MTG Salvation

Wow, this set really is a callback to Time Spiral block. Cool.

Somehow they have managed to bore me with the card of a character who can shoot tigers from a bow. Lol

Votes: Moonleaf, Indighost

Crystalline Fields
Land — Plains Island
(t: Add W or U to your mana pool.)
When Crystalline Fields enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you pay (W/U).

It is a hard mechanic to view in a vacuum, isn't it? I'm revisiting an old set idea and this was in the ideas page, so I thought I'd try to see what people think. There weren't as many cards in the file for it as I thought, so I pooped out Storytelling Ritual and now I realize it's not great as a result.

The set:
• Has a small number of C cost cards (hence the C on the land)
• Has no blue cards
• Includes Sift (As you draw this card, you may pay 1 to reveal it and put it into your graveyard. If you do, put the top card of your library into your hand.)

Control Clasp 3
Artifact — Equipment
If equipped creature attacking would cause an ability to trigger, instead choose one —
• That ability doesn't trigger.
• That ability triggers twice instead.
Equip 1

Next: Medomai the Ageless

Votes: Groovelord, Indighost

Self-Control 2WU
Creature — Incarnation M
Defender
You choose whether triggered abilities you control trigger.
0/5

I intend to participate.

The kicker needs to be far higher, I think, to make it in line with the level of efficiency we see on removal printed in the current standard sets. I do like it as a card concept. How much the kicker costs depends at which rarity you place this, though.

Gorging Dragon 5RW
Creature — Dragon (M)
Flying, haste
When Gorging Dragon enters the battlefield, exile each other creature until Gorging Dragon leaves the battlefield.
5/5

This design doesn't work as you currently have it. You can't grant flash through the mana ability spent to cast a spell, because you don't start paying costs of a spell with mana abilities until after all the other decisions about the spell have been made. The first step in casting a spell is announcing it and putting it on the stack, and if you're casting a spell that can normally only be cast at sorcery speed, this land isn't going to speed it up until much later in the process.
I do really like the idea of the land granting suspend to your spells as a drawback, though. That's a neat idea.

Ember Stone 2UR
Artifact
Creatures your opponents control get -1/-0.
Damage dealt by sources you control is dealt as though its source has faze. (Use power rather than toughness to determine lethal damage to creatures marked with faze damage.)

I would like to point out that there's no existing card that triggers the transform ability on Inquisition Saber, and that your planeswalker design doesn't trigger it either. All of the flip-walkers exile themselves and return to the battlefield transformed, rather than transforming directly.

Quote from Elostirion(again) »

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/03/magic-the-gathering-reveals-my-little-pony-crossover-set-for-charity?fbclid=IwAR19fw1DQipOyznMJilcZNEOxQ65RY9EZSB0CIPsYqegE2uWvtQqH5RdLw8

So.. there are only 3 cards, and its a charity promo, but still. Hilarity.

I don't understand how you control Applejack, Pinkie Pie, etc. Sounds like breakfast cereals and high calorie snack items to me.

Sounds like an April Fools joke, except it's October now...

I mean if they can design them better so they don't scuff the cards this is a really good change imo.

Quote from cfusionpm »

They look absolutely amazing, but good God, they couldn't have picked like... good and playable cards? Teferi? Narset? Karn? Anything? What a disappointment.

To be fair, these collections aren't exactly meant for competitive players - they're meant for collectors.

So MTGSalvation will not be closing in July as expected. I know the news of the closure is still fresh in everyone's minds and this development has only added to the confusion. It does not help matters that the staff had very short notice of the sale of the site as well. Still, I, as well as the entire site staff, wishes the new ownership well; MTGSalvation is as important to us as it is to the rest of the community and we hope for the forums to stay online.

