Explosive Dissent
Design 8
Balance 8
Plot is a great mechanic and so I was keen to dump it on a bunch of things and explore it a bit more fully. Here we have a kind of quirky back to front Seal of Fire type card. Hold it in hand and retain instant speed and hidden information trickery. Or pay the plot cost and deploy this now for potential mana efficiency and big blow out turns. This is a very simple card that has a huge amount of play to it. I felt all clever finding ways to make plot interesting without even altering the cost. It feels on point flavour wise too. There is little that pleases me more than a simple core spell with a single line of text that is made dynamic an interesting by the addition of a single keyword mechanic. This looks clean and simple, and to any who have played with plot it is, yet it masks quite a deep and involved card. A card like this is a real skill tester but it does so without being inaccessible to newer and weaker players.
Bat Wrangler
Design 3
Balance 4
There needs to be enough stuff for synergies to work and so I cobbled together a couple of extra security Blood cards. A kind of extra padding to help it pan out. Most of the Blood cards were self contained in that if they used Blood in some way they tended to also provide some. Not the case here, this is pure payoff without any support. It is not the worst should you not have Blood at the time but you are never playing this if you don't have decent Blood generation effects. This card has very much lived upto being a boring filler card in that it has done very little of note and seen little play. A pure payoff card wants to be more powerful or at least flashier. A card this dull should be pure support, or self supporting. Nothing too awfully wrong here but we can and should do better! I think I will try an embellish this card a little to make it more interesting and self contained while also hopefully taking a little off the top end. There are also now a few too many ways you can drop this down and make an army of bats out of nowhere to steal the game. I need to put a safety value on the potential flow of Bats given the ease with which one can now accrue Blood. A not insignificant list of necessary changes to be made on this one!
Fishwhispers
Design 4
Balance 3
The best thing about this card is the name. As far as play goes this is a bit of a flop. Shame as this is two great things combined - drawing cards and convoke (I like most cost reduction mechanics but most are also a bit broken, convoke is the fairest of them and thus probably the best). I forgot a core tenant of card draw - you want it reliable and unconditional. As soon as it gets awkward it just doesn't feel worth it. Yes, this is fairly well costed but convoke is also after something blue isn't great at. As a white card this would be pretty delightful. It could probably even be a white sorcery and it would get action. In blue where dorks are harder to have, card draw is abundant, and tempo loss can be fatal, Fishwhispers just isn't getting it done. A shame but this one probably has to go. It might still be good in a blue weenie constructed deck but as yet that is a bit too corner for limited play. I have heard directors of films talking about how they often have to cut their favourite scenes from films and I didn't really appreciate it fully. This card, my love of it and my knowing that it isn't right for the format, helps me understand the plight of the director and their pain in cutting treasured scenes.
Flaming Rain
Design 4
Balance 3
Oddly this arose out of me wanting more mass artifact removal options in the format. Obviously those kinds of thing want to be somewhat modal in cube but I went a bit far here. This card is simply too versatile and too powerful. It is less of a Meltdown and more of a Fireball / Starstorm combo card. Finishing blow or Wrath is a lot. And then I didn't even cost it properly. Absolutely it should be some mana to escalate, and it probably should really be XRR to play in the first place. Mostly I think we need to find another X mode and either combine or remove one of the creature/player damage modes. I am being a little speculative here as this is more towards the midrange and control end of the spectrum and as such has seen a little less play than some of the other new cards. Although the card seems over-tuned, the jury is still out for now. I don't hate the card in principle, indeed I quite like the way I snuck a Meltdown into the format, it just needs to be more sensible and appropriate in power level. Such versatility and such scaling result in a card with real game ending potential on too many fronts for too little cost...
Flooded Forrest
Design 6
Balance 6
Some more toying around with lands that can tap for extra. I made a Golgari one to start with that always tapped for two but entered tapped and exerted, a bit more like the mono red one. It was a touch too good but only a touch and only in some ways. To my great surprise it wasn't simply broken, it was just a little clunky and in need of some tidying up. I had also committed the sin of calling it a forest but not giving it that type. So I remade it but wanted to make it less of an anomaly so added this flavourful Simic clone of the land. Being tutorable is dangerous, and probably a design mistake but otherwise these are playing very reasonably. They allow for some burst mana but offer no actual mana advantage over a normal land. They also offer some quirky scaling with land untap effects which I am a fan of. All a bit close to the mark when it comes to dangerous but so far all is well. As is so often the case with lands, there isn't much room between broken and marginal where they can earn cube slots. At least these can argue themselves a case by virtue of being fixing. Ultimately I suspect they will get cut, if not for space reasons, then for those of asymmetry. I am not looking to do a cycle of these. I like them but I don't rate them enough to consider them good cube cards. Cool magic cards but not something that enhances a cube meta enough (while also potentially adding risk). So, homemade constructed the place this might find its forever home! Would that such things ever become an actual thing.
