Protean Mists: Dinosaurs in Rocket Ships

[Pygyzy]

I always wanted to go-to Muraganda but I'm starting to doubt that will happen anytime soon so I figured why not do it my way.

I took the concept of prehistoric plane and applied it very literally. What would the very first place be like? Equilor is the oldest plane that's been mentioned but what's older than the oldest?

How about before time began? So, I took the idea of a "proto-plane", that is, a plane before a plane, and tried to figure out what that would be like. Well, if the past repeats, then the past is just like the future, so applying Star Wars logic, the past is the future. Obviously that means I'm gonna make intergalactic dinosaurs.

Sqy, Pteryx of Atomic Fusion 8WW
Legendary Enchantment Creature - Archaeopteryx (M)
Affinity for auras
Flying
Other creatures lose all abilities and are 1/1 white Bird Lizard creatures.
Creature cards in your hand have "Bestow w".
Auras you control lose all abilities except "Enchant creature" and gain "This becomes a 1/1 white Lizard Bird with no abilities if it's not attached to a creature."
8/4

Sqy is the embodiment of the first sun. It's light begins the process of life anew. This card is almost certainly a rules nightmare and probably not templated correctly, but I always wanted a bestow lord and I love phoenixes so I tried to create a bestow phoenix. I don't quite think I accomplished that but I couldn't resist combining licids and humility.

Flq, Amoeboid of Perpetuity 3u
Legendary Creature - Amoeba (M)
Vigilance
Flq, Amoeboid of Perpetuity can't be blocked.
If a creature you control would untap, it doesn't instead.
Once during each of your turns, you may activate an ability of a creature you control without paying it's activation cost. Copy that ability for each ability with a T in it's activation cost you activated this turn.
3/3

Flq begins the process of motion in the universe. Anything that moves was set in motion by Flq. I tried to make a "tap lord". Turn all your tap abilities into one big ability but only "once".

Yzy, Inescapable Megatherium 3Bb
Legendary Creature - Sloth (M)
Lifelink, deathtouch
Yzy, Inescapable Megatherium enters the battlefield merged on top of a creature.
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield for the first time each turn, merge it underneath Yzy.
1/6

Yzy is the end of all things. Under Yzy, time stops. Tried to riff on Braids and this felt flavorful. Yzy is so large, he's basically a black hole.

More to come

[void_nothing]

Really interesting, creative thinking. "Before time began" is a difficult concept to grasp, obviously, and "another world-system before the Multiverse as we know it" strains lore credulity a little bit, but the concept can be refined.

Sqy - My major rule for names is that they should be pronounceable. How do you say "Sqy"? Is it a homophone for Squee? The Humility-alike effect isn't what you'd call "fun" but at least an 8-power flying (i.e. unblockable given the other abilities) body ends the game fast. I'm not really certain what the point of the bestow ability is here; is it to... get around wraths? Is that the deal? I'm also not seeing the Phoenix inspiration in here, and you seem to have intuited in the rules text that there's zero point in having archaeopteryx as a creature type; Bird Lizard or Bird Dinosaur, depending on how you want to cast the fictionalized version of bird evolution, would suffice.

Flq - Another unpronounceable name. Amoeba isn't easily represented as an existing creature type, but Ooze or Germ are alternatives. This is at least wacky fun, but keep in mind the mana abilities of lands are usually "activated abilities with T in the cost" - there's little reason to do anything but degenerate stuff here, I'm afraid.

Yzy - Easier to say than the other names, although I'm not such a big fan of the three-letter name gimmick. Interesting, potentially oppressive stuff making use of the technology from mutate, although the whole flavor thing - the end of time incarnate - seems to me to require at least the Avatar type on there. A "mundane" sloth is hard to take seriously.

[spacemonaut]

Sqy's Humility side is completely at odds with his aura interactions:

• If I want to play Bestows and auras, I wouldn't want them to also lose all abilities—otherwise why would I be using them? The whole point of playing auras is to build bigger, stronger creatures than what my opponents have.
• If I wanted to play with Humility on the battlefield, victory is decided solely by how wide we go, so I won't want to play auras at all. I mean, why would I, it's not like my stuff would get stronger for it. The whole reason Humility is in white is because it can spam out 1/1 creatures like it's nobody's business and just win through sheer width.

The best thing I can do with Sqy is basically degenerate: use his bestow as much as possible so I can enchant things for , then find some way to kill him so I can switch everything back on.

