Hey just finished looking through your set. Nice work I really like it.
Especially the flavor. Quest Hubs, and wanderlust really resonated with me. And it's cool to see expansion on gold and you made some really interesting cards in that regard. I took some notes with my thoughts
Well, thank you so much! And thanks for your critiques.
Power level issues
Split the Seas
Because you get to pick the pile, this is easily the best bounce spell ever printed. I'd compare this with withdraw or whiplash trap or Echoing Truth for a sense of the target power level. This bounces on average, half of your opponents nonland permanents. Should either have your opponent choose the pile and you separate or cost around five mana.
We've played with it and it's good, but not too good. You have to keep in mind that you often also have permanents that you do want to get bounced, and you can put them into the pile your opponent is most likely to pick. Say you attack with a creature, opponent blocks, you play a pump spell, and the opponent plays a Split the Seas. You put your attacking creature and a Quest Hub into one pile, and your other creatures into the other pile. Whatever your opponent chooses, it's not good for him.
Final Foray
Just a bit to cheap. This is actually a danger ability on the wizards design list. It's almost always paired with another effect (like Cauldron Dance) to justify making it very costly because of how easy it is to abuse. See footsteps of the goryo which doesn't grant haste for a power level reference. This also grants a bonus ability. Everything else around this mana cost (e.g. Goryo's Vengeance) are highly restrictive. Suggest around five
I'm more inclined to agree here. The question is, how much of a mistake is Goryo's Vengeance considered? I don't know whether similar effects have been printed since then.
Crown of the Hermit
The effect has since been printed (assault formation) cheaper and applying to all your creatures. And I feel that sort of costing is much closer to appropriate. Not that it has to be competitive but I felt it a little outside the tolerance range. I recommend decreased costs and maybe a bigger buff.
The card isn't very good, but I've seen it played in the drafts and it was alright in a Turtle deck.
Pool of Eternal Youth
It's fine if you don't visualize your sets in the context of the greater game, in which case this is fine. But in a world with fetches this is absurd and required for every competitive deck in the game. It essentially increases all hand sizes by one land, because fetches allow you to play it if you don't crack them until your next turn. Suggest adding an additional cost (while searching your library, you may play ~ if you pay and additional 2 to play ~)
This is the most dangerous card in the set. It's abusable with fetchlands, but for Standard it would be fine. The question is how much it would impact Modern. It would definitely have a significant impact on the format, but would it make the format worse? It's interesting to think about; that's why I like the card.
Clash of Armadas
I found reading this to be very confusing and wordy. I came up with an alternative wording that reads better in my opinion
For each creature, that creature deals damage equal to its power to each creature its controller doesn't control and each of its controller's opponents
Gold
considering you healthy usage of Gold, I see no problem with making the gold ability reminder text, e.g.
When blah blah attacks, put a artifact Gold token into play (Gold tokens have "Sacrifice this: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool")
This would allow you to dramatically shorten the text on rares, as you can just not show the reminder text. Wizards does this sort of thing all the time. Hell, if you wanna be really liberal you can add the typing to the reminder text as well and just call them Gold tokens.
No, I don't think it's a good idea to tie rules text to subtypes.
Also, several Squid in the set have the creature type Octopus. Squid is a legitimate creature type.
You have to limit the range of creature types somewhat, as sea monster (Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents) tribal should encompass all these creatures.
Quest Hub
I loved Quest Hub; one of my favorite implementations of this sort of thing so far. I especially like that you included quest titles. I would change the formatting though as it can currently create confusion pretty easily if for example, you add text to the quest with say Balduvian Shaman or shenanigans involving opalescence. You need a way to specify that those two are the only quests and not other abilities added later. I recommend something like this (subtle moving of card draw to end included)
The quest hub ability defines that all abilities in the lower boxes are to be treated as quest abilities. They have the special property that they are removed from the enchantment as they are activated. Quest hub also creates a trigger that sacrifices the enchantment when it no longer has quest abilities. All other abilities or card text the enchantment could have would go in the top-most box, and wouldn't be quest abilities.
[quote from="Legend »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/custom-set-creation-and/575539-ovw-overworld-250-250-in-playtesting?comment=50"]Tidebinder Staff / Tidal Passage: In this set, all colors have a power matters theme, and as Circeus pointed out, there are a lot more precedences than just Taigam's Strike, so I don't really see the problem.
I also said a) merely something that did not outright violate the color pie and b) two such effect in a single set seriously do strain my suspension of color pie disbelief (it's been once every few sets so far!).
I made this document with small script that lists all .jpg files in a directory and creates a LateX code from the list. I can share it if anyone is interested.
