The Izzet Spell Channeler being a must makes sense from a flavor perspective to me. It’s the whole mad scientist didn’t stop to think about if they should, only that they could trope and I love it. It embodies the reckless nature of Izzet perfectly
Regarding the "Probably there's reasons they haven't introduced it" about the Armor ability. They have. It's called Absorb and it's on a single card from Future Sight, Lymph Sliver.
The shield backside of the angel card from kaldheim also did it. Notably one of the reasons it's probably not evergreen is that it's surprisingly oppressive and especially on digital clients it's very easy for new players to misplay during the damage application stage which is probably not intended gameplay.
i missed all the clues to this day qwq i kinda suck at understanding puns, so id appreciate an explanation for idiots, before i go sleepless for the next few days
17:35 The Mimic Ooze. What if you put counters on it instead, and at the beginning of your upkeep/end step, you remove a counter from it. So if you feed it a lot of keywords, it can hold on to those for a long time and slowly digest the counters off one by one.
Alternatively, I thinking what if it gaining abilities triggered anytime you discarded a card, not just from its activated. Then you get synergy with other effects that make you discard.
makes it convuluted for no real reason and payoff, just let it keep the counters, thats already pretty wordy, the whole concept of the card is not strong to begin with.
I'd suggest changing it to "exile a creature card from your hand" and "Mimic Ooze has all keywords of creatures exiled with this ability" and "When Mimic Ooze leaves the battlefield, put all cards exiled with it into your graveyard"
@@henkdachief It's actually really strong as is because it allows you to discard (for 0) to gain hexproof or indestructible, at instant speed. It also gives you discard synergy as soon as it's on the board.
Glad you guys liked my card! (izzet spell chronicler) I had a few iterations, where it triggered on attack rather than damaging an opponent, or leaving the battlefield rather than dying, but both felt too guaranteed for card advantage off a two drop, and really underpowered as a concept for a three drop
@@nikiffleser2599 I didn’t think about that, although I feel it would lead to very repetitive gameplay loops, on the level of punishing fire but more mana efficient
@@superdantheminecraftman8905 I honestly love that, simplifies the idea a lot getting the same value from blocking and chump attacking, but not from getting killed by removal. Slightly weaker, but much cleaner design
Essence Thief is a 9 when you take sagas and sieges into consideration, and also the ability to kill an opponent's Planeswalker. It's a 3-mana 1/1, but the effect is really powerful. It fits into Orzhov really well flavor-wise and does something pretty unique. Give it Ward 1 and I think you're good.
My first thought was to use it as an anti-poison card. A 9 out of 10 for me. Maybe as a sorcery speed ability or includes a tap icon in case it is too powerful as is.
As above, I came to see whether anyone else had noticed the sagas thing. You could have it 'remove counters from creatures' or 'creatures and planeswalkers' to narrow it down a bit, and avoid Marit Lage issues.
I think Shambling Giant is actually a MTG version of the card Soul Patch from Plants vs Zombies Heroes. A lot matches up like the 5/10 stat line, the 1 Armour, the similar effect of protecting your life total, and the fact both are plants.
i just had an insane idea. after maybe a couple more of these videos, what if you guys at cardmarket played a game using decks made up of these custom mtg cards?
Or play with some standard or weaker pool (Peasant, block contructed, etc) with additional custom cards legal so they can make the custom cards interact with real staples
Armor 1 is so close to Absorb 1 (actual mtg keyword), that's probably what it would be. (on Shambling Giant) Absorb prevents 1 damage instead of decreasing damage by 1, which can be relevant though.
For Thoralf's card, once per turn sounds reasonable for that cmc. It's essentially an Archangel of Thune, but with sacrificing Clues. EDIT: If you have ways to sacrifice Artifacts for free, you could infinitely Investigate off of Myr Retrievers, then sacrifice as many of the clues as you need with the way it's worded now. Rusted Slasher is an old common that might do it.
its such a bad design^^ way too powerful, doesnt keeps what its promises, its not about the whole card, it just converts material, its opressive and it costs little, has low opportunity costs and a giant ceiling, also its not like the treshhold card where you can just make it costs 3 mana more and its not an issue anymore..
27:07 that is quite literally the Intensity mechanic that some Alchemy cards have and it is as fun as you think it is. The best example of this are Static Discharge and Piece it Together; Static Discharge is a 2 mana sorcery that deals 3+the intensity to any target, starts at 0 intensity and every time you cast it you get to increase the intensity of all cards with that name by 1. Piece it Together is a 1 mana sorcery that draws a card and has intensity 1, every time you cast it you increase the intensity of all cards with the same name by 1 and if it has intensity 4 you Time Walk instead.
Mimic Ooze feels like it has a lot of combo potential for reanimation, and graveyard. the creature you discard doesnt need to have one of those keywords, those are just upside.
Small funfact regarding mimic ooze: The artwork is actually from a very well known Hearthstone card called Acidic Swamp Ooze. 2 mana with vanilla stats that destroys the opponent weapon when entering the battlefield.
Shambling Giant has pretty good potential I think. Not as a one stop shop, but it can have some pretty interesting interactions. Put Hydra's Growth on one and your opponent HAS to get rid of it(arguably the same applies to squirrel tokens but hey, hydras - whatcu gonna do), but you can also go the other direction and start moving those -1/-1 counters around. Or both. You're playing Golgari, you can do both. That's the thing with it - it really embodies the Golgari theme of Life AND Death. Growth and decay. Works well with either, but it's positively oppressive with both. I love cards that can theme with both lore and setup. Also it's mana is pretty well chosen for it's defense-focused stat line and abilities. It's not a show-stopper on it's own, but it is a presence. Very solid 5 drop and the two green don't at all hinder it. Two black would be a bit harder on it, better lore-wise, but hey, it already has a detrimental black effect so it balances out. You can't tell me that a Golgari wouldn't play this.
I enjoy all the videos here but I've noticed I enjoy the ones of Thoralf, Carl, Jamin, special guests, whoever talking about MTG: whether it be rating custom cards or discussing mechanics, staple or stinker, all of them. I always love watching the games (Thoralf seems like a very nice and relaxed guy until he transforms into MTG Mythic Champion Thoralf, talk about an intimidating player to play against haha) but I do not always have the time open to watch a whole play through, so I always love seeing a 15 minute vid I can catch before work in the morning or the like. Thanks for all the content, I'm a huge fan!
Hii, love the video!! Id love to see a series where you go deeper about deck building, I think is one of the better things you can do in game and Id love to know how you approach deck building in general and in specific formats
The titan avoiding exile effects is also a problem, it should probably be a dies trigger. That izzet dude is pretty good, i like the fact it's not a may trigger.
The titan was obviously a bad "AI" generated card that someone submitted for giggles. It is nowhere near being a decent card, and that's before all the syntax errors.
I could see Mimic Ooze giving ability counters, and maybe +1/+1 counters if the card is rebalanced a little. You could also do "When it enters the battlefield you may discard a creature card", which would grant permanent abilities to it, but not allow repetition of the ability.
Shozan, Who Sees All's effect to put one thing on the bottom is basically just an extra level of scry, but done before everything, it's basically just, look at an extra card, but before you choose whatever you're doing with the ones you're looking at, you have to put one on bottom, it just lets you dig a card deeper, with the downside of having to put one on the bottom- cause it's not just 'whenever you scry, scry one more' it's anytime you look at the top of the library, meaning if you would look, add one to hand, and send the rest to the graveyard, you still get the same amount of cards in the graveyard and hand, but you can be a little more picky with what you choose. I definitely feel like it's not really needed, but it's a very unique idea, which I like!
Back in Fate Reforged we had Soulflayer which saw some play in standard but it was really janky with Chromanticore. That is what the Mimic Ooze reminds me of.
I enjoyed this video. Content you guys have been uploading has been better and better and was already good to begin with, quickly becoming a favorite of mine, cheers guys , I think you all would be fun to game with at the table!
