Sliver Cult King1WUBRG Legendary Creature — Sliver Shapeshifter
Other Slivers have all abilities of Sliver Cult King.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, you may have Sliver Cult King become a copy of another target creature, except it retains its name, types, and base abilities. I journeyed to the edge of existence, through the Blind Eternities until it nearly withered me to nothing. And what I beheld was the end of the world...I would never return.
5/5
Seeing the Sliver Hivelord today, I was disgusted by the simplicity and lack of creative effort that went into it. Wanting to provide a much better example, I just came up with this design spontaneously. One of the primary intentions to the function is something in the style of Apocalypse from the X-Men. Typically, a lily would just say, "I'll just nerf or removal it next opportunity". However, with this combination of effects, you can have another Sliver become the host body for the Cult King, and its power will live on even in the face of removal.
I would like for a way to have made this more concise. I had thought to do something isolated, only enabling the Cult King to transform, and then other Slivers nurturing from it as the host. That's really not in the style of Slivers though, and the legacy of their symbiotic relationship. For this reason, I decided to just let my eyes adjust, and the imagination stretch, and I really enjoy this version more than I feel the isolated concept would have been.
I have SCK and Muscle Sliver.
As the beginning of my upkeep, SCK becomes a copy of muscle sliver and muscle sliver becomes a copy of SCK. Both slivers get +2/+2
...wait, does that even work? The SCK copying muscle sliver still has the ability that shares all of its abilities with muscle sliver and the muscle sliver is copying the ability that shares its abilities back with SCK. The SCK gets the +1/+1 ability with muscle sliver and shares it with muscle sliver (who now possesses two instances of that ability) and the muscle sliver shares that additional instance with SCK and... If this effect somehow isn’t infinite, it requires a knowledge of layers that most players don’t possess.
Wait... at the beginning of the next upkeep, SCK becomes a copy of muscle sliver again but retains its abilities... but does that include the cloned abilities from last time? Does SCK now have two separate instances of giving slivers +1/+1 and will the muscle sliver copy the copied +1/+1 ability of SCK? Wait, the muscle sliver will have the copying ability from the previous time it copied SCK and also inherits the same ability from the original SCK.
The Muscle Sliver doesn't copy anything with this wording. The SCK keeps its abilities every time it copies, so after two upkeeps SCK will have Muscle Sliver's ability twice and Muscle Sliver has its own ability just the once.
This presents huge memory issues which is why I'm assuming SCK copies only one thing at a time, but the wording doesn't say it copies one thing at a time.
EDIT: Wait, the first ability gives all other slivers its abilities. These abilities are not copiable. I don't see any way to fix this card unless it's on a computer to keep track of what abilities everything has.
The Muscle Sliver doesn't copy anything with this wording. The SCK keeps its abilities every time it copies, so after two upkeeps SCK will have Muscle Sliver's ability twice and Muscle Sliver has its own ability just the once.
This presents huge memory issues which is why I'm assuming SCK copies only one thing at a time, but the wording doesn't say it copies one thing at a time.
“All other slivers have all all abilities of Sliver Cult King”
That includes the copying ability normally possessed by the King. The muscle sliver inherits the copying ability from the king and will use it to copy the king.
You're right, I edited my comment as you posted. I maintain the memory issues with this card are so complex that it becomes unmanageable after only one or two turns.
While Reap isn’t known for hearing the ideas of others, I did think of a workable way to make this ability work.
“At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a hive counter on target non-sliver creature.
All slivers you control gain the abilities of each permanent with one or more give counter on it.“
To save this nightmare you need 2 major changes. First, make the copy either until end of turn or untap step. Then add the skill share onto the copy so your slivers don't gain the copy skill.
"When ~ enters the battlefield or at the beginning of your upkeep you may have ~ become a copy of target creature until your untap step. Except its name is ~ and its a legendary sliver in addition to its other types and it has "All slivers have all abilities of ~.""
The all abilities things is a nightmare no matter what you do which is why it isnt normally done.
As written this keeps the abilities of every creature it copies every turn. Surely that's not the intended functionality.
It's certainly not. I suppose would prefer if the context went along the same as is defined by the rules for gaining Basic Land types (they lose all other abilities). If a card becomes a copy of something, it should only retain its printed abilities and lose everything else.
Some of you may not recall, but I did a concept with a card Nyarlathotep, in which it becomes a modal/modular copy of other creatures. In this functionality, it retains each 'copy mode', but can only host one at a time. The 'copy mode' can be changed during various interactions (attacking, blocking, targeted, untapped, tapped, etc.).