I generated the string for the card includes with this script. It is written in MATLAB. Since I understand you're a programmer, I think you should be able to make sense of it and rewrite it in whatever you use. The script requires an ordered card list as a text file. I used the Isochron Drafter exporter and made the script remove all lines that aren't card names. You have to remove all special characters first that don't appear in the file names.
function [latexcode] = setpresentation(cardlist)
list = importdata(cardlist); %Imports Isochron Drafter card list.
list = list(2:end); %Fixes bug with reading first line.
list = list(not(strcmp(list,'') + strcmp(list,'common') + strcmp(list,'uncommon') + strcmp(list,'rare') + strcmp(list,'mythic rare') + strcmp(list,'basic land'))); %Removes all empty lines and card types.
latexcode = '\begin{figure}[H]'; %Start of latex code.
basic = 0;
basictype = 'Plains';
for i = 1:size(list,1)
if exist(strcat(char(list(i)),'.jpg'),'file') %Checks if image file exists
if mod(i,3) == 1 && i ~= 1 %Three images in one line.
latexcode = strcat(latexcode,'\end{figure}\begin{figure}[H]'); %String concatenation of current string with new suffix.
end
if strcmp(list(i),'Plains') || strcmp(list(i),'Island') || strcmp(list(i),'Swamp') || strcmp(list(i),'Mountain') || strcmp(list(i),'Forest') %Code to list all basics, Forest 1, Forest 2, etc. Can be skipped if only one basic of each type.
if not(strcmp(list(i),basictype))
basic = 0;
end
if basic == 0
latexcode = strcat(latexcode,'\includegraphics[width=0.333\textwidth]{./',list(i),'.jpg}'); %First basic, for example Forest.jpg
else
latexcode = strcat(latexcode,'\includegraphics[width=0.333\textwidth]{./',list(i),'.',int2str(basic),'.jpg}'); %Adds for example Forest.1.jpg, Forest.2.jpg etc.
end
basic = basic + 1;
basictype = list(i);
else
latexcode = strcat(latexcode,'\includegraphics[width=0.333\textwidth]{./',list(i),'.jpg}'); %For all cards other than basics.
end
else
disp(strcat({'Could not find image for '},list(i))); %If image doesn't exist.
end
if i == size(list,1)
latexcode = strcat(latexcode,'\end{figure}'); %After last image. End of latex code.
end
end
Well, thank you so much! And thanks for your critiques.
We've played with it and it's good, but not too good. You have to keep in mind that you often also have permanents that you do want to get bounced, and you can put them into the pile your opponent is most likely to pick. Say you attack with a creature, opponent blocks, you play a pump spell, and the opponent plays a Split the Seas. You put your attacking creature and a Quest Hub into one pile, and your other creatures into the other pile. Whatever your opponent chooses, it's not good for him.
I'm more inclined to agree here. The question is, how much of a mistake is Goryo's Vengeance considered? I don't know whether similar effects have been printed since then.
The card isn't very good, but I've seen it played in the drafts and it was alright in a Turtle deck.
This is the most dangerous card in the set. It's abusable with fetchlands, but for Standard it would be fine. The question is how much it would impact Modern. It would definitely have a significant impact on the format, but would it make the format worse? It's interesting to think about; that's why I like the card.
I'll try to find a better wording.
No, I don't think it's a good idea to tie rules text to subtypes.
Another name then. The "domesticated" is meant to be in jest.
I agree. This doesn't make any sense.
Hand of Nolgul, or something similar, then.
You have to limit the range of creature types somewhat, as sea monster (Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents) tribal should encompass all these creatures.
The quest hub ability defines that all abilities in the lower boxes are to be treated as quest abilities. They have the special property that they are removed from the enchantment as they are activated. Quest hub also creates a trigger that sacrifices the enchantment when it no longer has quest abilities. All other abilities or card text the enchantment could have would go in the top-most box, and wouldn't be quest abilities.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
I also said a) merely something that did not outright violate the color pie and b) two such effect in a single set seriously do strain my suspension of color pie disbelief (it's been once every few sets so far!).
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!
I'd be very interested in this.
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
I generated the string for the card includes with this script. It is written in MATLAB. Since I understand you're a programmer, I think you should be able to make sense of it and rewrite it in whatever you use. The script requires an ordered card list as a text file. I used the Isochron Drafter exporter and made the script remove all lines that aren't card names. You have to remove all special characters first that don't appear in the file names.
Completed sets:
Iamur — The Underwater Set
Overworld — Pirates vs. Octopuses
Esparand — The Sands of Time
Unfinished Sets:
Siege of Ravnica — Eldrazi in Ravnica
Shandalar — The Mana Set
Iamur Reimagined — Iamur v2
You can find more creative projects on my page Antaresdesigns!