There is a very fine line to walk between 'wacky' and completely annoying
Also, Karplusan Minotaur is mandatory.
Other than that, try to go with cards that are 'wacky' but don't slow down the game too much.
'wacky' cards I've had bad experiences with...
-Confusion in the Ranks (slows the game down a lot, hurts aggro and creature-based decks disproportionately)
-Grip of Chaos (randomly determining 1 of 17 permanents 3 times in a turn drastically slows down gameplay)
-Goblin Game (frequently causes arguments about what an 'object' is)
-Scrambleverse and similar cards (takes too long to resolve)
-Knowledge Pool (makes everything complicated and then punishes people for not thinking far enough ahead)
'wacky' cards I've had great experiences with...
-Whims of the Fates (put all your cards in one pile, possibly steal the win; especially fun with copyspells like Increasing Vengeance or Howl of the Horde)
-Split Decision (speaks for itself)
-Shared Fate (hilarious and easy to understand)
-Mages' Contest (no one ever expects a red counterspell!)
-Puppet's Verdict (instant-speed boardwipe)
-Wild Ricochet (legitimately good EDH card)
-Captivating Glance (my favorite multiplayer spell in Magic. Note, you clash with AN opponent, not necessarily the creature's owner)
-Timesifter (will often randomly win the game for someone, but does so quickly, without favoring an already-strong archetype, and without overcomplicating things)
-Omen Machine (shuts down the decks that most need to be shut down; easy to understand)
-Teferi's Curse (phasing is phun! just make sure to memorize the rules for phasing and it shouldn't bother anyone too much)
-Sapphire Charm (instant-speed phase a creature)
-Teferi's Realm (once they understand it, people will quickly strategize around this card. Makes the game more interesting)
-Thieves' Auction (haven't actually tried it, but draft-style picking makes this faster and more strategic than Warp World or Scrambleverse)
-Polymorph and Chaos Warp (both reasonably strong removal for their respective colors)
-Phyrexian Portal (interesting and interactive)
-Squee's Revenge (can win big)
-Stitch in Time (as above)
-Yet Another Æther Vortex (if you allow un-sets, this one is complex but surprisingly intuitive)
Some of the best 'chaos' cards are simply unusual removal or response spells. They're fun little things that come and go without overtly warping the game around them. There are very few 'big' cards that can completely warp the game that won't leave someone frustrated when all they did was sit down to play a game of Magic, so you need to do a lot of testing on those sorts.
I find that I prefer Athreos, God of Passage for a competitive political option. It's a very interesting "voluntary infinite combo" deck wherein you use zero-cost creatures (memnite, endless one, blood pet, etc.) and build up the death triggers with the help of someone willing to not pay the 3 life.
It's advantage is that you can go a lot farther in playing opponents against eachother; with cards like blood artist you can kill anyone as long as at least one person at the table will let you, while cards like kami of false hope can win you friends with virtually no loss to yourself. It's quite fast as far as combo decks go, which means its also very good at stopping other combo decks which have worn out their welcome in your playgroup since you can usually find a willing partner.
If anyone complains about your own combos, you can just point out the obvious: no one needs to let you combo. I will say, though, that for all of its political-ness it struggles much more in the final 1v1. You always need to choose your last foe carefully.
The only hug deck I play is Seizan, Perverter of Truth turbo tax (i.e. use fast mana and massive symmetrical draws to extort a lot). That clearly falls under "hugging conducive to win condition".
I only dislike a hug deck if it helps combo decks, generally by making everyone draw tons of cards (I won't play Seizan against combo decks); combo decks really don't need more help in a 40-life multiplayer format. If a hug deck does something that doesn't involve everyone drawing massive cards (handing out creature tokens is fine, Spurnmage Advocate and its ilk are fine, making a single player draw cards is fine, most 'pure hug' Zedruu decks that just hand out creatures are fine, and so on) then it usually isn't as much of a problem from what I've seen.
I think my favorite semi-hug deck I've played against was a Pheldagriff deck that 'won' via Divine Intervention (i.e. making the game a draw). That one borders on the political though since it tries to eliminate the faster decks first and then stall out the game by giving everyone tons of life and playing cards like Standstill and Stasis. Still, it does not technically have a solid win condition.
I really don't agree with the complaint of "not enough design space" for four-color legends, I think the only one that fell short of the mark of representing all of its colors is Kynaios and Tiro, and frankly I don't think the WotC design team put their full effort into that one.
That said, I like partner because it supports having two commanders in a non-broken way and because it creates more four-color 'generals' than could otherwise be released in one set of decks by being combinational. This helps since you can look elsewhere for generals in three or five colors, but we aren't likely to see four-color generals again any time soon so it's good to have a large base to work with.
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser is a pretty good general for this too, depending on your color preferences. He can help offset red's poor draw options while you play your opponent's cards instead, but he's unreliable even for a general that plays opponent's cards.
Ukir the Noixelfer UBRG
Legendary creature - Human wizard
As Ukir enters the battlefield sacrifice any number of creatures. For each creature sacrificed this way , create a token that's a copy of that creature.
2/2
I wanted to create a fun build around commander. The card combos with token-doubling/Etb effects and get's destroyed by mass bounce effects.
It's neat as a commander that interacts strangely with other cards in your deck, but it doesn't really do anything by itself.
The ability as-worded is broken. "As X enters the battlefield" is typically reserved for characteristic-changing abilities (Devour, for example, which I think you may have based the wording off of. It adds +1/+1 counters which might be important if the base creature is 0/0). The ability should be "When X enters the battlefield". The ability also allows Ukir to sacrifice him/herself, creating infinite ETBs and sacrifices. I recommend specifying nontoken, nonlegendary; the former to prevent too much weirdness, the latter to prevent self-sacrificing and infinite combos with Sakashima the Imposter.
Orim of the Cho-Arrim1RW
Legendary Creature - Cleric Rebel
Spells and noncreature permanents you control have lifelink.
Prevent all damage dealt to creatures and planeswalkers you control by non-creature sources.
1/3
I've always wanted Tamanoa or Soulfire Grandmaster as a general, but the damage prevention is pretty nasty. That said, I can't think of a better way to make him feel like a healer while maintaining a clear strategy. Maybe increase the mana cost to 4?