That being said: Once the new site - which I can now say is to be called MTGNexus - is up and running, I will no longer be involved in the Custom Card Creation community on MTGSalvation. MTGNexus is the project of almost all of the current MTGSalvation staff, all of whom I admire and trust, and it is my firm decision to start the custom card community that has been a key part of my life for nigh on fifteen years afresh in newer, hopefully even more fertile soil on a wholly independent site. All future custom card contests I run will take place on MTGNexus and very soon all of the custom card discussion I take part in will be there too.

Anyone who wishes to remain here and try and continue the amazing work that CCC has done on MTGS has all of my love and moral support. I want custom Magic to thrive everywhere, not just in the site that I happen to be active in. But it is my great hope that as many of you as possible will come with me to MTGNexus's Custom Card Creation subforum. It will not have the weight of 15 years of history, but I know that as long as it has you - hands-down my favorite people on the internet - it will have a very, very bright future.

Oh, and I think some of the tools that are planned for the new site are going to help, too. But that's a conversation for another time.

Quote from desruprot »

I'm surprised a card with this name ended up being red.

Seems like a perfectly red name to me.

So, for our list of major mythic legends from Magic's past, we have:



I wonder who the red and green members will be?

Introduction
This is a primer on New World Order and Red Flagging to help inform magic players and custom card creators what these concepts are and how to apply them.
My aim is to make this guide necessary reading for any custom card creator designing commons in a custom set.
This guide may still be a little rough so feel free to ask questions, give suggestions or point out any errors.

What is New World Order?
New World Order (commonly abbreviated to NWO) is a concept used by Wizard of the Coast when designing commons to limit complexity at common.
NWO is the brain child of lead designer Mark Rosewater and was first introduced in this article from December 2011. NWO's aim is to lower the barrier of entry of Magic and make magic more fun by introducing clarity to a blocks design while decreasing comprehension and board complexity that can lead to unsatisfying gameplay experiences.
New World Order was first implemented partially in Shards of Alara block with Zendikar being the first block fully designed with NWO in mind.
NWO and red flagging is potentially crucial if you plan on making custom magic card sets as keeping a lower complexity level at common will create better gameplay and allow you to focus the complexity on what you want to showcase in your set.

Q: So how do you actually apply NWO?
A: NWO is applied through the use of Redflagging common rarity cards that have an increased complexity by following certain rules and then making sure the total number of red flagged cards are less than 20% of your total commons.

What is Redflagging?
Red flagging is used to mark that a common card is breaking NWO complexity in some way so that the designer can make sure that the card is adding to the focus of the set and thus adding unnecessary complexity.
A common card is red flagged if it breaks one or more of the follow rules that I'll go into more detail about shortly. Cards that break more than one of these rules must come under intense scrutiny and most likely moved up to uncommon in all but the most aberrant of cases.
Any card that you keep in your set that is red flagged must make an important contribution to the set's theme or limited environment.

A quick Red Flagging Rules checklist:

• Does it affect other permanents?
• Does it have four or more lines of rules text?
• Does it need to be read twice?
• Does it create card advantage?
• Does it have the potential to kill multiple card at once?
• Can it create a loop?
• Problematic in larger numbers?
• Does it use complex magic terminology.

Red Flag Rules Details
Ok so now that you've wrapped your head around what the basics of NWO and red flagging are let look in detail at each of the red flag rules and how to apply them.
1) Does it affect other permanents?
Does this common have the ability to effect other permanents? (especially creatures)
It is the most important red flag for reducing board complexity that can be extremely hard for newer (or even experienced) players to parse effectively to make decision about what they want to do. In essence if there is too many things going on in the board state it becomes to hard and you end up making mistakes which doesn't lead to fun gameplay.
This is one of the hardest red flags to understand correctly as it comes in a range of varieties and severities. So lets look at a few examples:

Kithkin Shielddare is a common from Shadowmoor before NWO way implemented and the set was known for its confusing board states with extremely high board complexity. This is remarked upon in that year's State of Design article as being a mistake made in the set.
So then what is wrong here about Kithkin Shielddare and how exactly is it adding to complexity?
Whenever I attack a player who has Kithkin Shielddare I suddenly have to do a lot more combat math to figure other if the available blocks/trades are going to be worth it. Now this by itself is fine but because this card is common what happens if I had 2 or 3 of these? Suddenly you can see how while a single Kithkin Shielddare may be able to be calculated around (And this isn't even true for new players) a board state with 2 or 3 Kithkin Shielddare's is simply too much for our brain to handle which is a bad thing for your limited environment.

