MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day

[Pygyzy]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 5/5/20 is Island Sanctuary.

Flavorful - maybe too flavorful for its own good.

I did spend a little while thinking about a serious card for this for about a minute or two but I had an idea too good to pass up.

Monster Island Sanctuary
Legendary Land — Island Wastes
If this would enter the battlefield from your hand, instead it phases out.
UU: Monster Island Sanctuary phases out. If Monster Island Sanctuary would phase in, roll a six-sided die. If the result is odd, it remains phased out instead.
1, T: Exile target Ape, Dinosaur, Egg, or Assassin you control. Put a vanished! counter on it.
5, T, Sacrifice Monster Island Sanctuary: Return to the battlefield all exiled creatures with vanished! counters. The are goaded, and gain trample, haste, menace and name rampage 2 until end of turn. (Whenever they become blocked, they get +2/+2 for each word in the blocker's name beyond the first.)

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/3/20 is Consume Spirit.

Don't see a lot of "spend only on X" these days but I think it could be used interestingly.

[Pygyzy]

I love consume spirit and Soul Burn. My favorite story: I used to have a Zombie deck that's backup plan was Songs of the Damned and consume spirit. I was playing in a tournament against some super grindy blue/white deck. He drops a cop black. I think he just had it mainboard cuz it was first round.

Anyways my hand was 2 songs of the damned and 2 consume spirit. I had depleted his hand and he was top decking but he had a threat I couldn't answer and an empty board.

So I go for the bluff and tap out for a consume spirit to bring him low enough for the follow up. Sure enough he didn't read the card and just assumed it caused life loss. Killed him next turn.

Round 2 he drops a cop black turn 2 and literally says, "it won't help against your consume spirit but at least it'll help against your creatures. Sure enough I killed him again with 2 back to back consume spirits. The hardest part was not giving away the bluff.

Immediately after the game I showed him the card. He was a good sport but he turned bright red haha.

[void_nothing]

Yeah I think there is some design space here.

Fires of Desolation XR
Sorcery (R)
Destroy up to one target creature with converted mana cost equal to or less than the amount of B spent on X.
Fires of Desolation deals damage to target player equal to the amount of R spent on X.
Destroy up to one target noncreature, nonland permanent with converted mana cost equal to or less than the amount of G spent on X.

[Pygyzy]

My "X cards you don't pay x for" are inspired by consume spirit. This is what I had in mind specifically when designing them.

Consume Blood Xb
Sorcery
Vampire convoke
You can't spend mana to pay x
Target opponent loses X life and you gain X life.

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/4/20 is Merfolk Secretkeeper // Venture Deeper.

4 toughness and four cards milled: It all makes sense.

[Pygyzy]

Descender into Secrets
Creature — Human Nomad
Human curiosity usually has dire consequences.
The Descent
Sorcery — Adventure
Target player puts the top four cards of their library into their graveyard, then return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
0/4

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

Mill. The closest thing I will ever have to poisonous relationship regarding MTG.
The first time the concept of milling my opponent to win the game occured to me, I instatly fell in love. There was something truly magical in it, it felt as the true wizard's solution to defeat opponent. Not by smashing a face with superior forces, but by conquering their mind and will, as they can no longer fight due to having no more spells in repertuoir.
But as the time passed, the first thing I realised, is that there is so much graveyard synergy, that milling actually helps them, and even against those decks that do not care about graveyard, milling is usually valid only in big, raw numbers, lacking any subtlety. And that is somewhat contradictory to the image of "clever" winning.
The way to circumvent this is adding exile graveyard clause, as in Ashiok, Dream Render, but there is less fun when you can't see how opponents graveyard slowly, but steadily is growing in size, at the cost of their library.
My favourite card from last three years is undoubtly Psychic Corrosion, which is the closest thing I had in mind when I first met the concept, but... I do not know. I just wish there was something that is the pure mill, while at the same time being a valid strategy and not just high numbers. I cannot even parse this need into a card, it is just something that will hunt me forever when I would think of Magic.

[void_nothing]

Damn, Lorn, that's deep.

[Pygyzy]

I played Pyromancer Ascension with a single copy of Archive Trap. There were a few games the board stalled out after throwing everything we had against each other and we're both topdecking for an answer that's not there. I'd milled their threats and I'm out too so I stall til I win the game lol.