RIP Crusader Hoofh :( Seeing the cards that were picked though, the choices must have been really tough! Though my heart is broken, this banger of a video (and channel) continues to life my spirits :)
I like that Shambling Giant makes you immune to creatures dealing 1 damage to you, because it redirects to the giant and gets reduced to 0. But I think it should include white too. Maybe WBG.
I think the Shozan second ability is there to account for effects like a Telling Time, where you look at 3 cards and they go to 3 different locations. Where do you put the 4th card? Shozan defines where it goes.
Loved this video and think it's a great format, you should keep doing from time to time, imo. Card power evaluation is a lot of fun and appreciate the interaction with the viewers.
Shozan, who sees all is absolutely broken when you combo him with a Bolas’s Citadel or any other card that has a static ability that lets you look and play cards from the top at any time because you can keep bottoming cards until you get the one you want and it essentially lets you play your entire library in whatever order you want.
18:48 I feel like this card should have said "If you have fewer than seven cards in your hand, mill cards equal to the difference." So the smaller hand you have, the more milling you get.
The design intent was to match the flavor of entering a haunted house with enabling threshold (7 or more cards in your graveyard). The balance fix would be to just increase the Mana cost to 1U. Turns out that it's really hard to find a good image to go with the idea.
20:38 We already have a very similar card in Hex Parasite. This is arguably worse in competitive formats and better in Commandeer as it will just melt away planeswalkers and has a lot of synergy with cards like Hardened Scales, essentially enabling it to pay 1 to give it +1/+1 counter. It does have some added utility for cards like Eye of Doom, essentially stripping the negative side of that card away, and providing a bonus to you. Similarly it can remove the drain of Cumulative Upkeep.
About what content I'd like to see: I liked the tournament review y'all did recently, and would like to see more. It might also be cool to see that be done for tourney games from years ago
Here's a wording suggestion for "To Those Who Wait", a card I absolutely loved! So I came up with this textbox: You gain 3 life. Draw a card. If you've cast another spell named "To Those Who Wait" this game, draw two cards instead. If this is the first time you've cast a spell named "To Those Who Wait" this game, if this card would be put into a graveyard this turn, instead put it into its owner's library third from the top. This makes it so it only comes back once. Not sure if that makes it too underpowered, but a nice, interesting card nonetheless! You could also make it a 'may' clause, like "... if this card would be put into a graveyard this turn, instead you may put it into its owner's library third from the top."
Just got inspired inspired by the mimic ooze Card: "Experimental flesh crafting" 2BB Instant Sacrifice a creature: Chose a creature you control. It gets the power and toughness of the creature exiled until the end of turn. It also gets its effects such as haste, vigilance, double strike, first strike, menace, fear etc. until end of turn. Sacrifice the chosen creature at the end of this turn. _"Let's call it an... experimental procedure"_
Hey ! Louis here, creator of the first card. I do agree that the ability is too powerful. The card has been designed for a cube environment where you can't build around 4 of them but yes it is still too powerful. The double trigger when it does or gets reanimated is intended and is the part of the design I personally like the most as it makes it super synergistic with so many archetypes. To fix the card I would most likely split the ability in two, make card draw only of it hit or leaves the battlefield and a simpler life/mana gain on graveyard. Thanks for your feedback!
Fun fact; Armor x ability of Shambling Giant at 12:20 already exists! It is called Absorb x and it is only on a single card in entire game which is Lymph Sliver from the wild set of Future Sight.
An idea for a fix for "To Those Who Wait": Same text, but instead of putting it into your library, you exile it, search your library for another copy and put it third from the top. Same basic idea, but limits it to 4 casts.
Missed the post looking for submissions and I'll forget by the next one so I'll put this here. Sorcerous metamagic (R/U) Instant - U Choose 2: Subtle spell - The next spell you cast this turn can't be countered. Quickened spell - The next sorcery spell you cast this turn can be cast as though it had flash. Flexible casting - Draw a card Had the design idea when the classes were introduced for mtg - basically makes a modal overmaster/quicken which is probably fine with power creep and the abilities fit the D&D abilities pretty well.
I feel like the ooze should deal with exiling cards from the graveyard instead similar to scooze. So you choose a card in a graveyard and exile it to gain the abilities instead. That way you're still eating things, can slow down a reanimator deck, can reward yourself for dealing with an opponent's monster, and can exile something good from your own graveyard if needed.
I'm surprised I didn't see this mentioned yet, but the "To Those Who Wait" card issue where they would cast it at the end of your turn, it still would take 3 card draws before you would be able to draw the same copy of it again, because it puts itself back into the deck after the draws happen. So you would draw 2, and THEN put it behind the 3rd card in the library at that time. It would take 3 card draws AFTER the spell resolves to get the card back. It seems fairly balanced, imo.
With shozan who sees all, they needed to add that second ability because with expressive iteration you are looking at 4 cards but without the second ability, instructions for what to do to only 3 of them. It insures that every time you look at an extra card all cards have something done with them.
Thanks for reviewing my card (Cross the Threshold 18:20). Yeah, finding art for this one was a pain. If I ever make it, I'll probably need to draw it myself. I did use Tome scour as a baseline for the card, but wasn't aware that it currently saw play in modern dredge. I then figured that milling 2 extra in return for being dead-ish later was fair, then added investigate to make redundant copies less dead. A cost of 1U is probably balanced. (Compare to Glimpse the Unthinkable, which mills more but is in 2 colours). As for why investigate over cycling? It's to match the flavour of entering a haunted house. It does make the first copy a bit stronger though, which isn't ideal. Edit: Also fair point on balancing cards. I'll try to stick to friendly reminders and the occasional "this card does X, is that intentional?"
that Essence Thief card could be pretty useful in a Suspend-heavy deck, allowing you to ramp into some real heavy effects rather early, while also stacking up a nicely stated creature
A fun Idea for a video: Do something like this again with the whole team but each team member also adds a custom card they made to the fan made ones and then you guys compete trying to figure out who made the card
Your concerns about Fajim Kanu could be at least partially adressed by making it say 'Whenever you tap a clue token'. Yes there are other effects that could tap the tokens for mana, but it'd be less opressive than massive sacrifice/retriever stacks. Or yes, just make it a bit more clunky and make it say 'whenever you sacrifice a clue token to it's own ability'. It's a bit more wordy and a bit less elegant, but it wouldn't be the first time a magic card sacrifices elegance for precision. And the Mimic Ooze would greatly benefit from the Ikoria counter mechanic. Just put a flying/hexproof/doublestrike/etc. counter on it. Makes it a more controllable and slightly gimped crystal golem, which i can totally get behind as a concept.
Fajim Kanu Pair it with KCI, Myr retriever and any other effect like scrap trawler, one construct from Commander legends or junkdiver and you get infinite draws, colourless mana and +1/+1 counters. Seeme kinda strong and broken
I think that would cause weird stacking issues. If you give it toxic 4 and toxic 2, does it stack, get overwritten, trigger twice? There would need to be additional rules to clarify that interaction I'd bet
23:00 There are a lot of hatebear options on black, white, or BW that could do this kind of thing, but if we're not going full Spike Cannibal, I like something like this: Name X Artifact Creature - Construct (U) Modular X (~ enters with X +1/+1 counters on it.) Remove a +1/+1 counter from ~: Remove up to one counter from another target permanent. 0/0 The X/X for X is a nice benchmark, and the ability(s if we count "modular") are still weak compared to the ELD (R) snake, so this is simple, elegant, and interesting.
