MTG Salvation

As a masochistic Xmas present to myself, I've decided to put together a 100 percent* custom-made cube. I'll probably be at it for a few months. I'm posting it here in part because it's much easier to keep organized by CMC than in MSE.

I'm starting with pretty high power levels across the board. If, as I hope, I eventually get to proxy these all and play with my group, we can figure out what needs to be adjusted then. Of course I'd love to hear your feedback if you're interested in poking through some of these cards.





Current tally: 86/360

*Actually, I'm still up in the air about the 100% thing. It seems a little silly trying to redesign/innovate foundational cards like Lightning Bolt, Armageddon, etc. We'll see.

I don't think you'd need to be 100% custom but I think it should be a vast majority. It's cool if you don't want to redesign Lightning Bolt or Disenchant. However, I think you should have 2/3 or more of the cube be custom cards to capture the feel of having a custom set/cube.

I'm usually apprehensive to custom cards in general, but these are really compelling.
It's amazing how much design space Wizards still has at their disposal. Perhaps they may steal a few ideas from you if they see this thread.
Looking forward to the rest.

BTW, Gauntlet of Drog-Bokt is way too powerful. If you have more life than opponent it's an instant win by itself. I would advise changing it somehow (you may only activate this ability x times per turn, - or - it does 3 damage to you instead, etc).

Keep it up

Edit - Also, Koopak the Fleet should specify "whenever a land is put into your graveyard from XXX (battlefield or hand or library or anywhere, etc)"

Quote from GenghisTom »

BTW, Gauntlet of Drog-Bokt is way too powerful. If you have more life than opponent it's an instant win by itself. I would advise changing it somehow (you may only activate this ability x times per turn, - or - it does 3 damage to you instead, etc).

Hah! Yeah, that's not right. It's supposed to be a riff on Sulfuric Vortex. I've changed the language to follow the example of Mana Vault.

More generally, thanks for the encouragement!

Quote from AntiPox »

I like it! Are you doing all the cards yourself?

Thanks for taking the time to read and reply! I am doing the cards myself, tho no doubt some are inspired by other custom cards I've seen.

*The correct wording for Xinmar as well as Alpine Headquarters would be "At the beginning of the next end step".

Actually, this is by design. The idea for Xinmar etc. is that you can get your lands in untapped if you wait until (either) end step, but if you need them now, there's a price to pay later. Alpine Headquarters etc. I used the same wording for consistency.

I'm happy to make the other changes you've suggested. Thanks again!

Today's additions:

Wolflight
Tug of War
Lurker in Deep Places
Sifq, the Groaning Blade

and new flavor text for Dole River Goetic

Today's additions:
Gruul section

Quote from AntiPox »

So is there an overarching plan for archetypes? Red is obviously very RDW so far.

Archetypes...yeah. That's one of the most challenging things about building a custom cube, and frankly I haven't given it enough thought. The easiest thing - what I'm sort of doing - is probably to start by developing mechanical identities for the guilds, and then seed support cards throughout their colors. Gruul, as you can see, is based around land destruction, ramp, and what I'm thinking of as the "super landfall" mechanic.

As far as archetypes beyond that, it's tricky because the question is always, Do I want to simply recreate preexisting archetypes (e.g. Wildfire, Blue Devotion, etc.) with slightly different cards, or do I want to create entirely new ones? I mean, obviously the latter, but it's really damn hard to make them up whole cloth.

Very evocative names, nice flavor and templating from what I saw. I would prefer to have the images visible here rather than having to click on every link, though

EDIT: Went through everything very quickly, nice attention to detail (I like the set symbol), wording could be cleaned up slightly. Only thing I'm iffy about is your set complexity - even full powered cubes have some simple cards with clean effects (Day of Judgment, Lightning Bolt, Llanowar Elves etc). Looks like way too many cards here with four or more lines of text. That's my cutoff for complexity.

Added Selesnya section.

Loving it so far.
I want Blighter of Paradise in my cube.
Do you have any particular way to print these out and make them look nice?
Custom cards I've done in the past on my own printer and taped them onto basics look like crap, even when sleeved.

Quote from GenghisTom »

Loving it so far.
I want Blighter of Paradise in my cube.
Do you have any particular way to print these out and make them look nice?
Custom cards I've done in the past on my own printer and taped them onto basics look like crap, even when sleeved.