Flq: I agree with void that this guy will be prone to degenerate stuff. Leaving all my stuff tapped forever is bad and I wouldn't want to do that, which means I'd rather instead avoid tapping my creatures and instead tap lots of artifacts and lands (because they'll later untap), and use all those activations to do things like draw my deck with Shore Keeper.

Yzy: make sure you define what merge does exactly. Is it Mutate, or is it Combine (Grusilda, Monster Masher), or is it something else?

[void_nothing]

Yzy: make sure you define what merge does exactly. Is it Mutate, or is it Combine (Grusilda, Monster Masher), or is it something else?

While everything else you said is valid, this card's actually formatted correctly as is. Merge is the keyword action that mutate uses in order to function. Mutate isn't mentioned here because it's an alternate cost mechanic.

[spacemonaut]

Yzy: make sure you define what merge does exactly. Is it Mutate, or is it Combine (Grusilda, Monster Masher), or is it something else?

While everything else you said is valid, this card's actually formatted correctly as is. Merge is the keyword action that mutate uses in order to function. Mutate isn't mentioned here because it's an alternate cost mechanic.

Oh, I forgot about that! Thanks. This means the creatures' ETB effects will trigger, then they'll vanish to become part of Yzy, which is an interesting quirk of merge.

723.2b As an object merges with a permanent, that object leaves its previous zone and becomes part of an object on the battlefield, but the resulting permanent isn't considered to have just entered the battlefield.

[Pygyzy]

You both have great points. I will take some time to respond to them in a little bit when I post a few more cards, hopefully tonight. Y'all are really helpful thank you. Design is really fun and y'all are some great designers so I do take your feedback appreciatively. My problem is my ideas don't always translate well from concept to execution but I think I'm getting better with practice and y'all's help. 🙂

[void_nothing]

As far as your problem, my most general advice would be: cards usually technically have two concepts they fulfill. One's the flavor concept and the other's the mechanical concept. You have to figure them both out before designing and hopefully they'll complement each other. For most cards, they'll both be rather simple: This is a roc/this is a medium-sized white flying creature. This is an Azorius mage serving someone papers/this is a counterspell. This is an assassination/this is a Murder variant.

For more complex cards at higher rarities, and legendaries, you'll usually want to think of an elevator pitch. Sqy, for example - your flavor is workable, but is the resultant card supposed to be a bestow lord, a bestow "phoenix", or a beater with Humility attached? It can't be all three, or more accurately, there's rarely going to be a reason it should be all three.

[Pygyzy]

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to this. Had a lot going on but I finally have some time to get back to design.

Void_nothing- Great advice, Focus is definitely something I lack, but I am trying to do better at not overcrowding cards with too many things. I will keep that in mind when designing.

In regards to your first post, I chose to make the names short in an attempt to convey the idea that these are the first beings to exist. The concept of giving names to intergalactic god-like creatures always seemed kinda weird to me because who is calling them that? Do they call themselves that? If you were born from nothing, do you name yourself?

Anyways, the names are intended to be a mix of word play and onomatopoeia. Sqy, is pronounced "Sky", but similar to a bird call. "Skwhy" would be close. Flq, is pronounced "Flick", taking inspiration from an amoebas flagella that acts like a whip. Yzy, is pronounced "Easy" because he just sits around. I will play around with some other naming schemes because I can see how it could be irritating.

For the creature types, I wanted to do all new creatures. That's why it's Archaeopteryx, Amoeba, and Sloth. Yes, it's mostly for my enjoyment (I like sloths) but I also wanted to make them different enough that they don't feel like just regular dinosaurs , these are space dinosaurs!

Sqy is intended to work against wraths, trigger constellation, and abuse flicker effects. I also wanted mitigate some of the problems with enchantress style decks, either draw all creatures and no auras, or all auras and no creatures. So this way you get both kinda. It definitely feels wonky so I will see what I can do about that

Flq - Wacky fun is what I was going for. I totally missed Mana abilities so I will change it to activated abilities with T that aren't Mana abilities.

Yzy- Definitely meant to be oppressive but I will see if I can tone it down a little

Spacemonaut - Sqy is supposed to be weird, but he was mostly an exercise in trying to making something considered unworkable, workable. I don't think I achieved that but it's certainly much cleaner than it initially was. I will try to refine it more.

Flq- I hadn't considered the interaction you mentioned but I will definitely have to fix that as that was not intended.

Yzy- Pretty sure Yzy works as intended. I actually did some digging into the rules for once and learned a few things. He's probably a little too strong but I didn't wanna nerf him too hard. I will see what I can do about that.

That's all for now. More cards soon when I get the chance. Thanks for the comments.