MTG Salvation

Bit of a Decision Cycle I came up with because why not. Feel free to comment.

Angelic Decision
W
Instant
Target a creature you control. Target opponent chooses one:
* Prevent the next 5 five damage that would be dealt to that creature this turn.
* You gain 5 life.

Thoughtful Decision
2U
Sorcery
Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Target opponent separates them into two piles. Put one pile in your hand the rest in your graveyard.

Sacrificial Decision
B
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a creature or loses 5 life.

Infernal Decision
R
Instant
Target opponent deals 3 damage divided between themselves and any number of creatures they control.

Bestial Decision
GGG
Target opponent chooses one:
* You put a green 3/3 Beast token in play.
* You put three 1/1 green Saproling tokens in play.

Always critique the previous poster's cards when you post cards here. It's not only good manners, it's the rules.

Temporal Inversion - Not sure how to evaluate this one; considering you lose out on your draw step and combat's basically no good on the extra turn, this could maybe even cost U less, but then maybe that treads too close to overpowered? The drawback is probably harsher than Savor the Moment's, after all. I love the concept and effects, but why don't opponents get to draw off discards to fully mirror the effects? Also, needs the exile clause.

Decision cycle - These are generally poor designs. Opponent-chooses is an extremely harsh drawback, which is why past punisher cards have been severely undercosted. This cycle has way more minor effects than you'd generally see, and the costing is pretty close or even more than what you'd pay for an effect where you choose. Sacrificial Decision is probably the closest to printable but is probably unfairly backbreaking for causing 5 life loss on turn one.

Always critique the previous poster's cards when you post cards here. It's not only good manners, it's the rules.

Ah, sorry. I'm new the thread and didn't actually read the rules. But as you pointed out it would have at least been good manners any way...

Temporal Inversion I liked. It's a cheap way to play a Timewalk effect that seems more fair and had me thinking about a) How powerful is it actually? and b) How can it be best broken? Thinking is a part of what makes strategy game enjoyable, so I can see that this card would be enjoyable to evaluate. I like the general concept of inverting reality and the colours are consistent with the feel of the mechanics. Very out-of-the box. Good job

Decision cycle - These are generally poor designs. Opponent-chooses is an extremely harsh drawback, which is why past punisher cards have been severely undercosted. This cycle has way more minor effects than you'd generally see, and the costing is pretty close or even more than what you'd pay for an effect where you choose. Sacrificial Decision is probably the closest to printable but is probably unfairly backbreaking for causing 5 life loss on turn one.

I'm reading that you didn't like the cards because you felt they were generally underpowered? If they were appropriately powered, would you feel that they were flavourful cards which allowed interaction with your opponent? I ask because this was my intention. Power balance is more of a development decision than a design one and I've not actually shuffled up the cards to play with and test them, which I admit is an important part of design as well.

The fact that you highly value power balance in a design is very useful to me though, because I've been casually designing a card game, so I will be careful to keep the components fairly balanced, somewhere between unplayable and broken.

Thanks for your response as there was no reason why you had to go out of your way to respond. I'll try to think more out-of-the-box and leave my comfort zone of fear of broken cards.

As far as the decision cycle goes, theres nothing inherently wrong with letting opponents 'decide' effects, but it can be tricky to balance. As a general rule, consider that the value of such 'punisher' effects is equal to the least of any of the choices, made worse by how different the choices are, and better by your ability to manipulate that choice. Letting an opponent choose between you getting a 3/3 or 3 1/1's for example is worse than an effect which just created a plain 3/3 or 3 1/1's, because they'll choose whichever of the options is worse in any scenario. But on an empty board, they're just 3 power either way, so the effects are fairly similar, so its not much worse. But as a 3/3 for 3 is already subpar, this card is not good overall. Contrast 'Target player sacrifices a creature or loses 5 life.', which is significantly worse than either effect, because they do two very different things- creatures and life total are two very different resources. Yet at the same time, you've aggressively costed the effect on both sides- 5 life for 1 mana is very strong, a one-sided sacrifice for 1 mana is very strong. In that regard, what you listed for Infernal Decision, particularly since its limited to sorcery speed, might actually be a 'fair' card, erring on the side of too strong. It compares to something like vexing devil. If it was just 3 life, it would be worse than bump in the night. If its 4 life, it might be too conditional for an aggressive black deck. But at 5 life, you've pushed it into perhaps oppressive territory.

