Made pretty much at the last moment for the physical draft so that had a low cost tempo card and I didn't like the idea of just throwing throwing couple of Shocks in the mix.

Art and flavor text coming later on...

I know everyone jokes that Red gets "Blue but worse" cards, but this seems a little too much like Vapor Snag. How did it perform in the playtest?

P.S. Are you still looking for playtesters?

> I know everyone jokes that Red gets "Blue but worse" cards, but this seems a little too much like Vapor Snag.

It isn't that funny since it's rather true :(
Now, Vapor Snag is crazy since it's better than Unsummon, though I did consider upping the lifeloss in this card to 2 (I still might do it). The slot was reserved for some kind of traditional small burn spell (think Shock), but I decided upon trying this color pie expansion idea that I've been storing for a while now.

> How did it perform in the playtest?

There was one deck that played two of these and went 1-1. I didn't hear any complaints so maybe it's fine. I might have gotten much more info on the set in general if I had spent time taking notes and spectating the matches instead of participating - but I mean really, how was I supposed to not to jump at the chance to finally play with these cards?

> P.S. Are you still looking for playtesters?

I haven't done any cockatrice setups or anything like that + it's much easier to get people's reaction to mechanics/cards/themes irl. So I haven't plan anything like that. I tried to upload the set onto the planesculptors website from MSE, but the site keeps giving me an error (might have something to do with all the weird characters in the names) - which is a shame since simulating drafts there is supposedly quite easy. I would have hoped to get the set in there (+ the cockatrice setup afterwards) so dudes might be able to play out drafts without my supervision and maybe "report back" to me any findings those activities may yield.

The set needs more white uncommons; the current cards available for that color+rarity combination are quite powerful (Varda's Progeny, Starkindler, Moon Dew, Opalescence), which is not a problem in itself, but currently is somewhat troublesome given that their likelyhood of appearing as a pick in drafts is greatly increased because of the 3 missing cards in those slots.

At the moment red only has a single rare creature (and one mythic that's under revision) in the set, so there isn't really any powerhouse cards available for red aggro decks.

Another irksome thing is that and don't really have any actual archetypes to aim for, which means that the decks made for those color combinations in draft will lack proper identity and themes.

I would rather have some candidate solutions for these issues before doing any further playtesting.

Hm, I understand the red flavor that is trying to be applied to this card (emotional manipulation), but I guess where the curiosity is to me is how this ties into Red's core philosophy. Especially since from what I understand, negative emotions or emotions that inspire inaction (depression, laziness, etc.) are usually blue or black, while positive emotions or emotions that inspire action (love, excitement, anger) are red.

As for the playtesting thing, no worries. I've got a good group of pretty solid drafters that would be willing to help playtest, and the set seems pretty on-point flavorwise and artwise, so I figured they might be interested in trying it.

Well, yes and no. The flavor (text) might not be clear on this, but in this case the fear/emotion is driving him to rush toward his father. So yes, it's a negative emotion in a sense, fear - though you could think of it as love as well - but no, it's not supposed to inspire inaction but action. Some concept names were "Overtaking by Feeling", "Compelled to Action", Peril/Distress/Restlesness what have you. The grief is compelling him to flee and leave the battlefield so that he would have to be summoned again. Lifeloss is the "sting of regret": he had hoped to be there to protect his father though this doesn't come off the flavor text, however, I think we can agree that the flavor text is long enough as it already. The untapped clause doesn't 100 % match the flavor IMO albeit you could see it as _"I just can't be sitting here doing nothing!" This is where a name containing a word like "Restless(ness)" would fit it in.

It's good to hear that there are willing playtesters available. At some point in the future I do need to start checking how that Cockatrice exporting was done again for custom sets. For now though, there are 4+ crucial cards that need to be conceptualized at least before I can call the set mostly done design wise - oh, and the missing archetypes probably need to some supporting changes.

