MTG Salvation

Lots of bear ness lol. I like weird but powerful tutors. Has an Acorn Catapult feel to it. Makes Grizzly Bears instead of just bear tokens. Nice touch.

It seems like it would be very hard to get this necromancer's ability to ever trigger. Unless a format was solved into a really degenerate siege rhino state where every deck has the same creatures, it would be hard to actually get creatures matching random opponents, let alone with the extra hurdle of filling them into your bin. Its interesting to reward decks for building around a mix of popular creatures to get such a payoff, but even if you had a matching creature in your graveyard, it still creates a punisher scenario. Your opponent still gets to choose whether to cast the creature, and if they simply hold it back, this is no better than if it read "Opponents may not cast creature spells that share a name with a creature card in your graveyard". If they're casting it anyway, its because they think its advantageous even with your necromancer on the field.
It might be more usable if it looked at sharing a type rather than a name. That would reward people for building a wide variety of types, although changelings would do it. Otherwise its a neat idea.


Stare Into The Abyss 1UB
Sorcery (U)
Surveil 3 (To surveil 3, look at the top three cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)
You may cast Stare Into The Abyss from your graveyard.

Stare into the Abyss should exile itself, or even more fun, put itself on the bottom of your library just saying. But otherwise I don't think it's to bad.

Eternity Mirror
Legendary Artifact
(Cards with no mana cost cannot be cast.)
If this would be put into the graveyard from anywhere by a spell or ability an opponant controls, put it on the battlefield with a number of counters on it equal to your life total.
At the beginning of each end step, your life total becomes equal to the number of counters on this, then add a counter.

Humm its interesting that eternity mirror is a nombo that loses you the game with traditional ways to cheat in no-mana-cost cards like cascade or electrodominance. You just lose at end of turn. But otherwise its a bit problematic that you've got what is essentially a very unique and not necessarily always gamewinning effect that's coupled to an extremely narrow type of hosing that really only applies to non-selective discard and milling. Since you have no way at all to force an opponent into this and can't build around it. And then against mill, it doesn't do anything anyway, and against discard it might horribly punish a mind rot effect, but can still be overcome by large enough one-turn-damage and they can just not cast such discard spells. So maybe there's some interesting applications like eternity vessel for the mechanic

Guerilla Tactics 1RR
Enchantment (R)
At the beginning of each end step, return all creatures you control to their owner's hand.
You may cast creature spells as though they had flash.
Creatures you control have haste.

Very powerful to have all creatures have dash and flash. I mean I love the card and would play it. In EDH this is one of those cards that needs targeted but you never really want to be the one to spend resources on it and the table starts bickering and pointing out that you can easily spare the resources and now all untapped mana is a source of social tension lol

Invigoration - It's an instresting idea. But I would just give them indestructable instead of the wierd wording of this effect lasts indefinatly.

Wildwoods
Legendary Land - Forest
Indestructible
Enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add G to your mana pool. You may play a creature card in your hand as if it had flash.

Savage Seas
Legendary Land - Island
Indestructible
Enters the Battlefield tapped.
T: Add U to your mana pool. If you spend this on an instant, draw a card.

Stormpeaks
Legendary Land - Mountain
Indestructible
ETBT
T: Add R to your mana pool. If you spend this on a sorcery spell, that spell cannot be countered.

Forgotten Moor
Legendary Land - Mountain
Indestructible
ETBT
T: Add B to your mana pool. If you spend this on a creature spell, you may return a creature from your graveyard to your hand.

Blasted Hearth
Legendary Land - Plains
Indestructible
ETBT
T: Add W to your mana pool. If you spend this on an enchantment, gain life equal to that cards converted mana cost.