Asylum Warden WW
Creature - Human Soldier (R)
First Strike
If you haven't already begun your fourth turn of the game, each player's life total can't change and players can't win or lose the game. (Players can't gain or lose life, and can't pay any amount of life except 0.)
2/2

I think Asylum Warden is an original idea. It makes most sense in a control deck where you want to slow the aggro deck. Would a defender make more sense than an aggressive weenie? Also, would it make most sense as a one-drop since it talks about the first turn and I can't really think of white ramp effects. It's also easy to interact with since it counts as a creature.

It's the general idea of "let the player do what they want." And with that card, you want to play it turn one and attack with it for damage, neither of which you can do, but a one-drop defender would do what it wants, although power level is a thing to consider, of course.

Something like:

Asylem Warden [mana]{W}[/mana}
Creature - Human (Rare)
Defender
As long as its the first, second or third turn of any player, each player's life total can't change, and players can't win or lose the game. (Players can't gain or lose life, and can't pay any amount of life except 0.)
0/3

Seems a bit powerful of course, so maybe it could just be turns one and two?

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Thanks for the feedback. I'd like to revise my designs rather than just give up on them.

Decision Cycle (common)

Angelic Decision
W
Instant
Target a creature you control. Target opponent chooses one:
* That creature gains indestructible until end of turn.
* You gain 4 life.

Thoughtful Decision
U
Sorcery
Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Target opponent chooses one. Place it into your graveyard and the rest into your hand.

Cruel Decision
B
Sorcery
Target player sacrifices a creature unless they pay 4 life.

Infernal Decision
R
Instant
Deal 4 damage to target creature unless its controller redirects that damage to him or her.

Bestial Decision
G
Sorcery
Target opponent chooses which enters the battlefield under your control:
* 2/2 green Bear token.
* 2 1/1 green Wolf tokens.

Bestial Decision first off, wolf tokens are defacto as 2/2s (as well as bears). Green's 1/1 defacto tokens are Saprolings. 1/1 wolfs are not wrong, but feels off somehow.
Moving on, its weirdish tht bestial does not create beasts (3/3).

Why does it seem that Blue Decision seems like a super Steam Augury
Also how the white black and red decisions basically have the same "lose 4 life" mode, somehow feels uninspiring.

Akroan Dark Coin 1B
Artifact (R)
At the end of your turn, create a tapped 1/1 black Skeleton creature token. If you control five or more skeletons, you lose 3 life.

Akroan Dark Coin -- Infinite chump blockers? Abuseable with sac outlets? It's cheap enough that it makes most of other creatures with that mana cost look bad; while OG token producers like The Hive are way overcosted, this goes a little far in the other direction.

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Seranda Pacifist -- 2W
Creature - Human Cleric
Flash
Defender
When Seranda Pacifist enters the battlefield, exile target attacking creature until Seranda Pacifist deals damage.
2/2

Does this re-open the loophole that Banisher Priest and others closed? I rather like the idea of using other durations for this sort of ability.

Well, its a 'loophole' insofar that if you kill the pacifist by any means, the exiled creature is gone forever- Seranda Pacifist will never deal damage, and once its left the battlefield it no longer 'remembers' the exiled creature. So your opponent can't get their creature back via removal, or really any means short of lure, fight, etc effects that force it to deal damage. Now on one hand, that means this is effectively a strong removal effect with an upside since you can chump, with it down the line when it might be advantageous, since its your choice its always upside, or fodder for sacrifices or whatnot. On the other hand, its not particularly aggressively costed as removal- for one mana more, settle the wreckage path's the whole team, while the likes of azorius charm, condemn, celestial flare, etc set a baseline that removal conditioned on attacking can be more efficient. And since the 2/2 body you're leaving is mostly useless, its not much of a 2-for-1.

Staff of Elements 4
Artifact (R)
T: Choose Fire, Earth or Water. (Only the last chosen mode is active.)

• Fire — Instant and sorcery spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
• Earth — You may play land cards from your graveyard.
• Water — Creatures you control get +1/+1.

Explore -- Not the best, not the worst; at the very least it replaces itself. I'd prefer it read "Otherwise, put that card into your hand," even though that avoids draw triggers.

