ciendeilio Legendary Creature - Human Artificer (MR)
Haste, flying
Whenever Jo deals combat damage to an opponent, reduce the cost of artifact spells you cast this turn by X, where X is equal to the amount of combat damage she dealt. 2/1
Jack:
Some templating issues here, fortunately the corrections will make the ability less wordy, so you'll save some space in the text box.
I feel like dealing the damage to himself is just excessive. He's a 0/3 and is dealing a minimum of 22 damage to himself, it's probably fine to just roll that up and kill him directly, with a destroy or a sacrifice.
I understand where the 21 is coming from flavor wise, but mechanically it's too high, you'll never need to get anywhere near the bust limit to kill something, so you can be very aggressive choosing the number to reveal and get good results most of the time. If you want to keep the gambling theme to real numbers, 7 is a nice lucky number, which would make 8+ the unlucky result.
The colors... his abilities revolve around the top of the library, randomness, and damaging creatures. In my mind that puts him in solid blue/red, but most importantly red. With his complex hybrid cost, you could play him with no red involved. Remember, hybrid makes something easier to play, and the card should reflect the abilities of either color, rather than both. The effect is strange enough to warrant some oddities in the mana cost. What if you went with UR(B/G) instead?
Josephine:
Minor template problems, nothing major here.
The ability is useful and flavorful for an inventor, but I feel like it's too minor most of the time. Upping her to 2 power would help a lot, and turning it into a cost reduction for all your artifacts rather than just the next one would make a world of difference. Rakdos, Lord of Riots exists in that vein and is quite good.
The vigilance doesn't seem useful on her at all. I would want to attack with her over and over to get that cost reduction each turn, but never block with her, she's too fragile.
In that note, she can currently be played for just UUR, making the vigilance out of place color-wise too. I think you could drop it without hurting the design at all. I get that you're trying to go for four-color legendaries as a theme here, but Josephine is honestly a very good UR commander design, the white and green feel very tacked on to me.
Raz:
Major template issue here that will affect how the card functions. You can't copy a spell that's not on the stack, you'd have to create a copy of the spell card and then cast it, as Isochron Scepter does. The bookkeeping of remembering what the last spell you cast was across multiple turns would be a bit onerous for the player, but there's nothing technically wrong with it.
Otherwise, some template issues with the other abilities, but nothing that changes function as far as I can see.
Again I'm going to complain about the mana choice, but in this case I don't see why he's primarily white? He's exiling spells and copying spells, he's UB with minor R as I see it.
Overall:
Making four-color cards is hard, trying to get the distinct flavor of all four colors to actually show up is a nightmare, which is why actual magic has avoided it so much. I too have been tempted to make cards using multiple different hybrid mana symbols, but it's confusing to players and makes getting that four color design to fit the mana cost even harder, since you have to account for each possible combination of colors that could be used.
You have some very interesting design ideas, I like the direction you took with Jack a lot, a very creative spin on random gambling without resorting to coin flips.
I really like Josephine's ability, it's the most promising concept for a UR artifact-themed commander I've seen around these parts, much better than anything we've gotten from Wizards officially.
Jack is a legendary I always wanted in a card game where you play a mini-game that is reminiscent of Black Jack of course. The only trading/collectible card game I am aware of that even offered that was Yomi with Lum Bam-Foo (A gambling sentient panda). So I just kind of ran with the idea of trying to place in MTG. I would personally also run stuff like Krark's Thumb + Game of Chaos + Chance Encounter and other gambling stuff like Roulette Wheel.
I'm actually surprised that Jo's ability is so promising and that she would make a very good commander. I just was simply tired of seeing artifact commanders that sat in the back row and didn't interact very much with the windmilling side of things unless they were voltroning, so I decided to give this one an aggro twist. I also wanted to personally bring over one of my favorite characters from another card game. As I imagine the bigger stuff in her deck isn't really voltron, but giant "DEAL WITH ME!" artifacts like Darksteel Forge, Mycosynth Lattice, Memnarch, Colossus of Akros, etc. Like a turn 4 Tenza into a turn 5 Forge.
I decided to retire Raz for reasons that boil down to: Not in the mood to deal with him.
I like the designs and don't really have much to critique but I'd like to help with your wording.