Ok now lets look at another example:

Now this looks like another example of a simple common that breaks this rule right?
WRONG
Tappers don't activate this red flag.
This is because they have to be used before combat and thus actually simplify the board complexity by making less choices in attacker or blockers. This can then apply to any sorcery speed activated ability or an ability that doesn't effect the board state such as Voyaging Satyr.
Ok one last example that tripped me up initially when applying Red Flagging to the commons of my custom set Dreamscape of Noctus.
Lets look at the following common card:
Now originally I saw cards like Crackling Triton in Theros and thought to myself that wizards must of decided that because the sacrifice creates card parity this effect wouldn't get red flagged under NWO. What it didn't realize was that was irrelevant and that instead the additional board complexity it added was what mattered irrespective of what power level the effect was.
This also shows us dangerous assumptions we can make about precedent based on WOTC products as I assumed Crackling Triton wasn't red flagged when in fact I later confirmed it was.
Remember that NWO says we can have 20% of our commons red flagged but they should each make an important contribution to the set's theme or limited environment.

Triggered abilities that only effect itself are not red flagged, this means that a card like Steppe Lynx or Midnight Guard that is triggered by other cards but that trigger only effects itself are fine at common. But remember that this effect is slightly more complex that normal as players can forget them. Thus if you have these type of triggers be consistent among a subset of commons it can reduce the overall complexity. If you are not using cohesive triggers for triggered abilities then some of your commons may fall under Red Flagging.

One last example is to show that cards don't need to have the word target on them to be red flagged under this rule.
One of my favorite examples:

Selfless Cathar in an example of a card that if a player forgets about it can lead to extremely bad situations. While it doesn't have the word "target" on it, it can still mess with the board state via its sacrifice ability. You may notice that this was a common in a core set (which try to reduce the common complexity even more than normal) but it was a role player in the white weenies limited archetype and thus WOTC felt it was worth having as part of their 20% allowance.

Finally be aware that instants and sorceries that target creatures don't fall into this category as they stay in your hand and are thus hidden information that isn't taken into account for board complexity.

2) Does it have four or more lines of rules text?
Does the card have four or more lines of non-reminder, non-flavor text.
This is by far the most common red flag, often making up for 75%+ of the total red flags in a set. Its also the red flag with the most leeway and that is most acceptable. Having a dozen wordy cards is going to happen to every set, but thats far better than having ridiculous board complexity due to having a dozen Samite Healer style cards.
It is important that when a player looks at the cards on the board and in his or her hand that they are able to understand them quickly and without getting confused. This is particularly important for younger players who may not be as strong at reading. So this red flag allows us to maintain a coherent and easily accessible game. reducing comprehension complexity and thus meaning your players can focus on the fun gameplay complexity.
Even if we assumed that all players of our set have strong reading abilities (a dangerous assumption) this restriction on wordiness prevents designers from creating cards that are mechanically too complex as we have to work within an extremely limited word limit.
The reason this only looks at lines of rules text is that a mechanics rules text only needs to read once or twice when learning that mechanic and can then be skipped while still knowing the functionality of the card.
Example:

Necrobite from M15 has a whopping 8 lines of text. (most cards in general should aim for 7 or less lines and never more than 9)
However this card doesn't actually fall under the red flag because nearly all of the card's text is reminder text that can be quickly mentally shortcutted by a player who knows what regenerate and deathtouch actually do. Be aware that red flagging doesn't take into consideration Average Words per Common which is still something to be aware of if you have lots of long reminder texts for your commons but that falls outside of the scope of this primer.
Lets look at an example of text we can't ignore:

Kinscaer Harpoonist as you can see has 4 lines of rules text and thus falls under the red flag here. However I've had designers try and argue that the flying text can be ignored due to being an evergreen mechanic. This however is not the case as the mechanic still contributes to what you have to think about when you read the card. Even if you know the mechanic, while your brain shortcut what flying means it is easy to will on a wordy card. How many times has the situation come up where your or an opponent forget that a certain creature has flying or first strike or other relevant evergreen keyword?
Counting the evegreen words in the line count helps keep the complexity down on what each common does and thus helps avoid these "feel bad" situations
One line of text that you can ignore when looking at word count is the enchant creature line on auras as this is considered part of learning the aura subtype except when given weird enchantment clauses that may fall off under certain conditions like Runner's Bane.


Ability words are the single greatest source of confusion and questions about the wordyness redflag so I'm going to expand on this a little more than in previous version of this primer.
An ability word is a word that thematically groups cards with a common functionality, but has no special meaning in the Comprehensive Rules. Examples include Battalion (Wojek Halberdiers) Landfall (Plated Geopede) or Converge (Brilliant Spectrum).
Nearly every ability word has some sort of text that is repeated across all cards that use that ability. For example nearly every landfall card has the "Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control." For the purposes of red flagging via the number of lines of text, this repeated ability word text is ignored and treated like reminder text.
Thus a card like Plated Geopede that looks like it contains 4 lines of text and thus would normally be red flagged actually only contains 3 lines and isn't red falgged once you disregard the generic landfall text.
The reason this is allowed is because of mental shortcutting. Applying a term to a specific ability means that we can gloss over the text and immediety look at what exactly the effect is without having to relearn what the card is caring about mechanically.
-> ->

Finally it is worth mentioning that sometimes you get "invisible mechanics" which are basically ability words with repeated text that don't have the italicized ability word text for whatever reason. Some examples of these are Eldrazi spawn/scions from ROE or BFZ, the Naya "5 power or greater" mechanic from Shards of Alara or the Processors from BFZ.
Basically if you asked most players what some of the mechanics of the set where, they will include these despite not having an associated ability word.
So when it comes to NWO Red Flagging we treat the repeated text of an "invisible mechanic" as exactly like as if it had an ability word, thus ignoring the repeated text.


3) Does it need to be read twice?
Is this card hard to parse or understand due to mechanical complexity or weird wording?
This is one of the rarer and more intuitive red flagging rules that looks at if players have the ability to work out quickly what the card does. An example of cards that do weird things that can fall under this category is the conspiracy cards. These can be more difficult to understand by newer players and thus should usually be moved to uncommon. In the case of the conspiracies they actually had a conspiracy or "draft matters" card as a separate slot in the booster pack to avoid them flooding the commons and breaking the spirit of NWO.


4) Does it create card advantage
Does this card means I end up with a total net gain on cards compared to my opponent?
This Red Flag is another major one after number 1 and 2 but is slightly less about design and more about developing a fun and balanced limited environment.
Examples of cards that fall under this catagory are creatures with enter the battlefield effects that can destroy something on board such as Cultbrand Cinder.

Be aware that cards that do straight card advantage without affecting the board such as Divination or Mind Rot don't fall under this category.

5) Does it have the potential to kill multiple card at once?
Can this card be used to reasonably create on board card advantage via killing two or more cards an opponent has.
This Red Flag is similar to the one above except it is more to do with how a card can be used to create advantages of how many creatures a player has. Since creatures are the core of most limited environments this is another red flag that is more to do with development than design concerns.

The most obvious example of this is something like Boulderfall which can easily kill two or more creatures. Even though the card was horrible in limited due to its high cost this card would of still bee red flagged due to its potential to turn a game around more than nearly any other common.

