MTG Salvation

I love Lynx_AngeloC's card today. The effect is most likely white but the card itself is incredible.

Quote from Koopa

I love Lynx_AngeloC's card today. The effect is most likely white but the card itself is incredible.

Totally agree

Thanks to the timing of the migration to the new site, the thread for the 3rd will either go up extremely early (before 6am Pacific time) or late (either someone puts it up as soon as the new site is live, or I don't put it up until after 7pm Pacific time).

In the former case, I'm leaning toward posting it shortly after midnight without updating the scores until 7pm. (In the latter case, to get it up at a reasonable time, someone other than me will have the joy of working with the new poll system. I will be updating the "how to make the thread" portion to reflect the changes in how that works.)

Any preferences from the rest of you? Let me know before ~10pm tomorrow.

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And re: Lynx_AngeloC's card in today's poll, the correct wording is just "Activated abilities without T in their costs cost an additional T to activate."... but it interacts badly with Q abilities. Really badly. So I didn't vote for it.

/vote late

Can someone explain this to me? Is first number your total for the month? And second number what you added the previous day? Also, what is the " * " for next to someones name? Just trying to understand it all. Thanks

Yes, yes, and the * indicates an active probation.

Quote from Koopa

I love Lynx_AngeloC's card today. The effect is most likely white but the card itself is incredible.

Wait. You like a card that makes it impossible to tap most of printed lands for mana?

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Voting Today:

MDenham, IlGreven

I'm a sucker for noncreature tribal and collecting Totems makes sense. It's actually a weak metalcraft, but the flavor makes Pyrefield Totemist a more intriguing idea.

While I don't believe transmogrify is a good mechanic to expand upon it shows some thinking outside the box and seems like something you can explore - even if in the end you just use a derived idea.
The effect of the trigger seems arbitrary.

Why I didn't vote for other people:

waven
For one Silverfang is just another card that is "powerful because its mythic".
On the other hand the card also just adds on only tenuously related abilities. "Pseudo-evolve" has actually negative synergy with the boost of the first ability.

admirableadmiral
The design of Faceless Betrayer actually comes close to being my favorite, but I feel the trigger condition is all wrong - at least with the given rarity.
This could easily have triggered on any creature dying and be reasonable - even if you feed a changeling to it that should be an acceptable trick to do with a rare.
I liked keeping it monoblack.

GameWorldLeader
Three pretty ordinary abilities just put together. Not exactly french vanilla, but close. Too many more interesting designs for me to take a second look at Malicious Fang.

Ruggley
Somehow I suspect you have been working together with swishh, because Mirror of Vitality makes much more sense when combined with another card. I might have voted this recognizing the first ability as just something to help with such a combo, but two things stopped me:
1) The flavor text actually doesn't feel right. If you include it, make it work completely.
2) I think just keeping this too yourself makes this card too good an aggro killer. It's two Ajani's Mantra at the same cmc, but for any deck.

Koopa
This comes all down to color and small choices.
When I can come up with a small fix to make a card more consistent or feel better it's a mark against it. Did you ever think about replacing the neo-Oblivion ring wording with... phasing? It seems confounding not to use the ability you return from the past more consistently.
And once you make this little change it becomes clear that the card can be blue - the color it wants to be with the name Phantom Tide anyway.

maximumbuttitude
Short version: Close to french vanilla doesn't cut it today.

Lynx_AngeloC
I actually like cards like Brittlewood Treefolk that try to tell a story. Blue mana being used to add water to a plant and red mana to burn it is a common concept everyone gets. It's maybe a little too common since I've seen similar cads time and time again.
It comes down to me having only two votes here - simple as that. Sorry.

CryoZenith
This kind of ability feels more natural on a creature like Malignus. Also green's life gain would make basing the power on your own life total like the obvious choice. Sometimes the game ending Timmy card can be one of many variations, and I feel you have chosen the wrong one.