Each of the lands as listed is far too powerful. Legendary and ETBT aren't big enough drawbacks to staple card repeatable card advantage or lifegain to spells. As written, a card like Savage Seas would basically be a free card drawn on every turn in the right deck, busting it more than the power 9. ETBT is enough of a drawback to allow extra access to colors or some minor utility that either requires more resources invested (ex memorial to folly). But allowing what is just extra card advantage per turn for no drawback beyond ETBT and deck construction hurdles like 'lots of instants', is way too strong.
Wildwoods and Stormpeaks are closer though, and Blasted Hearth could have some potential if it took some more resources invested. Stormpeaks is like Cavern of Souls and Boseiju, Who Shelters All, while Wildwoods is like Alchemist's Refuge and Winding Canyons

Fblthp 3UU
Legendary Creature - Homunculus (R)
Hexproof, Skulk
When Fblthp enters the battlefield, you may put another target nonland permanent on top of its owner's library.
Reveal Fblthp from your hand: Shuffle Fblthp into your library. The next time you draw a card named Fblthp, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
1/2

Five mana for such a strong ability on an evasive body is very good, and a nice homage to Humongulus AND Totally Lost. The second ability I guess helps flavorfully show how lost Fblthp could be, but I can't say for sure why that ability would be of any use, especially because it would cause memory issues.

So here's a legendary I designed a while back to mess around with my EDH Cube but never got to playtest. Any thoughts?

Grosha, Swarm Caliph WBG
Legendary Creature - Insect Cleric (Mythic Rare)
Vigilance, menace
Whenever a creature you control with power 2 or less deals combat damage to a player, create a 1/1 black and green Insect creature token unless that player discards a card.
Whenever an opponent discards a card, you gain life equal to that card's converted mana cost.
2/3

I love Vigilance and menace together so much. It conveys a lot of battle prowess flavor. I don't think any opponent will elect to discard very often. The swarm slowly multiplies if unchecked and supports the discard theme well with the second ability. I like this card a good bit

First - I guess I’ll just post without critiquing a card because the previous post was just that.

Second - I never did get one for my previous card so here it is again:

Shove-off Slope
: Add C.
2RR , , tap an untapped creature you control, sacrifice another creature: Shove-Off Slope deals damage equal to the sacrificed creature’s toughness to any target.

It’s damage equal to toughness because it’s part of a setting concept where that matters more than power for some things.

Third - here’s an all-emblem walker:
???, Standard-Bearer 2WW
Legendary Planeswalker - ???
+1: You get an Emblem with “At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 1. If you do, you gain 2 life.”
-2: You get an Emblem with “Whenever you gain life, you may pay 1. If you do, create a 1/1 white Humsn Soldier Creature token.”
-5: You get an Emblem with “Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, put +1/+1 counters on it equal to the amount of life you gained this turn.”
3

A bit too text-heavy for an actual card? Sure, but bear with me on this, okay?

Shove-Off Slope: 4 mana (5, really, since it's a land), tapping a creature, and saccing another one feels really steep, even for repeatable damage to any target. I'd probably argue that repeatable damage to any target isn't healthy for the game, actually. On the flip side, I find the idea of a land whose main purpose is to be there to toss creatures off of rather hilarious.

???, Standard-Bearer: I think this creates more memory issues than it's worth, honestly. Emblems are intended to be scarce for good reason. That said, I'm sure time will prove me wrong, so as for balance: 2WW for 4 loyalty points and an everlasting gain 2 life is proooooobably fine. 4 mana for 1 loyalty points and an everlasting 1/1 every time you gain life/pay for it is also probably fine. Those are both much better if they can be destroyed, but...whatever. The final ability...feels a little underwhelming, but it's probably more powerful than I'm thinking. But there are a LOT of memory needs here.

Sphinx Bomb 3UR
Instant (R)
Return up to five target creatures to their owners' hands.
Untap each red creature. Tap each non-red creature. Sphinx Bomb deals 1 damage to each creature tapped or untapped this way.
The better question is "What riddle doesn't it solve?"