Angor, the Feral Sphinx3UG
Legendary creature - Sphinx
Flying, Trample, Flash.
When Angor enters a zone, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature and draw a card.
4/4
Interesting and very reasonably balanced if played as-intended. The problem is hidden zones (in-hand, in-library, or face-down in exile) which would cause some confusion. If you draw Angor from your library, what happens? The stack is also technically a zone, so casting Angor would draw you two cards, not one, as he(?) shifts from hand to stack to battlefield.
Vaevictis Asmadi2RRGGBB
Legendary creature - Elder Dragon
Flying, Trample, First Strike.
Whenever you add any amount of R, G, or B to your mana pool, Vaevictis Asmadi gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the amount of mana added to your mana pool.
At the beginning of your upkeep, pay RGB or sacrifice Vaevictis Asmadi.
7/7
I think the upkeep cost really is excessive when taken with the already-high casting cost, even if it emphasizes the first ability. You might try adding an ability along the lines of "at the beginning of your upkeep you may pay RGB. If you do, X happens" to keep the reference to the old card's upkeep cost without unecessarily raising the price higher on an already-expensive creature. His creature type is also off: all creature types are one word; thus he is an elder and a dragon. I guess it wouldn't really hurt anything to make "elder" a creature type, since "all elder dragon creatures get X" would still function as expected (it would give X to all creatures which are both elders and dragons) and it would allow them to still count as dragons for things like Crucible of Fire. Still, it would be a bit odd.
EDIT:Oops! they already do this on the oracle'd elder dragons. Hurray for changeling elders tribal! Old Fogey really ought to be an elder dinosaur.
Whim-Feast NephilimWBRG Legendary Creature — Nephilim 1, Discard a card: Put a +1/+1 counter on Whim-Feast Nephilim. It gains your choice of first strike, deathtouch, trample, or indestructible until end of turn. It will not rest until its hunger is sated. 3/3
There's no other way to put this: Whim-Feast Nephilim sucks. It is not powerful, and it is not interesting. Imagine using this card as a commander. How would someone build a deck around this card? The activated ability cost is steep, and the benefit players receive for using it is paltry. Generally speaking, discarding cards as an activated ability cost is miserable. Players never want to discard cards from their hand to pay for things because those cards are typically things they want to just be playing instead. Whim-Feast Nephilim is just a Hill Giant that's difficult to cast and is occasionally indestructible. Corner cases aside, why would anyone even want to give this card first strike when they could just make it indestructible anyway?
My advice would be to scrap this design completely.
Definitely going to re-work this nephilim, since @cannon has said essentially the same. I will point out that discarding cards as a cost for an activated ability is quite powerful (Wild Mongrel, for example) because it strongly enables reanimator and other special graveyard cards (Anger, Genesis, Bridge from Below, etc.). That said, a simple changeling is a bit lazy, I'll admit.
Maybe something like...
Whim-Feast NephilimWBRG Legendary Creature — Nephilim 1, Discard a card: Put a +1/+1 counter on Whim-Feast Nephilim. Any player may activate this ability.
As long as Whim-Feast Nephilim's power is odd, it has indestructible and trample.
As long as Whim-Feast Nephilim's power is even, other creatures you control have hexproof and lifelink. It will not rest until its hunger is sated. 3/3
I'm not so confident about those specific odd/even effects, but I really like this overall design more. It fits the name better (as players fight over its mode, changing it on a whim, it feeds on their indecisiveness). Perhaps instead of keywords it should have restrictions? (Odd: player can't play instants, Evens: they can't play creatures?). That's the part I can't decide on.
Prism-Fleece NephilimWURG Legendary Creature — Nephilim
Protection from black 2: Change the text of each spell and each permanent by replacing all instances of one color word with another until end of turn. It will not rest, for it has banished the night. 4/4
Prism-Fleece Nephilim, on the other hand, is an absolutely phenomenal design. As far as I'm aware, Sleight of Mind effects have always been limited to blue, but I believe extending the ability to a four-colored Nephilim is a great design choice since players are naturally going to want to pair it with cards of other colors that use color words. I also love how you used protection on this card because it does two things. The first is that Prism-Fleece Nephilim teaches players one of the things they can do with it; they can change what colors cards are protected from. Teaching players this lesson is wonderful because the Swirl the Mists ability is something that's not immediately easy to understand why it's useful. Players will feel clever for realizing this. The second thing protection does for the Prism-Fleece is give players something to use its ability on. There isn't always going to naturally be something in play that uses a color word, let alone something that's useful to change. Prism-Fleece Nephilim offers players a way to profitably use its second ability regardless of what else is in play.
I don't think I can improve upon this card's design. The only thing I would look into is seeing which of the four non-blue colors references color words the least. I would make Prism-Fleece Nephilim's cost exclude that color. You might also consider boosting this card up to a 5/5. For a card with such a demanding casting cost, it could likely afford an aggressively costed stat line.
I strongly dislike the protection from black here, until I see it's interaction with the second ability. I actually want to make this stronger and have an effect last until end of game (although I know memory issues will arise). Also, this does not really feel red or green.
Luster-Scale NephilimWURG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
Protection from black 1, Discard a card, Put a +1/+1 counter on ~: Change the text of each spell and each permanent by replacing all instances of one color word with another. (This does not end at end of turn.)
3/3
It's still not very r/g but I love the idea of adding a counter as a cost, like loyalty on a planeswalker. It's still limited by cards in hand, but it feels very nasty.
I will admit this to be my favorite nephilim. Text-changing effects are one of the more unique effects in magic, and it makes me sad that nothing like this currently exists as a legend. I will admit that the red/green aspect is communicated poorly, but green at least is associated with permanents that can change color.
@arrogantAxolotl: I will admit I'm fairly new to this age of creatures where neat abilities doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in P/T (see: Duskmantle Seer). As to which color has the least anti-color effects, I believe that is red (mostly because a lot of its cards, like Boil, target a land type rather than a color). One reason I chose the all-but-black set of colors is to avoid infinite combos with Teysa, Orzhov Scion. Also, something about this design just feels "non-black" to me (possibly due to the name: white is most associated with light-as-an-element). Black also has a bit of a subtheme of "black helps black" (Nirkhana Revenant vs. Keeper of Progenitus, the various "destroy target nonblack" cards, etc.) that, while it would be fun to tamper with, is a bit contrary to the 'spirit' of the card.
