MTG Salvation

Smuggler 1R
Legendary Enchantment - Background
You may look at the top card of your library any time.
Commander creatures you control have: "T: Exile the top card from your library. You may cast that card from exile this turn if it's an artifact with converted mana cost 3 or less."

Minor Nobility W
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Commander creatures you control are nobles in addition to their creature types.
Whenever a nontoken noble creature enters the battlefield under your control, create a Treasure token.

Country Bumpkin W
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Commander creatures you control are peasants in addition to their creature types.
Whenever a nontoken peasant creature enters the battlefield under your control, create a 0/1 white Goat creature token.

Renowned Athlete 1R
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Commander creatures you control have haste and Renown 1.

Wanted Fugitive 1B
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Commander creatures you control must be blocked if able.
Whenever a commander creature you control leaves the battlefield, create a Treasure token.

Circus Acrobat 1G
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Commander creatures you control have Reach and "This creature can't be blocked by creatures with higher power."

Arena Gladiator 3R
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Whenever a commander creature you control enters the battlefield, you may have it fight another target creature. If you do, and you control both creatures, create two Treasure tokens.

Cartographer 2G
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Whenever a commander creature you control attacks, search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Shuffle afterwards.

-- Finally, a pair that synergizes --

Luzerna, Playful Torturer 2BB
Legendary Creature - Vampire Warlock (R)
Flying
Whenever an opponent begins the end step with exactly 1 life less than they started this turn, draw a card.
Choose a Background
4/4

Gifted Healer 1W
Legendary Enchantment - Background
Whenever a commander creature you control attacks, each of X target players gain 3 life. Then scry X.

Slashing Strike 1W
Skill - Soldier Warrior
(If you choose a Soldier or Warrior you control to act this spell, cast it any time. Otherwise, cast it as a sorcery.)
Slashing Strike deals 3 damage to target tapped or blocking creature.
If the acting creature attacked this turn, scry 1.

Teach to Hunt 1G
Skill - Wolf Beast
(If you choose a Wolf or Beast you control to act this spell, cast it any time. Otherwise, cast it as a sorcery.)
Target creature you control fights target creature an opponent controls.
If the acting creature has greater power than both targeted creatures, draw a card.


Rules: Skill is a non-permanent card type like instant and sorceries. Like Tribal, skills have creature subtypes. As you are casting a skill you may choose a creature you control that shares a creature type with it (and that's required unless you are casting it any time you couldn't cast a sorcery.) That's the acting creature. Skills may have an additional effect if they have an acting creature, but if they don't, ignore that effect. If the acting creature is removed before the skill resolves, it resolves like normal using Last Known Information about that creature (e.g. it remembers the power of the creature as it left the battlefield.) That's the reason Slashing Strike went with "attacked this turn" rather than "is attacking."

Fervid Goblin R
Creature - Goblin Berserk (C)
First Strike, Haste
Dynamorph R (You may cast this card as a face down 2/2 creature for two or three mana of the same color. If you spend three, it enters with a +1/+1 counter. Turn it face up any time for its dynamorph cost.)
1/1

Morph is an awesome, but flawed mechanic. One of its biggest problems was fixed in Tarkir: by making a morph requiring at least 5 mana to outright defeat another in combat, the feel-bad moments for guessing wrong in the early game were fixed. However, a new problem emerged, and it's probably even worse nowadays: spending your turn 3-4 setting up a 2/2 vanilla creature is too tempo negative. Creatures are a lot better now, and spending three mana in a creature that requires 1 mana to kill is a recipe for disaster.
During Tarkir-block development, Wotc tried to fix this problem by changing the cost and even the P/T, but all we got was Megamorph, which simply rewards you with a bigger final creature if you go through the vanilla 2/2.

So here is my proposal for a fixed morph (or at least an alternative that alleviates some of these problems.) You can get a 2/2 for two mana or 3/3 for three mana (with the added bonus of being bigger after the change too), however it goes from being colorless to being all the same color. This is a big change, and these would require a bigger color commitment (I don't foresee two-color decks having any mana troubles, since 2-of-any and even 3-of-any is easy, but decks with three or more colors may think twice about casually including these.)

After some tinkering:

Harlequeen's Gardener 3G
Surreal Creature - Spider Art (C)
( ﴾G﴿ equals your green psyche counters. As a sorcery, or before this spell resolves, pay G equal to ﴾G﴿ to get a green psyche counter.)
Reach
﴾G﴿/4

Rules: Increasing your psyche of a certain color is a special action. It can be used as a sorcery if you control a Surreal permanent of that color, or anytime if you control a Surreal spell of that color.

This version was pushed a lot, as psyches essentially start at 1, with the second counter costing one mana, the third two mana, etc.
This means the gardener costs 1 more, and even then it's stronger than before. Around Giant Spider (just one G gets it there), and getting stronger and stronger in multiples. But still, the strategy is slow and requires a heavy color commitment. Most surreal creatures would have less than 4 toughness, (or have a fixed power with variable toughness) making them scale less dangerously.

In The Last Day of New Paris, a detonated S-bomb turned all surreal art into living manifestations that roam the derelict city.