Ink-Treader
why is this card called Irritable Psychopomp. It's a good idea to have the card tell a story about the origin of the two tokens, but in the end there is no reason this story has to revolve around someone irritable or someone psycho or someone pomp.
There is also always a little apprehension about making different token types and I don't feel follow the light at all - at least not on this card.

aftermarketradio
Welcome to Asphodel is an average card design. I mentioned before how today required something to set yourself apart. The great name balances out with the tiresome joke in the flavor text.

doombringer
I have seen variants enough of Spellflutter's idea to not feel like rewarding that design anymore unless it does something significantly different.

swishh
Repeated False Cure is a nice enchantment, but this isn't the first time I've seen it, so I reserved my votes for more outstanding designs.
Overall this is placing in the top half nevertheless.

void_nothing
I really like the name to the effect. Imperceptible Hue is a reaaally great name. In the end I am just no fan of lace effects and recoloring three targets actually is less appealing to me than recoloring only one or all of a subset.
I also dislike the ambiguity in the wording - do I choose one color for all of them or one for each. Big issue with this kind of wording.

ClearwaterStilts
This comes down to me imagining the bad feeling for the haunt.dec player who feeds into an opponents Catacomb Screecher and loses by playing their own deck as it's supposed to be.
Also creatures don' haunt creatures, creature cards do.

Silver Seraph
I expect someone could make a good and intriguing card with unleash times three, but this one isn't it. Too many modes are not interesting enough.
I also hate how the static abilities count power rather than +1/+1 counters - I imagine players shooting themselves in the foot by pumping a trampling Reckless Reveler for the win... just to see it chump blocked. Why should that interaction exist?

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Cheers.

Quote from SecretInfiltrator

Ink-Treader
why is this card called Irritable Psychopomp. It's a good idea to have the card tell a story about the origin of the two tokens, but in the end there is no reason this story has to revolve around someone irritable or someone psycho or someone pomp.
There is also always a little apprehension about making different token types and I don't feel follow the light at all - at least not on this card.

I just noticed this. You're right. I was having a HELL of a time coming up with an adjective. (As for what a psychopomp (it's a real word) is, it's a guide for lost souls essentially.)

I just spent two and a half hours shoveling snow, and I have to head off to work.

So someone else gets to post today's thread. You know the drill based on the last six days. No poll, and I'll update the spreadsheet when I get home tonight.

I've Got This... Under Control.

Also, there's one card that I REALLY wanted to vote for today, but couldn't once I realized it was a conditionally permanent lock for 3 mana, or even a forced draw. "As an additional cost" isn't the right way to structure that card.

Seems people didn't really enjoy Torn from Reality. I thought the forced sacrifice and the XXX cost really lent itself to an Eldrazi spell.
Was it colour pie concerns, power level or just not interesting enough?
Anyway I've done another crack at the pray mechanic today.

Quote from Doombringer

Seems people didn't really enjoy Torn from Reality. I thought the forced sacrifice and the XXX cost really lent itself to an Eldrazi spell.
Was it colour pie concerns, power level or just not interesting enough?
Anyway I've done another crack at the pray mechanic today.

Quote from Doombringer

Votes: IlGreven & ClearwaterStilts

Torn from Reality XXX
Tribal Instant - Eldrazi {U}
Choose up to X target creatures an opponent controls. He or she sacrifices those creatures. If a creature sacrificed this way would die this turn, exile it instead.

To me the question whether I like this mechanic would be decided already on the most simple test for spells with in their cost: Do I accept the spell at X=1, X=2 etc.

Look at this spell:

That's not just giving removal to colors outside of black. That's giving complete unconditional removal getting around a weakness that black has to colors outside of black (as well as black). So, yeah, that is a color pie issue, but I wouldn't even like:

It still is an unconditional removal spell that seems to exist solely to get around indestructible. I'd argue it's getting borderline since now we reach the part, where I would still not vote for it in a vaccum, but would consider it on a slow day (i. e. I wouldn't feel bad voting it over cards less deserving). So let's say you had designed the card with multikicker:


This removes color pie issues, but still pushes on towards strong unconditional removal that persists into the late game.