@cannon: Making a repeatable activated ability permanent like that, as you seem to be aware, is untenably difficult to keep track of. The discarding a card is a bit of an odd addition that only serves to make it feel more 'black', and I'm not such a fan of that either. Finally, (and I swear I'm not being petty here!) I like "Prism-Fleece" quite a bit more than "Luster-Scale" since I like the idea of a giant eldritch sheeple-monster. That's more a personal preferance than anything, though.
Slip-Realm NephilimWUBG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
If a nontoken creature without shadow would be destroyed, regenerate that creature and place a +1/+1 counter on it.
Each creature with a +1/+1 counter has shadow.
5/3
This doesn't combo with things the same way Mikaeus does, and I like the symmetry of the latter effect given how prevalent +1/+1 counters can be, but overall Shadow feels very bland. I think I would honestly prefer something more asymmetric that really tilted the field.
Realm-Skipper NephilimWUBG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
Creatures you control cannot be blocked and cannot block.
Whenever a creature deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
Whenever a creature with a +1/+1 counter on it deals combat damage to an opponent, it's controller draws a card.
3/3
It's very different, but has a similar effect to the board state I believe. It makes you vulnerable, but the last ability, a la Edric, means that at some point cannons should be pointed away from you.
I actully feel quite to the contrary about shadow. It creates a very interesting new use for destruction effects to make your own creatures stronger and unblockable, and it 'fixes' one of the main problems of shadow (that it's so uncommon it might as well read "can't block and can't be blocked") by spreading it to all creatures, creating the divided battlefield of shadow and non-shadow creatures which was the original intent of the ability. It also fits the colors perfectly, with shadow being esper-color and the rest of the ability being fairly 'green', and forms a coherent theme with the name (it is pulling creatures into an ethereal 'other-realm' or 'dream-world').
Rift-Grasp NephilimWUBR
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose a face-up nonland card at random from exile. Cast that card without paying its mana cost if able.
At the beginning of your end step, each player exiles the top card of his or her library.
3/3
I love this design, but since you only get the benefit on your turn after passing, I could see upping the end of turn ability to two or even three cards a player. This doesn't particularly feel red aside from the random aspect, but I love the effect and would actually want to play this.
Honestly this feels pretty mono-red, though black and white at least have some exile. I feel like the 'cast-from-exile' part is very ill-defined color-wise, and could possibly be white, blue, or black (Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Pull from Eternity, Misthollow Griffin, [card]Praetor's Grasp[/grasp]). Perhaps if the "card at random from exile" bit is kept but the means of exiling the cards is more controlled it might feel more appropriate for the esper colors. Possibly this...
Rift-Grasp NephilimWUBR
Legendary Creature - Nephilim enters the battlefield, for each opponent, that player reveals his or her hand and you choose a nonland card from it. Exile the chosen cards.
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose a face-up nonland card at random from exile. Cast that card without paying its mana cost if able.
At the beginning of your end step, each player exiles two nonland cards from his or her graveyard.
3/3
EDIT: erk, that ETB ability would be overpowered with blinks. Also this is starting to look a lot like @cannon's eldrazi legend, so, uh... don't sue?
I don't want to have it search their libraries since that would be annoying for something as common as casting a commander, but taking cards from their hands feels too strong maybe. I'll go with graveyards instead. Each player gets to nominate some cards for the lottery, so it's not too abusable but it has some control.
Grief-Blossom NephilimUBRG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
If a creature you control would deal combat damage, each opponent loses that much life instead.
If you would draw a card, each opponent discards a card instead.
I'm going to assume this to be a 4/4 because it doesn't feel overpowered given how obnoxious 4C creatures are. I think the more interesting effect is the latter of the two because it creates a difficult game-state for yourself. Honestly, very little of this feeds blue or red, and it's pushing it to call it green. I like the second effect so much though that I'm tempted to keep it and refocus a second ability to better reflect the r/u/g sides:
Grief-Bloom NephilimUBRG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
If you would draw a card, each opponent discards a card.
Whenever an opponent discards a creature card, create a 1/1 green Saproling.
Whenever an opponent discards a land card, ~ deals 2 damage to them.
Whenever an opponent discards an instant or sorcery card, put the top card of your library into your hand.
3/3
Now it's super wordy, but I also have a huge crush on Waste Not, so I'm all for it.
I'll admit I'm not confident about the abilities I gave it. This is more of a top-down card: white is the color of 'hope', so I wanted to design a card that made the game 'hopeless' for as long as it's in play. I like "Grief-Blossom" or "Grief-Bloom" since it helps tie in green to this mess, makes it feel like more than a blob of abilities, and really helps express that the misery is growing: there's no hope, things are awful, and as long as this thing is in play, it's only going to get worse.
As far as abilities to express this, it would be easy to just have something like "whenever a player is dealt damage, that player loses 4 life.", "whenever a creature is dealt damage, put two -1/-1 counters on that creature", and so on, but I feel like that would lose a certain nephilim 'weirdness'. I like the repeated "if you would x", since by the second ability it has become clear to the reader that this guy just doesn't want you doing anything 'happy' or 'hopeful', and that the moment they read 'x', they know what it is they're not going to get to do now. It also ties easily into the flavor text. "X's can't Y" would also be effective, thematically ("players can't gain life", "players can't draw cards", "damage can't be prevented", etc.). As to what the X's and Y's should be, exactly, I'm not so sure. I agree that Waste Not is a fun card, but it doesn't strike the tone I'm looking for. Each line should make the player think "I can't what?!?" That said, that's a difficult thing to balance. That's why I prefer "if you would" instead of "can't", since it lets you offset the things you can't do with things you do instead and makes it fun and worthwhile to play despite the dreary theme.
@DementedKirby: Yeah, methinks we'll get the old nephilim with a knowing wink but no errata.
