MTG Salvation

Either paypal or postage coupon is fine with me. Postage coupon is easier for me to keep track of than paypalling later on, but half the time the people at the post office don't even know what one is. All in all, it's a toss up. Whatever is easier on you.

If you sent me a PM, you should have a response by now. Let me know if you haven't received one yet.

Quote from MTGKaioshin

BTW, I don't know all that much about MTGS, but wouldn't this be 'more appropriate' in the MTG general section? Yes, it's traditionally been here and it's technically a community event...but, I would imagine there's a fair bit of people who miss out just because they don't know.

I used to put up a forum-wide announcement when I was an admin. I contacted the Admins about doing that for me, but they haven't gotten back to me yet. Hopefully they will soon. The more people that know this is happening, the better.

When I return from GP Nashville on Monday I'll reply to everyone who has asked for my address. Don't worry - I didn't lose your PM.

I believe the game you are looking for is called Epic. It was made by Magic hall of famers Rob Dougherty and Darwin Kastle. The website for it can be found here.

The new holiday exchange for December 2010 is up! Check it out here!

Hello everybody! Happy holidays!

For the fourth consecutive year, the MTGSalvation Holiday Magic Card Exchange will return! Each year has been bigger and better than the last, and I expect this year to be no different. The firsts three exchanges can be found here: 2007, 2008, 2009 .

What exactly is going on here? Let me explain! (If you've done this before, skip down to the bottom and read the cliff notes for important changes.)

How the exchange works

The premise is simple. First, MTGSalvation members from all over the world send me personally altered cards. Then, as Christmas nears, I randomly send their cards to someone else who participated. It's a fun gift exchange that's always a blast.

What do I mean by personally altered? Does that you mean you have to be as good as the people over in the official altered art thread? Not at all! What's important is that you personalize your cards. For example, here are just a handful of cards done over the past few years:








As you can see, there is a lot of variation in what people choose to do. There is a wide range of artistic talent, from doodles to full-blown alters. Just make it fun. In general, if you wouldn't be happy with receiving it from somebody else, you should alter it until you would be.

How to Participate

Participating is easy! Just send me a PM with your address, and I'll send you mine back. All you have to do after that is send me your cards along with a self-addressed and stamped envelope. After that, just relax and wait for your return package to make its merry way to you. It's that simple!

All participants must have their cards to me by December 15th. They will be redistributed and sent off over the weekend, and hopefully everybody will have theirs by December 25th. Please remember to budget enough time for your cards to arrive. For reference, I live in Washington state, USA.

Brand new accounts are excluded to avoid gaming the system. If you try and game the system to get more presents, I will catch you. Please don't do it. It will just result in a sad face for both of us.

Tips and Checklist

Over the past three years, I've seen a lot of cards come through. Here are some recommendations to help make the holiday exchange fun for everybody!

• Try and modify cool cards. They don't necessarily have to be rares, but it's great when somebody can play the cards they receive in a deck and then tell the story of how they received them!
• Stumped for cards to alter? Try sending cards related to your name, avatar, or signature! That way there's a connection between MTGSalvation and the card's you're altering.
• What you receive is random and a gift from someone else to you. Regardless of how you feel about the quality of cards you received, please be grateful. After all, it's a gift!
• Part of the fun is ripping open the package when it finally arrives to see what you received. Try not to post the alters you did ahead of time - though vague hints can sometimes be fun.
• Sending items such as letters, notes, or pictures along with your cards to the other person is not only allowed, but encouraged!
• You might want to take a picture of your cards before you send them so that you can still show them off if the recipient has no way to upload an image.
• You may submit as few or as many cards as you would like. Take your time and make some great alters!

And finally, here's the cliff notes version of what to do. Think of it as your own personal submission checklist.

1. Send me a PM with your address
2. Refresh your inbox over and over until I reply with my address
3. Alter cards!
4. Send me your cards and a self-addressed stamped envelope. The SASE is crucial! (International readers, see below.)
5. Time travel to December 23rd and check your mail. Enjoy your gift!

