Personal Sanctuary
Enchantment
During your turn, prevent all damage that would be delt to you
Wow, I'm surprised they actually printed this. A good white enchantment that completely neuters R and B decks and demands every other deck run enchantment removal and/or bounce? Awesome. A 4-of in every white deck as long as it's legal. Of course, it does point to Wizards pushing mill as as an alternate win-con during INN. Why else print a card the so obviously hoses all decks that depend on damage, including infect?
Mind Unbound
Enchantment
At the beginning of you upkeep, put a lore counter on Mind Unbound, then draw a card for each lore counter on Mind Unbound.
I'd rather play the sphinx, thanks.[/card]
[quote=Arcadic;/comments/5505596] Druidic Satchel 3
Artifact
: Reveal the top card of your library. If it is a creature card, put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token onto the battlefield. If its a land card, put that card onto the batttlefield under your control. If its a noncreature nonland card, you gain 2 life.[/card]
Not a bad limited card, and may even be of some use in constructed, but I'm not sure it does enough there.
For constructed, the angel sucks and the illusion is good. A 5/5 flying for 6 pales in comparison to Baneslayer Angel, and anything she "protects" won't be anywhere near as good as she is, so who cards?
The illusion clone is the same as all other illusions: In constructed, no one plays targeted effects that don't kill the target (Tumble Magnet being the exception, which was only played because of CawBlade, which is now dead), so the drawback is essentially blank, but clone effects have always been on the edge of playable, so it's up to the metagame to decide if [mana]2[/card] to clone something is worth it or not.
I advise you don't think about how Wizards meant to cost it, or about pushing the power level. Simply sit down, shuffle any deck, start playing and randomly cast your card at different times in the game and think about how balanced the interractions are. Think about how you excepted either more or less for that cost. Then, think about it would fare in the current standard and draft. As long as you feel your card is right within those formats, it's usually balanced. That doesn't mean it has to be a competitive card, simply that it doesn't feel out of place, to weak or too strong.
I hope this helps. I know I don't have all the answers but this is the way I see it. Balance is one of those that really comes with practice and lots of experience. I should know, I haven't gotten it right yet :P.
Thanks, this does help somewhat. I think one of my weaknesses is that I tend to take previously printed cards, no matter how old they are, as gospel. I remember back during Lorwyn there was an article on the mothership about how there is no giant chart at Wizards showing what P/T you can get for any particular mana cost, yet I still design cards believing that there is and there should be. Plus there's the fact that I started playing pre-Urza's and subconsciously want to put everything at Ice Age appropriate power-level. I'll keep this in mind and try to push my designs more.
I'm not complaining, but I have to say that I costed my card the way I did because I assumed that at a lower cost I would have been yelled at for obsoleting Flame wave. I guess next time I should take power creep and playability into account.
So as a general question, how do you tell the difference between "this is how Wizards costed this effect and anything lower is unprintable" and "this effect has always been undercosted so try to push it more"?
First off, I love the art. I might have to get a copy just because of that.
Now, while obviously nowhere near the same power as JTMS, Jace 3.0 has the potential to be very, very good in a dedicated mill deck. We don't know what INN will bring, but if it really has a graveyard theme, then mill might be pushed a little more to help balance things out (ie, you might mill yourself a bit to enable whatever mechanics INN has, but this also carries the danger of helping your opponent playing the mill deck). Plus we have the ZEN goodies (Hedron Crab, Archive Trap, ect) to play with for a few months. While he won't see play on the same level as either previous Jace, I expect people to at least experiment with him. With some walls, counterspells, and board wipes, mill might actually be viable.
Rage of the Infected 1R
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature has infect and gets -0/-1.
When enchanted creature dies, chose a creature without infect at random that Rage of the Infected and attach it to that creature.
Even though this is coming a bit late and I never felt that JTMS was that big of a problem, I'm glad they did this. Jace I can take or leave, but Stoneforge really was warping the meta. When nearly all standard decks are basically 4x Stoneforge + 4x mix of swords and Batterskull + 52 other cards, there's obviously a problem. MaRo talks about inter-block synergy, but Stoneforge is the perfect example of them not paying enough attention to that synergy. Wizards knew fully well that the block after Zen would feature a return to Mirroden and would want the printing of numerous and powerful equiptment, yet they allowed a Tinker effect to be printed. And when designing Scars block they knew they had SfM in the format, yet they still printed equiptment that she should not have been allowed anywhete near. Wizards, IMO, should start allowing future sets to have more influence over earlier ones. If they know they want to do something in the next set/block, they need to be more careful about printing cards that can abuse that theme in the previous block, no matter how innocent it appears in a vacuum.
As for Jace, he seems to be a product of the same lack of testing that brought us the stupidity of 'goyf. Perhaps Wizards needs to implement a policy where every card must be playtested in its most current form for X number of days before the set is handed off and forbid any last minute changes.
!
Numot, the Destroyer 3RWU
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying
Whenever Numot, the Destroyer deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 2R. If you do, destroy up to two target non-creature, non-enchantment permenants.
Guardian Daemon 1W
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature blocks or becomes blocked, put a 1/1 Daemon creature token with Changeling onto the battlefield. All creatures blocking or blocked by the enchanted creature are now blocked or blocked by the creature token put into play this way.
I was thinking today how great Runed Halo would be in today's meta. Against Caw-Blade it comes down turn 2 when they're tapped out for mystic, you name Hawk and no longer have to worry and something with evasion swinging a sword. Or you name Jace and they can't fateseal or ultimate you. It stops the Exarch/Twin combo if you name the Exarch, stops Valakut from killing you, Vengevines, makes Gideon useless for anything but his -2, ect. Is there any chance that R&D would put it M12 to help curb the insanity that is Standard?