EDIT: to clarify, I think we'll get two legitimate commanders per deck rather than three, and get an original nephilim in each deck as a nudge to the commander rules committee folks.
The only thing that makes me think they might not have Urza is that there's zero chance of him being a creature rather than a planeswalker, and they might decide against printing more planeswalker-commanders since they did that already. Other than that he seems like an obvious choice, which is what makes me think we'll probably get him anyways.
I'm personally hoping for more nephilim, and I doubt they'll print any creatures with the exact one-each-of-four mana cost of the pre-existing nephilim unless the new card is also a nephilim (they might add some colorless mana in front though). Doing so would infringe on the nephilims' design space, and the commander crowd is pretty fond of them.
Reins of Power is a popular one, both as a win condition and as a 'loan' (here, block with my creatures!)
Swans of Bryn Argoll is fantastic, since you can generally choose whether to block with it or not.
Wishmonger, Sailmonger, and Squallmonger are all amazingly fun; they aren't especially selective but they favor the majority if one player gets out of hand.
Captivating Glance is possibly my favorite multiplayer removal spell, with Council's Judgment a close second. Notice that it says *an opponent*; you can clash with an opponent other than the controller. The effect is also a triggered ability, so if the enchantment dies or gets moved (Simic Guildmage, Aura Finesse) it will remain with its current controller.
Speaking of Simic; all cards with Graft allow you to put +1/+1 counters on other players' creatures as well.
While theory-crafting a non-oppressive/tuned legendary is fun, one of the biggest expectations I have from development is the representation of actually relevant or historically notable characters from the mtg plot in their cards.
I threw down some nephilim (nephili?) earlier, but no one seemed to notice
Fier, Gnashing Jaws3RG
Legendary Creature - Spirit Beast
When ~ attacks, until end of turn each creature you control has base power equal to the highest power among creatures you control.
When an attacking creature you control dies, put X +1/+1 counters on target creature, where X is the power of the creature that died.
4/2
Feels like a bit of a trap to kill any of your attacking creatures with this guy out, but you could say the same for Omnath, Locus of Rage or Vigor
The Pale Moon Council2
Legendary Creature - Knight
Your opponents cannot play nonbasic lands.
Discard a card: Exile ~. Return it to the battlefield under its owner's control at the end of turn. Any player may activate this ability.
4/4
I think this is justifiable in both white and red to the point that hybrid is acceptable.
Very oppressive card, and the discard effect feels a bit off-color (maybe have them pay mana instead? that'd work better for white's 'tax' theme). I think it might just be better to punish them playing those lands than to prevent it outright (whenever an opponent plays a nonbasic land, you get a 2/2 white and red spirit creature token with flying). Also I would be disappointed that Stillmoon Cavalier couldn't be in the same deck, what with being a knight and the neat moon in the background
Vella, Skipwing ArchmageUUU
Legendary Creature - Faerie Spellshaper
Flying U, Discard a card, T: Untap each other permanent you control. Activate this ability only during another player's turn.
1/3
Seems fine for multiplayer, Probably too strong for 1v1. 1v1 commander has such a large banlist anyways that it'd probably be okay.
Joragal, The Reaching Void10
Legendary Creature - Eldrazi
When you cast ~, each player chooses one card in their hand and exiles the rest.
Each player may pay 1 and 1 life instead of any one colored mana when casting a spell.
You may cast cards from any player's exile. If you do, you lose life equal to that spell's converted mana cost.
8/8
This was a lot to make it seem remotely fair, but I love the idea of the card so I'd like to maintain the framework if possible. Maybe it just exiles three cards from each on cast?
This really feels more like a black card than an eldrazi. There are only three 'named' eldrazi canonically in the lore, and each one has a separate theme. Doing stuff from exile is Ulamog's thing; you could re-theme this as a one-of-a-kind 'legendary spawn' of Ulamog, but the paying life should probably go. The second ability is also worded strangely, you should probably just use the "as if it were mana of any color" clause on the third ability to keep things simple.
In addition to the on-cast ability (which should probably be nerfed to "target player"), the new design for eldrazi legends also all have a protective ability (indestructible, protection from instants, countering spells by discarding) and an attacking ability (exile a bunch of cards from your library, menace, trample). This should have those as well in order to feel like a legendary eldrazi.
Ovirna, Mirror of Ages4UG
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
Untap all lands and creatures you control during each other player's untap step.
Treat each upkeep as if it is also your upkeep. (Abilities you control that trigger during your upkeep trigger.)
3/3
This comes my not-so-secret passion and desire to build around Paradox Haze
Seedborn Muse and Prophet of Kruphix are both very strong in EDH, this costs one more mana and would be always-available. Also gets confusing with "at the beginning of each player's upkeep" abilities: do those trigger twice per opponent's upkeep now? If it's also *your* upkeep, who gets priority to cast spells? Other "share a phase with an opponent" abilities never actually give you the phase, just the benefits of it, but this would. Does this also count as you having a 'turn' for effects that care? (Serra Avenger as one example). The intended answers to these questions are mostly obvious, but the mechanical meaning doesn't support them.
Dexyl, the Great BountyBB
Legendary Creature - Demon
If a source you control would cause ~ to die, draw a card.
If a source an opponent controls would cause ~ to die, that source's controller draws two cards and loses 2 life.
3/2
"Would cause" is a replacement effect, and all replacement effects end with "instead" in some way (even if indirectly, such as for Clergy of the Holy Nimbus). You definitely don't want to replace death, since that would lead to infinite sacrifices. You probably want "When a source you control causes ~ to die", but that will preclude gaining any benefit if you send him to the command zone since going to the command zone is a replacement effect (i.e. you don't draw cards if your commander is wearing a Skullclamp and you send him to the command zone. Thus, you would always just return this guy to the command zone if an opponent kills him to deny them the cards).
Mishra's Magpie
Legendary Bird UR2
1/3
Flying
When Magpie ETBs you get a Clue, Gold Token and a Thopter.
When Magpie connects with someone get clue, gold or thopter.
Neat idea for a card. It would probably only cost 1UR (and be something other than a legendary magpie, though I understand the desire for evasion on a relatively small blue creature with a "deals combat damage to an opponent" effect). Skulk is now an evergreen mechanic Oops, no it isn't! Either way, you've got clues on it already so that might be better.