Staff of Elements -- There's an older card (Halfdane with a rather odd template that would cover this sort of situation; essentially, it would add "until the end of your next upkeep", which would allow you to tap it for a new effect, or to continue the old effect, without it actually ending. It strikes me as a little cleaner and clearer. It's an interesting play with durations (which, as you can tell with my previous post, I rather enjoy.)

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Sindari Reinforcements -- 2R
Sorcery
Create two 1/1 red Goblin creatures tokens with haste. Then, you may sacrifice four Goblin creatures. If you do, create a 4/4 red Giant creature token.

I don't know why this should be legendary, especially since the name is too mundane. Otherwise, this is a fine lord, though not flashy enough to be mythic.


Next

Estate Swap 4GU
Sorcery (R)
Two target players exchange control of all nonbasic lands they control.
"I've always dreamed of how it feels like to live in marble castle."

This means that if you yourself play mostly basic lands and an opponent heavily plays nonbasics, this becomes a ramp/LD combo of sorts. I think the cost is probably too steep, but what do you think?

I think the current rules for the 'exchange' template make this work to ambiguously. The rules state that if any part of the exchange can't occur, none of it occurs. IE exchanging control of two creatures, and one creature is lightning bolted to death, you can't exchange the one creature for the other that no longer exists, so they don't change control. But in your case, you're exchanging control of all nonbasics, not an N for N trade. But its not all cards in a zone, or two numbers, so its not cleanly handled by the other rules. So it gets ambiguous. Can 6 nonbasic lands really be exchanged for 0 nonbasic lands? Does it run afoul of the 'any-part-buggers-the-whole' rule if an opponent cracks one fetch in response?
You could resolve the ambiguity by simply templating it according to breaking wave- "Choose two target players. Each player simultaneously gains control of all non-basic lands the other player controls" or something like that.

anyway, rules aside, the flavor is good, the effect however is overpowered and would bust formats like modern. When most decks run all nonbasic lands, this allows you to create basic land decks with a 6 mana spell that does a gilt-leaf archdruid ultimate without any setup. Pretty much win on the spot in normal play.

Roilwing 1U
Creature - Bird Spirit (R)
Flying
Whenever a spell is countered by a spell or ability, instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard, return that spell to its owner's hand and that player discards a card.
1U,T, Sacrifice Roilwing: Return target spell to its owner's hand. Its controller draws a card, then discards a card.
2/1

Roilwing -- Strikes me as much more blue-black than straight-up blue; the triggered ability very much reminds me of Recoil (and old favorite). It's cute, very skill-testy.

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Livin' the Life -- 3GGG
Enchantment
When Livin' the Life enters the battlefield, create a number of 1/1 green Squirrel creature tokens with forestwalk equal to your life total.
You can't lose the game as long as you control a Squirrel creature.
When you control no Squirrel creatures, or Livin' the Life leaves the battlefield, you lose the game.


Wanted a green Lich variant. The name's just a placeholder -- suggestions?

This is either going to win you the game on the spot or just the opposite. Mass haste enabler, Beastmaster Ascension and co., Craterhoof obviously. I think that it's a card that, while being nuts, doesn't lead to a fun time at the table. I blow you out around turn 6 or I lose around turn 6. Scoop, shuffle, start over. Not the most entertaining game but squirrel death does have a certain appeal



Kitchen Finks Filigree Familiar Rogue Refiner

I'm not sold on the name. Maybe: Intuitive Survivalist?

Either name is fine. "Cache Retriever" sounds more like an artifact creature to me, but survivalist sounds more like a Kor than a human. Compared to refiner's more potent stats/effect and filigrees ease of colors, the balance is fine, it wouldn't be anywhere as oppressive, 2/3's are quite a bit weaker than 3/2's in formats with high value 3/3's in them. I think its more focused as a defensive card than refiner was as a value card, because the more defensive body combined with lifegain lets it serve the same purpose as a bigger wall of omens, stabilizing your board instead of burying your opponent in advantage.

Plunge Through The Mirror 1BB
Instant (U)
Exile target creature, then return it to the battlefield under your control, then exile it again.

Plunge Through the Mirror -- Well, it just screams "obvious combo piece." I mean, some cards ought to suggest or imply, or whisper into your ear, but this kind of just pulls its pants down and moons you. Secondarily, it also sits right on top of Assassinate and Murder and so many other black "destroy" effects; yes, sometimes it's better to merely destroy, since it gives you a chance to reanimate later .. but so does your opponent.