International readers: If you're mailing internationally, we can work that out on a case by case basis via PM. In general, I'd appreciate if you sent a label with your address on it along with something like an international reply coupon or money for postage.

I'm looking forward to receiving your cards! Every year for the past three years this had made my holiday season incredibly special, and I look forward to seeing what you all come up with again this year! Have fun!

Please post any questions below.

I came here to start writing up the new thread and this one was sticky for some reason. Odd. In any case, you can expect a new thread from me on this tonight or tomorrow with information for this year's exchange. Stay tuned!

Quote from Memnarch

It's a lot of logistics to "force" users to not re-post cards, since they could simply modify names or make minor alterations to keep it within the acceptable boundaries. Plus, without a constant storage area, it becomes a lot harder than referencing things (continuously having to refer to the Search function to verify a day's card as fresh).

As for the Finals idea, it'd play out like a PTQ-style thing, in that we'd have to restrict winners of a month to not playing for the rest of the season. Otherwise, we might have multiple slots taken by a single person.

Yeah, there's no good way to force people to not reuse cards. The logistics and potential semantical arguments are not worth any kind of enforcement.

However, with that said, the basic idea is that the voting system keeps reusing the same card in check. In other words: you are the enforcement of this idea. If you think somebody is using an idea that they've already showed off time and time again, don't vote for them. Simple as that.

Agreed! Thank you, everyone. I know how hard it is to keep dealing with the site's day-to-day issues over and over. You have all earned this. Good work!

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you need to do it right now. Mark has said that before, and I think it's a pretty important point... I'll probably end up writing a blog entry on it at some point to reiterate it further. In short, there's a time, place, and block for everything. While I'll admit that Future Sight would have been a good place to show off spell morphs, I don't think that's Wizards saying they won't do them. I'm sure there were tons of crazy ideas that didn't make the final Future Sight cut, and I can think of a lot of reasons introducing a single spell morph card is an issue. There is a block for spell morphs out there, we just haven't got there yet.

In any case, while the rules can't be ignored, they're much looser in a design competition. If you want to make a block with spell morphs work, you can change the rules to make it work and, as MDenham makes pretty clear, it's a change that could be made. As long as you aren't doing anything that should very obviously be off limits, I think that kind of outside the box thinking (granted, spell morphs aren't that original) and drive is beneficial.

Mark has pointed out several times where he has pushed designs that didn't work within the rules. Sometimes they make it, sometimes they don't. As a designer, your job is to at least try.

Link (One of many.)

Dave Niehaus was the Seattle Mariners' broadcaster from the northwest. His talent for broadcasting was only surpassed by the love of the game. His enthusiasm and spirit always showed up, and he would regularly become about exciting plays - even if they were done by the opposing team.

Niehaus has been broadcasting for the Mariners since their first year in 1977. While the M's had few opportunities to show off his wonderful ability on the big stage (notably 1995-2002 or so) due to their mediocre performance, listening to him was always a joy. His talented vocals came back year after year, regardless of how poor the Mariner's were set up to do.

When many celebrities die, I don't feel any real attachment. For this one, I do. He's like the soundtrack to my childhood, a true baseball legend, and I wanted to create a thread on this before it passed by.

Rest in peace Dave.

I felt a lot like the top half of the design test was what helped you to have a good second half of the design test in the first place. By having a good world and, more importantly, a good mechanical idea, you create an environment which breeds well designed cards. Coming up with the cards first doesn't lead to the same experience.

Exiling the cards in constructed is going to be irrelevant most of the time unless you cast three or four. In limited, you can't afford to cast more than one. I think you're banking too much on the successive casts being a drawback when they really aren't unless you draw three or four. (And it's worth noting there's the chance to exile one after you cast one.)

