MTG Salvation

Quote from magac »

The Scrounger's second ability doesn't work, unless you change it into: "until your next turn, target creature must attack if able". And he can't cost just 1 mana; 3 is safer, although the starting loyalty may the be higher. Of course, that means the melded starting loyalty limit needs to be higher, like 5. Overall, fine.

Re the frit criticism, that's fair. Re: making it cost more than R - yeah, no. I'll tweak te card some, though.

Quote from Aldoman1 »

Sudden Withdrawal UB
Instant
Return target non-land permanent to its owner's hand, then that player discards a non-land card.

Or

Wailing Echo UB
Instant
Copy target triggered of activated ability, then destroy the source of that ability.

Any thoughts?

I'm not feeling thatfirst card. I mean, I know there's rpecedent in that one card from either Invasion or Planeshift, but I don't really like it for much the same reason as the concept a mono-G Fighting Deathtouch critter.

The second one is very interesting, but UB can't destroy all types of permanent, which this effectively does. Should restrict it to non-mana triggered/activated abilities and change the color. I like G or W here. Up to you, though!

Give me a few to think about what I want to throw out next.

Quote from Aldoman1 »

Anyways this might be too broken but creatures are so damn op lately, spells need some more flare. Let's give it a shot:

Sudden Withdrawal UB
Instant
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand, then that player discards a nonland card.

Or

Wailing Echo UB
Instant
Copy target activated or triggered ability from a permanent source, then destroy that permanent.

Any thoughts?

Overview
• Necessary edits are in orange.
Suggested edits are in violet.
• Both cards are probably undercosted.

Sudden Withdrawal:
• I suggest not limiting the card type to be discarded, because that requires another whole sentence and a new effect forcing the player to reveal their hand. Specifying cards from hidden zones requires that zone to be revealed.
• As it is, this combines two in-pie effects — blue bounce and black discard — to create an out-of-pie effect. It allows blue-black to "destroy" enchantments and artifacts, which neither color is allowed to do.

Wailing Echo:
• You can't destroy spells, exiled cards, or cards in graveyards, all of which may have triggered or activated abilities. You could bump the cost up and change "destroy" to exile, or you could limit this card to targeting abilities from permanent sources.
• You can add G or W to the cost, and this will be within the realm of the color pie. If you want to keep it UB, you'll have to limit it to creatures, planeswalkers, and lands. Those are the only permanent types black can destroy.
• I stated this in the overview, but this should probably cost more. It's quite nasty.


My card:
Burning Bridges RG
Sorcery (U)
Draw a card, then put up to three land cards from your hand onto the battlefield. Untap those lands. Sacrifice them at the beginning of the next step.

I love it! It feels very RG! It combines the Ritual and Ramp elements into a neat and compact package. You forgot to add in "end", by the way, haha.

Noisome Chant 2BB
Sorcery
Look at target player's hand then exile a card from it. Then look at the top three cards of their library and exile of them. Put the rest back on top of their library in any order.

I know it's a goofy pun but, eh.

Stinky Chant? I think I'm missing the pun.
Black doesn't generally get fateseal, so the second half of this is a bit of a color pie stretch. I wouldn't consider it a complete break, though.

Clever Outfitter 1(W/U)
Creature — Human Wizard
Gate (Play with the top card of your library revealed.)
t: Draw a card. Activate this ability only if the top card of your library is an Aura or an Equipment card.
1/2

Erm.... well, this does require you to tinker your deck to accommodate the card draw, but maybe this could stand to cost more. Or not. I think this can stand as is, but not white hybrid please. Blue only.


Next

Sly Thoughtraker 2B
Creature - Human Rogue (U)
When Sly Thoughtraker enters the battlefield, target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a card from it. That player discards that card, then scries 2.
Only when his wits returned that Himel realized he lost his belongings.
2/2

Coercion. Of course, with that added body, some drawback is needed, in which case your opponent can scry 2 to save themselves after losing their best card. Comments?

Gate has the problem that its a keyword that doesn't work in multiples, but the activate ability doesn't work, you can't reference hidden information as a cost even if you reveal it with another ability on the card, because then what happens if the top of your library isn't revealed for some reason, or you use the ability via necromantic ooze and don't have Gate

Hrmm you're missing the P/T on thoughtraker but that would really just govern how pushed/playable it is, not the mechanic. As far as coercion for 3 with an upside and downside, thats balanced enough. Coercion's big selling point is that it hits land drops unlike the normal 1-2 CMC discard effects, and your creature significantly misses out on the impact of that because the enemy can scry a land to the top of his library pretty reliably. Now since its card advantage as a 2-for-1 at 3, it couldn't afford to be a big body. Tidehollow Sculler shows what the top end can be on that, I don't think this could be better than 2/2

Floodgate 3
Artifact (R)
Spells cost C more to cast when no spells are on the stack.
Spells cost C less to cast when a spell is on the stack.
Spells cost 1 more to cast when no spells are on the stack.
Spells cost 1 less to cast when a spell is on the stack.