Thanks! I haven't tried printing yet but I have a lot of proxies in my normal cube, which always turn out well, thanks in part to high quality printers in the school library.

Very cool! Your dual fetches have you placing shuffling in the land you put on top. I'm not sure if that's intentional because of the way it's templated

Quote from Blal »

Very cool! Your dual fetches have you placing shuffling in the land you put on top. I'm not sure if that's intentional because of the way it's templated

Yeah, it's meant to shuffle it in. The templating's a little roundabout to prevent players from either just "finding" one land and putting it straight on the battlefield, or finding no lands and getting to look through their entire library without shuffling.

Added Dimir section

Interesting UB direction.
Thumbs up for shroud! Wizards makes everything soft with hexproof.
Not being able to target your own creatures should be a thing again.

I like how the fetchable type 1 dual lands synergize with landfall.
Although I would template as "return another land you control to its owners hand", so as to prevent guaranteed landfall every turn by returning itself.
Plus, you could fetch it turn one to avoid the drawback entirely. I like type 1 better than type 2 because I think there should always be the option to have it come into play untapped, whatever the drawback.

A few miscellaneous lands, and a colorless "Titan" who cares. Boy that's a lot of "ofs."

Izzet

Azorius section added.

Ninja edit: adding some lands. Total up to 59.

Good Stuff.
Have you considered toying with a 'Legendary Matters' theme?
Lots of Legendary cards so far.
I feel like 'Legendary Matters' has still yet to be fully explored (Legends, Kamigawa, and some others).
It seems like Kri, Last of the Eagles could have vigilance? Or perhaps cost WU? Seems underpowered at the moment, but I don't know if you have any synergies planned that would make it overpowered

Quote from GenghisTom »

Have you considered toying with a 'Legendary Matters' theme?

I have! It'll probably come out in a few scattered cards – likely not enough to make a full cycle or archetype or anything tho. One place will probably be in the bigger swords that don't care about color cycle.

It seems like Kri, Last of the Eagles could have vigilance? Or perhaps cost WU? Seems underpowered at the moment, but I don't know if you have any synergies planned that would make it overpowered

It's hard to say on this guy. Library of Alexandria is well known as one of the most powerful cube cards out there, but having never played with it, I can't say how much of its value is tied to its being a land. I gave this guy hexproof to at least echo the unremovability of the Library, and I figure in a controlly shell it should draw a bunch of cards. Plus carry equipment + auras (not that there will be a lot of auras, but a few, yes) like a pro. Costing WU seems a little too pushed even for me...but maybe I'll give it a shot.

Speaking of, here's a cycle of swords. Odds are these will need serious tinkering.

Running tally: 64

Quote from GenghisTom »

I like type 1 better than type 2 because I think there should always be the option to have it come into play untapped, whatever the drawback.

I've never been terribly happy with them myself; thinking of taking it in a new direction inspired by the Vivids.

Here's the Rakdos section, a fun red instant, and what I hope will be the final form of one of my two fetchables.

Running tally: 68

Ninja edit: Tweaked the Rakdos 3.

Now with Golgari! AND ALSO, all the fetchable lands (too many to attach). Although some of the names still need a little tweaking.

Running tally: 86.

Great stuff.
I love the flavor of Thousand-Year Rain.
Where are you getting the artwork? It's all so fitting. Really nice stuff.

I like the fetchable lands that bounce your own permanents rather than your own lands. Lots of room for synergy with ETB effects (not to mention synergy with the other fetchable 'vivid' duals). It also means you don't have to lose tempo by 'missing' a land drop if you have a non-land to bounce.
I still think they shouldn't be able to bounce themselves - this removes the ability to have garunteed landfall, and also means you could play it untapped turn one and wouldn't have to bounce anything (given you don't play any other permanents).
Also, the wording should read "return a permanent you control to its owners hand" rather than "to your hand". Just a syntax thing to prevent you from having cards from your opponents deck in your hand, which actually would be a pretty entertaining part of the game if they ever allowed that.

For Golgari (my favorite arctype), Bol-Goths Steed seems very strong. At first I thought it might be overpowered. A guaranteed 2 for 1. But then after thinking about it, you have to first play it, wait a turn, then attack and pay 2 mana, THEN your opponent has to have 2 untapped creatures for it to actually be a 2 for 1. BBGG, 1 turn, and 2 blockers is not a bad requirement for a 2 for 1. It's a good 2 drop, great design.

Looking forward to the rest. Keep it up.