Jack:
At the beginning of each opponent's combat, choose a number. Reveal that many cards from the top from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the cards revealed this way is 7 or less, Jack deals that much damage to a creature that an opponent controls chosen at random. If it is 8 or more, sacrifice Jack. Put the cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Joesphine "Jo" Ciendeilio: Is it only supposed to count combat damage they deal or any damage they deal? I'll post both.
Flying, Haste
Whenever Jo deals combat damage to a player, artifact spells you cast cost that much last to cast until end of turn.
Flying, Haste
Artifact spells you cast cost X less to cast, where X is the amount of damage Jo has dealt to your opponents this turn.
With the color tweaks, I think you've got some really solid designs here. Now it's just a case of tightening up the text.
I think Raz had potential but definitely needed more tinkering than the other two to get there.
I've copied your Josephine design into my personal custom card library too, under a different name since I don't know who she is.
More tweaking has been done to Jack and Jo's text, with user_938036's assistance.
Also
The Acrolos Combine: A collective of architects, engineers and elves located off the mainland, Acrolos houses some of the most advanced facilities in Luridia. Also boasts the highest nodes per capita. Acrolos is the primary center of voidal circuitry research and development, where new weapons and machines are constantly being built, tested and subsequently sold to the highest bidder.
Joesphine "Jo" Ciendeilio: The only female on Acrolos, Jo is a brilliant architect whose usefulness as an inventor is rivaled only by her unrivaled ability to carry on a normal conversation with other people outside of Acrolos. This is tremendously helpful for actually getting paid for all the weird technology they build in the hopes of selling it to Lugubrian Lords, or Direstock armorers, or the Clockman financiers.
I like the designs and don't really have much to critique but I'd like to help with your wording.
Jack:
At the beginning of each opponent's combat, choose a number. Reveal that many cards from the top from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the cards revealed this way is 7 or less, Jack deals that much damage to a creature that an opponent controls chosen at random. If it is 8 or more, sacrifice Jack. Put the cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Joesphine "Jo" Ciendeilio: Is it only supposed to count combat damage they deal or any damage they deal? I'll post both.
Flying, Haste
Whenever Jo deals combat damage to a player, artifact spells you cast cost that much last to cast until end of turn.
Flying, Haste
Artifact spells you cast cost X less to cast, where X is the amount of damage Jo has dealt to your opponents this turn.
I also updated Jack's text with most of your changes, just needed to make sure it was "player's combat phase" instead of "opponent's combat phase".
I updated Jo's text for clarification so you can make a better assessment.
Jack deals that much damage to a creature that an opponent controls chosen at random
I assume you only want to possibly hit creatures controlled by the opponent whose turn it is but currently it hits any creatures any of your opponents control.
Jack deals that much damage to a creature that opponent controls chosen at random
I'm fairly certain this still works. Also you don't need to say combat phase, combat alone is sufficient, look at Goblin Rabblemaster. Though it should be changed to
At the beginning of combat on each opponent's turn.
Unless you meant it to trigger on your combat as well and hit any creature controlled by any opponent. Then the original wording works.
Did you mean for Jo's ability to be multiplicative? As worded if they successfully deal combat damage multiple times a turn then each time after the first triggers and counts all previous damage dealt. So first hit reduces by 2, second hit reduces by 4, third by 6 and so on. If this is intentional then that is cool but scary if it is a mistake, then take off the 'this turn' part at the end.
In Jack's text, the "from the top from the top" phrase repetition is a typo, you only need to say "from the top" once.
User_938036:
I'm not certain those are mistakes, other than not needing the word "phase." The way it's written now, and how it was before the first edit, Jack triggers on each player's combat, including his controller's. If you tried to make it only damage creatures the active opponent controls, it wouldn't work on your own turn.
Personally, I would drop the random, and just make it targeted, but that's changing the function, so that's up to you, Sam.
I would phrase it:
"At the beginning of each combat, choose __________ and choose a number. Reveal the chosen number of cards from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the revealed cards is 7 or less, Jack deals that much damage to the chosen creature, otherwise sacrifice Jack. Put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in a random order."
To keep your original function, fill in the blank with: a creature an opponent controls at random
To go with user_938036's suggestion fill it in with: a creature that player controls at random*
To go with my suggestion fill it with: target creature or: target creature that player controls*
*(You don't really need to specify opponents in the latter options, since when you are the active player, you can simply choose zero to avoid damaging your own creatures.)