Harlequeen's Gardener 2G
Surreal Creature - Art
Reach
{G}/4

These cards would be showcased without reminder text just to blow people's minds.

Modder Bear 1G
Creature - Bear Druid (R)
(As a sorcery, pay the mana inside { } to put a +1/+1 counter on that slot. An ability has no effect if it has an empty slot.)
{2} Trample
{3}{3} Whenever Modder Bear attacks, draw a card.
2/3

Rules:

Slot abilities are static abilities that hold a reserved place in a card, where +1/+1 counters are held in place. By paying the cost on a Slot, as a sorcery, you cover it with a +1/+1 counter (that also grants +1/+1 like normal.)

> Paying and placing a +1/+1 counter doesn't use the stack.
> A covered slot can't be used to get more counters.
> If all slots of an ability are covered, the rest of the ability is enabled.
> A player that removes a +1/+1 counter from a creature may choose any +1/+1 counter to remove, potentially emptying a slot / disabling an ability.
> A player that adds +1/+1 counters to a creature by other means, can't choose to cover a slot (unless specified by that ability.)

Thanks for all the help, I got to a version I really like. (See below.)

So, ingredients have many ways to get into storage. Many have collect, or sacrifice abilities that put them into storage, or get there automatically after they die. Then you get the investment back by using them on recipes, for a small discount and an effect.

Great notes as always Here is another take:

Corrosive Mist 2BB
Sorcery - Recipe (U)
(As you cast a recipe, each ingredient you brew pays 1. Put an ingredient from storage into your graveyard to brew it.)
Destroy target creature.
If you brewed this spell with a green card and a blue card, draw two cards. Otherwise, scry 1.

Greenleaf Treant 3G
Ingredient Creature - Treefolk (C)
(If you would scry, you may exile a single ingredient from your hand into storage. Scry an extra card. Draw one of the cards.)
4/4

Corrosive Mist 2BB
Sorcery - Recipe (U)
Destroy target creature.
Brew with GU - Draw a card. (You may pay GU to get this effect. If you don't, scry 1.)

So, Brew is kicker during resolution, that gives a consolation prize if you can't pay (you scry 1.) This means you went looking around for ingredients, but couldn't find them. But what if you had the ingredients in your hand?

Bluedew Elemental 1U
Creature - Elemental (C)
Ingredient (You may exile this card from your hand to pay U for a brew cost. Keep this in a Jar. As you scry, you may return this card to your hand.)
2/1

Greenleaf Treant 3G
Creature - Treefolk (C)
If you own two or more cards in Jars, Greenleaf Treant has +1/+1 and Trample.
Ingredient (You may exile this card from your hand to pay G for a brew cost. Keep this in a Jar. As you scry, you may return this card to your hand.)
4/4

You may use Ingredient cards to pay for a Recipe (only to get the extra potency), then you can recover these ingredients from their Jars by scrying around your kitchen (which a less potent Recipe allows you to do anyways.)

Interesting.

Extra Attack (This creature attacks on an extra front. Each front is blocked separately.)

Evade (This creature attacks on an extra front. Each front is blocked separately. After blockers are declared, abandon a front.)

Rules: An attacker with extra fronts may attack the same or different players / planeswalkers on each front. To declare a blocker for a creature with two or more fronts, also declare the blocked front. The attacker keeps each front blocking assignment separately (i.e, it may be blocked on a front, and unblocked on another.) The attacker assigns damage simultaneously on each front, and for the full amount on each front (it also receives damage from each front simultaneously.)

Kazgran Horde 2R
Creature - Goblin Warrior
Team Attack (This creature attacks as if it were two tokens until the end of combat. Then one of the tokens reverts to this card, and the other ceases to exist.)
1/3

Lubrid Infiltrator 2U
Creature - Human Rogue
Team Evasion (This creature attacks as if it were two tokens until blockers are declared. Then one of the tokens reverts to this card, and the other ceases to exist.)
2/1

Rules -
You declare an attacker with a Team ability just like normal (tapping, paying just 2 for Propaganda, etc)
If the whole attack is legal, then instead of attacking, this creature ceases to exist and two new objects start existing already in the battlefield (not entering.) These two tokens have all the characteristics from the original object, even timestamps, except they are tokens.
Now the attack declaration goes forward, with the tokens attacking, even if the attack became illegal.
If the original object had attachments, distribute them among the tokens.

After the stated duration, choose one of the tokens. It reverts to the original object, and the other token ceases to exist. If no token remains, the original object ceased to exist permanently.
This happens immediately, so if you want to use a token as sacrifice fodder, it must be before blockers (for Team Evasion) or before Combat Damage is done (for Team Attack.)

Weirder Cases -
Q: What happens if a delayed trigger references a creature, and now there are two creatures?
A: The delayed trigger is altered to reference any of those those creatures, e.g: "When that creature dies this turn, ..." becomes functionally, "Whenever one of those creatures dies this turn, ..."

Q: What happens if the creature was paired with another? (Soulbond)
A: Like attachments, pairing can only involve two creatures, so the owner must choose one of the tokens to keep the pairing. At the end of the duration, if the object becomes the other token, the pairing is over.