This design doesn't seek to use that functionality—but consider that the hammering out of those comprehensive rules would/should change the conditions of which a card becomes a copy of other cards; to differentiate between a standard/singular copy—and a modal/modular copy.
In this, the design here wouldn't need to have its text changed at all. But otherwise, I guess you could always adapt the text to, "retains its printed name, types, and abilities" to differentiate.
I'll add some notes about the design's functionality later.
I don’t... I want to take some time to address something that has been an ongoing trend.
Making a change to the comprehensive rules is almost never considered a brief premise or ad-hoc fix to allow discussion of a single card on this forum.
Making a rules change like this is worthy of a separate thread altogether, wherein everyone would expect you to attempt a persuasive argument, appealing more to the preexisting internal logic of the game and comparisons to similar games than artistic merit and “force majeur”, in favor of this change with several examples of what sort of card effects this would allow and a realistic discussion of possible downsides so the pros and cons can be weighed against one another.
Proposing a change to the comprehensive rules is that serious IF you want to be taken seriously.
First, Slivers now only affect their controllers' slivers rather than all on the board. Mainly it keeps the game from stalling out in a sliver mirror match.
Sliver Cult King1WUBRG Legendary Creature — Sliver Shapeshifter
All other Slivers have all abilities of Sliver Cult King.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, you may have Sliver Cult King become a copy of another target creature, except it retains its name, types, and abilities.
5/5
There's still an issue here. Whenever a card gains an ability from another card, it replaces the other card's name with its own name in the ability. If you have this card and Muscle Sliver out, muscle sliver's text becomes:
All slivers get +1/+1
All other Slivers have all abilities of Muscle Sliver.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, you may have Muscle Sliver become a copy of another target creature, except it retains its name, types, and abilities.
And because it is gaining the ability granting ability, it will then give another instance of the upkeep trigger to the king. It can be fixed this way.
"At the beginning of each player's upkeep, you may have CARDNAME and slivers you control become copies of another target creature until the end of turn, except they retain their names, types, and abilities."
This way, everything will be shared, but theirs no weird recursiveness in the ability granting.
I don't really feel like recursive potential is relevant.
Who would really do something like that, which bogs down the game, and ruins the experience?
It would be bypassed by the typically gamer. Tournament's surely wouldn't allow it.
Functionality, and the flare of fantasy doesn't find it intuitive to have them all become a copy of the same card. You want them to be able to copy different ones. There's a big aspect of force majeure in this capability—that something as majestic as this type of design definitely wants to capture and preserve.
Who would really do something like that, which bogs down the game, and ruins the experience?
It would be bypassed by the typically gamer. Tournament's surely wouldn't allow it.
1. Tournaments enforce the letter of the rules, not the spirit of the rules. Where on earth have you heard anything to the contrary?
2. Players who ENJOY breaking the game are not rare. I have seen several youtube channels dedicated to making decks that generate hundreds of mana or dealing nigh-infinite mana by turn 4-5. If you create a card that enables degenerate strategies and are unwilling to change the text, you share fault for any frustrating games those cards create.
Who would really do something like that, which bogs down the game, and ruins the experience?
It would be bypassed by the typically gamer. Tournament's surely wouldn't allow it.
1. Tournaments enforce the letter of the rules, not the spirit of the rules. Where on earth have you heard anything to the contrary?
2. Players who ENJOY breaking the game are not rare. I have seen several youtube channels dedicated to making decks that generate hundreds of mana or dealing nigh-infinite mana by turn 4-5. If you create a card that enables degenerate strategies and are unwilling to change the text, you share fault for any frustrating games those cards create.
Development shouldn't be limited by the existence of such people and their habits;
so that honest people are unjustly deprived the fun of dynamic and unique content.
Tournaments will typically disqualify players for doing anything of that sort.
I don't really feel like recursive potential is relevant.
Who would really do something like that, which bogs down the game, and ruins the experience?
It would be bypassed by the typically gamer. Tournament's surely wouldn't allow it.
As a judge, you have to do what the card says, not what you want it to do or what people think is fun. People don't think its fun for their opponent's Teferi to bounce their permanent, but they still put the card back in their hand or get disqualified for not playing the game.
There is a way to make the card work pretty much the way you want it to above and without causing problems. Otherwise your card will continue to not work the way you want it to.
Lastly, "Force Majeure" is a legal term that has nothing to do with the context you are describing. It has to do with being excused from a contractual obligation from a law or event that prevents completing that obligation. Every time you use it, it has the same amount of meaning as if you replaced it in the same sentence with the word rutabaga. If you want to be taken seriously, use both game rules and the English language correctly.
The way you have spoken of “Force Majeur”, I have assumed this entire time that was a major and well-known term used to discuss major works of art and used in literary analysis textbooks.