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You might also notice that I removed the exile clause almost immediately from those cards. It just seems excessive - I know you want to paint a picture to go with the name, but then again I feel the card would have benefited more from trying to tie to the Eldrazi theme rather than building its own theme - neither annihilator nor All is Dust add an exiling clause - you break the theme on this card to establish a new theme - while that's not a dealbreaker (we're long past that) it's just another thing that makes this feel less like a design building upon the existing mechanical identity.

Some of the stuff that came out today is broke as Germany in the early 1920s. A Peacekeeper that may only hit your opponents, a removal-proof card to lock your opponent out of the game potentially permanently, and I'm pretty shady on the 1st turn combo enabler - reminds me a BIT too much of Channel in black.

I was trying to make it so that it hosed tokens as well, but the wording was goof'd. With casting creatures, you'd have to have something at CMC 0, and even then I'm pretty sure that an infinite loop like that would need to be broken by The Player Who's Casting since it's an optional thing? (do I have that rule wrong, maybe I do) I'll edit it out anyway.

Original wording for reference:
Ejecting Blast WBR
Sorcery (R)
Ejecting Blast deals 5 damage to target creature. If that creature would die this way, exile it instead, and creatures with the same name as the exiled creature can’t enter the battlefield for the rest of the game.

I'm gonna still disagree on two grounds:

1) Worms of the Earth and its rulings. And actually I just found -
608.3b If a permanent spell resolves but its controller can't put it onto the battlefield, that player puts it into its owner's graveyard.
There ya go! The spell still resolves in my new version, but it just goes to the dead zone.

2) Flavor. I don't want the creatures to ever THINK they can hit the battlefield. Foolish critters.

EDITED: also I think this means my initial wording actually works. Sweet.

Double postin' because this is the least active thread in the universe -

Ninetailedfox, I'd be careful about the wording on Peddling Bairn. When a creature ETBs with counters on it, you "place" those counters (see Corpsejack Menace), so this would turn Shifting Wall and Phyrexian Marauder into "Draw X and get X/X for X colorless." Also all the hydras.

Re: activity and double posting: Double posting in here is fine within reason (I figure two hours between posts is okay in this thread as there might be an intervening card in the day's thread), but yeah, activity has fallen way off since the forum switchover.

Unrelated: I finally got the spreadsheet all put together to handle the whole year and give me a nice summary page! :-D

Clarification on the Woe mechanic - when do you get the emblem for "can't draw cards" ? If that triggered when you cast it like I think it does, that'd be the most counterspellable mechanic ever.

maximumbuttitude: Acoustic Volley has just one small problem. Overloaded, its text becomes:

"Copy each instant or sorcery spell not named Acoustic Volley. You may choose new eachs for each spell copied this way."

This is a situation where it'd have to just be Kicker 2 + "If Acoustic Volley was kicked, copy each instant or sorcery spell not named Acoustic Volley instead." to work correctly.

Whoops! I didn't even think of that, dang. It seemed like too easy of an idea to work...

Yeah, it's one of those bizarre edge cases of how Overload works. It's still kind of funny, though. ("Up to <number> target whatevers" in conjunction with Overload is another one.)

> looks at my card for the day
> "controllers's"
> I'm So cool at spell a word

Also I'd be terrified to face off against a UG deck running Flobgut Pincher. He's far over the curve no matter which way you cast him - 2 cards and a 1/1 for UU? I'd splash blue just to run four in every deck.

If someone else would handle getting today's thread up, I'd appreciate it. I'm stuck using my wife's netbook with its "irregularly functional" keyboard, and I don't know when I'll be back home today.

I think I even counted right this time!

I forgot to make it lose double strike in that ability, actually. The whole cycle is supposed to be "offensive ability turns off, gains defender and you get two mana of the appropriate color". Not quite sure what white or blue would use off the top of my head, though (green would be a 4/4 flying+trample, black a 3/4 flying+deathtouch).