I've been thinking about the lucky number. I suggested 7 solely because of the traditional lucky 7 superstition. 21 was clearly too high despite the huge flavor bonus, there just aren't enough creatures big enough for the drawback to matter. But 7 almost feels to low.
What if you put it at 12, then reversed the phrase to define the failure state at 13? That would make it:
"Reveal the chosen number of cards from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the revealed cards is less than 13, Jack deals that much damage to the chosen creature, otherwise sacrifice Jack. Put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in a random order."
Mechanically, I want to stick it at 9, but there's no flavor for 9, and the flavor is definitely of utmost importance for Jack's card. It probably comes down to playtesting, and determining what format you would expect to play him in. If he were made for a Commander supplemental product, I'd say the 13 route is spot on, mana costs and creature sizes are typically higher there so it would even out. In a normal card set I'd go with 7, most of his victims will be much smaller there, and cards costs in general are lower too, so again it balances out.
I really like the flavor of Jack and how it translates to gameplay. I had an idea for simpler, more risky version if you're interested:
Jack, Gamblin' Man 1UBR
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue T: Exile the top card of your library. ~ Deals X damage to target opponent and you gain X life, where X is the exiled card's converted mana cost. Then, if you have more than 21 life, you lose the game. You may repeat this process any number of times. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in any order.
2/3
12(good) 13(bad) works as rolling two sixes would be a boxcar/midnight. Often yeah you may want to reveal like three cards to get 7 or under, but the more you reveal to deal with bigger threats the more uncertain your outcome will be but it also has the chance to reward you for gambling the odds (if you don't know entirely what your top cards are). I would rather it be random for who Jack hits as its more appropriate and adds another element of chance. The deck's goal I imagine would be to get multiple combat phases with him so you can obliterate multiple creatures and increase the odds in your favor. In multiplayer games, he balances himself out as you don't get a choice on which opponent or creature which I feel is fair when he can smack an enemy commander for up to 12 damage (without damage doublers).
@user_938036:
Jo's cost reduction is intentional. If she has double strike and deals 2 damage twice, the cost reduction is 4.
Jo's cost reduction is intentional. If she has double strike and deals 2 damage twice, the cost reduction is 4.
Hm, I see what user_938036 is saying. As it is currently worded, if you gave her double strike this is the process of what would happen:
1. First strike combat damage is dealt to player, ability triggers.
2. Ability asks how much combat damage has Jo dealt this turn? Receives 2.
3. Ability resolves, artifacts you cast this turn have their costs reduced by 2.
4. Normal combat damage is dealt, ability triggers.
5. Ability asks how much combat damage has Jo dealt this turn? Receives 4.
6. Ability resolves, artifacts you cast this turn have their costs reduced by an additional 4.
7. Total cost reduction = 2 + 4 = 6.
If you get an extra combat phase, the ability trigger from the first strike will see 6 damage and the ability trigger from the normal strike will see 8 damage, and reduce the costs by an additional 14 for a total of 20.
By referencing the combat damage she has dealt "this turn," the ability becomes multiplicative rather than additive. If you don't want this behavior, drop the "this turn" from the ability and it will revert to just referencing the triggering damage, and become additive as you describe it working.
Jack, the Gambling Kingpin
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue (MR)
At the beginning of each player’s combat, choose a number and a random enemy creature. Reveal that many cards from the top from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the cards revealed this way is 12 or less, Jack deals that much damage to the chosen creature. If it is 13 or more, sacrifice Jack. Put the cards revealed this way on the bottom of your library in a random order.
0/3
1) Stuffy Doll. (w/ Harmless Offering and/or Donate)
2) Cards that harm the controller like Repercussion or Binding Agony.
3) Damage doubler effects like Dictate of the Twin Gods.
4) Strionic Resonator for twice the fun.
5) Library manipulation cards like Sensei's Divining Top or Mystic Speculation.
6) Cards that grant him additional combat phases like Aggravated Assault so he can dish out more pain.
7) That which grants him or his Stuffy Doll Infect like Grafted Exoskeleton and Glistening Oil for lethal kills.
8) Wither effects like Everlasting Torment or Blight Sickle when you need to clean house of pesky folks that are more indestructible than cockroaches.