Had an idea for a cycle of plainswalkers that have either ETB abilities or another way to gain loyalty outside of activating their abilities. heres the UR one, had modern in mind; XUR ETB Surveil X, then do damage equal to twice the number of cards put in your graveyard from your library this way, divided as you choose among up to two target creatures and/or plainswalkers 0 Move a counter from one target permanent to another target of the same type. This gains a loyalty if it isn't targeted by this ability. -XX Return a noncreature, nonland permanent with mana value X or less to it's owner's hand. X Can't be 0. Draw a card if $this$'s loyalty is greater than X. -7 Until your next turn, you may copy an activated or triggered ability twice. You control the copies and may choose new targets. Loyalty: 3
Abbys card inspired me to think of a legendary creature that can swap the bottom and top card, for e.g. whenever you cast a noncreature spell you may look at the top card of your library. You may exchange the top card of your library with the bottom card of your library. You may draw a card, this ability only triggers once per turn. Forgot to mention my concern, it is mostlikey not fun and annoying to alway pick up the deck and swap the bottom card. But there are already cards where the bottom of the library is important and i would like to see more fun stuff done with it
Fajim Kanu feels the start of a good commander card that really needs some more craziness. Instead of just the one ability, I'd probably stack on multiple abilities that require a certain number of clues to be sacrificed to trigger them. Maybe even a 'win the game' effect for an absurd number of clues to simulate, 'cracking the case'.
one of my first thoughts for essence thief is that it can target itself, meaning with hardened scales or a similar effect it can eat its own counters to get more at a *very* high rate
7:18 wait a second! Idk if that is what was ment with "needs a rewording", but any effect that causes you to be able to look at the top card of your library at any time, would allow you to fully stack your deck. You'd look at two cards, and then bottom one at your choice. So you just bottom cards until you find your best card. Bottom that. Bottom random cards until you find the best followup. Keep that on top, and bottom the other until you see the best card. Bottom best card, and best followup. Repeat until the top of your library is perfect. Tbh would be kinda interesting if there was a combo like that, but this does not seem intentional. And busted af.
7:01 You stumbled upon the probable answer, but did not "see" it. In cards like expresive iteration, the card conveys every card place. So the second clause is there to clean up potential issues when getting an extra scried card. My problem with the card is infact with the first clause wording, which I feel the word "triggered" or "actived" must be placed before "ability". Magic have some terms be very broad and looking can happen outside the stack in cases like Bolas's Citadel... I hope I do not have to explein this issue. 25:25 Someone forgot Approach of the Second Sun
Just to note, Fajim Kanu + March of the Machines draws. Clue token becomes a 0/0 creature, dies, creates a clue token, clue token becomes a 0/0 creature, dies, etc. Once per turn on the effect would probably be good.
Armor 1 is a bit different from preventing damage, as it is a replacement effect that alters the amount of damage being dealt without a prevention clause. Absorb (found on Lymph Sliver originally from future sight) actually prevents the damage.
I would change the text on Mimic Ooze to: "As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may discard any number of cards. If you do, this spell gains any keywords from the discarded cards Discard a card: Mimic Ooze gains +1/+1 until end of turn. If that card was a creature card, Mimic Ooze gains all keyword abilities from that card until end of turn." The wording may need tweaking, but I wanted to add the idea of gaining abilities that trigger on-cast like Cascade. Plus not limiting the second ability to just creatures enables you to discard things like Life From the Loam or the Madness Terminate. It could also have a mana cost added to the second ability to help mitigate loops, if that is the case I would change the first part of the buff to be counters rather than temporary stats.
I find it interesting that neither WotC nor customer card designers have ever humored the idea of a card that let's you draw from the bottom of your deck instead of the top.
Currently, the only cards that care about the bottom of your library are Cellar door and Grenzo, dungeon warden. Having played a Grenzo EDH deck, there are several issues that come up when caring about the bottom of the deck. Primarily there's the logistics issue of having to pick up your deck whenever you do something. There's also the other issue of making card selection (especially scry) really awkward. If there's a bad card on top, you don't want to bottom it, but you also don't want to leave it on top to mess up your other scries. I mean you could go full convulsion of Nature, but at that point you've basically made Lantern of insight but with extra steps. (And also more risk of accidental cheating if the top card isn't perfectly aligned.)
I think you hinted at the idea I was going for. I was basically looking for a scroll rack with extra steps and less consequences. You could scry things to the bottom and keep your combo pieces safe from discard until you have what you need to protect it, and if the artifact/creature/etc gets destroyed, your bottom cards are still there until you play another one or shuffle. Essentially, it's a broken cheesy mechanic that sounds innocuous until it gets put it into practice.
I would love to see a strategy with cards like the shambling giant. But then certain cards in your deck can move -1/-1 counters on your creatures to your oponents creatures. This basicly makes it a wall strategy where the wall will fight back if you dont remove it.
Mindkindler could work well in a feather deck as it gives access to more than three cards, which you are trying to cast all of to get feather triggers, so you avoid discarding the cards returned to your hand by feather
16:30 It's actually rather amusing seeing this card design shortly before Urborg Scavengers was released in MoM: Aftermath, and it's basically the same card but eating out of the graveyard instead of getting temporary keywords on a discard outlet.
Maybe for the Izzet Spell Chronicler, the exiled cards could be exiled with a specific counter on them similar to Dauthi Voidwalker. That way, any cards exiled with it aren't just gone forever if your opponent has a removal spell and it would encourage digging deeper with it as the drawback would be slightly reduced.
The when ever you sacrifice a clue trigger as presedent for its functionality, due to how tireless tracker works. You could still reword it to whenever you sacrifice a clue to investigate but it might not be neccesary.
I think the reason there hasn't been many cards with the armor mechanic (there's a sliver from future sight with it) is because it plays too much like 1 more point of toughness. Damage doesn't stick between turns in magic, so the effect armor 1 has over toughness +1 is if the creature gets hit twice in the same turn. It makes math weird if your opponent tries to double block your creature, or if they trade with a creature and a burn spell, and it's good against double strike, but that's about it. The effort in making and using the mechanic (the math is easy when focusing on the card but is more problematic when there are 5 creatures that you need to think about) is not the effort when there is such a straight forward alternative in 1, maybe 2, extra toughness
I wish we had a commander with Essence's Thief's ability because getting advantage over removing cumulative upkeep counters, saga counters, etc. as a value engine sounds incredibly cool.
How about this card? Nature's Abundance GG Enchantment You cannot cast spells during your turn. Creature spells you control have flash. Whenever an opponent casts a non-creature spell, add one mana of any colour to your mana pool. So I am a CEDH player and right now, green is the weakest colour. I figured it could use a really impactful build around that works almost like a weird green smothering tithe. My goal for this card is for it to be very powerful in CEDH, but balanced enough in other formats that it wouldn't be broken. I like the idea of enabling green based creature combo decks to win overtop of your opponents counterwars and combos if they cast too many spells with this sitting on the table. I hope the restrictions are heavy enough to balance the card in most formats, but do let me know what you would tweak! As far as flavor goes, I imagine this enchantment sort of bringing forth a feeling of being in the woods and trying to be careful not to make too much of a disturbance lest you attract the attention of the creatures that roam the woods. I imagine it also carrying a kind of flourishing feeling where the mana your opponent uses awakens the mana of the woods that you yourself can draw on. I feel like there is enough counterplay where your opponents are incentivised to try to cast their spells in different phases of their turn so they don't allow you to generate too much mana. I feel like this effect is balanced enough in 1 v 1 formats, but gets much better in multiplayer where you can politic with your opponents to get them to cast spells so you can generate enough mana to deal with threats on the board etc. Please let me know what you think especially if you play EDH and especially especially if you play CEDH!
Fajim Kanu reminds me of my old SOI standard deck, built around clues with tamiyos journal and briarbridge patrol (I think that's what it was called. Put a creature from your hand onto the field if you sac three tokens, which journal makes you do) It would've been perfect in that deck (minus it not playing white) I think the mana cost should be bumped to 3 CMC and then it's very similar to Tireless tracker
Love this content. Would love to see more submitted decklists vs constructed top tier decks I say this cause I have like 50 brews swimming in my brain 😆
I feel like the concept of mimic ooze is much better represented in the actual card Urborg Scavengers from Aftermath. But still cool that someone thought of the concept before the set released!