Ralviet, Petty Thief
Legendary Creature - Artificer Rogue 1UR
1/3
Skulk
When Seville ETBs you get a Clue, Gold Token and a Thopter.
When Seville connects with someone get clue, gold or thopter.
Green-Black Legendary Creature
Change the text of each other card you own by replacing all instances of, "Library," with, "Graveyard."
Change the text of each other card you own by replacing all instances of, "Graveyard," with, "Library."
This wouldn't work. Cards in a library can't be targeted, which would create problems for Disentomb and many others. Similarly, there is no mechanical meaning for the phrase "search your graveyard".
This creates a neat subgame for your opponents, as counters don't go away when a permanent transforms. They'll want to keep your werewolves human, but then when they can't anymore, the threat will be that much greater. Huehuehue.
Isn't that already the idea behind werewolves: a subgame of not letting them transform, or they get bigger? Not that it's bad design or a bad ability the way it is, but if you want to create a dilemma then the first ability should read something like "At the beginning of your upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on each human you control".
I made some legendary nephilim a while back. (excuse the edits, I had them saved on my phone and had to format afterwards)
As a preface, many of these nephilim have 'bizarre' abilities simply because that's how the original nephilim were. Of the original five, only Dune-Brood and Witch-Maw had abilities which could be considered "normal", all the rest were mold-breaking at the time.
The flavor text is a reference to the flavor text theme of the originals ("When it awoke...")
---------- Whim-Feast Nephilim WBRG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~ 1, discard a card: Put a +1/+1 counter on Whim-Feast Nephilim, it gains your choice of first strike, deathtouch, trample, or indestructible until end of turn.
~~~
3/3
It will not rest until its hunger is sated.
---------- This is just a Morphling-style dude designed after Glint-Eye Nephilim. What can I say? I like morphlings.
---------- Prism-Fleece Nephilim WURG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
Protection from black 2: Change the text of each spell and each permanent by replacing all instances of one color word with another until end of turn.
~~~
4/4
It will not rest, for it has banished the night.
---------- I like the idea of a repeatable "change colors until EoT" effect. All of the currently-existing color word change effects are instant/sorcery other than Swirl The Mists. I thought this could be fun. I like the potential for logic puzzles if you need to shift its protection multiple times in a turn but don't want to affect some other card you might have. It also has my favorite name of the ones I made.
---------- Slip-Realm Nephilim WUBG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
If a nontoken creature without shadow would be destroyed, regenerate that creature and place a +1/+1 counter on it.
Each creature with a +1/+1 counter has shadow.
~~~
5/3
It will not rest, yet it is always dreaming.
---------- I'm pretty sure shadow is a deprecated keyword, but it was either that or phasing and phasing is disliked by many. The neat part for me is that the first ability is a replacement effect, so you can't go infinite like you can with Mikaeus, The Unhallowed and you can't use it to power sacrifices, since it only prevents destruction. Only one other card does this sort of thing: Clergy of the Holy Nimbus (read the oracle text). This card struggles a bit to express its green-ness, although shadow is firmly an esper keyword.
---------- Rift-Grasp Nephilim WUBR
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose a face-up nonland card at random from exile. Cast that card without paying its mana cost if able.
At the beginning of your end step, each player exiles the top card of his or her library.
~~~
3/3
It will not rest, and it will not let lie.
---------- Fun chaos-y commander inspired by Volatile Chimera that won't bog down the game. Its exile-casting is any card in exile, not just those it exiles itself. The split into two separate triggered abilities is kind of arbitrary and mostly for legibility
---------- Grief-Blossom Nephilim UBRG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
If a creature you control would deal combat damage, each opponent loses that much life instead.
If you would draw a card, each opponent discards a card instead.
If you would gain life, Grief-Blossom Nephilim deals that much damage to target creature or planeswalker instead.
~~~
It will not rest, but you will rest in its stead.
---------- Angry replacement-effect-monster. This one is more defined by being not-white than it is by being any particular color. The flavor text is intended to sound similar to its other abilities if read aloud.
Also, something similar to Volatile Chimera that can swap between multiple different creatures outside of its own color somehow would be neat, but that would be difficult to implement (since 'outside of the game' doesn't officially exist in commander) and difficult to balance (Vorinclex, Elsh Norn, Jin Gitaxias, K THX BAI LOL).
I don't think skull clamp is actually that pricey.
There's some neat red equipment stuff which most people ignore, like Goblin Gaveleer, Vulshok Battlemaster, Bludgeon Brawl, Weapons Trainer, and Kazuul's Toll Collector. I would run Jor Kadeen for that second color and because he's less threatening than Kemba (a lot of good defensive equipment is expensive, like greaves and swords. Kemba will just get nuked if she starts wearing too much swag)
Also, Karplusan Minotaur is mandatory.
Other than that, try to go with cards that are 'wacky' but don't slow down the game too much.
'wacky' cards I've had bad experiences with...
-Confusion in the Ranks (slows the game down a lot, hurts aggro and creature-based decks disproportionately)
-Grip of Chaos (randomly determining 1 of 17 permanents 3 times in a turn drastically slows down gameplay)
-Goblin Game (frequently causes arguments about what an 'object' is)
-Scrambleverse and similar cards (takes too long to resolve)
-Knowledge Pool (makes everything complicated and then punishes people for not thinking far enough ahead)
'wacky' cards I've had great experiences with...
-Whims of the Fates (put all your cards in one pile, possibly steal the win; especially fun with copyspells like Increasing Vengeance or Howl of the Horde)
-Split Decision (speaks for itself)
-Shared Fate (hilarious and easy to understand)
-Mages' Contest (no one ever expects a red counterspell!)
