Personal Magic cards - thoughts?

Cafe Society
1

My circle likes to make up our own Magic: the Gathering cards an dplay them. It’s fun and doesn’t take too much work. These were inspired by the new Lorwynn set. Thoughts? I have trouble with the Mana costing, and tend to place it too high. Not all of these cards would be used in one deck, of course.

The “story” here is that the Hume (Hey, I borrowed it from FF11, sue me) were enslaved by the evil Lorwynn elves. Their allies, including the Kithkin and Treefolk) betrayed them. The Hume’s enslavement lasted quite a long time, but they eventually broke free and retreated into the swamps and moors. They have a lot of theft and shutdown mechanics, but relatively little direct damage.

Notation:

-Card Name

-Card Cost - 1C = 1 Colorless mana, 2Wh = 2 White mana, 3Bk = three Black mana

-(Card Color)

-Card type and subtype (creature/instant/enchantmnt/etc)

-effects and abilities

-power/toughness for creatures

-flavor text

Wizened Hermit

1Wh

(White)

Creature - Hume

3C 1Wh: Take control of target land. Put it in play Championing Wizened Hermit. You may use this in addition to your normal land play. If the land is destroyed, removed from play, or leaves your control, bury Wizened Hermit.

0/1

After a millenia without a face, he’ll at least have a home.

Masked Assassin

2C 2B

(Black)

Creature - Hume

First Strike

Sacrifice Masked Assassin: Bury target creature. You may move any counters on it to another single card.

2/1

A lifetime of pain, an eternity of veangence.

Bloodthirsty Avenger

2C 2Bk

(Black)

Creature - Hume

1Bk: When a Hume is put into a Graveyard from play, put a -1/-1 counter on target creature.

3/3

Courtesan of Sorrows

1C 1Bk

(Black)

Creature - Hume

When Courtesan of Sorrows comes into play, put a Lament counter on target creature. Any card with a Lament counter doesn’t untap during its controller’s untap phase unless that player pays 2C.

1/1

After a thousand years of wearing masks to please their Elven masters, some Hume found their faces had changed to match…

Hume’s Friend Changeling

1C 2Wh

(White)

Creature - Changeling

When you play a Hume, clash with target opponent. If you win, put a +1/+1 counter on Hume’s Friend Changeling.

1/1

Vale the Bitter

3C 2Wh

(White)

Legendary Creature - Hume

When a Hume is put into Graveyard from play, put a Lament counter on target permanent.

All other Hume get +1/+1

2/3

For every agony, another bitter tear.

Hume Sentinals

1C 2Wh

(White)

Creature - Hume

When Hume Sentinals comes into play as a creature summon, target creature gains a Holy Strength token. Creatures with Holy strength tokens gain +1/+2.

Flash: Pay 1Wh and put Hume Sentinals into play as an instant. It gains Haste until end of turn.

Gloom

2C 2Wh 2Bk

(Black/White)

Creature - Elemental

Put a Lament counter on any creature which deals damage to you. Any card with a Lament counter doesn’t untap during its controller’s untap phase unless that player pays 2C.

3/3

Delay

1Wh 1Bk

(Black/White)

Instant

Target card’s effects do not resolve until end of turn. You may target spells which have not resolved with Delay.

Deeds Undone

1C 1Wh 1Bk

(Black/White)

Instant

Destroy target creature. Any abilities from it which are unresolved at the time Deeds Undone is cast do not resolve.

For the Hume, it’s not enough to kill. All trace of the enemy must be obliterated.

Reclamation

1C 1Wh 1 Bk

(Black/White)

Enchantment

Pay 2 Life: take control of target land and put it in play Championing this card.

The elves lay waste to their foes’ land. The Hume take the ruins as their own.

Salvage

2C 1Wh 1Bk

(Black/White)

Enchantment

Pay 2 Life: You may pay the casting cost of target card in an opponent’s graveyard. Put that card into play Championing Salvage. If that card would be put into the Graveyard, remove it from game instead.

After long years of picking the Elves’ trash, the Hume became expert in turning it into treasure.

Burial of the Beloved

(White)

Instant - Tribal

Gain 3 life for every creature sharing target creature’s Tribe put into the Graveyard this turn.

Tomb of Greed

(Black)

Enchantment

Pay 2 Life: You may play one card from any Graveyard as if it were in your hand. Put that card into play Championing Tomb of Greed.

Elven tombs hold valuable treasures if one can stay alive to claim them.

Hoarded Supplies

1C 1Wh 1Bk

(Black)

Enchantment

Tap, Pay 2 Life: Draw a card. If you play that card this turn, lose 2 additional Life.

2

My husband and his friends made one with Calvin (of “and Hobbes”) and one with Smokey the Bear.

3

Are we really going to do this here? I don’t know if “The Master” will allow us to do it.

or The Mods,

Or the teeming millions.

Anyway

MTGsalvation.com

is the place to go.