Rules question about Shambling Giant: doesn't the double replacement effect force you to choose between one of them? I believe armor 1 should be worded as "whenever damage is dealt to this creature, prevent one of that damage" to make it work as intended. Correct me if I'm wrong please.
Essence Thief: give it hexproof or shroud. Less total pay off on the attack, better theme, more likely to last til turn 4, and a 3 cost 1/1 hexproof/shroud feels better than a 3 cost 1/1 menace. Also, given the image, I would want to add "As long as Essence Thief has a +1/+1 counter on it, it has flying", "(3c) Target creature gains flying", or something to that effect. Similarly you could flip it. Change Menace to Flying, then make it gain through an activated or triggered ability. I personally like it having flying over menace, and having "(1c) Essence Thief gains Shroud and loses Flying". Another alternative would be to give it a blink ability. It gives me esper vibes, and if you want it to have blue you can make it "(1u) Exile Essence Thief. Return it to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step." The esper variant seems very thematic and balanced personally.
I initially thought Thoralf mentioned the name of Fajim Kanu because it's a legendary creature without some associated title. I like to imagine Fajim as someone who gets personally invested in his case and upset from discovering new things the bad guy he's pursuing did. A title like Fajim Kanu, Vengeful Examiner could enhance the flavor nicely.
I have like 1000 custom cards! No kidding! (Mostly pure text) What should I do now, even if I could select out 100 cards or so? The card in 7:35 -> 11:53 is awesome! 9-10 as is, 7.5-8 if the last ability would have a once per turn effect, maybe a "do the thing if it's the first time it triggers, otherwise you gain 2/3 life" would be perfect. Ah, also he should be an Elf for the art. I love the name reference! ^^ 13:25 Armor already exists: Absorb 18:00 Make that ability as putting the keyword counter, to make it permanent, and add to the ability a "you can activate this ability each turn only an amount of times equal to Mimic's Ooze's toughness" clause. Otherwise, do not limit the amount of activation but just put a B cost in addition, and maybe also let it get +1/+1 until the end of the turn (digesting creatures = feeding). 23:00 should also allow you to choose and retain up to one of those counters if you pay an additional W/B : it drains "essence", let it grow stronger!
To those who wait, I deem at 10/10. I am totally fine with it recurring indefinitely. Even in its buffed form it's a quick study(3 mana, draw 2), with the upside of a little life, but the big downside of having to have cast it once already. Also turning an upcoming draw I it a must cast for 3 mana is another drawback you shouldn't quite ignore. You need to have plenty mana for this card.
Shozan Who Sees All seems like it's meant to pair with Sensei's Divining Top. Has you look at 4 cards, put one on the bottom, and then the rest back in any order. That would let you cycle less useful cards out of the way for when / if the top is destroyed.
About Fajim Kanu, I think that if the second ability said investigate, it would be enough to avoid easy infinite combos, because you would have to pay mana each time.
Mimic Ooze can be a bit better by adding exiling a creature card from any graveyard as an additional option. Still isn't OP, gets to gobble your critters twice, then targeted GY hate.
Mimic Ooze getting ability counters sounds like a reasonable idea. Still can be pushed, pathed, removed without that much investment. -indestructable and hexproof/shroud
Essence Thief 22:17 would combo with "All Will Be One" to do infinite damage by having Essence Thief targeting itself. Removing and gaining counters until you ping your enemies to death.
My way to Balance these cards: For Titan of Life Cycle: - Give it Flashback (4C-G-G) with the condition that you can only cast if it entered the Graveyard from the Battlefield - Change the ability so you can only activate when it enters the Battlefield and also so it have 1 effect activated depending of the type of permanent you put in to the Battlefield. Also add an ability that should resove if a Artifact or Enchantment was put on the Battlefield: "When this card enters the Battlefield, Reveal the Top 5 cards from your Library, Put 1 Permanent from among them. Then apply 1 ability depending of the permanent that you put on the Battlefield this way and then you put the rest of the cards in your Graveyard: * Land: Gain 1 Mana for each Land that was revealed, this mana must be of the color identity as the lands revealed (your choice if Multicolored) * Creature: Gain X Life, with X being highest Toughness value among Creatures revealed * Artifact or Enchantment: Spread X +1/+1 counters among your creatures on the Battlefield, with X being the highest Power value among Creatures revealed For Izzet Spell Cronicler: - Add an Tap Ability that allows you to cast 1 Spell that you exiled this turn by Spell Chronicler. you will still have to pay the Spell's Mana Cost For Shambling Giant - Make it a 10/10, Trample, Haste and Armor 2 (the reason why this creature should be given Haste and Armor 2 is because these are the typical Plant Constructs Druids tend to create with some of the most powerful spells in their arsenal and some of those Druids tend to add a extra protective layer against Elemental/Physical Damage to protect it. The reason this is given Haste is because these things are not something you drag from another plane into yours, but something you would create on the Spot (just like if you're creating elementals out of Lands) - Give it an additional ability so, at turn's end, you remove 3 -1/-1 counters from the Sambling Giant (this is to represent the Magical Regeneration ability these Giant do have due to being Druidic Creations)
Fajim goes infinite much easier than you think. There are cards that say when you would make a token, make that token plus a 1/1 creature instead. Add any sac outlet, and you have at least infinite clues, depending on the sack outlet.
For the Ooze, maybe a good option would be to lower the cost. Make it a cheap creature that will feed your graveyard and get some buffs in the process, maybe?
![ละลาย (LALALYE) - DAOU PITTAYA ต้าห์อู๋ พิทยา [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wo6r9TgausI/mqdefault.jpg)
The Izzet Spell Channeler being a must makes sense from a flavor perspective to me. It’s the whole mad scientist didn’t stop to think about if they should, only that they could trope and I love it. It embodies the reckless nature of Izzet perfectly
Glad you like it!
Regarding the "Probably there's reasons they haven't introduced it" about the Armor ability. They have. It's called Absorb and it's on a single card from Future Sight, Lymph Sliver.
I came here to say this, but you already did, so have an upvote instead :)
Also, lashknife barrier and urza's armor.
Valkmira, Protector's Shield basically gives Absorb to you and your permanents
Of note, in a card game called Runeterra, there’s a keyword “tough” which does exactly this.
The shield backside of the angel card from kaldheim also did it.
Notably one of the reasons it's probably not evergreen is that it's surprisingly oppressive and especially on digital clients it's very easy for new players to misplay during the damage application stage which is probably not intended gameplay.
Jamin was so busy thinking about the clue token mechanics that he missed all the clues.
i missed all the clues to this day qwq
i kinda suck at understanding puns, so id appreciate an explanation for idiots, before i go sleepless for the next few days
@@lunyorsomething1031 he didn't see that the card name and designer names were anagrams for his and thoralfs names
17:35 The Mimic Ooze. What if you put counters on it instead, and at the beginning of your upkeep/end step, you remove a counter from it. So if you feed it a lot of keywords, it can hold on to those for a long time and slowly digest the counters off one by one.
That's really cool flavour! It absorbs these abilities, but since it's an ever-changing ooze they slowly wear off.
Alternatively, I thinking what if it gaining abilities triggered anytime you discarded a card, not just from its activated. Then you get synergy with other effects that make you discard.
makes it convuluted for no real reason and payoff, just let it keep the counters, thats already pretty wordy, the whole concept of the card is not strong to begin with.
I'd suggest changing it to "exile a creature card from your hand" and "Mimic Ooze has all keywords of creatures exiled with this ability" and "When Mimic Ooze leaves the battlefield, put all cards exiled with it into your graveyard"
@@henkdachief It's actually really strong as is because it allows you to discard (for 0) to gain hexproof or indestructible, at instant speed. It also gives you discard synergy as soon as it's on the board.
Glad you guys liked my card! (izzet spell chronicler) I had a few iterations, where it triggered on attack rather than damaging an opponent, or leaving the battlefield rather than dying, but both felt too guaranteed for card advantage off a two drop, and really underpowered as a concept for a three drop
really cool idea for a creature design - did you consider it exiling the instant or sorcery thats cast instead of top of library?