I assume I can throw a Tribal in there, right? Also, is this card type even legal?
Body Shop 4
Legendary Tribal Artifact - Juggernaut
Whenever a Juggernaut creature you control would die (to use the M12 terminology), instead regenerate it and put 2 -1/-1 counters on it.
At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a -1/-1 counter from each Juggernaut creature you control.
Aside: I *heart* Takklemaggot. It has such awesome flavor.
Compleation Worm 1:sympb::sympb:
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature without Infect
Enchanted Creature has Infect. (This effect doesn't remove Compleation Worm)
At the beginning of the upkeep of enchanted creature's controller, put a -1/-1 counter on that creature.
When enchanted creature is put into a graveyard, choose a creature that Compleation Worm could enchant. If you do, return Compleation Worm to the battlefield under your control attached to that creature. If you don't, return Compleation Worm to the battlefield under your control as a non-Aura enchantment and target the controller of the last creature Compleation Worm enchanted. It loses "enchant creature" and gains "At the beginning of that player's upkeep, that player gets a poison counter."
Wow, I'm surprised they actually printed this. A good white enchantment that completely neuters R and B decks and demands every other deck run enchantment removal and/or bounce? Awesome. A 4-of in every white deck as long as it's legal. Of course, it does point to Wizards pushing mill as as an alternate win-con during INN. Why else print a card the so obviously hoses all decks that depend on damage, including infect?
I'd rather play the sphinx, thanks.[/card]
[quote=Arcadic;/comments/5505596] Druidic Satchel 3
Artifact
: Reveal the top card of your library. If it is a creature card, put a 1/1 green Saproling creature token onto the battlefield. If its a land card, put that card onto the batttlefield under your control. If its a noncreature nonland card, you gain 2 life.[/card]
Not a bad limited card, and may even be of some use in constructed, but I'm not sure it does enough there.
The illusion clone is the same as all other illusions: In constructed, no one plays targeted effects that don't kill the target (Tumble Magnet being the exception, which was only played because of CawBlade, which is now dead), so the drawback is essentially blank, but clone effects have always been on the edge of playable, so it's up to the metagame to decide if [mana]2[/card] to clone something is worth it or not.
Thanks, this does help somewhat. I think one of my weaknesses is that I tend to take previously printed cards, no matter how old they are, as gospel. I remember back during Lorwyn there was an article on the mothership about how there is no giant chart at Wizards showing what P/T you can get for any particular mana cost, yet I still design cards believing that there is and there should be. Plus there's the fact that I started playing pre-Urza's and subconsciously want to put everything at Ice Age appropriate power-level. I'll keep this in mind and try to push my designs more.
So as a general question, how do you tell the difference between "this is how Wizards costed this effect and anything lower is unprintable" and "this effect has always been undercosted so try to push it more"?
Now, while obviously nowhere near the same power as JTMS, Jace 3.0 has the potential to be very, very good in a dedicated mill deck. We don't know what INN will bring, but if it really has a graveyard theme, then mill might be pushed a little more to help balance things out (ie, you might mill yourself a bit to enable whatever mechanics INN has, but this also carries the danger of helping your opponent playing the mill deck). Plus we have the ZEN goodies (Hedron Crab, Archive Trap, ect) to play with for a few months. While he won't see play on the same level as either previous Jace, I expect people to at least experiment with him. With some walls, counterspells, and board wipes, mill might actually be viable.
Enchantment - Aura
Enchanted creature has infect and gets -0/-1.
When enchanted creature dies, chose a creature without infect at random that Rage of the Infected and attach it to that creature.
Next: Illusions of Grandeur.
As for Jace, he seems to be a product of the same lack of testing that brought us the stupidity of 'goyf. Perhaps Wizards needs to implement a policy where every card must be playtested in its most current form for X number of days before the set is handed off and forbid any last minute changes.
!
Numot, the Destroyer 3RWU
Legendary Creature - Dragon
Flying
Whenever Numot, the Destroyer deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 2R. If you do, destroy up to two target non-creature, non-enchantment permenants.
Next: Teneb, the Harvester (gotta finish the cycle!)
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=314097
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature blocks or becomes blocked, put a 1/1 Daemon creature token with Changeling onto the battlefield. All creatures blocking or blocked by the enchanted creature are now blocked or blocked by the creature token put into play this way.
Next: Princess Mononoke - Creature, non-human
Body Shop 4
Legendary Tribal Artifact - Juggernaut
Whenever a Juggernaut creature you control would die (to use the M12 terminology), instead regenerate it and put 2 -1/-1 counters on it.
At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a -1/-1 counter from each Juggernaut creature you control.
Next: Grey's Anatomy - Enchantment.
Compleation Worm 1:sympb::sympb:
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant Creature without Infect
Enchanted Creature has Infect. (This effect doesn't remove Compleation Worm)
At the beginning of the upkeep of enchanted creature's controller, put a -1/-1 counter on that creature.
When enchanted creature is put into a graveyard, choose a creature that Compleation Worm could enchant. If you do, return Compleation Worm to the battlefield under your control attached to that creature. If you don't, return Compleation Worm to the battlefield under your control as a non-Aura enchantment and target the controller of the last creature Compleation Worm enchanted. It loses "enchant creature" and gains "At the beginning of that player's upkeep, that player gets a poison counter."
Next: Singing Tree