-Puppet's Verdict (instant-speed boardwipe)
-Wild Ricochet (legitimately good EDH card)
-Captivating Glance (my favorite multiplayer spell in Magic. Note, you clash with AN opponent, not necessarily the creature's owner)
-Timesifter (will often randomly win the game for someone, but does so quickly, without favoring an already-strong archetype, and without overcomplicating things)
-Omen Machine (shuts down the decks that most need to be shut down; easy to understand)
-Teferi's Curse (phasing is phun! just make sure to memorize the rules for phasing and it shouldn't bother anyone too much)
-Sapphire Charm (instant-speed phase a creature)
-Teferi's Realm (once they understand it, people will quickly strategize around this card. Makes the game more interesting)
-Thieves' Auction (haven't actually tried it, but draft-style picking makes this faster and more strategic than Warp World or Scrambleverse)
-Polymorph and Chaos Warp (both reasonably strong removal for their respective colors)
-Phyrexian Portal (interesting and interactive)
-Squee's Revenge (can win big)
-Stitch in Time (as above)
-Yet Another Æther Vortex (if you allow un-sets, this one is complex but surprisingly intuitive)
Some of the best 'chaos' cards are simply unusual removal or response spells. They're fun little things that come and go without overtly warping the game around them. There are very few 'big' cards that can completely warp the game that won't leave someone frustrated when all they did was sit down to play a game of Magic, so you need to do a lot of testing on those sorts.
It's advantage is that you can go a lot farther in playing opponents against eachother; with cards like blood artist you can kill anyone as long as at least one person at the table will let you, while cards like kami of false hope can win you friends with virtually no loss to yourself. It's quite fast as far as combo decks go, which means its also very good at stopping other combo decks which have worn out their welcome in your playgroup since you can usually find a willing partner.
If anyone complains about your own combos, you can just point out the obvious: no one needs to let you combo. I will say, though, that for all of its political-ness it struggles much more in the final 1v1. You always need to choose your last foe carefully.
I only dislike a hug deck if it helps combo decks, generally by making everyone draw tons of cards (I won't play Seizan against combo decks); combo decks really don't need more help in a 40-life multiplayer format. If a hug deck does something that doesn't involve everyone drawing massive cards (handing out creature tokens is fine, Spurnmage Advocate and its ilk are fine, making a single player draw cards is fine, most 'pure hug' Zedruu decks that just hand out creatures are fine, and so on) then it usually isn't as much of a problem from what I've seen.
I think my favorite semi-hug deck I've played against was a Pheldagriff deck that 'won' via Divine Intervention (i.e. making the game a draw). That one borders on the political though since it tries to eliminate the faster decks first and then stall out the game by giving everyone tons of life and playing cards like Standstill and Stasis. Still, it does not technically have a solid win condition.
That said, I like partner because it supports having two commanders in a non-broken way and because it creates more four-color 'generals' than could otherwise be released in one set of decks by being combinational. This helps since you can look elsewhere for generals in three or five colors, but we aren't likely to see four-color generals again any time soon so it's good to have a large base to work with.
It's neat as a commander that interacts strangely with other cards in your deck, but it doesn't really do anything by itself.
The ability as-worded is broken. "As X enters the battlefield" is typically reserved for characteristic-changing abilities (Devour, for example, which I think you may have based the wording off of. It adds +1/+1 counters which might be important if the base creature is 0/0). The ability should be "When X enters the battlefield". The ability also allows Ukir to sacrifice him/herself, creating infinite ETBs and sacrifices. I recommend specifying nontoken, nonlegendary; the former to prevent too much weirdness, the latter to prevent self-sacrificing and infinite combos with Sakashima the Imposter.
I've always wanted Tamanoa or Soulfire Grandmaster as a general, but the damage prevention is pretty nasty. That said, I can't think of a better way to make him feel like a healer while maintaining a clear strategy. Maybe increase the mana cost to 4?
Interesting and very reasonably balanced if played as-intended. The problem is hidden zones (in-hand, in-library, or face-down in exile) which would cause some confusion. If you draw Angor from your library, what happens? The stack is also technically a zone, so casting Angor would draw you two cards, not one, as he(?) shifts from hand to stack to battlefield.
I think the upkeep cost really is excessive when taken with the already-high casting cost, even if it emphasizes the first ability. You might try adding an ability along the lines of "at the beginning of your upkeep you may pay RGB. If you do, X happens" to keep the reference to the old card's upkeep cost without unecessarily raising the price higher on an already-expensive creature.
His creature type is also off: all creature types are one word; thus he is an elder and a dragon. I guess it wouldn't really hurt anything to make "elder" a creature type, since "all elder dragon creatures get X" would still function as expected (it would give X to all creatures which are both elders and dragons) and it would allow them to still count as dragons for things like Crucible of Fire. Still, it would be a bit odd.EDIT:Oops! they already do this on the oracle'd elder dragons. Hurray for changeling elders tribal! Old Fogey really ought to be an elder dinosaur.
Definitely going to re-work this nephilim, since @cannon has said essentially the same. I will point out that discarding cards as a cost for an activated ability is quite powerful (Wild Mongrel, for example) because it strongly enables reanimator and other special graveyard cards (Anger, Genesis, Bridge from Below, etc.). That said, a simple changeling is a bit lazy, I'll admit.
Maybe something like...
Whim-Feast Nephilim WBRG
Legendary Creature — Nephilim
1, Discard a card: Put a +1/+1 counter on Whim-Feast Nephilim. Any player may activate this ability.
As long as Whim-Feast Nephilim's power is odd, it has indestructible and trample.
As long as Whim-Feast Nephilim's power is even, other creatures you control have hexproof and lifelink.
It will not rest until its hunger is sated.
3/3
I'm not so confident about those specific odd/even effects, but I really like this overall design more. It fits the name better (as players fight over its mode, changing it on a whim, it feeds on their indecisiveness). Perhaps instead of keywords it should have restrictions? (Odd: player can't play instants, Evens: they can't play creatures?). That's the part I can't decide on.
I will admit this to be my favorite nephilim. Text-changing effects are one of the more unique effects in magic, and it makes me sad that nothing like this currently exists as a legend. I will admit that the red/green aspect is communicated poorly, but green at least is associated with permanents that can change color.