I'll assume that the power and toughness is around 2/3. The card itself seems fine, but I kind of want the scry to be affected based on the converted mana cost of the card discarded. Oh well, that would be too complicated anyway.

Brave Birdling 3WW
Creature - Bird
Brave Birdling attacks each turn if able.
When Brave Birdling dies, return it to the battlefield transformed after the next end step.
2/1

Fearsome Eagle
Creature - Eagle
Flying, Vigilance, Lifelink
Fearsome Eagle can block any amount of creatures. It gains +1/+1 for each creature it blocks.
5/5

Floodgate is interesting, but what worries me is that if you use C instead of 1, it may be taken to mean as it affects only Kozilek's stuffs and so, not to mention being pretty much a hard lock if no one has Unknown Shores or something to get the colorless mana. Anyway, taking 1 as the actual intent, Floodgate is probably a little too cheap at 3 mana, given that while it punishes people who cast spells, those with Instants can spam the mana discount with impunity, which can be a problem. Or maybe I'm being paranoid.

The Birdling by itself is fine, if a bit off as white; attacks all the time is red, so maybe this can be a white red owing the vigilance and lifelink on the flipside. The transformation however, is rather ridiculous; you can sacrifice the bird to get yourself a monster Baneslayer Angel who can attack, and block, and also wipe out weenies with little effort. Maybe make the transformation trigger to happen if the birdy dies while attacking or blocking; makes more sense that way.

No card for now, just to comment and to add in that my Thoughtraker is a 2/2 (forgot about that)

What a strange and quirky effect! I dig it. Nice use of Emerge there, too.

Quote from Link »

Stinky Chant? I think I'm missing the pun.
Black doesn't generally get fateseal, so the second half of this is a bit of a color pie stretch. I wouldn't consider it a complete break, though.

... noise? Noisome into noise? And I'm going for more "filthy", though I see that "unpleasant" and "offensive" are synonyms. Also, that IS a fair point re: Fateseal. May tweak it some, later on.

Quote from magac »

I think this can stand as is, but not white hybrid please. Blue only.

Areas and equipment are definitively a white thing and not so much blue. In other words, would make it WU. (I hope it doesn't seem like I'm going on ut of my way to contradict you, magac. Sorry if it comes across that way!)

So, uh.
Some kind of essence draining land IDK
Land
:symbtap: : Add C to your mana pool.
:symbtap: , return target permanent you control to its owner's hand: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

It strikes me that something like this has been posted before, but eh. Still sharing!

I think this ends up playing like a strictly better Undiscovered Paradise (since you can also bounce other permanents or make colorless without bouncing anything) and my guess is that would be a little too strong. Maybe make it 'target non-land permanent'?

In the vein of lands:

Crumbling Tomb
Land (R)
T: Add C to your mana pool.
Exile Crumbling Tomb from your graveyard: Add CC to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast spells from your graveyard.

Erm.... I'm a bit confused about the drawback in Emrakul's Game. Admittedly this can easily fire at turn 5 or so if you deliberately sacrifice a fattie, but I don't see why I would do so. Interesting idea though; Sorcery with Emerge. Perhaps we can do Emerge on other things also.

Crumbling Tomb...Might be a little too powerful if it gives two mana. Of course, we're talking about jumping a lot of hoops here (toss this card to grave, then play Flashback given that Unearth doesn't work here), but I'm somewhat wary, especially given how common it is to have Flashback cost being higher than normal cost..... Anyway, this is worth experimenting. Good job.


Next

Patron Of Everfang 1G
Creature - Snake (U)
Deathtouch
3G, sacrifice Patron Of Everfang: Search your library for a Snake card, reveal it and put it into your hand. Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast Snake spells.
1/1

Comments?

It's an interesting card that plays well with Wizard's current attempt to give red ritual effects and land destruction in more balanced forms. I find this card how to evaluate though. The trigger is surprisingly hard to hit, since Skulk is rarely evasion on a 4 power creature, especially one that can will trade down with any 3 power creature. Act of Treasoning a land though is quite powerful, especially if you have any way to sacrifice it. That being said, I'd be ok with pushing this card just a LITTLE more to see what would happen (I'd probably look to swap Skulk with Menace).