Maybe the combat damage and death trigger could instead be triggered whenever the Chronicler deals damage of any kind.
@@nikiffleser2599 I didn’t think about that, although I feel it would lead to very repetitive gameplay loops, on the level of punishing fire but more mana efficient
@@superdantheminecraftman8905 I honestly love that, simplifies the idea a lot getting the same value from blocking and chump attacking, but not from getting killed by removal. Slightly weaker, but much cleaner design
Essence Thief is a 9 when you take sagas and sieges into consideration, and also the ability to kill an opponent's Planeswalker. It's a 3-mana 1/1, but the effect is really powerful. It fits into Orzhov really well flavor-wise and does something pretty unique. Give it Ward 1 and I think you're good.
Yeah, I think they're missing the boat on how good that creature is. Also, what's a good website to make custom cards on?
Literally what I went to say here :D
Yeah would be really nice with sagas
My first thought was to use it as an anti-poison card. A 9 out of 10 for me. Maybe as a sorcery speed ability or includes a tap icon in case it is too powerful as is.
As above, I came to see whether anyone else had noticed the sagas thing. You could have it 'remove counters from creatures' or 'creatures and planeswalkers' to narrow it down a bit, and avoid Marit Lage issues.
Flavor text for Fajim Kanu: "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. What does kill you, makes the survivors stronger."
"that's going to be a problem for future me to solve"
“Knowledge is power”
tarmogoyf reference?
Very flavorful flavortext
“What kills everyone, leaves plenty of evidence.”
I think Shambling Giant is actually a MTG version of the card Soul Patch from Plants vs Zombies Heroes. A lot matches up like the 5/10 stat line, the 1 Armour, the similar effect of protecting your life total, and the fact both are plants.
Wow you’re totally right
Ye
21:10 Essence Thief seems REALLY strong with Battles and walkers in mind
It makes cumulative upkeep cards playable, card keep your sagas around longer... lots of cool options! I think Thoralf underestimated it!
@@Yammenkow Oh. Not all cumulative Upkeep cards are created equal. Mystic Remora is pretty staxing/creates a ton of value
@@omegasybers1110 Also Glacial Chasm can stick around a lot longer
The channel that always put a smile on my face when my friends are too busy to play! Ty cardmarket
i just had an insane idea. after maybe a couple more of these videos, what if you guys at cardmarket played a game using decks made up of these custom mtg cards?
that would be really hype, i love that idea!
I would love to see them using some of the cards that they rated "broken" and see how broken they will actually be
Or they could draft a custom cube
Or play with some standard or weaker pool (Peasant, block contructed, etc) with additional custom cards legal so they can make the custom cards interact with real staples
+1!
Armor 1 is so close to Absorb 1 (actual mtg keyword), that's probably what it would be. (on Shambling Giant)
Absorb prevents 1 damage instead of decreasing damage by 1, which can be relevant though.
The issue I have with Shozan is that if you have something like Reality Chip in play, you get to tutor infinitely, which I think is too good.
Another example of "once per turn" being a helpful addition
I thought of that too. A one time per ability or just a once per turn.
I think it was supposed to work with Scry in mind if anything.
For Thoralf's card, once per turn sounds reasonable for that cmc. It's essentially an Archangel of Thune, but with sacrificing Clues.
EDIT: If you have ways to sacrifice Artifacts for free, you could infinitely Investigate off of Myr Retrievers, then sacrifice as many of the clues as you need with the way it's worded now. Rusted Slasher is an old common that might do it.
its such a bad design^^ way too powerful, doesnt keeps what its promises, its not about the whole card, it just converts material, its opressive and it costs little, has low opportunity costs and a giant ceiling, also its not like the treshhold card where you can just make it costs 3 mana more and its not an issue anymore..
Chatterfang is an infinite engine as well
Thanks for reviewing my card (Essence Thief)! Glad you liked it! :D
27:07 that is quite literally the Intensity mechanic that some Alchemy cards have and it is as fun as you think it is. The best example of this are Static Discharge and Piece it Together;
Static Discharge is a 2 mana sorcery that deals 3+the intensity to any target, starts at 0 intensity and every time you cast it you get to increase the intensity of all cards with that name by 1.
Piece it Together is a 1 mana sorcery that draws a card and has intensity 1, every time you cast it you increase the intensity of all cards with the same name by 1 and if it has intensity 4 you Time Walk instead.
Mimic Ooze feels like it has a lot of combo potential for reanimation, and graveyard. the creature you discard doesnt need to have one of those keywords, those are just upside.
Small funfact regarding mimic ooze: The artwork is actually from a very well known Hearthstone card called Acidic Swamp Ooze. 2 mana with vanilla stats that destroys the opponent weapon when entering the battlefield.
3:30 It’s funny to hear this disclaimer after watching the polite reviews of custom cards from magic the noah.
After that justification for how Fajim Kanu's flavour works, somebody needs to make a "Thoralf, Champion of Friendship" custom card.
Shambling Giant has pretty good potential I think. Not as a one stop shop, but it can have some pretty interesting interactions. Put Hydra's Growth on one and your opponent HAS to get rid of it(arguably the same applies to squirrel tokens but hey, hydras - whatcu gonna do), but you can also go the other direction and start moving those -1/-1 counters around. Or both. You're playing Golgari, you can do both. That's the thing with it - it really embodies the Golgari theme of Life AND Death. Growth and decay. Works well with either, but it's positively oppressive with both. I love cards that can theme with both lore and setup. Also it's mana is pretty well chosen for it's defense-focused stat line and abilities. It's not a show-stopper on it's own, but it is a presence. Very solid 5 drop and the two green don't at all hinder it. Two black would be a bit harder on it, better lore-wise, but hey, it already has a detrimental black effect so it balances out.
You can't tell me that a Golgari wouldn't play this.
I enjoy all the videos here but I've noticed I enjoy the ones of Thoralf, Carl, Jamin, special guests, whoever talking about MTG: whether it be rating custom cards or discussing mechanics, staple or stinker, all of them. I always love watching the games (Thoralf seems like a very nice and relaxed guy until he transforms into MTG Mythic Champion Thoralf, talk about an intimidating player to play against haha) but I do not always have the time open to watch a whole play through, so I always love seeing a 15 minute vid I can catch before work in the morning or the like. Thanks for all the content, I'm a huge fan!
Hii, love the video!! Id love to see a series where you go deeper about deck building, I think is one of the better things you can do in game and Id love to know how you approach deck building in general and in specific formats
The titan avoiding exile effects is also a problem, it should probably be a dies trigger.
That izzet dude is pretty good, i like the fact it's not a may trigger.
Glad you like my izzet dude!
The titan was obviously a bad "AI" generated card that someone submitted for giggles. It is nowhere near being a decent card, and that's before all the syntax errors.
I want to see what other people on the channel would design! Also mindkindler is such a cool idea
Oh how quickly everyone forgets Absorb.
Tbh there's only one card with it...
I could see Mimic Ooze giving ability counters, and maybe +1/+1 counters if the card is rebalanced a little. You could also do "When it enters the battlefield you may discard a creature card", which would grant permanent abilities to it, but not allow repetition of the ability.
Shozan, Who Sees All's effect to put one thing on the bottom is basically just an extra level of scry, but done before everything, it's basically just, look at an extra card, but before you choose whatever you're doing with the ones you're looking at, you have to put one on bottom, it just lets you dig a card deeper, with the downside of having to put one on the bottom- cause it's not just 'whenever you scry, scry one more' it's anytime you look at the top of the library, meaning if you would look, add one to hand, and send the rest to the graveyard, you still get the same amount of cards in the graveyard and hand, but you can be a little more picky with what you choose.
I definitely feel like it's not really needed, but it's a very unique idea, which I like!