03 Jack, the Gambling Kingpin
The Rogues' Gallery (08)
02 Blood Artist
06 Capricious Efreet
06 Dragonlord Silumgar
05 Master of Predicaments
05 Menacing Ogre
05 Stuffy Doll
03 Thassa, God of the Sea
02 Zulaport Cutthroat
Sinister Plots (11)
03 Aggravated Assault
05 Arcane Melee
03 Captivating Glance
05 Deadly Wanderings
05 Dictate of the Twin Gods
03 Everlasting Torment
02 Glistening Oil
03 Hedron Alignment
05 Homicidal Seclusion
03 Repercussion
02 Shadows of the Past
Luxurious Items (23)
01 Basilisk Collar
02 Blight Sickle
03 Butcher's Cleaver
02 Cloak and Dagger
03 Commander's Sphere
03 Crystal Ball
01 Cursed Scroll
02 Darksteel Ingot
03 Gem of Becoming
05 Gilded Lotus
04 Grafted Exoskeleton
02 Krark's Thumb
01 Liar's Pendulum
02 Lightning Greaves
03 Obelisk of Grixis
03 Rings of Brighthearth
02 Scrying Glass
01 Sensei's Divining Top
01 Sol Ring
02 Strionic Resonator
02 Talisman of Dominance
02 Talisman of Indulgence
04 Wand of Ith
06 Choice of Damnations
03 Donate
02 Exsanguinate
01 Gamble
03 Game of Chaos
07 Goblin Game
03 Harmless Offering
05 Head Games
05 Illicit Auction
03 Mages' Contest
01 Mana Clash
06 Mindblaze
01 Mystic Speculation
03 Pain's Reward
01 Personal Tutor
02 Release the Ants
02 Revive the Fallen
04 Slaughter Games
07 Thieves' Auction
02 Titan's Revenge
06 Tunnel Vision
Offworlders (01)
03 Jace Beleren
Resources and Locations (35)
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Cascade Bluffs
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Crumbling Necropolis
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Gravern Cairns
1x Grixis Panorama
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Polluted Delta
1x Steam Vents
1x Sunken Ruins
1x Temple of Deceit
1x Temple of Epiphany
1x Temple of Malice
1x Thespian's Stage
1x Vesuva
1x Watery Grave
5x Island
5x Mountain
5x Swamp
Josephine "Jo" Ciendeilio
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer (MR)
Haste, flying
Whenever Jo deals combat damage to an opponent, reduce the cost of artifact spells you cast this turn by X, where X is equal to the amount of combat damage she dealt.
2/1
1) Cards that grant Double Strike like Fireshrieker.
2) Strionic Resonator for twice the fun.
3) Artifacts that increase her power like Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of Feast and Famine or Tenza, Godo's Maul.
4) Cards that let her play cards on her opponent's turns like Vedalken Orrery or Leyline of Anticipation.
5) Damage doublers for her like Gratuitous Violence so she can cast higher cost artifacts like the titanic Darksteel Colossus who came by early.
6) Extra combat phases like from Aggravated Assault so she can play bumper cars with opponent's faces.
7) Rogue's Passage, Skeleton Key and Whispersilk Cloak to bypass pesky blockades.
8) Opal Palace to help her maintain pace with later stages of the game, besides who wouldn't want to live in a palace?