The mechanical and flavor restrictions I've set upon myself are quite harsh and I also need to check up that following sets in the block are in somewhat of an acceptable state and not in conflict with anything done in this set. There are around 80 "finished" designs spread between those two future sets, but I've set them to private for now as to not to flood the "Recent updates" feed.

http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/163837285518/how-do-you-feel-about-bounce-in-red
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/163998167283/the-prospect-of-giving-red-bounce-is-rather#notes

Well, darn.

Huh, I guess that clears that up.

FYI, if you want me to, I can upload your set to CubeTutor since I have a paid account. The downside is that I have to use actual cards for AI purposes (choosing a functionally similar card to put the image of the card over), so the best thing you'll get is a visual spoiler of the finished deck. But it could be useful after the AI is trained a bit as a hypothetical draft simulator.

Well, this already causes life loss; suggesting it's better to use on an opponents stuff.

The original version had the "you don't control" rider but it took too much text IMO (I wanted to fit the text on two lines), so I had to choose between that and "untapped".

Also, "Planar Chaos was not a mistake".

I have no idea what that CubeTutor site is but sounds cool.

EDIT: Would you a text export of some sorts from MSE help?

Nahh, if anything a dropbox full of the card images would be best.

As for how to use cubetutor for testing custom sets, check these two examples:

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/69867

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/41672

The first is a cube that uses custom images so it looks like you are drafting custom cards (see Rishadan Port, or just open up a draft in the Playtest section)

The second is a cube that acts as a draft sim by having the packs controlled for rarity.

There's no multiplayer draft yet, so this is mainly used for single player testing. Works well for custom sets since its rare to have 8 interested people drafting pretend versions of pretend magic in a children's card game.

Also note that custom card images and custom pack designs are part of paid account features, which is why I offered my account for it.

With this you can use AI to draft and simulate custom sets semi-efficiently. The default AI gets pick order updated based on picks and strategies as you draft it, so you even train the AI to draft certain cards in some decks if theres no acceptable analogue.

Whose's cube/cards are those? That "Tree of Worlds" (Fauna Shaman) could make a really good reprint here.

Here's a google drive link to the folder with the images:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5yb_ZX6AzYManY2LVFCZFJaelk

That testing sounds really nice.

That I do not know, but you can message the creator directly via CubeTutor.

I'll get on uploading your cards once I get back to the states, should be in about 24 hours.

I would change this to deal damage rather than cause life loss. It's a tiny bump in usefulness to be able to hit planeswalkers to address being strictly worse than Vapor Snag.

I think "creature you don't control" would play better than "untapped creature" due to the inherent flaw I call the provoke-problem: Utility creatures come with build-in immunity to having abilities with in the activation cost. It's obviously okay to try out stuff.

Otherwise red bounce is a route worth exploring.

Red doesn't get life loss, it gets damage.

Secondarily, the bounce-to-hand really isn't red. The only two cards in existence to do that were both printed in Planar Chaos -- whose gimmick was all about breaking the color pie.

You should just say "Target creature can't block. Dejection deals 2 damage to that creature's controller." I'd play the heck out of that. Or just turn this into a Mugging reskin.

Planar Chaos's wasn't a "gimmick" set about breaking the color pie.

Lifeloss isn't that far off from damage so I'm okay putting that into "it's more flavorful" tap.

> Secondarily, the bounce-to-hand really isn't red.

I don't care much for appealing to "authority", but since that's the thing that works: Did you notice the blogatog links posted earlier? Both are from 2017 btw.

Won't it feel "off"?

It's all about flavor ;)

Okay, yeah, I can seem quite contradictory (even to myself at times), but as I was gathering material for that comment there, I noticed that my issue most likely stemmed specifically from the similarity of removal between rakdos colors. This is no removal.

... or maybe I'm just biased to my own designs - who knows?

Here's my 2 cents: Make it "Return target creature that was dealt damage this turn to its owner's hand." a la Inflame. Or better yet: "~ deals 1 damage to target creature. If that creature was dealt damage this turn, return it to its owner's hand instead." So now you can pop tiny creatures or use it to bounce something.