From what I’m hearing now, though, you just slammed a couple of french works together because they sound good?
You have based entire designs that fly in the face of accepted design principles on the grounds of “it makes an impact”?
I'm just passing by to say I'm French and "force majeure" only describes an unpredictable event, but has nothing to do with surprise or majesty. It's almost only used in the law field and applies to event that are so unpredictable and insurmountable they allow the parties to a contract to break it without prejudice. You really should stop using these terms the way you do.
I'm just passing by to say I'm French and "force majeure" only describes an unpredictable event, but has nothing to do with surprise or majesty. It's almost only used in the law field and applies to event that are so unpredictable and insurmountable they allow the parties to a contract to break it without prejudice. You really should stop using these terms the way you do.
That's 'Tour de Force'. However, Tour de Force can also be used (or understood/interpreted) with the exact same meaning as Force Majeure.
However, the application is often in the usage of a verb, describing a personal act, or the act of one personally. Whereas the application of Force Majeure in this context often references the 'act' itself.
//
We are getting off topic with this. Does anyone think that this is overpowered, or uncomfortable with the level of interactions that it creates?
From a development perspective, especially when it comes to Slivers, I would say the ideal legendary is going to do one of two things. It's going to do something entirely dynamic and unique, so that it has capabilities to replace all other legendaries as the crown centerpiece; or it's going to effective roll the capabilities of other legendaries into itself by some means so that it can act as an effective substitute for one or more (obsoleting them if necessary even). This is the aspect of Natural Order. And I strongly believe legendary Sliver development (and sliver development in general) would want to follow this.
Sadly, I would suggest that the development of slivers has been incredibly poorly thought. There are a ton of redundancies now in certain effects.
However, none of them follow Natural Order, nor has there been any content (or development structure) that would enable the collective pieces to be sutured together smoothly; such as through the use of The First Sliver.
This design however, I feel does a little BOTH the things you would want a new sliver design to do. So it's hard for me to see any room for improvement or adaptation, although I remain open to your points of interest.
As written the King retains all abilities of everything it copies. This causes massive memory issues and is untenable for a physical card.
If that's not how you want it to work, you need to write the card so it does what you want, without just saying you'll rewrite the rules to force the card to work. That's why nobody is talking about the card. Nobody knows what exactly it does.
Let's say I untap with Sliver Cult King, Harmonic Sliver, and Muscle Sliver. Please give an example of what I can do with the King's trigger and what abilities my slivers have after it resolves.
And he did, in fact, argue with the French person that the French person was wrong about their understanding of French.
So it's hard for me to see any room for improvement or adaptation, although I remain open to your points of interest.
Your card is broken and doesn't work within the rules the way you want it to. If you cannot accept concurring feedback from multiple sources, you are wrong about being "open to point of interest" and are wasting your time posting these cards.
As written the King retains all abilities of everything it copies. This causes massive memory issues and is untenable for a physical card.
If that's not how you want it to work, you need to write the card so it does what you want, without just saying you'll rewrite the rules to force the card to work. That's why nobody is talking about the card. Nobody knows what exactly it does.
Let's say I untap with Sliver Cult King, Harmonic Sliver, and Muscle Sliver. Please give an example of what I can do with the King's trigger and what abilities my slivers have after it resolves.
I might not have been totally clear about this, but I believe it was mentioned that this issue could be fixed by adapting how copies are handled.
Ideally, you shouldn't have lands following different rules than other cards, when they become copies (or take on different types with cause them to change).
I would prefer not having to add tacking words such as 'printed' (types, abilities, etc.) to the text. It was mentioned this could fix the suggested issue.
It is not intended to retain the abilities of everything it copies. Moreso than creating 'memory issues', I think that would be a crude effect, lacking style, and balance, and preserving some aspect of challenge.
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Legendary Creature — Sliver Shapeshifter
Other Slivers have all abilities of Sliver Cult King.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, you may have Sliver Cult King become a copy of another target creature, except it retains its name, types, and base abilities.
I journeyed to the edge of existence, through the Blind Eternities until it nearly withered me to nothing. And what I beheld was the end of the world...I would never return.
5/5
Seeing the Sliver Hivelord today, I was disgusted by the simplicity and lack of creative effort that went into it. Wanting to provide a much better example, I just came up with this design spontaneously. One of the primary intentions to the function is something in the style of Apocalypse from the X-Men. Typically, a lily would just say, "I'll just nerf or removal it next opportunity". However, with this combination of effects, you can have another Sliver become the host body for the Cult King, and its power will live on even in the face of removal.
