MTGNexus Single Card Critique Thread/One Card at a Time

[Ryder]

Necro time!

@IvyStar I see what your intention was, but I'm really struggling to find a valid context for the card. I assume it's meant for Commander.
From a design perspective, it's three engines packed into one card. It's all over the place.
From a balance perspective, it's pretty bad in general. All players get one, what's the point? Howling Mine does one speciffic thing, so a very speciffic deck could take advantage of it. This is super broad. All kinds of decks would find it beneficial, and that's bad.
Flavor... It's breaking the 4th wall, Okay for a "meta" set.

My card:
Hybrid Negate 1{g/u}
Instant (C)
Counter target noncreature spell.

How serious of a color pie bend/break is that? Could it work in the right context?

[Venedrex]

Necro time!

@IvyStar I see what your intention was, but I'm really struggling to find a valid context for the card. I assume it's meant for Commander.
From a design perspective, it's three engines packed into one card. It's all over the place.
From a balance perspective, it's pretty bad in general. All players get one, what's the point? Howling Mine does one speciffic thing, so a very speciffic deck could take advantage of it. This is super broad. All kinds of decks would find it beneficial, and that's bad.
Flavor... It's breaking the 4th wall, Okay for a "meta" set.

My card:
Hybrid Negate 1{g/u}
Instant (C)
Counter target noncreature spell.

How serious of a color pie bend/break is that? Could it work in the right context?

It is a break.
Green can counter abilities, see Emerald Dragon // Dissonant Wave. or Repudiate // Replicate, but countering spells, even just noncreature ones is a much stronger effect that green does not have access to.

As far as I am aware, the closest we could get to a hybrid counterspell without breaking the pie would be a white/blue hybrid taxing counterspell like mana tithe, but even that is not likely going to happen since play design thinks white counterspells are very strong for formats such as standard.

I think something like this is the best chance for a hybrid mana counter.

Lawful Dispute
Instant (U)
Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays .

[Ryder]

Yes, that is much more plausible, though I'm specifically experimenting with non-white counters here. Here's my black one.

Black Cancel 1{u/b}{u/b}
Instant (C)
Counter target spell if you have more cards in hand than that spell's controller.

[OneAndOnly]

Simple and straightforward. It plays into blue's strengths, where you're likely to have more cards in your hand than an opponent's. That being said, it does fall a little into the win-more or lose-lose areas; having more cards in hand is generally considered the superior position, and if you have fewer cards that your opponent, you a) can't cast this spell and b) are likely not to have any other answers either.

It might be worthwhile changing it, perhaps giving it a cost reduction if you have more cards in hand, or drawing a card.


Ouliphant Cavalry -- 1WG
Creature - Elephant Knight {U}
Whenever Ouliphant Cavalry blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, choose one -- Put a +1/+1 counter on Ouliphant Cavalry; or remove a +1/+1 counter from that creature.
3/3

[TessaMTG]

that card feels... very powerful. maybe give it an extra 1 or a g/w hybrid. otherwise, i actually love this card, very cool card. Gets counters and counters other counters. (that sentence hurts my brain)

[OneAndOnly]

Some of the first few custom magic cards I made referenced recognizable Alpha creatures -- Llanowar Elves, Serra Angels, and others. Of the lit you offer, I could probably tell you what Bribery and Murder do off the bat ... less so the others. (Fyndhorn Pollen is a pretty deep cut!) I'm not certain why you chose this particular set, though, or how they tie into feline behavior. I'd suggest being a little bit cuter, and make all the spells recognizably feline in origin, or at least leonin, and players will just eat that right up!

Rock-Solid Regimen -- URG
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +3/+3.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may move a +1/+1 counter from another target creature onto enchanted creature.

[Komandon]

Would that be that enchanted creature or any other? Either way fits and simic. With cards like Simic Fluxmage and Simic Guildmage
My MTG wiki has is Temur as the archetype of savagery. So going tall fits too.

[Zorothegallade]

Necroing this thread to submit one of my most unorthodox cards



The idea is that this card puts some really cheap power (4 for 2 mana) on your side of the board, but at a risk: if your opponent has the means to kill or bounce the gnoll before you can use that, they can now spend 2 mana to turn that extra 2 power against you. How would you combo it and does it break the game easily?

[OneAndOnly]

It's a little off-setting to have cards reference slavery, even in a fantasy sort of way. There are other "versions" of this card that do it better, I think -- Sengir Autocrat comes to mind -- without some of those overtones.

Things play out weird when you have multiple Gnolls out and both die at the same time; they'll gain two instances of the same ability, allowing your opponent to activate one, gain control of the token -- and then you activate the second instance of the ability, and gain control back.

Because neither the cards nor the tokens have common creature types, there aren't many synergies that work specifically for this card. Bad Moon will always be a bonus, but that works with every black card. I see this falling more into an Aristocrats-style deck, where you're just looking for sacrifice fodder, but again, there are other cards that work that angle better.