Foxfire
Design 6
Balance 6
A product of me liking and wanting to explore the gift mechanic. This is a generic card quality come mill tool in green made slightly interesting with the gift. There wasn't loads of demand on cards like this, mill support or card quality, however the addition of a bunch of graveyard matters cards in the 5th printrun has given this a boost. Comically that in turn has weakened the gift mode yet further. There is some interesting tensions at play here. Your 2nd card is a selected one so it should be of higher quality than the random one you give away, however it will be rather worse than the first card you get from this as standard and thus overall you are pulling less far ahead. If you want to fill up the bin however giving up that gift results in one fewer cards in the bin as well! I could probably make this instant and it would be fine. It is not something green can leverage really. I have a fair number of two drop self mill card quality effects kicking around in the cube, so far it has not seemed like too much but it is something I'll be keeping an eye on.
Giant Saltdune Slug
Design 3
Balance 5
Mechanically this feels like a real card but I don't much like it. It plays OK and is somewhat on point but that doesn't do anything for my affections towards it. It was designed at a time I wanted more Disenchant options and it fulfils that brief. There is just something a bit off about the card. High toughness deathtouch creatures are a little tedious in general so I will be happy to cull this as soon as required. It is sufficiently unappealing that I have no desire to try and fix whatever is wrong with this one.
Grave Robbing
Design 8
Balance 6
Malevolent Rumble is the inspiration for this one. I am a huge fan of how this card came out, it feels like Rumble is based on this card the flavour is so on point! This is a lovely little tool and sees a bunch of play. It feels good to cast and doesn't feel oppressive when an opponent casts it. I expect it to be getting a lot better with more graveyard matters cards coming to the format. Hopefully not too much so as I don't want to have to cull or nerf it! A high concentration of one mana cycling dorks makes this quite reliable and versatile even in the more creature light decks. Cycle some dork turn one and fire this off safely turn two knowing at worst you are getting the cycler back is a great line that sets you up for the next couple of turns as well as one reasonably can. This is good enough to see play in most decks as a bit of generic support, while also being one of your most desirable support options when doing the graveyard archetype.
Gravecaster Mage
Design 8
Balance 8
I wonder what inspired this one? As is often the case when I riff on those flagship magic cards, you wind up with a decent card. This is good in all the same sorts of ways Snapcaster Mage is good, but is pleasantly different in a bunch of ways that gets the brain to sink its teeth in. Mostly this is worse than Snappy as cheap spells are impactful and cheap dorks, especially when we are looking at one attack and one EtB trigger only, are not. Gravecaster Mage is a house late game when you can recur something like a Titan and get a really relevant swing and a bunch of bonus high value triggers. It is however hard to do anything too scary for less than five total mana with this guy. Regardless, this is an interesting, flexible, and scalable card with some cool synergies on the go. The power level is on point too. One of the coolest things about this one is that unearth is not a cast and so you can use mana from Powerstone tokens on it, of which I have a fair few knocking about in the format!
Greenhouses
Design 6
Balance 8
This is not a very exciting card but it fulfils the brief I had in mind for it. I have been culling some of the less appropriate acceleration and needed to have replacements. This is uncomplicated, reasonably appropriate and flavourful, and all while staying firmly between the limits of playable and broken. It is basically a Utopia Sprawl that is less narrow but pays for that a little with lower tempo. I don't love the logistics of having things on my land but I can handle it. It does at least make the untap land effects a lot more interesting! This will certainly be something I look to ultimately replace with a more exciting iteration with comparable mechanical suitability but it is a very real possibility no such thing comes to pass.
Hatchery
Design 7
Balance 9
More green ramp. Essentially this is Rampant Growth or a kind of Natural Connection / Harrow affair. Either pay 3 at instant speed, or 2 at sorcery. As the land comes in untapped the plot delay doesn't stop this from ramping you to 4 in the same way a Rampant Growth would. The trick here is simply getting a lot more card out of the card with the very simple addition of the plot. It isn't overly cluttered and it certainly isn't over powered. It just performs the support role of two different sorts of cards. It lets you have a narrower effect represented without it consuming valuable cube slots. Basically only blue decks wanting to hold up interaction really care about instant speed ramp but they are willing to pay a little more for that privilege. This card services those players very nicely. Much as I am a fan of what this card does and the elegant way it does it I lay most of the credit at the feet of plot which is just a fantastic mechanism. You do not want all the cards in a cube to be sexy flashy ones. What you do want is for the ones that are not flashy to be clean and elegant and efficient like this hard working little card.
Hunter's Mark
Design 3
Balance 2
In a vague sort of irony this is quite the miss. I wish I could talk about why but I can't even do that as I have fully failed to temp anyone into playing this card. I thought I was designing an interesting and flavour appropriate green removal tool. Seemingly this is too weak, or too conditional, or both. I might have gotten away with it had I made a more sensible recover cost. Perhaps it is a life payment or some collect evidence style thing so you can recover even when tapped out. Perhaps it shouldn't even be recover and should be retrace or escape instead. I'm not sure if I am going to bother trying to rework this given how far it missed the mark and consequently how little I have to go on directing me as to improvements.