Anyways:

Loamspring Advocate
1G
Creature - Elf Druid
You may play land cards from your graveyard.
2/1

Well theres a reason crucible of worlds costs $50 and gets borderline on banlists, its very busted with some older lands, particularly those like strip mine, wasteland, fetchlands, academy ruins. Its the kind of card you could safely print in standard if no fetches or other too-strong recursive targets were in rotation (something high cost like blighted cataract would probably be fine), but the real implication would be running 8 copies of crucible (12 copies with life from the loam) in eternal formats. And would that be healthy? It doesn't strike me as an effect we need more of, even if a 1 toughness elf is easier to remove than an artifact, yet cheaper.

Diffusion Shield WWX
Enchantment (R)
Diffusion Shield enters the battlefield with X shield counters on it.
Prevent the first X damage that would be dealt to you each turn, where X is the number of shield counters on Diffusion Shield.

I don't like having the somewhat ambiguous and redundant usages of "X" but like riptide replicator its the proper template.

So... it temporarily prevents triggered abilities from triggering? And morphs from unmorphing? In fact, isn't split second kind of redundant here?

Playing with some new terminology--see if you can guess what it means from context:

Reef Octopus 2U
Creature--Octopus
When Reef Octopus enters the battlefield, bind target creature.
2/1

This is basically Frost Lynx. If bind means the same thing as Frost Lynx's ability, it is literally the exact same card, but if it means something like "Doesn't untap until this creature dies", it becomes a bit too powerful, even with the low toughness. It's a decent common card that I would expect to find in core sets. Elaborate more please.

Prophet of Progenitus WUBRG
Creature - Human
When Prophet of Progenitus enters the battlefield, search your library for a card named Progenitus and put it on top of your library. Shuffle your deck afterwards.
Sacrifice Prophet of Progenitus: Put a card named Progenitus from your hand to the battlefield.
3/3

I want cards like these for more legendary creatures.

No. For the most part, this might as well be: WUBRG: Put Progenitus to field. Sure, people can try killing it on their turn, but then they know you just need to wait for some more mana fixing to get the job done immediately. And God forbid if you already have a Progenitus in hand anyway without tutoring... Of course, depending on the situation for the rest of the tutor/reanimation/whatever cheating you can think of, it may still work; after all, we have that 5cc green instant that puts green creatures onto field anyway, but then again, that card doesn't have the tutor ability, so still weaker than this for the most part.


Random crossover since I'm out of ideas....

Varna, Immortal King 5BBB
Legendary Creature - Zombie (M)
When you cast Varna, Immortal King, destroy all creatures. Then randomly choose a creature card in your graveyard that was put there this turn and return it onto the battlefield.
4/8

Damnation with an extra reanimation effect, albeit not too reliable. Of course, if you have one strong creature out when you cast this, you kill that one guy, and you're guaranteed to have it reanimated. Comments?

Too strong. Self mill is an incredibly weak drawback for the ability to counter your opponents spells at an already very inexpensive UU. Compare to this to other reusable counterspells: Forbid and Controvert and you can see how this eclipses both of those.


My take on a four color commander

It that hides between the Spaces UBRG
Legendary Creature - Nephalim (M)
Whenever you draw a card, exile the top card of your library. Until end of turn, you may play that card.
Cards you own in exile have Delve.
3/7

So, in a sense, it's double draw in a sense, although the card you sort-of-draw must be utilized that same turn. The Delve part probably makes it a bit too powerful, but otherwise, excellent card.


Next:

Scroll Of Twinning 1
Artifact (R)
T, tap two untapped creatures you control with the same name: Copy target instant or sorcery spell with lower converted mana cost than the converted mana cost of either tapped creature. You may choose new targets for the copy.
It takes two to make two.

I know that theoretically in Magic, it's possible to have creatures with the same name but NOT the same CMC, but as far as I can recall, such an effect is never heard of, so I hope this weird templating works. Anyway, this means that for you to copy an expensive spell, you need to have expensive creatures on board also, thus the rather cheap copying cost. Of course, we have things like Lightning Axe and the costless suspends which this card can happily abuse with cheap weenies. What do you think?