.

I made this guy for the Chain of Creature Types thread; what do you think?

Lop-Ear of the Barren Warren -- 6WWW
Creature - Rabbit Horror {M}
Vigilance, lifelink
Whenever you gain life, you may have target player's life total become equal to the amount of life gained.
6/6

[Discobolos]

Gonna necro this thread again too 😎

Lop-Ear of the Barren Warren

First of all, I love the name. As a designer who lives and dies by the flavor: 10/10, no notes.

Normally I would suggest that the life gain ability seems a bit busted, but considering the cost and the ramp required to get it out (not to mention to keep it there), I think it passes the sniff test. However, unless you're banking on other, lesser life gain within the same turn, you'd need a hell of a lot of protection to keep it on the battlefield.

The only other critique I have is that 6/6 is a HUGE rabbit. I'd wager that's explained by the horror typing though.

Overall: A fun, malicious life gain tentpole. Plenty of opportunity in White to build around it, but vulnerable to 'life totals can't change' chicanery.

---

Empty Gallows
Enchantment (R)
Whenever an opponent commits a crime against a player other than you, that opponent sacrifices a creature.
Whenever an opponent commits a crime against you, they may gift you a card. If they don't, that opponent sacrifices target creature.

(A grim card for an equally grim setting. I've grown to love both the 'crime' and 'gift' mechanics so I had fun trying to fit them both onto a single card. Not sure if I love the way it came out, but lemme know what you think.)

[Crazymanzoink]

On empty gallows, i love the first ability but the second ability's use of gift is really different from the original mechanic. Another thing is that it might make more sense flavor wise for it to be an artifact.

Morgoth, the Great Enemy
Legendary Creature - Avatar Horror (M)
Menace, deathtouch, indestructible
Whenever 1 or more creatures an opponent controls die, there controller gains a poison counter.
"Morgoth came, and climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumour of his feet was like thunder underground. And he issued forth clad in black armour - J.R.R Tolkien
4/4

(I have been making some symarillion themed cards and need some advice on how balanced this is)

[OneAndOnly]

A slight bit of a typo ("there" versus "their"). 5 mana for a 4/4 is on rate; but without being able to force creatures to block, the combination of keyword abilities just ends up reading "unblockable."

Having each opponent gain a poison counter ... that's where the game is. As written, it works best with Stax-like effects; a boardwipe only gives out one poison counter to each opponent (even though this guy is likely to survive to hand out more). But this leads me toward deckbuilding that becomes very uninteraction-y -- going old school, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or The Abyss -- and then all you have to do is wait. That's not really a fun game.

I'm not quite certain what I'd offer as a solution. "Excess damage this creature deals to players is dealt in the form of poison counters"?
.
Jangling Jester -- U(U/R)R
Creature - Human Fool {C}
Whenever an ability of a creature with one or more targets is activated, that creature becomes distracted until end of turn.
U, T: Tap or untap target distracted creature.
R, Q: This creature deals 2 damage to target distracted creature.
2/2

[JustBCoz12]

I made a commander card that kind of fixes the best worst tribe. What do you think?



The First Sporoloth {u}{b}{g}{g}
Legendary Creature — Fungus 5/5

Treat Saporlings as a Fungus.
At your end step, put a Spore counter on each Fungus.
{G}, or sacrifice a Fungus with 2 or more Spore counters: Create a 1/1 green fungus creature token called "Thallid" that reads, "During your upkeep, put a spore counter on Thallid. {0}: Remove three spore counters from Thallid to put a Saproling token into play. Treat this token as a 1/1 green creature."

[SinisterSister]

Wondering why this thread was abandoned 8 months ago... I'd think it'd be the main active thread here.

This is an interesting card that fits a classic Green theme. The wording of the first line is a little confusing and I'd think you'd want to say something like "Saprolings you control are fungus in addition to their other types"? It seems like a rather niche or category within a category kind of thing for the card, not entirely sure of the practical purpose. Otherwise, the rest of the card is interesting if not complex and seems to stack counters and tokens at multiple levels.

Divine Massacre
Instant (R)
Multikicker
Exile target creature you control, then return it to the battlefield under your control and it deals damage equal to its power to target creature or planeswalker controlled by an opponent. You may choose an additional target controlled by an opponent beyond the first for each time this spell was kicked.

[JessWill]

That's a pretty slick card idea. Potentially pretty powerful, since it both activates ETB effects and deals damage, both to creatures and planeswalkers. The multikicker adding new targets puts things over the top. This might have to be mythic once you factor that part in.

King Cobra
Creature - Snake (U)
Infect
When this creature dies, return it to the battlefield under your control transformed.
3/3
///
Venomous Fangs
Kindred Equipment - Snake (U)
You may have this equipment enter attached to a Snake you control.
Equipped creature gains infect.
Equip