Back in Fate Reforged we had Soulflayer which saw some play in standard but it was really janky with Chromanticore. That is what the Mimic Ooze reminds me of.
I enjoyed this video. Content you guys have been uploading has been better and better and was already good to begin with, quickly becoming a favorite of mine, cheers guys , I think you all would be fun to game with at the table!
RIP Crusader Hoofh :(
Seeing the cards that were picked though, the choices must have been really tough!
Though my heart is broken, this banger of a video (and channel) continues to life my spirits :)
Maybe next time!
I like that Shambling Giant makes you immune to creatures dealing 1 damage to you, because it redirects to the giant and gets reduced to 0. But I think it should include white too. Maybe WBG.
I think the Shozan second ability is there to account for effects like a Telling Time, where you look at 3 cards and they go to 3 different locations. Where do you put the 4th card? Shozan defines where it goes.
The Shozan, Who Sees All pairs with any card like realmwalker to let you look through your entire deck and put the card you want on top
it's better than that, you can deterministically order your entire library
Loved this video and think it's a great format, you should keep doing from time to time, imo. Card power evaluation is a lot of fun and appreciate the interaction with the viewers.
Shozan, who sees all is absolutely broken when you combo him with a Bolas’s Citadel or any other card that has a static ability that lets you look and play cards from the top at any time because you can keep bottoming cards until you get the one you want and it essentially lets you play your entire library in whatever order you want.
How is that broken? A 4 mana card + a 6 mana card going infinite is not really that great
18:48 I feel like this card should have said "If you have fewer than seven cards in your hand, mill cards equal to the difference." So the smaller hand you have, the more milling you get.
The design intent was to match the flavor of entering a haunted house with enabling threshold (7 or more cards in your graveyard).
The balance fix would be to just increase the Mana cost to 1U.
Turns out that it's really hard to find a good image to go with the idea.
20:38 We already have a very similar card in Hex Parasite. This is arguably worse in competitive formats and better in Commandeer as it will just melt away planeswalkers and has a lot of synergy with cards like Hardened Scales, essentially enabling it to pay 1 to give it +1/+1 counter.
It does have some added utility for cards like Eye of Doom, essentially stripping the negative side of that card away, and providing a bonus to you. Similarly it can remove the drain of Cumulative Upkeep.
i'd use it to reset stuff like saga counters so i can re-use their abilities. it looks like a really cool card.
About what content I'd like to see: I liked the tournament review y'all did recently, and would like to see more. It might also be cool to see that be done for tourney games from years ago
Here's a wording suggestion for "To Those Who Wait", a card I absolutely loved! So I came up with this textbox:
You gain 3 life.
Draw a card. If you've cast another spell named "To Those Who Wait" this game, draw two cards instead.
If this is the first time you've cast a spell named "To Those Who Wait" this game, if this card would be put into a graveyard this turn, instead put it into its owner's library third from the top.
This makes it so it only comes back once. Not sure if that makes it too underpowered, but a nice, interesting card nonetheless!
You could also make it a 'may' clause, like "... if this card would be put into a graveyard this turn, instead you may put it into its owner's library third from the top."
Just got inspired inspired by the mimic ooze Card:
"Experimental flesh crafting"
2BB Instant
Sacrifice a creature: Chose a creature you control. It gets the power and toughness of the creature exiled until the end of turn.
It also gets its effects such as haste, vigilance, double strike, first strike, menace, fear etc. until end of turn.
Sacrifice the chosen creature at the end of this turn.
_"Let's call it an... experimental procedure"_
Cool video. Love the discard Soulflayer card and your improvements.
Hey ! Louis here, creator of the first card.
I do agree that the ability is too powerful. The card has been designed for a cube environment where you can't build around 4 of them but yes it is still too powerful.
The double trigger when it does or gets reanimated is intended and is the part of the design I personally like the most as it makes it super synergistic with so many archetypes.
To fix the card I would most likely split the ability in two, make card draw only of it hit or leaves the battlefield and a simpler life/mana gain on graveyard.
Thanks for your feedback!
Fun fact; Armor x ability of Shambling Giant at 12:20 already exists! It is called Absorb x and it is only on a single card in entire game which is Lymph Sliver from the wild set of Future Sight.
The Izzet Spell Channeler pairs really well with Harmonic Prodigy too :)
An idea for a fix for "To Those Who Wait":
Same text, but instead of putting it into your library, you exile it, search your library for another copy and put it third from the top.
Same basic idea, but limits it to 4 casts.
Missed the post looking for submissions and I'll forget by the next one so I'll put this here.
Sorcerous metamagic (R/U)
Instant - U
Choose 2:
Subtle spell - The next spell you cast this turn can't be countered.
Quickened spell - The next sorcery spell you cast this turn can be cast as though it had flash.
Flexible casting - Draw a card
Had the design idea when the classes were introduced for mtg - basically makes a modal overmaster/quicken which is probably fine with power creep and the abilities fit the D&D abilities pretty well.
I feel like the ooze should deal with exiling cards from the graveyard instead similar to scooze. So you choose a card in a graveyard and exile it to gain the abilities instead. That way you're still eating things, can slow down a reanimator deck, can reward yourself for dealing with an opponent's monster, and can exile something good from your own graveyard if needed.
I'm surprised I didn't see this mentioned yet, but the "To Those Who Wait" card issue where they would cast it at the end of your turn, it still would take 3 card draws before you would be able to draw the same copy of it again, because it puts itself back into the deck after the draws happen. So you would draw 2, and THEN put it behind the 3rd card in the library at that time. It would take 3 card draws AFTER the spell resolves to get the card back. It seems fairly balanced, imo.
More of this, and basicly any conent u do that is not playing the game, love it!
Really cool being in this vid! I was so happy with all the designs I made! Glad to see them get some recognition!
With shozan who sees all, they needed to add that second ability because with expressive iteration you are looking at 4 cards but without the second ability, instructions for what to do to only 3 of them. It insures that every time you look at an extra card all cards have something done with them.
Thanks for reviewing my card (Cross the Threshold 18:20).
Yeah, finding art for this one was a pain. If I ever make it, I'll probably need to draw it myself.
I did use Tome scour as a baseline for the card, but wasn't aware that it currently saw play in modern dredge.
I then figured that milling 2 extra in return for being dead-ish later was fair, then added investigate to make redundant copies less dead. A cost of 1U is probably balanced. (Compare to Glimpse the Unthinkable, which mills more but is in 2 colours).
As for why investigate over cycling? It's to match the flavour of entering a haunted house. It does make the first copy a bit stronger though, which isn't ideal.
Edit: Also fair point on balancing cards. I'll try to stick to friendly reminders and the occasional "this card does X, is that intentional?"
As an aside, I think the card should mill to 6 as the card resolving would literally cross the threshhold.
that Essence Thief card could be pretty useful in a Suspend-heavy deck, allowing you to ramp into some real heavy effects rather early, while also stacking up a nicely stated creature
That azorius spell has a lot of common patterns with Uro... there's a chance to see it banned on other formats than Standard if printed.
A fun Idea for a video:
Do something like this again with the whole team but each team member also adds a custom card they made to the fan made ones and then you guys compete trying to figure out who made the card
Your concerns about Fajim Kanu could be at least partially adressed by making it say 'Whenever you tap a clue token'. Yes there are other effects that could tap the tokens for mana, but it'd be less opressive than massive sacrifice/retriever stacks.
Or yes, just make it a bit more clunky and make it say 'whenever you sacrifice a clue token to it's own ability'. It's a bit more wordy and a bit less elegant, but it wouldn't be the first time a magic card sacrifices elegance for precision.
And the Mimic Ooze would greatly benefit from the Ikoria counter mechanic. Just put a flying/hexproof/doublestrike/etc. counter on it. Makes it a more controllable and slightly gimped crystal golem, which i can totally get behind as a concept.