Lekkato, Winter's Heart WUGB
Legendary Creature - Nephilim Cat
Companion - Choose two guilds (a guild is a two color identity.) Each other multicolored card in your starting deck is exactly one of those guilds
Whenever you cast a multicolored spell, tap target creature.
3/5

Here is a fun deckbuilding restriction: a 4-color deck that is only Azorius+Golgari, no inbetweens. Or Simic+Orzhov. Or Dimir+Selesnya...

Mettori, Autumn's Soul RGBU
Legendary Creature - Nephilim Deer
Companion - Choose two guilds (a guild is a two color identity.) Each other multicolored card in your starting deck is exactly one of those guilds
Whenever you cast a multicolored spell, scry 1.
4/4


Fommane, Summer Dream WGRB
Legendary Creature - Nephilim Dog
Companion - Choose two guilds (a guild is a two color identity.) Each other multicolored card in your starting deck is exactly one of those guilds
Whenever you cast a multicolored spell, Fommane deals 1 damage to any target.
5/4


Lunneti, Spring's Welcome UWGR
Legendary Creature - Nephilim Bird
Companion - Choose two guilds (a guild is a two color identity.) Each other multicolored card in your starting deck is exactly one of those guilds
Whenever you cast a multicolored spell, gain 2 life.
3/4

Eccusco, Ocean's Depth UWBR
Legendary Creature - Nephilim Kraken
Companion - Choose two guilds (a guild is a two color identity.) Each other multicolored card in your starting deck is exactly one of those guilds
Whenever you cast a multicolored spell, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
2/5

--

I know what you are thinking. "These nephilim are so awesome, I want to make them my commanders! But then Companion doesn't restrict me, and I'm sad :("

So here is mechanic for all companion would-be commanders

Nascent, Law Trainer 1WU
Creature - Human Trainer
Commanders you control have Prowess.
Companion Partner (If this is your commander, you can have a second commander if it has a Companion ability your deck fulfills.)
3/3

There, now every* companion can be a commander while still restricting your deck!

*: Except that dumb otter of course.

Well, yes, this shouldn't be as ubiquitous as Menace, but it could appear like Double Strike, as a big payoff for pump spells.

In many ways this compares very disfavourably to Double Strike. For starters, it kills you half as quickly if ignored, and the creature that Cleaves is a actually touchable in combat. And one the smaller scale, a 2/2 Cleaver doesn't trade if blocked by two 3/3, while a double striker kills the best one. And it even compares disfavourably to menace, if I have a single big blocker, I only get hit once. It's only better than menace if I send two blockers to a creature on the same scale, as I may lose the two blockers instead of just one of the two, but that is quite usual with menace and removal.

I don't mean it to be a set mechanic, but it's just an ability that could sprinkled around to make combats more interesting.

I designed this combat mechanic for a joke, but after a bit of reworking, I think I got to something simple, flavorful, and interesting.

Cleaving Warrior 3R
Creature - Human Warrior
Cleave (This creature assigns combat damage to the first blocker alone, and again as if ignoring that blocker.)
3/2

Rules:
- A blocked creature with cleave assigns damage twice. First to the first blocker, all by itself (it must assign its full power, even if it attacks with Trample.) And a second time as if ignoring the first blocker (this time Trample would apply over the extra blockers.)
- Both assignments are executed simultaneously (not like First Strike / Regular combat damage.)
- If a creature has both Cleave and Double Strike, the 'First Blocker' may change during each damage step. It has no memory between damage steps.

And that's it. Its a bit like Double Strike (in that it can deal two times its power, but never to the same thing), a bit like Menace (in that it needs two blockers to prevent face damage) and a bit like Trample (in that it can go over a creature. But just one creature.)

I think I finally cracked a mechanic I've been tinkering for ages.

Suddenstrike Apprentice 3U
Creature - Human Ninja
Shadowstep 2UU (If you cast this for its Shadowstep cost, it has Flash and replaces target creature you control.)
2/4

Replace Rules -

• When two creatures Replace each other, both phase out without counters or attachments, then phase in tapped as if they were the other creature (keeping the attachments, counters, blocking assignments, timestamps, etc, from what it replaced.)
• Replacing requires both creatures to be controlled by the same player, otherwise nothing happens.
• Like Mutate, casting a creature via Shadowstep turns it into Shadowstepping spell that targets a creature. If the creature no longer exists, it is no longer a Shadowstepping spell and it resolves like normal (the creature doesn't enter tapped as it normally would.)
• If the Shadowstepping spell resolves, it replaces instead of entering the battlefield. This means the original creature phases in tapped as if it just started to exist. Shadowstep (like all replacing) never triggers 'enter the battlefield' effects.

Chaos Mephit 3R
Creature - Elemental
First Stike
3R: Chaos Mephit replaces target creature you control. (Both phase in as the other, tapped.)
2/1

Phasing in tapped makes Replace focus on being a combat and removal-dodging mechanic, instead of becoming a flickering value machine.
It could work as a primary Blue/Red combat mechanic, being tertiary in black due to flavor.