Well, the two lines are both interesting on their own. Its quite a powerful effect to have a mass unsummon like this, and at five targets- up to five, so not a drawback like hex- its comparable to one-sided sweepers like Inundate or wash out. That's already a pretty scary effect at instant speed, even at 5 mana. It might be fairly costed, but that's enough of a card. But the untap/tap/damage line winds up being rather unsynergistic. In most cases you cast this spell, you'll be bouncing your entire opponent's board. So you don't gain much by untapping since you won't need them to block, nor need to tap down the opponent's board or deal damage to them. A lot of the time it will do very little or nothing at all, especially if you build to mitigate it as a drawback. Still, its an interesting effect as a 'riddle' of a spell, and I think there's potential to build a design focused more on that second line

Frost Vampire 1UUB
Creature - Vampire (R)
Flying
Frost Vampire deals damage in the form of frost counters. For as long as a permanent has a frost counter on it, it can't attack or block, and its activated abilities can't be activated.
At the beginning of each opponent's end step, that player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life for each frost counter on them.
2/5

Should really be a snow creature, shouldn't it? I like the card, but feel like it's undercosted. Hard to kill, generally a hard clock, and a cockatrice on top of that...this wouldn't be printed at less than 5cmc.

F-Un Racer RRR
Creature - Goblin Rigger {R}
Picture - Goblin in a race car, sitting on a helmet. The art window is tilted (presumably by g-forces)
Haste, Trample
Whenever F-Un Racer would untap, target opponent instead gains control of it, untapped.
1R: Shuffle target artifact face-up into it's owner's library. Put a +1/+1 counter on F-Un Racer.
If the top card of any library is a face-up artifact card, sacrifice F-Un Racer and it deals damage equal to it's power to you.
All the right moves, none of the left...
4/1

It's logistically hard to shuffle a card containing a face-up card fairly. This is why the most fair implementation of a custom mechanic using face-up cards in the library turned all the cards face-down as part of shuffling. Without a solution to that problem this card doesn't actually work.

You are mixing the wording of triggered abilities and replacement effects in a way that logically does not work. Why not just triggering on untapping without replacement wording if you untap it anyway?

The concepts mixed here (permanent pumping and control change) don't work well together. You also fail to create an intriguing narrative to explain what the mechanics mean despite giving an art description and employing flavor text. My best guess is that the goblin drives any artifact as a race car. I suggest building on that or otherwise creating a narrative for the library interaction or the controller change which are right now inexplicable parts of the design.

Haste is a well-chosen part of the design.

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Delirious Piper 2R
Creature – Satyr Reveler (C)
When ~ enters the battlefield, creatures target opponent controls attack during that player's next combat if able.
2/2

I like delirious piper, a very red effect. It is not a “may” ability so The opponent’s creatures always must attack, clearing the way for a counter attack if the player playing the piper survives the initial attack. Also doubles as selective removal similar to the provoke mechanic, but with more downside. My only suggestion is that I feel the effect might be too powerful for a common. Then again maybe not, it depends on the limited environment the card would be played in.

Etherial Oppressor WW
Creature - Spirit Horror
Flying
Permanents your opponents’ control lose all non-mana abilities on your turn.
“Shhhh... It’s coming”
2/1

Quote from DarklingScribe2 »

Etherial Oppressor WW
Creature - Spirit Horror
Flying
Permanents your opponents’ control lose all non-mana abilities on your turn.
“Shhhh... It’s coming”
2/1

That's more than a hate-bear. The ability-suppression hits so much that I'd expect it to appear on more expensive creature. Even if it works in the rules I'm not a fan of this abilities interaction with CDAs.

It's a neat interaction that this has flying and keeps opponents from having abilities that enable them to block any creature with flying, but once again seems like too much on such a cheap card.

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Pheres-Band Ravagers 1RG
Creature – Centaur Reveler (R)
Tribute 2 (As this creature enters the battlefield, an opponent of your choice may place two +1/+1 counters on it.)
At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose an opponent at random. ~ attacks that player this combat if able.
~ can't attack players that paid tribute to it.
5/5

That's certainly a more interesting use of the tribute punisher mechanic than anything wizards actually did with it. It creates a whole lot of choice in a multiplayer game. I'd be a bit worried about its utility in a 1v1 when its just used as either a 5/5 or 7/7 'defender', either of which could be busted at 3 mana in the right shell- it would be a very powerful blocker. I guess there's an argument that a '5/5 with a downside for 3' still wouldn't be oppressive in standard, so its not like some fling deck could reliably build around it. Maybe it could also say 'can't block creatures controlled by players that paid tribute to it'? But that makes it worse in EDH

Djinn's Lamp 6
Artifact (R)
Djinn's Lamp enters the battlefield with three wish counters on it.
T, tap an untapped creature you control and remove a wish counter from Djinn's Lamp: Create a 7/7 blue djinn creature token with flying, trample, first strike and haste. Exile that token at the beginning of the next end step.