Fajim Kanu
Pair it with KCI, Myr retriever and any other effect like scrap trawler, one construct from Commander legends or junkdiver and you get infinite draws, colourless mana and +1/+1 counters.
Seeme kinda strong and broken
All that, AND it's a 2-mana commander o_O
What if Mimic Ooze's ability list also included Toxic? E.g. you discard a Tyrranax Rex and now it has Toxic 4.
I think that would cause weird stacking issues. If you give it toxic 4 and toxic 2, does it stack, get overwritten, trigger twice? There would need to be additional rules to clarify that interaction I'd bet
23:00 There are a lot of hatebear options on black, white, or BW that could do this kind of thing, but if we're not going full Spike Cannibal, I like something like this:
Name X
Artifact Creature - Construct (U)
Modular X (~ enters with X +1/+1 counters on it.)
Remove a +1/+1 counter from ~: Remove up to one counter from another target permanent.
0/0
The X/X for X is a nice benchmark, and the ability(s if we count "modular") are still weak compared to the ELD (R) snake, so this is simple, elegant, and interesting.
Had an idea for a cycle of plainswalkers that have either ETB abilities or another way to gain loyalty outside of activating their abilities. heres the UR one, had modern in mind;
XUR
ETB Surveil X, then do damage equal to twice the number of cards put in your graveyard from your library this way, divided as you choose among up to two target creatures and/or plainswalkers
0 Move a counter from one target permanent to another target of the same type. This gains a loyalty if it isn't targeted by this ability.
-XX Return a noncreature, nonland permanent with mana value X or less to it's owner's hand. X Can't be 0. Draw a card if $this$'s loyalty is greater than X.
-7 Until your next turn, you may copy an activated or triggered ability twice. You control the copies and may choose new targets.
Loyalty: 3
Abbys card inspired me to think of a legendary creature that can swap the bottom and top card, for e.g. whenever you cast a noncreature spell you may look at the top card of your library. You may exchange the top card of your library with the bottom card of your library. You may draw a card, this ability only triggers once per turn.
Forgot to mention my concern, it is mostlikey not fun and annoying to alway pick up the deck and swap the bottom card. But there are already cards where the bottom of the library is important and i would like to see more fun stuff done with it
Fajim Kanu feels the start of a good commander card that really needs some more craziness. Instead of just the one ability, I'd probably stack on multiple abilities that require a certain number of clues to be sacrificed to trigger them. Maybe even a 'win the game' effect for an absurd number of clues to simulate, 'cracking the case'.
one of my first thoughts for essence thief is that it can target itself, meaning with hardened scales or a similar effect it can eat its own counters to get more at a *very* high rate
7:18 wait a second! Idk if that is what was ment with "needs a rewording", but any effect that causes you to be able to look at the top card of your library at any time, would allow you to fully stack your deck. You'd look at two cards, and then bottom one at your choice. So you just bottom cards until you find your best card. Bottom that. Bottom random cards until you find the best followup. Keep that on top, and bottom the other until you see the best card. Bottom best card, and best followup. Repeat until the top of your library is perfect.
Tbh would be kinda interesting if there was a combo like that, but this does not seem intentional. And busted af.
i think thoralfs card should say nontoken creature to prevent weird things, also maybe selesnya
7:01 You stumbled upon the probable answer, but did not "see" it. In cards like expresive iteration, the card conveys every card place. So the second clause is there to clean up potential issues when getting an extra scried card.
My problem with the card is infact with the first clause wording, which I feel the word "triggered" or "actived" must be placed before "ability". Magic have some terms be very broad and looking can happen outside the stack in cases like Bolas's Citadel... I hope I do not have to explein this issue.
25:25 Someone forgot Approach of the Second Sun
9:50 Ulvenwald Mysteries makes a 1/1 token whenever you sacrifice a clue so it would probably need a once per turn clause on it.
Just to note, Fajim Kanu + March of the Machines draws. Clue token becomes a 0/0 creature, dies, creates a clue token, clue token becomes a 0/0 creature, dies, etc. Once per turn on the effect would probably be good.
Armor 1 is a bit different from preventing damage, as it is a replacement effect that alters the amount of damage being dealt without a prevention clause.
Absorb (found on Lymph Sliver originally from future sight) actually prevents the damage.
I would change the text on Mimic Ooze to:
"As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may discard any number of cards. If you do, this spell gains any keywords from the discarded cards
Discard a card: Mimic Ooze gains +1/+1 until end of turn. If that card was a creature card, Mimic Ooze gains all keyword abilities from that card until end of turn."
The wording may need tweaking, but I wanted to add the idea of gaining abilities that trigger on-cast like Cascade. Plus not limiting the second ability to just creatures enables you to discard things like Life From the Loam or the Madness Terminate.
It could also have a mana cost added to the second ability to help mitigate loops, if that is the case I would change the first part of the buff to be counters rather than temporary stats.
I find it interesting that neither WotC nor customer card designers have ever humored the idea of a card that let's you draw from the bottom of your deck instead of the top.
Check out grenzo, he's pretty awesome
Currently, the only cards that care about the bottom of your library are Cellar door and Grenzo, dungeon warden.
Having played a Grenzo EDH deck, there are several issues that come up when caring about the bottom of the deck.
Primarily there's the logistics issue of having to pick up your deck whenever you do something.
There's also the other issue of making card selection (especially scry) really awkward. If there's a bad card on top, you don't want to bottom it, but you also don't want to leave it on top to mess up your other scries.
I mean you could go full convulsion of Nature, but at that point you've basically made Lantern of insight but with extra steps. (And also more risk of accidental cheating if the top card isn't perfectly aligned.)
Some custom cards definitely have. There's absurd cards like "Your library is upside-down" and things like that.
I think you hinted at the idea I was going for.
I was basically looking for a scroll rack with extra steps and less consequences.
You could scry things to the bottom and keep your combo pieces safe from discard until you have what you need to protect it, and if the artifact/creature/etc gets destroyed, your bottom cards are still there until you play another one or shuffle.
Essentially, it's a broken cheesy mechanic that sounds innocuous until it gets put it into practice.
I would love to see a strategy with cards like the shambling giant. But then certain cards in your deck can move -1/-1 counters on your creatures to your oponents creatures. This basicly makes it a wall strategy where the wall will fight back if you dont remove it.
Or the classic options of Solemnity or Melira, Sylvok Outcast.
Mindkindler could work well in a feather deck as it gives access to more than three cards, which you are trying to cast all of to get feather triggers, so you avoid discarding the cards returned to your hand by feather
16:30 It's actually rather amusing seeing this card design shortly before Urborg Scavengers was released in MoM: Aftermath, and it's basically the same card but eating out of the graveyard instead of getting temporary keywords on a discard outlet.
Maybe for the Izzet Spell Chronicler, the exiled cards could be exiled with a specific counter on them similar to Dauthi Voidwalker. That way, any cards exiled with it aren't just gone forever if your opponent has a removal spell and it would encourage digging deeper with it as the drawback would be slightly reduced.
The when ever you sacrifice a clue trigger as presedent for its functionality, due to how tireless tracker works. You could still reword it to whenever you sacrifice a clue to investigate but it might not be neccesary.
I think the reason there hasn't been many cards with the armor mechanic (there's a sliver from future sight with it) is because it plays too much like 1 more point of toughness. Damage doesn't stick between turns in magic, so the effect armor 1 has over toughness +1 is if the creature gets hit twice in the same turn. It makes math weird if your opponent tries to double block your creature, or if they trade with a creature and a burn spell, and it's good against double strike, but that's about it.
The effort in making and using the mechanic (the math is easy when focusing on the card but is more problematic when there are 5 creatures that you need to think about) is not the effort when there is such a straight forward alternative in 1, maybe 2, extra toughness
I wish we had a commander with Essence's Thief's ability because getting advantage over removing cumulative upkeep counters, saga counters, etc. as a value engine sounds incredibly cool.
How about this card?
Nature's Abundance GG
Enchantment
You cannot cast spells during your turn.