Mill can be good but it's a build around me mechanic which can be limiting. Also it's not a catch all. So you gotta work in a ulterior plan just in case which I enjoy as part of the deckbuilding process.

Szadek, Lord of Secrets and Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker are still some of my favorite cards despite knowing they're really not all that great. But when my opponent mills a card that wouldn't have really mattered anyways and go "aw man, my <whatever." it makes it a fun psychological game as well.

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/6/20 is Cast into Darkness.

This is one of those funny cards that's one color, but could be both of its allied colors instead and no one would bat an eye: UR makes perfect sense as this card's mana cost, although it would be a little weak for multicolor.

[spacemonaut]

HM goes to Twisted Reflection which is a card with two effects that both belong to blue, but when you do both of them together, they wind up belonging to black.

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/7/20 is Grand Warlord Radha.

Characterwise I enjoyed Radha evolving from an impetuous young woman into an older, mature and capable leader. Designwise, turning her old combat mana generation ability into a lord-type ability makes sense.

[spacemonaut]

Wow, I'd never thought about how that mechanical change shows a shift into leadership. That's pretty great.

I bet there's other cards I like that I could dig up and provide a mechanical twist in similar ways to show how they've changed as they grew up.

[Pygyzy]

I play Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion in my Nekusar deck and it always reminds me of this card. Red needs more Upwelling effects.

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/9/20 is Ragnar.

...Huh. Well, here is one of the "lol let's put our D&D characters in this game" legends from Legends. Looked up this guy's lore because I couldn't remember a thing about him, and he has the most aggressive art for a defensive card. Seriously, a viking flexing under a raven flag regenerates people?

Well! Turns out he does, being that he's a healer and Gaea worshiper. Seems like he deserves a redesigned card, huh?

[Pygyzy]

One time I made a Dune deck and this was Duke Leto. That's about all I remember. I had an Abomination lol

Ragnar of the Hawk WUG
Legendary Creature — Human Noble
wug, T: Put a divinity counter on another target Human creature you control. Creatures with divinity counters on them have indestructible.
3/2

[spacemonaut]

Surprisingly if we make a couple of changes, introduce the modern regenerate pattern, and add a dash of vigilance, I think we wind up with a blast of a card.

Untouchable Rager 1BR
Creature — Human Berserker
Vigilance
, : Target creature you control gains indestructible until end of turn. Tap it.
5/1

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

he has the most aggressive art for a defensive card.

For me, Gosta Dirk takes this spot. Ragnar at least just flexes his muscules.
Does he really needs redesign? In terms of mechanics he is fine after cutting blue and giving him vigilance. Maybe the activation cost could be reduced to and allow regeneration to target lands as well, but thats to make him more in line with current power-level. The base is fine.
In terms of flavour, once again, drop blue from him. Why is he blue?
To be honest, most of Legends legends are salvageable without big tweaks, at least as long they are not vanilla. For instance Rasputin Dreamweaver is a reasonable legend for flicker decks, all he would need is to streamline the abilities little, so they are not in microtext. Ramses Overdark might have his cost cut down and have some incentive to play auras - scry 1 on cast, for instance - but it is in color with Aura Graft and delayed murder, so his abilities make sense and are not junk. And so on with many of them.

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/10/20 is Runed Servitor.

Long gone are the days when a 2/2 for 2 would be unthinkable without a drawback. Now we get the likes of Watchers of the Dead... but never a vanilla artifact bear.

[Pygyzy]

I love Runed Servitor. Opponent will sometimes waste valuable removal on a dork. If I can hit for 2 and draw a card it's virtual card advantage.

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/12/20 is Rootwater Shaman.

The Rootwater mer were certainly not lookers. Anyway, blue used to be the Aura color - see also Rootwater Matriarch - and I'm glad it's not anymore, because it also used to have burn, the biggest fatties, taxing...

[Pygyzy]

I remember this card well. I tried like hell to abuse it, there just weren't any good enchantments at the time. Still not sure what it was supposed to be for, at that time.

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/28/20 is Forked Lightning.

Uneven damage distribution! Distributing 4 among only three or fewer targets ensures that you can't just go 1 to everything. Burn has a lot of design space, huh?

[void_nothing]

The MTGNexus Custom Card Creation Random Card of the Day for 6/29/20 is Gargos, Vicious Watcher.

The funny thing is that for Hydras, 4 as a discount and +4/+4 may as well be the same thing.