@arrogantAxolotl: I will admit I'm fairly new to this age of creatures where neat abilities doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in P/T (see: Duskmantle Seer). As to which color has the least anti-color effects, I believe that is red (mostly because a lot of its cards, like Boil, target a land type rather than a color). One reason I chose the all-but-black set of colors is to avoid infinite combos with Teysa, Orzhov Scion. Also, something about this design just feels "non-black" to me (possibly due to the name: white is most associated with light-as-an-element). Black also has a bit of a subtheme of "black helps black" (Nirkhana Revenant vs. Keeper of Progenitus, the various "destroy target nonblack" cards, etc.) that, while it would be fun to tamper with, is a bit contrary to the 'spirit' of the card.
@cannon: Making a repeatable activated ability permanent like that, as you seem to be aware, is untenably difficult to keep track of. The discarding a card is a bit of an odd addition that only serves to make it feel more 'black', and I'm not such a fan of that either. Finally, (and I swear I'm not being petty here!) I like "Prism-Fleece" quite a bit more than "Luster-Scale" since I like the idea of a giant eldritch sheeple-monster. That's more a personal preferance than anything, though.
I actully feel quite to the contrary about shadow. It creates a very interesting new use for destruction effects to make your own creatures stronger and unblockable, and it 'fixes' one of the main problems of shadow (that it's so uncommon it might as well read "can't block and can't be blocked") by spreading it to all creatures, creating the divided battlefield of shadow and non-shadow creatures which was the original intent of the ability. It also fits the colors perfectly, with shadow being esper-color and the rest of the ability being fairly 'green', and forms a coherent theme with the name (it is pulling creatures into an ethereal 'other-realm' or 'dream-world').
Honestly this feels pretty mono-red, though black and white at least have some exile. I feel like the 'cast-from-exile' part is very ill-defined color-wise, and could possibly be white, blue, or black (Gonti, Lord of Luxury, Pull from Eternity, Misthollow Griffin, [card]Praetor's Grasp[/grasp]). Perhaps if the "card at random from exile" bit is kept but the means of exiling the cards is more controlled it might feel more appropriate for the esper colors. Possibly this...
Rift-Grasp Nephilim WUBR
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
enters the battlefield, for each opponent, that player reveals his or her hand and you choose a nonland card from it. Exile the chosen cards.At the beginning of your upkeep, choose a face-up nonland card at random from exile. Cast that card without paying its mana cost if able.
At the beginning of your end step, each player exiles two nonland cards from his or her graveyard.
3/3
EDIT: erk, that ETB ability would be overpowered with blinks. Also this is starting to look a lot like @cannon's eldrazi legend, so, uh... don't sue?
I don't want to have it search their libraries since that would be annoying for something as common as casting a commander, but taking cards from their hands feels too strong maybe. I'll go with graveyards instead. Each player gets to nominate some cards for the lottery, so it's not too abusable but it has some control.
I'll admit I'm not confident about the abilities I gave it. This is more of a top-down card: white is the color of 'hope', so I wanted to design a card that made the game 'hopeless' for as long as it's in play. I like "Grief-Blossom" or "Grief-Bloom" since it helps tie in green to this mess, makes it feel like more than a blob of abilities, and really helps express that the misery is growing: there's no hope, things are awful, and as long as this thing is in play, it's only going to get worse.
As far as abilities to express this, it would be easy to just have something like "whenever a player is dealt damage, that player loses 4 life.", "whenever a creature is dealt damage, put two -1/-1 counters on that creature", and so on, but I feel like that would lose a certain nephilim 'weirdness'. I like the repeated "if you would x", since by the second ability it has become clear to the reader that this guy just doesn't want you doing anything 'happy' or 'hopeful', and that the moment they read 'x', they know what it is they're not going to get to do now. It also ties easily into the flavor text. "X's can't Y" would also be effective, thematically ("players can't gain life", "players can't draw cards", "damage can't be prevented", etc.). As to what the X's and Y's should be, exactly, I'm not so sure. I agree that Waste Not is a fun card, but it doesn't strike the tone I'm looking for. Each line should make the player think "I can't what?!?" That said, that's a difficult thing to balance. That's why I prefer "if you would" instead of "can't", since it lets you offset the things you can't do with things you do instead and makes it fun and worthwhile to play despite the dreary theme.
EDIT: to clarify, I think we'll get two legitimate commanders per deck rather than three, and get an original nephilim in each deck as a nudge to the commander rules committee folks.
The only thing that makes me think they might not have Urza is that there's zero chance of him being a creature rather than a planeswalker, and they might decide against printing more planeswalker-commanders since they did that already. Other than that he seems like an obvious choice, which is what makes me think we'll probably get him anyways.
I'm personally hoping for more nephilim, and I doubt they'll print any creatures with the exact one-each-of-four mana cost of the pre-existing nephilim unless the new card is also a nephilim (they might add some colorless mana in front though). Doing so would infringe on the nephilims' design space, and the commander crowd is pretty fond of them.
Swans of Bryn Argoll is fantastic, since you can generally choose whether to block with it or not.
Wishmonger, Sailmonger, and Squallmonger are all amazingly fun; they aren't especially selective but they favor the majority if one player gets out of hand.
Captivating Glance is possibly my favorite multiplayer removal spell, with Council's Judgment a close second. Notice that it says *an opponent*; you can clash with an opponent other than the controller. The effect is also a triggered ability, so if the enchantment dies or gets moved (Simic Guildmage, Aura Finesse) it will remain with its current controller.
Speaking of Simic; all cards with Graft allow you to put +1/+1 counters on other players' creatures as well.
I threw down some nephilim (nephili?) earlier, but no one seemed to notice
As for some of the OP's suggestions...
Feels like a bit of a trap to kill any of your attacking creatures with this guy out, but you could say the same for Omnath, Locus of Rage or Vigor
Very oppressive card, and the discard effect feels a bit off-color (maybe have them pay mana instead? that'd work better for white's 'tax' theme). I think it might just be better to punish them playing those lands than to prevent it outright (whenever an opponent plays a nonbasic land, you get a 2/2 white and red spirit creature token with flying). Also I would be disappointed that Stillmoon Cavalier couldn't be in the same deck, what with being a knight and the neat moon in the background
Seems fine for multiplayer, Probably too strong for 1v1. 1v1 commander has such a large banlist anyways that it'd probably be okay.