Another source of multiple kills in limited are combat tricks. If a creature you control is double blocked and you cast Giant Growth you can kill both of their creatures with a single card. However this doesn't fall under this red flag as combat tricks (and enchantment - auras) all have the inherent possibility of card disadvantage build into them if in response to your Giant Growth your creature gets targeted by a Doom Blade.
However some combat tricks can affect multiple permanents and thus do fall under this red flag such as Martial Glory or Break of Day as suddenly the two creatures you blocked with can now survive thus killing two of you opponent's creature with a single common spell.


6) Can it create a loop?
Does this card have the potential to create looping or repetitive gameplay?
Another rarer Red Flag is that it is dangerous to have cards that can create gameplay loops by themselves at common.
A gameplay loop is where an action can be repeated every turn without additional cards thus potentially not only creating card advantage but also making for an unfun enviorment for players.
The main aspect that is important about these loops is that they are uninteractive which is why cipher cards are not considered as they require you to fulfill the requirements of combat damage against your opponent.
The ability for cards such as Gravedigger to create a loop when played with another copy of gravedigger is why this card is now printed at uncommon. This loop creates card advantage it you block any opponent 2 toughness creatures and is very uninteractive for your opponent as even if they have removal it doesn't matter unless it exiles.
However the worst offenders of this red flag are cards that create gameplay loops all by themselves such as Sprout Swarm. This card is considered a mistake by R&D and should not be at common.
Be careful of your set mechanics as if you had a mechanic like Forecast or Buyback it is going to eat up a lot of your complexity by falling into this gameplay loop Red Flag.


7) Problematic in larger numbers?
Does this card become abusive if I have 5+ of them in a limited deck?
This is another narrow red flag rule that you should be aware of when creating cards that scale with the number of copies such as Kindle or that are free like Memnite.In a 3 pack draft you can potentially have 24 or a single common with an average of seeing 2.4 of that common. However as this is an average you don't want an above average amount of that common to ruin the draft. For example in Scars of Mirrodin playtesting originally Memnite was a common but was moved to uncommon when a play got 7-8 of them in a draft and proceeded to have ridiculous draws. The deck still wasn't even good but it creates a negative drafting experience that you don't want from your commons.


8) Does it mention uncommon magic terms?
Does this card use terminology that is hard to parse for newer players?
Common cards in magic form the bulk of cards seen by a newer player and are used as a learning tool when playing. However certain magic terms are not commonly used or essential to learn right away. To avoid overloading a new player on terminology certain words should be restricted to uncommon or greater or fall under this Red Flag.
List of magic terms that are Red Flagged:

• Converted Mana Cost
• X as a Cost
• Planeswalker
• Emblem
• Non-Standard counters - eg: Briber's Purse.

Time to test your knowledge!
In the following section I'm going to show you a variety of common custom cards and you should guess which Red Flags (if any) the card is breaking.


Summary

• New world order is designed to reduce complexity at common
• Red Flagging is a system of rules to keep complexity at common in check
• No more than 20% of the commons in your set should be red flagged
• Red flagged cards should each make an important contribution to your set's themes or archetypes

I hope this has been helpful as a guide and resource to help you understand New World Order and how to apply Red Flagging to your custom common card designs.
If you have any questions/comments post them below, PM me or you can contact me on twitter at @reubencovington.

Extra Reading / Listening
New World Order - DailyMTG
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/172
Understanding Complexity - Gathering Magic
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/natasha-lewis-harrington-editorial-psychology-03282013-understanding-complexity/
New World Order and Complexity Creep - Starcity Games
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/23228_New-World-Order-And--Complexity-Creep-.html
Red Flagging - Drive to work Podcast by Mark Rosewater
http://podbay.fm/show/580709168/e/1406909700?autostart=1 (Podcast)
http://dtwtranscripts.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/8114-episode-144-redflagging.html (Transcript)

Quote from Marquisd »

https://twitter.com/lsv/status/1118908041347231745

Grazer is like "man these leaves are so good" *munch munch* "what's this about a guy named Nicky? *munch munch*

Original source is actually Travis Sowers aka Semulin. He's going to have another card on his stream soon.

The card being called "Domri's Ambush" and being a sorcery seems like a flavor fail to me.