Yeah cloning effects like Sakashima the Impostor can definitely create scenarios where you have two cards of the same name but different converted mana costs, so your template with "either" is necessary, but its quite the mess of an ability even if its a proper template. Now in terms of playability and power, its nearly just as incomprehensible. You can't easily tell how strong this card would be in practical usage, because unlike the normal concerns of resource costs::impact, it relies on both being an engine for a subset of abusable instant/sorceries, making it only evaluable in their context, and also relies on having access to a duo of same named creatures, something that takes weird statistical analysis to identify how strong it would be in a deck with 4 copies of whatever. Besides gimmicks like relentless rats, I'd say the most obvious combo would be cards like squadron hawk that provide their own partners. You've excluded tokens for the most part with the converted mana cost clause, since then it would only fork 0 mana cost spells, which could still be useful but not outside legacy/vintage. Clones could still work, but thats so many pieces to a combo. And combo is what worries me- when you make a card this niche and convoluted, the risk is that you create a card nobody can use fairly in casual play or limited or normal decks, but becomes broken when made playable when it finds a combo home. I like the effect if it was played somewhat fairly- getting to double some 1-2 mana cost sorceries off a weenie draw, getting its value after 2 usages of the engine- but what happens when instead it shows up with draw/go/hawk or spamming ancestral vision and pacts off 0/1 tokens. I don't think its yet good enough to have such a home, but if it isn't, it might not be playable elsewhere either, and making it stronger only makes it riskier.


Agonize B
Instant (U)
Counter target spell unless its controller discards a card.

Hmmmm... part of me say this could be a little too good (see Prophet of Kruphix and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir), but otherwise its so-and-so stat shouldn't be too overpowering, but being able to flash in anything during combat is still rather dangerous for something this cheap. Someone may need to give a second opinion.


Another weird card.

Trusty Trebuchet 3
Artifact (U)
T, tap two untappped creatures you control with X power: Trusty Trebuchet deals X damage to target creature or player.
"This basic warfare engine is the perfect way to teach novice soldiers that teamwork is important in a battle."

The wording template may be a little odd, but considering that power can be changed before resolution, I use X so that the value will not be altered no matter how many -X/-X effects your opponents spam at you after you activate this ability. Comments?

Hmmmm..... fair, I guess. Without reach, this isn't as busted as it may appear, although 4/6 stat is pretty huge, not to mention the counterspell ability, but thankfully you give it an expensive morph cost. Probably printable as is.


My attempt at a super-forced keyword

Novice Lookuot 1W
Creature - Human Soldier (C)
Scrutinizes creatures with power 3 or greater. (This creature can always block creatures with power 3 or greater as though those creatures had no abilities)
New recruits stationed at Samar Fort were trained to spot ogres and giants from at least ten miles away.
2/2

So basically if a creature that gets scrutinized attacks, no matter if it has flying, protection, shadow, what-have-you, this guy can block it (of course, in case of protection, this guy can block but can't deal damage). As a side note, scrutinizes creatures with flying is not just reach, but super reach because if that flying gets menace etc also, they are all ignored. Too impractical for a keyword?

A little iffy, and I'm sure if it were printed everyone would use it (and be incredibly salty about it), but scrutinize seems fine. Maybe choose a different, shorter word, and template it like "Scrutinize 3". I like how you give the Lookout a lower power than its scrutinizing (that's a pain to type XD). It's a nice, elegant way to keep it fairly balanced, but I would raise the cost up to 1WW.


Potion of Savagery 2GG
Instant
Target creature gains +5/-5 and trample until end of turn.
The man chewed off some of his flesh, redirecting the protein in his body for the hunt.

The idea is to make the creature very vulnerable, yet able to clear the board. I had an idea where it would come back as a savage zombie, but decided to stop overcomplicating my cards

The Evoke cost is fine, but given his powerful effect, his base cost should be at least 5UU, although then he could be a 5/5. Or 4UU, but even then it probably needs to be dropped to 4/3. I'm saying all these in particular because of Venser, Shaper Savant.


Next

Somber Funeral 2B
Sorcery (U)
You may sacrifice a creature. If you do, each opponent loses 3 life and discards a card.
A funeral is always a solemn affair.

Too strange, maybe?

An interesting removal that feels a little black/red rather than mono-red. A bit too cheap for the drawback, but I like the design.\

Chandra's Ultimatum 5RR
Sorcery
Chandra's Ultimatum deals 3 damage to each opponent and their creatures. If you have less than 10 life and have a planeswalker named Chandra on the battlefield, Chandra's Ultimatum deals 7 damage instead.

Well I can't say it doesn't feel balanced really, even though it's a more powerful version of something that's already a precedent as you say. If anything, even paying 5 mana just to counter a spell is a little feel bad to me, even if it is from your graveyard. It's kind of "cool but probably not worth it given the alternatives". The card is decent, in that it takes the idea of Fervent Denial and makes it a little more functional I suppose.

Feast of Death 1BG
Sorcery (R)
Destroy target creature, then distribute a number of +1/+1 counters equal to that creature’s toughness among any number of target creatures.
The savage tribes have no qualms about eating from the corpses of their enemies.

Feel about right, or does it still maybe need to cost 2BG? The late-game potential against a big creature is what makes it potentially a big splashy power move.