Creature spells you control have flash.
Whenever an opponent casts a non-creature spell, add one mana of any colour to your mana pool.
So I am a CEDH player and right now, green is the weakest colour. I figured it could use a really impactful build around that works almost like a weird green smothering tithe. My goal for this card is for it to be very powerful in CEDH, but balanced enough in other formats that it wouldn't be broken. I like the idea of enabling green based creature combo decks to win overtop of your opponents counterwars and combos if they cast too many spells with this sitting on the table. I hope the restrictions are heavy enough to balance the card in most formats, but do let me know what you would tweak!
As far as flavor goes, I imagine this enchantment sort of bringing forth a feeling of being in the woods and trying to be careful not to make too much of a disturbance lest you attract the attention of the creatures that roam the woods. I imagine it also carrying a kind of flourishing feeling where the mana your opponent uses awakens the mana of the woods that you yourself can draw on.
I feel like there is enough counterplay where your opponents are incentivised to try to cast their spells in different phases of their turn so they don't allow you to generate too much mana. I feel like this effect is balanced enough in 1 v 1 formats, but gets much better in multiplayer where you can politic with your opponents to get them to cast spells so you can generate enough mana to deal with threats on the board etc.
Please let me know what you think especially if you play EDH and especially especially if you play CEDH!
Fajim Kanu reminds me of my old SOI standard deck, built around clues with tamiyos journal and briarbridge patrol (I think that's what it was called. Put a creature from your hand onto the field if you sac three tokens, which journal makes you do)
It would've been perfect in that deck (minus it not playing white)
I think the mana cost should be bumped to 3 CMC and then it's very similar to Tireless tracker
Love this content. Would love to see more submitted decklists vs constructed top tier decks
I say this cause I have like 50 brews swimming in my brain 😆
Add flash to Mindkindler: play at end off opponent's second main phase, move to end phase and they discard down to three? Ouch.
I feel like the concept of mimic ooze is much better represented in the actual card Urborg Scavengers from Aftermath. But still cool that someone thought of the concept before the set released!
Rules question about Shambling Giant: doesn't the double replacement effect force you to choose between one of them? I believe armor 1 should be worded as "whenever damage is dealt to this creature, prevent one of that damage" to make it work as intended. Correct me if I'm wrong please.
Essence Thief: give it hexproof or shroud. Less total pay off on the attack, better theme, more likely to last til turn 4, and a 3 cost 1/1 hexproof/shroud feels better than a 3 cost 1/1 menace.
Also, given the image, I would want to add "As long as Essence Thief has a +1/+1 counter on it, it has flying", "(3c) Target creature gains flying", or something to that effect.
Similarly you could flip it. Change Menace to Flying, then make it gain through an activated or triggered ability. I personally like it having flying over menace, and having "(1c) Essence Thief gains Shroud and loses Flying".
Another alternative would be to give it a blink ability. It gives me esper vibes, and if you want it to have blue you can make it "(1u) Exile Essence Thief. Return it to the battlefield under its owner's control at the beginning of the next end step."
The esper variant seems very thematic and balanced personally.
I initially thought Thoralf mentioned the name of Fajim Kanu because it's a legendary creature without some associated title. I like to imagine Fajim as someone who gets personally invested in his case and upset from discovering new things the bad guy he's pursuing did. A title like Fajim Kanu, Vengeful Examiner could enhance the flavor nicely.
I have like 1000 custom cards! No kidding! (Mostly pure text) What should I do now, even if I could select out 100 cards or so?
The card in 7:35 -> 11:53 is awesome! 9-10 as is, 7.5-8 if the last ability would have a once per turn effect, maybe a "do the thing if it's the first time it triggers, otherwise you gain 2/3 life" would be perfect. Ah, also he should be an Elf for the art. I love the name reference! ^^
13:25 Armor already exists: Absorb
18:00 Make that ability as putting the keyword counter, to make it permanent, and add to the ability a "you can activate this ability each turn only an amount of times equal to Mimic's Ooze's toughness" clause. Otherwise, do not limit the amount of activation but just put a B cost in addition, and maybe also let it get +1/+1 until the end of the turn (digesting creatures = feeding).
23:00 should also allow you to choose and retain up to one of those counters if you pay an additional W/B : it drains "essence", let it grow stronger!
To those who wait, I deem at 10/10.
I am totally fine with it recurring indefinitely. Even in its buffed form it's a quick study(3 mana, draw 2), with the upside of a little life, but the big downside of having to have cast it once already.
Also turning an upcoming draw I it a must cast for 3 mana is another drawback you shouldn't quite ignore. You need to have plenty mana for this card.
Shozan Who Sees All seems like it's meant to pair with Sensei's Divining Top.
Has you look at 4 cards, put one on the bottom, and then the rest back in any order. That would let you cycle less useful cards out of the way for when / if the top is destroyed.
I think mimic ooze is well designed as a common, or uncommon if there is discard/graveyard mechanic in the set/format.
17:10 i feel like instead of until end of turn it should gain those keywords as counters, like a flying counter and such
About Fajim Kanu, I think that if the second ability said investigate, it would be enough to avoid easy infinite combos, because you would have to pay mana each time.
Adding green mana immediately with the Life-Cycle Titan sounds kind of fun in a deck with a playset of Fog
Mimic Ooze can be a bit better by adding exiling a creature card from any graveyard as an additional option. Still isn't OP, gets to gobble your critters twice, then targeted GY hate.
Mimic Ooze getting ability counters sounds like a reasonable idea. Still can be pushed, pathed, removed without that much investment. -indestructable and hexproof/shroud
Shozan would turn your sensei's divining top into a sort of scry though, being able to put one of the now 4 cards that you do not want at the bottom
Essence Thief 22:17 would combo with "All Will Be One" to do infinite damage by having Essence Thief targeting itself. Removing and gaining counters until you ping your enemies to death.
My way to Balance these cards:
For Titan of Life Cycle:
- Give it Flashback (4C-G-G) with the condition that you can only cast if it entered the Graveyard from the Battlefield
- Change the ability so you can only activate when it enters the Battlefield and also so it have 1 effect activated depending of the type of permanent you put in to the Battlefield. Also add an ability that should resove if a Artifact or Enchantment was put on the Battlefield:
"When this card enters the Battlefield, Reveal the Top 5 cards from your Library, Put 1 Permanent from among them. Then apply 1 ability depending of the permanent that you put on the Battlefield this way and then you put the rest of the cards in your Graveyard:
* Land: Gain 1 Mana for each Land that was revealed, this mana must be of the color identity as the lands revealed (your choice if Multicolored)
* Creature: Gain X Life, with X being highest Toughness value among Creatures revealed
* Artifact or Enchantment: Spread X +1/+1 counters among your creatures on the Battlefield, with X being the highest Power value among Creatures revealed
For Izzet Spell Cronicler:
- Add an Tap Ability that allows you to cast 1 Spell that you exiled this turn by Spell Chronicler. you will still have to pay the Spell's Mana Cost
For Shambling Giant
- Make it a 10/10, Trample, Haste and Armor 2 (the reason why this creature should be given Haste and Armor 2 is because these are the typical Plant Constructs Druids tend to create with some of the most powerful spells in their arsenal and some of those Druids tend to add a extra protective layer against Elemental/Physical Damage to protect it. The reason this is given Haste is because these things are not something you drag from another plane into yours, but something you would create on the Spot (just like if you're creating elementals out of Lands)
- Give it an additional ability so, at turn's end, you remove 3 -1/-1 counters from the Sambling Giant (this is to represent the Magical Regeneration ability these Giant do have due to being Druidic Creations)
Fajim goes infinite much easier than you think. There are cards that say when you would make a token, make that token plus a 1/1 creature instead. Add any sac outlet, and you have at least infinite clues, depending on the sack outlet.
For the Ooze, maybe a good option would be to lower the cost. Make it a cheap creature that will feed your graveyard and get some buffs in the process, maybe?