Efizel has a couple of issues. First, do you want the emblem to work on your turns too? If so, it's pretty unintuitive. Second, it just seems like a planeswalker that will infuriate your opponent and drag games on. The problem is not the sense that "oh, I'm being demolished by Nicol Bolas, I can see it happening and should concede" but one of, "well he's at 30 life and gaining 10 more a turn... but I guess I have to slog this out to see if I can win." That's not really what you want a planeswalker to do. There's a fine line between power and frustration.

I also dislike how its abilities have no real synergy. Nothing it does works well together or makes flavorful sense together other than "I'm going to gain you life!" Even somebody like Koth is fairly Mountain-centric. It makes sense. With this planeswalker, I'm not feeling how its abilities line up. What were you trying to get at with its abilities? If you can give us a better idea of that, then maybe we can craft it into the shape you want.

Steam Puffer is great. Reminds me of the Mimics in Eventide. For that reason, I wonder if it should cost one more. I also think the haste is unnecessary; I like it becoming just a 4/4 flier.

I think Boiltoad is well done, except it should probably have one less toughness. Horned Turtle is the standard in blue defense for three mana, and while this is multicolored, I see the multicolor adding the ability, not an extra toughness. Finally, If you are doing hybrid mana in your set, I could see making the activation cost U/R. Otherwise, 1 is fine.

Learned Goblin is totally fine.

I think the best way to fix Plasmotrion to do what you want is just to add "may." Then you eliminate the unwanted spell or creature/legendary creature problem altogether and can make him a legend, too. Otherwise, awesome design. I've made similar cards before and they're always a ton of fun. I am tempted to give him haste to help push him a little, but he can probably stand on his own.

I feel like Whipwind Drake might be too good, mostly because I don't feel the second half is a drawback. The card seems all-upside, and far too much of an aggressive flier for limited. Compare to Sewn-Eye Drake. I see what the haste is trying to do in synergy with ability number two, but I feel it's actually not necessary overall. I think it is a lot more interesting card without the haste.

When I first saw Continuum Replicant, I had to pause and go into the tank on how to best use it and what kind of synergies it has with other cards. That's the sign of a good Johnny card for me! I can't help but feel like it's a little random and swingy - but that's precisely what a card like this intends to do. I like it! Well done.

Good match of cards in general, Pharmalade.

Winnowed Thought is definitely too good. Compare to something like Impulse. A better example of how high of a cost this card needs to have can be seen on Plunge into Darkness. Exiling the cards is often negligible. It can also just be a sorcery. The number of cards should probably be lower, and in that case it could easily be a common or uncommon. For example, I could see something like:

Winnowed Thought 1U
Sorcery (Uncommon)
Look at the top five cards of your library. Put one into your hand and exile the rest.

I would probably add an G activation cost to Root Seer. With that said, I have to ask myself, "Why?" I don't see exactly why green is doing this, or what hole this card fills. Sure, you have cards like Momentous Fall which are rare and "recycle" your creatures, and commons like Elvish Visionary which kind of fit with green, but something feels off about Root Seer. I don't think it's too powerful or anything, but unless it fits well into your set theme, there are likely other cards that could better fill that hole.

Pain Inverter. Sure. It's a weird Johnny card. The only concern I have is that, for all the work you put into it, Johnny doesn't get a ton of payoff, but I'm sure they can find a way to make an opponent "sacrifice creatures" in their draw step each turn. It also makes effects not work the way you want them to sometimes. I might consider making it a may effect. On that note, though it isn't relevant to design, "whenever" doesn't work with "instead" clauses. I would change the wording too, "If a spell or ability other than Pain Inverter would cause a player to X, you may have that player instead do Y." Finally, I would also make it legendary just to help stem confusion of what happens when two are on the battlefield. (Such as Krark's Thumb did.)

I like the Infernist a lot, though the effect feels splashy enough to be a rare.

I love Tactics Training. Excellent, elegant design. The only thing is I might consider making it "Enchanted Creature has "T: Tap target creature" as that's a more prevalent ability, but either way I think the functionality is fine.