03 Josephine "Jo" Ciendeilio
The League of Gearsmiths (23)
04 Arcum Dagsson
08 Bosh, Iron Golem
08 Colossus of Akros
11 Darksteel Colossus
03 Feldon of the Third Path
01 Gorilla Shaman
06 Hellkite Tyrant
05 Karn, Silver Golem
07 Memnarch
03 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
07 Myr Battlesphere
04 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
03 Pia Nalaar
07 Platinum Angel
03 Scarecrone
03 Scrap Trawler
02 Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
04 Solemn Simulacrum
03 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
03 Thassa, God of the Sea
03 Treasure Mage
03 Trophy Mage
Enchanting Prospects (04)
03 Aggravated Assault
05 Gratuitous Violence
04 Leyline of Anticipation
03 Pia's Revolution
Goods from Acrolos (33)
04 Bident of Thassa
02 Conqueror's Flail
01 Darksteel Axe
09 Darksteel Forge
03 Darksteel Ingot
03 Darksteel Plate
01 Expedition Map
01 Explorer's Scope
03 Fireshrieker
02 Hero's Blade
01 Inventor's Goggle
03 Izzet Cluestone
03 Izzet Keyrune
02 Izzet Signet
04 Krark-Clan Ironworks
02 Mask of Memory
05 Mind's Eye
06 Mindslaver
06 Mycosynth Lattice
02 Nim Deathmantle
02 Ring of Evos Isle
00 Sigil of Distinction
01 Sol Ring
07 Spine of Ish Sah
06 Staff of Nin
02 Strionic Resonator
03 Sword of Feast and Famine
03 Sword of Fire and Ice
03 Temple Bell
03 Tenza, Godo's Maul
02 Umezawa's Jitte
04 Vedalken Orrery
03 Whispersilk Cloak
03 Fabricate
02 Hurkyl's Recall
Offworlders (02)
04 Daretti, Scrap Savant
03 Saheeli Rai
Resources & Locations (35)
1x Academy Ruins
1x Buried Ruins
1x Cascade Bluffs
1x Cathedral of War
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Command Tower
1x Evolving Wilds
1x Eye of Ugin
1x Flooded Strand
1x Homeward Path
1x Inventors' Fair
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Opal Palace
1x Rogue's Passage
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Shivan Reef
1x Spirebluff Canal
1x Steam Vents
1x Sulfur Falls
1x Temple of Epiphany
1x Terramorphic Expanse
7x Island
7x Mountain
Some templating issues here, fortunately the corrections will make the ability less wordy, so you'll save some space in the text box.
I feel like dealing the damage to himself is just excessive. He's a 0/3 and is dealing a minimum of 22 damage to himself, it's probably fine to just roll that up and kill him directly, with a destroy or a sacrifice.
I understand where the 21 is coming from flavor wise, but mechanically it's too high, you'll never need to get anywhere near the bust limit to kill something, so you can be very aggressive choosing the number to reveal and get good results most of the time. If you want to keep the gambling theme to real numbers, 7 is a nice lucky number, which would make 8+ the unlucky result.
The colors... his abilities revolve around the top of the library, randomness, and damaging creatures. In my mind that puts him in solid blue/red, but most importantly red. With his complex hybrid cost, you could play him with no red involved. Remember, hybrid makes something easier to play, and the card should reflect the abilities of either color, rather than both. The effect is strange enough to warrant some oddities in the mana cost. What if you went with UR(B/G) instead?
Josephine:
Minor template problems, nothing major here.
The ability is useful and flavorful for an inventor, but I feel like it's too minor most of the time. Upping her to 2 power would help a lot, and turning it into a cost reduction for all your artifacts rather than just the next one would make a world of difference. Rakdos, Lord of Riots exists in that vein and is quite good.
The vigilance doesn't seem useful on her at all. I would want to attack with her over and over to get that cost reduction each turn, but never block with her, she's too fragile.
In that note, she can currently be played for just UUR, making the vigilance out of place color-wise too. I think you could drop it without hurting the design at all. I get that you're trying to go for four-color legendaries as a theme here, but Josephine is honestly a very good UR commander design, the white and green feel very tacked on to me.
Raz:
Major template issue here that will affect how the card functions. You can't copy a spell that's not on the stack, you'd have to create a copy of the spell card and then cast it, as Isochron Scepter does. The bookkeeping of remembering what the last spell you cast was across multiple turns would be a bit onerous for the player, but there's nothing technically wrong with it.
Otherwise, some template issues with the other abilities, but nothing that changes function as far as I can see.
Again I'm going to complain about the mana choice, but in this case I don't see why he's primarily white? He's exiling spells and copying spells, he's UB with minor R as I see it.
Overall:
Making four-color cards is hard, trying to get the distinct flavor of all four colors to actually show up is a nightmare, which is why actual magic has avoided it so much. I too have been tempted to make cards using multiple different hybrid mana symbols, but it's confusing to players and makes getting that four color design to fit the mana cost even harder, since you have to account for each possible combination of colors that could be used.
You have some very interesting design ideas, I like the direction you took with Jack a lot, a very creative spin on random gambling without resorting to coin flips.
I really like Josephine's ability, it's the most promising concept for a UR artifact-themed commander I've seen around these parts, much better than anything we've gotten from Wizards officially.
I think Raz had potential but definitely needed more tinkering than the other two to get there.
I've copied your Josephine design into my personal custom card library too, under a different name since I don't know who she is.
Jack:
Joesphine "Jo" Ciendeilio: Is it only supposed to count combat damage they deal or any damage they deal? I'll post both.