I would like for a way to have made this more concise. I had thought to do something isolated, only enabling the Cult King to transform, and then other Slivers nurturing from it as the host. That's really not in the style of Slivers though, and the legacy of their symbiotic relationship. For this reason, I decided to just let my eyes adjust, and the imagination stretch, and I really enjoy this version more than I feel the isolated concept would have been.
I have SCK and Muscle Sliver.
As the beginning of my upkeep, SCK becomes a copy of muscle sliver and muscle sliver becomes a copy of SCK. Both slivers get +2/+2
...wait, does that even work? The SCK copying muscle sliver still has the ability that shares all of its abilities with muscle sliver and the muscle sliver is copying the ability that shares its abilities back with SCK. The SCK gets the +1/+1 ability with muscle sliver and shares it with muscle sliver (who now possesses two instances of that ability) and the muscle sliver shares that additional instance with SCK and... If this effect somehow isn’t infinite, it requires a knowledge of layers that most players don’t possess.
Wait... at the beginning of the next upkeep, SCK becomes a copy of muscle sliver again but retains its abilities... but does that include the cloned abilities from last time? Does SCK now have two separate instances of giving slivers +1/+1 and will the muscle sliver copy the copied +1/+1 ability of SCK? Wait, the muscle sliver will have the copying ability from the previous time it copied SCK and also inherits the same ability from the original SCK.
This presents huge memory issues which is why I'm assuming SCK copies only one thing at a time, but the wording doesn't say it copies one thing at a time.
EDIT: Wait, the first ability gives all other slivers its abilities. These abilities are not copiable. I don't see any way to fix this card unless it's on a computer to keep track of what abilities everything has.
“All other slivers have all all abilities of Sliver Cult King”
That includes the copying ability normally possessed by the King. The muscle sliver inherits the copying ability from the king and will use it to copy the king.
“At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a hive counter on target non-sliver creature.
All slivers you control gain the abilities of each permanent with one or more give counter on it.“
There, a proper “clone-sliver”.
"When ~ enters the battlefield or at the beginning of your upkeep you may have ~ become a copy of target creature until your untap step. Except its name is ~ and its a legendary sliver in addition to its other types and it has "All slivers have all abilities of ~.""
The all abilities things is a nightmare no matter what you do which is why it isnt normally done.
It's certainly not. I suppose would prefer if the context went along the same as is defined by the rules for gaining Basic Land types (they lose all other abilities). If a card becomes a copy of something, it should only retain its printed abilities and lose everything else.
Some of you may not recall, but I did a concept with a card Nyarlathotep, in which it becomes a modal/modular copy of other creatures. In this functionality, it retains each 'copy mode', but can only host one at a time. The 'copy mode' can be changed during various interactions (attacking, blocking, targeted, untapped, tapped, etc.).
This design doesn't seek to use that functionality—but consider that the hammering out of those comprehensive rules would/should change the conditions of which a card becomes a copy of other cards; to differentiate between a standard/singular copy—and a modal/modular copy.
In this, the design here wouldn't need to have its text changed at all. But otherwise, I guess you could always adapt the text to, "retains its printed name, types, and abilities" to differentiate.
I'll add some notes about the design's functionality later.
Making a change to the comprehensive rules is almost never considered a brief premise or ad-hoc fix to allow discussion of a single card on this forum.
Making a rules change like this is worthy of a separate thread altogether, wherein everyone would expect you to attempt a persuasive argument, appealing more to the preexisting internal logic of the game and comparisons to similar games than artistic merit and “force majeur”, in favor of this change with several examples of what sort of card effects this would allow and a realistic discussion of possible downsides so the pros and cons can be weighed against one another.
Proposing a change to the comprehensive rules is that serious IF you want to be taken seriously.
There's still an issue here. Whenever a card gains an ability from another card, it replaces the other card's name with its own name in the ability. If you have this card and Muscle Sliver out, muscle sliver's text becomes:
All slivers get +1/+1
All other Slivers have all abilities of Muscle Sliver.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, you may have Muscle Sliver become a copy of another target creature, except it retains its name, types, and abilities.
And because it is gaining the ability granting ability, it will then give another instance of the upkeep trigger to the king. It can be fixed this way.
"At the beginning of each player's upkeep, you may have CARDNAME and slivers you control become copies of another target creature until the end of turn, except they retain their names, types, and abilities."
This way, everything will be shared, but theirs no weird recursiveness in the ability granting.
Who would really do something like that, which bogs down the game, and ruins the experience?
It would be bypassed by the typically gamer. Tournament's surely wouldn't allow it.