Hurloon Anthem
Design 5
Balance 7
This card has a couple of issues with it despite being clean and simple and even pretty on point for power. The first is pretty simple and that is that the card is not very easily interacted with. That can make it very oppressive to play against. When you know you have little to no answers for it and you have to play the rest of the game fighting at a huge disadvantage. It is not a terminal issue but for me to overlook it the card would have to be an absolute banger and it isn't that. I am going to try and reduce the cost of the card to three and give it fading. Probably that doesn't help too much with the design issues and just reduces the playability but it is certainly worth experimenting. The other subtle issue faced by this card is that it is a super clean card. Any card that is just one thing and the cheapest you can reasonably make that thing will win up going "out of tune" with the format far quicker than other cards. While I presently think this is on point for power level it wouldn't take too much in the way of things like flip Chandra and Goblin Sharpshooter in the format to make this a problem. It is the kind of card that limits design space without offering enough fun in return for doing so. Not for those playing against it at least!
Hurloon Bloodkeeper
Design 7
Balance 7
I love this art and wanted to give it the mechanical backing to make it playable. When upcycling cards as directly as this I find it best to keep as much intact as possible, especially when it was a pretty vanilla dork. I vaguely modelled it on Seasoned Pyromancer. They do a lot of the same sorts of things and fulfil the same sorts of role, and that is a versatile and safe mid mana play. It would likely benefit from being less red mana intense but I backed myself into a bit of a corner there. At least it means the card can get away with being a little more on the powerful side of things. As a stand alone this is good. With a means to sac artifacts it is a bit better, and with the fairly heavy blood synergy have added to Rakdos in the recent 5th print run I suspect it will be down right spicy! A power level more worthy of the art.
Inn
Design 7
Balance 8
Although it doesn't look like it this card is virtually identical to any of the many, typically four mana enchantments in red that provide value in the same guise. This has some subtle perks over most in that you can break up the cost and you can often get value out of it the turn you play it when you use it off curve. Artifacts are a bit easier to answer than enchantments but this is none the less a very strong card advantage engine for any proactive deck. Really the only time this isn't decent is when you are playing counter magic and/or other highly situational reactive stuff - which typically isn't great! Decent flavourful and on point value engine for red. The only real gripe I have with this is that it feels a bit messy when it is on a land. I think that is just me though. Stuff on lands is just a bit messy and confusing.
Into the Light
Design 1
Balance 2
This is problematic. It is basically a Seal of Wrath, and an unremovable one at that. There are several reasons this card is problematic. Firstly it isn't fun. The opponent sees it and it makes the game quite stale and depressing. Secondly it can lead to some wild swings that are just a bit unreasonable. You can clear the board, deploy something of your own and have some counter magic still up with ease using cards like this which isn't fun and is over powered. There are two ways a card like this could be made acceptable. One is just rifling up the costs on the card, likely by around three total mana... a bit of a testament to how wrong I got this one. Certainly a 3 mana hike having both modes at 6 mana would make the card a little under powered, or at least I hope it would, but that is the right way to do things on cards with poor play patterns. The other option for a fix would be to make it quite a situational removal effect, such as all tapped creatures. That would give a bit more interesting counter play. You might even be able to lop a bit of mana of a cost with that power lowering change. I am not even sure if I want to try either such is the extent of this cards failing! Plot is a great mechanic but that doesn't stop you from being able to totally cock it up and use it to ruin cards. Most of my plot cards have been good. This has not.
Jackal
Design 4
Balance 7
This card is a very simple attempt to speed up games. Stuff was a all a bit slow. To speed up games you need better threats. There are lots of ways threats can be better but this is a pretty pure and obvious way. More power. Jackal Pup was the first successful red Savannah Lions card, it was wizards pushing out the boat to advance threats. It felt fitting to copy their "drawback" for the grown up Jackal. This being such a pure way to push things, both at one end of the curve and in being a power boost on a card that was just about high power/low cost in the first place. This is a 50% buff on good cheap direct card. This is Shock to Lightning Bolt difference. Just being a pretty vanilla dork with low toughness and low late game relevance does render this card incredibly safe. The only time it ever gets too problematic is when the opponents answers are all easily burned out the way dorks and you made this early. If you get three hits in with this, ideally deploying something else cheap and aggressive then you are probably winning that one! So yes, this card is playable and reasonably well balanced. The aggressive decks want it and the others don't so it is a bit boring and a bit narrow. It also doesn't do what you want in the best way possible, even if it is still doing what you want! This is speeding up the average game by providing a few very short games where this got out of hand. The addition of this card is a bit polar. It stretches out the arms of the bell curve rather than flattening down the middle. Regardless, this card is ripe for the cutting even if it is doing fine enough work. Where it might not be the perfect card mechanically it is an absolute peach aesthetically which will give it some extra staying power in the cube.
No comments:
Post a Comment