More tweaking has been done to Jack and Jo's text, with user_938036's assistance.
Also
Joesphine "Jo" Ciendeilio: The only female on Acrolos, Jo is a brilliant architect whose usefulness as an inventor is rivaled only by her unrivaled ability to carry on a normal conversation with other people outside of Acrolos. This is tremendously helpful for actually getting paid for all the weird technology they build in the hopes of selling it to Lugubrian Lords, or Direstock armorers, or the Clockman financiers.
I also updated Jack's text with most of your changes, just needed to make sure it was "player's combat phase" instead of "opponent's combat phase".
I updated Jo's text for clarification so you can make a better assessment.
Did you mean for Jo's ability to be multiplicative? As worded if they successfully deal combat damage multiple times a turn then each time after the first triggers and counts all previous damage dealt. So first hit reduces by 2, second hit reduces by 4, third by 6 and so on. If this is intentional then that is cool but scary if it is a mistake, then take off the 'this turn' part at the end.
User_938036:
I'm not certain those are mistakes, other than not needing the word "phase." The way it's written now, and how it was before the first edit, Jack triggers on each player's combat, including his controller's. If you tried to make it only damage creatures the active opponent controls, it wouldn't work on your own turn.
Personally, I would drop the random, and just make it targeted, but that's changing the function, so that's up to you, Sam.
I would phrase it:
"At the beginning of each combat, choose __________ and choose a number. Reveal the chosen number of cards from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the revealed cards is 7 or less, Jack deals that much damage to the chosen creature, otherwise sacrifice Jack. Put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in a random order."
To keep your original function, fill in the blank with: a creature an opponent controls at random
To go with user_938036's suggestion fill it in with: a creature that player controls at random*
To go with my suggestion fill it with: target creature or: target creature that player controls*
*(You don't really need to specify opponents in the latter options, since when you are the active player, you can simply choose zero to avoid damaging your own creatures.)
Just brainstorming starting here:
I've been thinking about the lucky number. I suggested 7 solely because of the traditional lucky 7 superstition. 21 was clearly too high despite the huge flavor bonus, there just aren't enough creatures big enough for the drawback to matter. But 7 almost feels to low.
What if you put it at 12, then reversed the phrase to define the failure state at 13? That would make it:
"Reveal the chosen number of cards from the top of your library. If the total converted mana cost of the revealed cards is less than 13, Jack deals that much damage to the chosen creature, otherwise sacrifice Jack. Put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in a random order."
Mechanically, I want to stick it at 9, but there's no flavor for 9, and the flavor is definitely of utmost importance for Jack's card. It probably comes down to playtesting, and determining what format you would expect to play him in. If he were made for a Commander supplemental product, I'd say the 13 route is spot on, mana costs and creature sizes are typically higher there so it would even out. In a normal card set I'd go with 7, most of his victims will be much smaller there, and cards costs in general are lower too, so again it balances out.
Jack, Gamblin' Man 1UBR
Legendary Creature - Human Rogue
T: Exile the top card of your library. ~ Deals X damage to target opponent and you gain X life, where X is the exiled card's converted mana cost. Then, if you have more than 21 life, you lose the game. You may repeat this process any number of times. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in any order.
2/3
@user_938036:
@cisgenderedtrash:
Hm, I see what user_938036 is saying. As it is currently worded, if you gave her double strike this is the process of what would happen:
1. First strike combat damage is dealt to player, ability triggers.
2. Ability asks how much combat damage has Jo dealt this turn? Receives 2.
3. Ability resolves, artifacts you cast this turn have their costs reduced by 2.
4. Normal combat damage is dealt, ability triggers.
5. Ability asks how much combat damage has Jo dealt this turn? Receives 4.
6. Ability resolves, artifacts you cast this turn have their costs reduced by an additional 4.
7. Total cost reduction = 2 + 4 = 6.
If you get an extra combat phase, the ability trigger from the first strike will see 6 damage and the ability trigger from the normal strike will see 8 damage, and reduce the costs by an additional 14 for a total of 20.
By referencing the combat damage she has dealt "this turn," the ability becomes multiplicative rather than additive. If you don't want this behavior, drop the "this turn" from the ability and it will revert to just referencing the triggering damage, and become additive as you describe it working.
Jo's deck is a mix of Voltron and Big MUD.
Jack's deck is very much Gambling and Minigames.