I like the idea of making a djinni three times, but isn't the point of the djinni in the lamp to grant a wish three times, not beat face three times? Flavor-wise, I think that's a bit off.

Playability-wise, the fact that it's not legendary means that you can just spam with combos in Commander to get a ton of 7/7 creatures with relevant keywords, one of them being haste. I think that the token it creates should at least be legendary, but that's just my opinion.

On the other hand, here's my card idea:

I like this but maybe an additional mana or two? It requires setup, yes, but repeatable LD is still strong.

Power Through RG
Instant
Power Through can’t be countered.
Add two mana in any combination of colors. If this mana is used to cast a spell, it can’t be countered.
Draw a card.

I'd be worried how manamorphose has already warped some combo decks, that adding another 4 copies could push certain archetypes into bad places. And while the colors are clearly more restrictive, that wouldn't be tough if the deck is RG, at which point its one much scarier upgraded manamorphose. Still I wonder how much need for the uncounterability clause there is compared to just another determined, insist or overmaster. Or abeyance

Tuning Fork 3
Artifact (U)
T: Choose a type of counter on target permanent with one, two or three of those counters on it. Add or remove counters to set it to one, two or three counters of that type.

Having the ability to add or remove counters on any permanent is really powerful. Thinking about cards that could easily be a bit problematic would be Thing in the Ice or Hadana's Climb. I would probably add a 1 or 2 to the ability to make it a bit fair.

Now For my Card
Call The Fleet 3UB
Enchantment {R}
Creature spells you cast have "Raid - whenever this creature enters the Battlefield, if you attacked with a Creature this turn, you may search your library for a creature card with the same name as that creature, reveal it and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library."
Creatures you control get +1/+1 for each other creature with the same name as that creature.

Hmm. I’m trying to figure out if this is in colors for UB. Probably yes. The second effect is definitely something Black does. It’s very splashy but at that cost it’s kind of late. Also I’m not sure if that temptations works.

Exuberant Dialogue 1RR
Sorcery
You and target player each discard any number of cards then draw that many.
Draw a card.

Perhaps it should specify that both players choose their own number? That's what it would do and what I assume you intended, but it might be slightly ambiguous and lead to people thinking the casting player chooses the number and both players discard/draw that many. As far as wheel effects go, I like this one. Without the symmetrical drawback I think it would be too strong, but with it, it seems balanced. Heartwarming Redemption/Fateful Showdown show wizards are pretty cautious about wheels and make sure they don't improve card selection, even if they've got an upside at instant speed- its still 4 mana. Pretty good flavor for the symmetry.

Mephistopheles's Contract B
Sorcery (M)
Discard your hand, then draw seven cards. An opponent of your choice controls you until the end of your next turn. As long as that player controls you, they may gain control of cards they play from your hand. (Permanents they gain control of this way will remain under their control indefinitely)

You’re right about the ambiguity but I’m not sure how to make the templatkng clearer.

Anyway, your card! That’s so fun yet so dangerous. I love it! Costed exactly right too.

Vicious Dialogue 1BB
Sorcery
Draw a card
Discard any number of cards, then target player discards that many cards.

Edit: hmm, actually, a change. It looks a bit like rummaging this way but I guess it can’t be helped. Hopefully the templating makes it clear it’s something like uhh hmm, a pre-cantrip?

I'm not entirely sure that this card needs the cantrip on it. It's plenty good on its own. I'm not sure making your discard an additional cost would make it better or worse, but it'd be a change that I'd consider.

Here's a simple (and short) storm fuel card.

Feed the Storm -- R
Sorcery (U)
Add R.
Storm