This really feels more like a black card than an eldrazi. There are only three 'named' eldrazi canonically in the lore, and each one has a separate theme. Doing stuff from exile is Ulamog's thing; you could re-theme this as a one-of-a-kind 'legendary spawn' of Ulamog, but the paying life should probably go. The second ability is also worded strangely, you should probably just use the "as if it were mana of any color" clause on the third ability to keep things simple.
In addition to the on-cast ability (which should probably be nerfed to "target player"), the new design for eldrazi legends also all have a protective ability (indestructible, protection from instants, countering spells by discarding) and an attacking ability (exile a bunch of cards from your library, menace, trample). This should have those as well in order to feel like a legendary eldrazi.
Seedborn Muse and Prophet of Kruphix are both very strong in EDH, this costs one more mana and would be always-available. Also gets confusing with "at the beginning of each player's upkeep" abilities: do those trigger twice per opponent's upkeep now? If it's also *your* upkeep, who gets priority to cast spells? Other "share a phase with an opponent" abilities never actually give you the phase, just the benefits of it, but this would. Does this also count as you having a 'turn' for effects that care? (Serra Avenger as one example). The intended answers to these questions are mostly obvious, but the mechanical meaning doesn't support them.
"Would cause" is a replacement effect, and all replacement effects end with "instead" in some way (even if indirectly, such as for Clergy of the Holy Nimbus). You definitely don't want to replace death, since that would lead to infinite sacrifices. You probably want "When a source you control causes ~ to die", but that will preclude gaining any benefit if you send him to the command zone since going to the command zone is a replacement effect (i.e. you don't draw cards if your commander is wearing a Skullclamp and you send him to the command zone. Thus, you would always just return this guy to the command zone if an opponent kills him to deny them the cards).
Neat idea for a card. It would probably only cost 1UR (and be something other than a legendary magpie, though I understand the desire for evasion on a relatively small blue creature with a "deals combat damage to an opponent" effect).
Skulk is now an evergreen mechanicOops, no it isn't! Either way, you've got clues on it already so that might be better.Ralviet, Petty Thief
Legendary Creature - Artificer Rogue
1UR
1/3
Skulk
When Seville ETBs you get a Clue, Gold Token and a Thopter.
When Seville connects with someone get clue, gold or thopter.
something like that.
This wouldn't work. Cards in a library can't be targeted, which would create problems for Disentomb and many others. Similarly, there is no mechanical meaning for the phrase "search your graveyard".
Isn't that already the idea behind werewolves: a subgame of not letting them transform, or they get bigger? Not that it's bad design or a bad ability the way it is, but if you want to create a dilemma then the first ability should read something like "At the beginning of your upkeep, put a +1/+1 counter on each human you control".
As a preface, many of these nephilim have 'bizarre' abilities simply because that's how the original nephilim were. Of the original five, only Dune-Brood and Witch-Maw had abilities which could be considered "normal", all the rest were mold-breaking at the time.
The flavor text is a reference to the flavor text theme of the originals ("When it awoke...")
----------
Whim-Feast Nephilim
WBRG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
1, discard a card: Put a +1/+1 counter on Whim-Feast Nephilim, it gains your choice of first strike, deathtouch, trample, or indestructible until end of turn.
~~~
3/3
It will not rest until its hunger is sated.
----------
This is just a Morphling-style dude designed after Glint-Eye Nephilim. What can I say? I like morphlings.
----------
Prism-Fleece Nephilim
WURG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
Protection from black
2: Change the text of each spell and each permanent by replacing all instances of one color word with another until end of turn.
~~~
4/4
It will not rest, for it has banished the night.
----------
I like the idea of a repeatable "change colors until EoT" effect. All of the currently-existing color word change effects are instant/sorcery other than Swirl The Mists. I thought this could be fun. I like the potential for logic puzzles if you need to shift its protection multiple times in a turn but don't want to affect some other card you might have. It also has my favorite name of the ones I made.
----------
Slip-Realm Nephilim
WUBG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
If a nontoken creature without shadow would be destroyed, regenerate that creature and place a +1/+1 counter on it.
Each creature with a +1/+1 counter has shadow.
~~~
5/3
It will not rest, yet it is always dreaming.
----------
I'm pretty sure shadow is a deprecated keyword, but it was either that or phasing and phasing is disliked by many. The neat part for me is that the first ability is a replacement effect, so you can't go infinite like you can with Mikaeus, The Unhallowed and you can't use it to power sacrifices, since it only prevents destruction. Only one other card does this sort of thing: Clergy of the Holy Nimbus (read the oracle text). This card struggles a bit to express its green-ness, although shadow is firmly an esper keyword.
----------
Rift-Grasp Nephilim
WUBR
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
At the beginning of your upkeep, choose a face-up nonland card at random from exile. Cast that card without paying its mana cost if able.
At the beginning of your end step, each player exiles the top card of his or her library.
~~~
3/3
It will not rest, and it will not let lie.
----------
Fun chaos-y commander inspired by Volatile Chimera that won't bog down the game. Its exile-casting is any card in exile, not just those it exiles itself. The split into two separate triggered abilities is kind of arbitrary and mostly for legibility
----------
Grief-Blossom Nephilim
UBRG
Legendary Creature - Nephilim
~~~
If a creature you control would deal combat damage, each opponent loses that much life instead.
If you would draw a card, each opponent discards a card instead.
If you would gain life, Grief-Blossom Nephilim deals that much damage to target creature or planeswalker instead.
~~~
It will not rest, but you will rest in its stead.
----------
Angry replacement-effect-monster. This one is more defined by being not-white than it is by being any particular color. The flavor text is intended to sound similar to its other abilities if read aloud.
There's some neat red equipment stuff which most people ignore, like Goblin Gaveleer, Vulshok Battlemaster, Bludgeon Brawl, Weapons Trainer, and Kazuul's Toll Collector. I would run Jor Kadeen for that second color and because he's less threatening than Kemba (a lot of good defensive equipment is expensive, like greaves and swords. Kemba will just get nuked if she starts wearing too much swag)
Also, to be honest, I want at least one general who takes the Cromat and/or Obelisk of Alara approach, as lazy as it may be.