Functionality, and the flare of fantasy doesn't find it intuitive to have them all become a copy of the same card. You want them to be able to copy different ones. There's a big aspect of force majeure in this capability—that something as majestic as this type of design definitely wants to capture and preserve.
1. Tournaments enforce the letter of the rules, not the spirit of the rules. Where on earth have you heard anything to the contrary?
2. Players who ENJOY breaking the game are not rare. I have seen several youtube channels dedicated to making decks that generate hundreds of mana or dealing nigh-infinite mana by turn 4-5. If you create a card that enables degenerate strategies and are unwilling to change the text, you share fault for any frustrating games those cards create.
Development shouldn't be limited by the existence of such people and their habits;
so that honest people are unjustly deprived the fun of dynamic and unique content.
Tournaments will typically disqualify players for doing anything of that sort.
As a judge, you have to do what the card says, not what you want it to do or what people think is fun. People don't think its fun for their opponent's Teferi to bounce their permanent, but they still put the card back in their hand or get disqualified for not playing the game.
There is a way to make the card work pretty much the way you want it to above and without causing problems. Otherwise your card will continue to not work the way you want it to.
Lastly, "Force Majeure" is a legal term that has nothing to do with the context you are describing. It has to do with being excused from a contractual obligation from a law or event that prevents completing that obligation. Every time you use it, it has the same amount of meaning as if you replaced it in the same sentence with the word rutabaga. If you want to be taken seriously, use both game rules and the English language correctly.
Thus, it can be used in a context that describes exactly that.
Correlating to the grandeur of something—or the captivating force, thought, or feelings it embodies or evokes.
Actually, if you'd clicked the dictionary link I provided:
For example, if you say 'heart' in French, it can mean 'the center' of something (such as heart wood—it means the wood at the center).
Majeure is also 'majestic'.
The way you have spoken of “Force Majeur”, I have assumed this entire time that was a major and well-known term used to discuss major works of art and used in literary analysis textbooks.
From what I’m hearing now, though, you just slammed a couple of french works together because they sound good?
You have based entire designs that fly in the face of accepted design principles on the grounds of “it makes an impact”?
...Well played.
A quick Google translate says the French word for majestic is majestueuse(fem) or majestueux(masc).
You should start researching more before saying things that are easily proven wrong, both in Magic rules and linguistics.
That's 'Tour de Force'. However, Tour de Force can also be used (or understood/interpreted) with the exact same meaning as Force Majeure.
However, the application is often in the usage of a verb, describing a personal act, or the act of one personally. Whereas the application of Force Majeure in this context often references the 'act' itself.
//
We are getting off topic with this. Does anyone think that this is overpowered, or uncomfortable with the level of interactions that it creates?
From a development perspective, especially when it comes to Slivers, I would say the ideal legendary is going to do one of two things. It's going to do something entirely dynamic and unique, so that it has capabilities to replace all other legendaries as the crown centerpiece; or it's going to effective roll the capabilities of other legendaries into itself by some means so that it can act as an effective substitute for one or more (obsoleting them if necessary even). This is the aspect of Natural Order. And I strongly believe legendary Sliver development (and sliver development in general) would want to follow this.
Sadly, I would suggest that the development of slivers has been incredibly poorly thought. There are a ton of redundancies now in certain effects.
Bonesplitter Sliver, Cleaving Sliver, Battle Sliver, Blade Sliver, Magma Sliver
However, none of them follow Natural Order, nor has there been any content (or development structure) that would enable the collective pieces to be sutured together smoothly; such as through the use of The First Sliver.
This design however, I feel does a little BOTH the things you would want a new sliver design to do. So it's hard for me to see any room for improvement or adaptation, although I remain open to your points of interest.
If that's not how you want it to work, you need to write the card so it does what you want, without just saying you'll rewrite the rules to force the card to work. That's why nobody is talking about the card. Nobody knows what exactly it does.
Let's say I untap with Sliver Cult King, Harmonic Sliver, and Muscle Sliver. Please give an example of what I can do with the King's trigger and what abilities my slivers have after it resolves.
Your card is broken and doesn't work within the rules the way you want it to. If you cannot accept concurring feedback from multiple sources, you are wrong about being "open to point of interest" and are wasting your time posting these cards.
I might not have been totally clear about this, but I believe it was mentioned that this issue could be fixed by adapting how copies are handled.
Ideally, you shouldn't have lands following different rules than other cards, when they become copies (or take on different types with cause them to change).
I would prefer not having to add tacking words such as 'printed' (types, abilities, etc.) to the text. It was mentioned this could fix the suggested issue.
It is not intended to retain the abilities of everything it copies. Moreso than creating 'memory issues', I think that would be a crude effect, lacking style, and balance, and preserving some aspect of challenge.