I will see you over there. Same SN on both. :wink:

Oh, ok. fine

  1. No “I win” cards or cards that suck the fun out of the game.

  2. No “wordy” cards / 4 lines etc.

3.No Unglued / Unhinged Cards… thats why those sets exist.

  1. Id say keep the cards to a minimum - 15 (A booster packs worth) should be enough for one game (mixed with real cards)

  2. All players can “play” other players cards… assuming they “put them in” their library to begin with.

4

There is a commonly used system of mana cost notation that’s simpler than yours. W=White, G=Green, U=Blue, R=Red, B=Black, numbers=generic mana. Air Elemental costs 3UU, Duress costs B, Blaze costs XR.

Some feedback:

Wizened Hermit: The mechanic doesn’t work very well. Taking control doesn’t remove a card from play, so it can’t be put into play, and what is “championing Wizened Hermit” supposed to mean, exactly? Champion removes a permanent from play, but the last sentence of the ability implies that Wizened Hermit should still be in play. Also, champion is a triggered ability (two, really) which doesn’t seem to fit here.

Masked Assassin: The sentences of the ability should be in reverse order, otherwise the counters are gone when the time comes to move them.

Bloodthirsty Avenger: The ability is written both as an activated and a triggered ability, so it doesn’t work. I suspect you’re after “When a Hume is put into a graveyard from play, you may pay B. If you do, put a -1/-1 counter on target creature”.

Hume’s Friend Changeling: So far, no clash abilities have targeted the opponent.

Hume Sentinals: What does “come into play as a creature summon” mean? Does it mean that you played it from your hand? If so, check (for example) Coal Stoker for wording. I don’t understand the flash ability entirely either. You can play it for 1W extra to play it as an instant and if you do, it gains haste? Flash and haste will combo rather rarely.

Gloom and Delay: The names of these cards are already taken. To get the effect I think you’re after with Delay, change the wording to “Counter target spell. If the spell is countered this way, remove it from the game instead of putting it into its owner’s graveyard. At end of turn, its owner plays it”. To enable you to target it is trickier, though.

Deeds Undone: “Destroy target creature. Counter all abilities whose source is that creature”.

Salvage and Tomb of Greed: You should probably specify that you can only target permanent cards.

Burial of the Beloved: “Tribe” isn’t a Magic term. “Creature type” is probably what you want here.

Hoarded Supplies: The game has no way to track what cards you drew this turn, so this should involve removing the card from the game, allowing you to play it at an additional cost of 2 life as long as it’s removed from the game, and then putting it into your hand at end of turn.

“Bury” isn’t a Magic term either, these days.

5

Thanks for the notes, Priceguy. Tel ya the Trth, I cut my Teeth in Magic about a decade ago, and I haven’t been too involved in the last 5-6 years. My Magic Lingo is a little rusty, and they weren’t as specific or “grammatical” back in the day.

6

If you’re interested in designing Magic cards, I highly recommend The Great Designer Search – a collection of articles at wizards.com that covers Wizards looking for (and finding) a design intern. There are multiple rounds of challenges for the applicants to design cards fitting various criteria, with each applicant’s submissions being judged by members of the Magic R&D team. I found it illuminating.

Mark Rosewater’s columns are also good, as he explains fundamental design guidelines that he uses in shaping how Magic evolves.

7

I admit I would dearly love to work in the M:tG Creative team. I would also like to work in the Design, but problematically I seriously don’t have the $$ to do it. I just can’t afford to buy the boosters. Hence the Design-my-Own. I can print them on cardstock with art I select and play for $2 per nine cards.

8

That they weren’t. Speaking as a (semi-retired but considering being re-activated) judge, I thank the Lord that they changed.

9

“you may regrow heads for RRR apiece.”

Yes, I shudder to read the wording on some Alpha-era cards. As brilliant as Richard Garfield’s idea was, it was so very rough.

10

When the kids were, well, kids, I wanted to have a card called Mom’s Goblin Raiders for them to use. It would be 2R to put out and be x/x, with x being the number of chores that you’ve done for Mom since last Monday.

I figured that the illustration for Mon’s Goblin Raiders could be modified to have them holding brooms, mops, and dust pans rather than swords and spears, but I never got around to it. Now, sadly (smirk) they’re grown and moved out.

11

First of all, as Priceguy pointed out, please use the standard mana notation system.

Also, all of his comments on ambiguity (particular with respect to your use of the word “championing”) are correct. It’s also unclear how you intend lament counters to work. Is the “this doesn’t untap unless you pay 2” ability built into the lament counter? What if a creature has multiple lament counters?

Neither land destruction nor stealing of things is a white ability.

This is probably overpowered as printed. Black rarely gets “Destroy target creature” as opposed to “destroy target non-black” or “Destroy target non-zombie” or something. And while the sacrifice with no tap and no cost makes it more powerful, it also to a certain extent makes it less interesting… once it’s in play, you never have to think about it, just have it chill until needed… if it was “B2, sacrifice:” or “T, sacrifice” then you have interesting gameplay decisions to make about when to keep it ready to go.