I'm not a big fan of unrestricted exile effects, especially so cheap, and especially in black (rather than white. Something that might help tame it is by making the first phrase, "Destroy target creature. If you do, return it the battlefield..."

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Boethus, Favored By The People --3W
Legendary Creature - Human Cleric
Creatures controlled by players with less life than you can't attack you or planeswalkers you control.
At the beginning of your upkeep, each player who controls an Aura enchanting Boethus gains three life.
3/3

Boethus:
The moment this turns on (which isn’t hard to do in a dedicated deck), it will instantly win the game vs a lot of decks. Give it hexproof or indestructible (again also not hard to do) and it suddenly wins against most of them. The card seems super problematic and does not encourage fun or interesting play, particularly at its low cost and reasonably sized body.

Protomorph Primordial
3UURR
Creature - Ooze
~ ETB with 4 +1/+1 counters on it.
When ~ becomes a target of a spell, remove a +1/+1 counter from it. If you do, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
When ~ is dealt damage by a creature, remove a +1/+1 counter from ~. If you do, prevent that damage, then create a token that is a copy of the creature that dealt damage to ~.
0/0

Protomorph Primordial - This one just hurts my brain. I honestly think it's pretty decent overall, but makes my brain hurt.


Sharktooth Dagger 0
Artifact - Equipment
When ~ enters the battlefield sacrifice a creature or lose half of your life (Round up)
Equiped creature gains first strike and deathtouch
As long as ~ is attached to a creature, whenever a creature dies you may pay 1 life and draw a card.
Equip 3

Quote from Lord_Kaos »

Sharktooth Dagger 0
Artifact - Equipment
When ~ enters the battlefield sacrifice a creature or lose half of your life (Round up)
Equiped creature gains first strike and deathtouch
As long as ~ is attached to a creature, whenever a creature dies you may pay 1 life and draw a card.
Equip 3

This card has just a few too many moving parts e. g. it would be preferable if you as the designer decide whether the drawback cost is a creature or life. While such a dilemma might be interesting in itself, I would save it for another card that doesn't already have other abilities that kinda go into the same direction, but actually just trick you into thinking there is a bult-in synergy e. g. one might think you can sacrifice a creature for the ETB trigger and benefit from the death trigger on the Equipment, but - No! The card tricked me!

First strike and deathtouch is a dirty combo and I don't think I want it that hard to remove without the real cost in the equip ability, so why not put the sacrifice there?

The Phyrexian Arena-style draw ability should be written with an intervening if-clause to match similar abilities. If this was intentional to trigger on the equipped creature, there is a wording for that as well.

Overall this crams too many ideas together and uses inspirations for two or three good cards to make one mediocre design.

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Call to War
Sorcery (R)
Whenever a player attacks an opponent of ~'s owner, that player may cast ~ from its owner's graveyard.
Creatures you control get +2/+0 until end of turn.

Call to War is interesting. The initial mode is aggressively costed enough to make it appealing in single player, with an upside that encourages aggression in multiplayer. The one thing I will say is that, as neat as it is, I think it would work more cleanly as an enchantment with the casting from the graveyard replaced with a triggered ability.

Grave Exchange
3UB
Enchantment
When Grave Exchange enters the battlefield, exile all creature cards from all graveyards.
Whenever a creature dies, exile it.
Whenever a player casts a creature spell, exile it, then choose another creature card exiled by Grave Exchange and put it onto the battlefield.

Grave Exchange -- Oy. So, I cast this, then an Ornithopter or Walking Ballista or whatever and animate whatever big thing I discarded last turn? And could do this multiple times .. before my opponent gets a chance to do so ... Okay, like all reanimation strategies, it depends on getting stuff into the 'yard to begin with, but that's casually simple for a UB deck. It's probably gonna end the game the turn it enters play, so the fact that an opponent or teammate might benefit from it really isn't a true drawback.

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Sicken -- (U/B)
Instant
Tap target spell. (Permanents that spell would cause to enter the battlefield enter it tapped.)
Draw a card.

Sicken seems very limited in scope. The fact that it interacts with a spell really limits it as a Cantrip, and while I understand what you're trying to achieve with tapping a spell, I don't think cards can be tapped outside of the battlefield (with the exception of X in Unstable). Wording along the lines of Due Respect is probably more appropriate.