The counters part might be overkill. A card with that ability feels more like it should be a legendary rare, “Bob Smith, hunter of blood” or something.

This seems underpowered. A 1/1 for 1B is bad, and the ability is nothing to write home about. Maybe give it an ability that allows it to recur, so that you can keep loading up your opponent’s creatures with lament counters? (ie, "when ~ goes to the graveyard from play, you may pay 1B. If you do, return it to your hand?)

So you can play it normally for 1WW, or at instant speed and it gains haste for 1W? I must be missing something.

First of all, if you’re trying to make another member of the Lorwyn elemental cycle, it should have some evasion/combat ability, be 6/6, and have the “shuffle into deck” ability. Also, its static ability is vastly underpowered. Gold cards are harder to cast than mono-colored cards, so should be better. Compare its ability to that of Dread.

I like this card a lot, if you reword it as suggested upthread. It does something never before done, but immediately easy to understand and interesting. It’s even the right cost and card type (although it should perhaps be BU instead of BW, but that’s a quibble).

12

<hijack>
http://www.chorewars.com/index.php
</hijack>

13

I haven’t played MTG in about 7 years. However, all that time ago I came up with the following card:

Double edged sword Artifact, zero cost.
When you bring this card into play place 6 counters on it. At the start of your upkeep lose 1 life for each counter. At the end of your upkeep, remove 1 counter. When you remove the last counter you win the game. You cannot win if you have less than 1 life remaining.

It is an “I win” card of a sort. However, using it does you 21 points of damage over 6 rounds. You need to gain at least 2 life from somewhere, and not lose any more. And your opponent might cast a destroy artifact, or even a steal artifact spell when there’s only 1 counter on it. So using it is risky. Still, playing with it might be fun.

14

Well I used that one because, well, I used it a long time.

Will reword. Multiple lament counters don’t stack in any way, and wording reflects that. I may weaken the mana cost to 1B, as a friend suggested that 2B was too much.

This is what’s wrong with Magic today, ye gol dur young whippersnappers! No imagination! Why, back in my day we walked five miles in the snow to buy magic cards, and they were horribly broken, and only got commons.

Actually, though, I felt this was an appropriate ability even if it’s not according to the color wheel, because I haven’t looked at those things in yars and can therefore ignore them! He’s basically a squatter: where else is he going to squat? But it’s true that the oriignal concept was Black. I may change the activated cost to Black.

It’s actually a Royal Assassin at heart. Thinking of knocking the ability down to tap: destroy tapped creature.

It’s a set I created. Rarity isn’t an issue here. But you’re right that the counters ability was a little much, so I’m actually changing it to moving one counter only and only to a permanent.

I’m not so sure about that. It basically shuts down creatures, and you can use other cards to move the counters to any permanent. That’s a lot of flexibility in messing with the opponent. Any more might overpower the card.

I’m dropping the Haste and the changing he standard ability to ‘when it comes into play as a creature summon, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature’. But instead of doing this for the full cost, you can just put it into play as an instant. You don’t get the +1/+1 in that case.

I recognize that. It was a much less powerful version of Dread, basically, and that was deliberate. I may have to put in an ability to let you move the counters around.

I did think about BU, but having considered it, BU didn’t quite work. Blue wouldn’t fool around with delaying the effect for awhile - they’d take direct control or counter it. Black and White can’t do that, so they tag team the best they can: they take down the creature and utterly obliterate anything left of it. You could maybe have done this with Blue in Time Spiral, but I don’t think it fits there in any other set.

15

Is “comes into play as a creature summon” meant to mean “When it comes into play, if you played it from your hand”?

16

Problem is, either way you’re playing it from your hand.

OK, here goes:

If you pay the full cost, it comes into play and you a get a +1/+1 somewhere.

But, you can pay the cheaper cost and it goes into play on instant time.

17

Re-templated for you:
Hume Sentinels (assuming sentinals was a spelling error…)

1WW

Creature - Hume

When <CARDNAME> comes into play, put a +1/+1 token on target creature.

1W, discard <CARDNAME> from your hand: put a 1/1 Hume token creature into play named Hume Sentinels. You may play this ability any time you could play an instant.

2/2

I thought about using Evoke, but that puts the creature into play, which would trigger its comes-into-play token-placing event.

18

Man I hate having to do quotes-within-quotes by hand.

Young whippersnapper? I’ll wager good money that I’ve been playing magic longer than you, and VERY good money that I can name more white spells or affects that destroy land than you can. Contests-for-alpha-male-supremacy aside, can you explain exactly what your use of “championing” means? You use it repeatedly, and it’s quite unclear exactly what you intend these cards to do.

Do you intend that any type of counter be movable? Even to cards that they are irrelevant on?

19

Chill, Vool. It’s called a joke. Imagine someone saying that in the fake-est old-man voice with a bitter little whine ever invented.

Yup. Player’s choice to be stupid about it if they want to be.