Caller of Reflections 2UR (Rare)
Creature - Human Wizard
When Caller of Reflections enters the battlefield, excavate. (Create a colorless Relic artifact token with "1,Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool."
2UR: Until end of turn, target Relic you control becomes a copy of target creature, except it's still an artifact in addition to its other types.
3/2

Not bad. I love the idea of turning Treasures into Relics which then you can use for fun and profit. While I think the last ability may be too cheap by a wee, it's still board dependent, so maybe fine.


Evil discard spell.... or Unearth engine?

Debase Into Phantoms 1UB
Sorcery (R)
Target player reveals his or her hand and discards all creature cards revealed this way. For each card discarded this way, that player draws a card and creates a 2/2 blue Illusion creature token.
"So you claim your champions are ready to bring you to victory? They can't even carry their own armaments if I so will it."

I admit this is a rather tricky card to cost. Too high, and it becomes useless as using it against your opponent will instead give him cards and army to crush you with, but too cheap, this is still a mass discard + Peek that can go wrong so badly. Comments?

Quote from magac »

Debase Into Phantoms 1UB
Sorcery (R)
Target player reveals his or her hand and discards all creature cards revealed this way. For each card discarded this way, that player draws a card and creates a 2/2 blue Illusion creature token.
"So you claim your champions are ready to bring you to victory? They can't even carry their own armaments if I so will it."

I admit this is a rather tricky card to cost. Too high, and it becomes useless as using it against your opponent will instead give him cards and army to crush you with, but too cheap, this is still a mass discard + Peek that can go wrong so badly. Comments?

I think that Debase into Phantoms is fairly costed, since using it against your opponent is theoretical card disadvantage whatever the outcome may be, and casting it on yourself is most likely not going to win you the game by itself. That being said, I find it powerful enough to make it in an hypothetical UB Drake Haven deck.


Elspeth, the Returned 2WB
Legendary Creature - Zombie Knight
Indestructible
T, Exile a creature card from an opponent's graveyard: Create two 1/1 white and black Spirit creature tokens with flying.
4W, T: Destroy target enchantment. If that permanent would be put into a graveyard this turn, exile it instead.
4BB, T, Exile Elspeth, the Returned: Search each opponent's library for any card with the same name as a card exiled with Elspeth, the Returned, then exile those cards. Then each opponent who had his or her library searched this way shuffles it.
0/4

I tried to make it resemble a planeswalker as best as I could. I am imagining Elspeth full of grief and resentment after ending up in the Underworld, and trying to free the souls of those who passed away from Erebos, God of the Dead's grasp. I find it flavorful from this point of view that the tokens she creates disappear as they leave the battlefield. The second ability does not exile right away because I do not think she is able to take down a god by herself, and the last one is supposed to symbolize the end of her quest for freedom. I'm not sure about the indestructibility in particular (I guess I wanted her to look like an antithesis to the deities of Theros). I actually do not know much about the lore, so I may have made inaccuracies/errors when imaging this scenery.

Edit: Improved punctuation.

Edit 2: Added "legendary" supertype.

Returned Elspeth is kind of a hard one. I've tried it myself and it's a tough design. Your design is pretty good, but there are a couple things that I can see. First of all, she should definitely be an Enchantment, since that's a pretty solid theme in Theros; When someone dies they become an eidolon (Nyxborn Eidolon). Secondly, she's pretty powerful for Modern, but as Commanders go, her last ability really doesn't work for EDH, and in the lore, it doesn't make much sense because she has a pretty high sense of self-preservation(according to the wiki), but who knows about her zombie version. Other than that, it seems pretty good.

Jundland Riotfields
Land
At the beginning of each combat, each player chooses a creature he or she controls. All creatures chosen fight one-another.

Jundland Riotfields -- In current Magic philosophy, all lands generate mana. This is pretty game-breaking -- worse than, say, The Abyss or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale -- since it reduces the game-state to just one large creature in play. Three-way fights are, I believe, undefined in the game currently; would each creature divide damage between the other two, or deal damage equal to its power to the other two? So, it needs a lot of work just to make it work.

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Mindfire Homunculus -- 2U
Creature - Imp
Flying
If you would draw a card, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Mindfire Humonculus instead.
2/2

Cue "humongous homunculus" jokes.


EDIT: Typed in the wrong name .. blast it. Can't even blame that on autocorrect!