Soradyne Laboratories: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Soradyne Laboratories: (Generated at 2025-07-07 19:04:32)
I like it too, it belongs in a dedicated burn deck, 4 of these & 4 Ball lightnings being the only creatures - fun.
I like it. It's a nice tweak on Ball Lightning: it gets to sit around until it hits someone, but it won't trample if you have anything else.
Dan (Bombshell) and I have been bantering over this one for the better part of the day. I think the point of this card IS shenanigans, though hopefully not outright broken. Annoying is fine, but I feel like it's costed so as not to be backbreaking or abusive. I should ask Okamoto to test a proxy for me...
Is there a way to word it to prevent putting the same aura or equipement into play that was returned to the player's hand? I suppose this is mythic but the most annoying use of the Master Transmuter is that for
and tap can make any artifact invulnerable by basically blinking it.
Not only that but could be bonkers with auras or equipement that provide shroud or protection. Can just return said aura / enchantment and put back into play on anything that is being targeted at any time and nullify anything an opponent ever tries to do once a turn.
Ah! Decisions! Cards like this that have contrasting abilities are awesome for that reason to make me think but sometimes they also make my brain hurt. :P
Lowered cost to give mindstrike added impact.
Took activated clause off. Cleans him up, makes him more interesting in limited.
Adjusted P/T and cost. Made feint more relevant, and p/t more unique among W commons.
P/T adjusted to make more unique among W commons.
@ Alex: I think your assessment is a fair one, and I feel I've already begun to show a few more Spike-ish applications of Test. I stand by the decision to show Test for Lands on common creatures though to really encourage players, specifically in Limited formats, to use the ability. From a flavor angle, putting Test for Lands on a scout creature seemed very rich. From a mechanical view, limited format decks rarely go without creatures, and really playable common 1-drops are typically few and far between. Giving the player a creature they'd probably play anyway that also has the mechanic as an asset is a solid way of familiarizing players with how the mechanic works.
I clearly made a verbal misstep in saying that the card shouldn't be good if it were to Test for Lands. The card needed to be good enough to see play with or without the Test ability, but I didn't want to make the card so good that even without Test you'd grab it first-pick every time. I felt that the cards needed just enough tension that you'd really start looking at them around your fourth or fifth pick, so that you could determine whether your previous picks warranted the kind of utility the mechanic offered.
I think it's good if a mana-smoothing mechanic like cycling, clash or test lets people like either half of the card. I don't think you need to say "The card's purpose is to help fix mana. If the spell is too good, it draws more people into playing it for the first effect, rather than the second." It's good to have some cards with your mechanic that Spike can feel happy about playing in constructed, and those need to be good in both ways.
The activated ability on this creature feels like a concession that the controlling player can't dependably profit off of the static ability, rather than an added function that improves the design. It also may be too strong of an effect on a rather large common, though I haven't personally reviewed the common forms of removal in the set. Personally, I'd prefer a more universal (and simple) static effect of "Creatures that have been dealt damage this turn can't block.", which I suppose might have to be templated as a triggered ability.
Well, I couldn't just give you a common card that fixes ALL your problems, could I?
Honestly though, I did look at making some cheap instants and sorceries that could Test for lands instead of creatures that Tested for lands. I ran into a few problems.
1) If the instant or sorcery required a target, it could get stuck in hand. Creatures rarely need targets, so they were a good fit.
2) The card's purpose is to help fix mana. If the spell is too good, it draws more people into playing it for the first effect, rather than the second. Ideally, green should be best at helping to find land by any means, including Test. This meant that the color that typically has some of the least impressive early-game instants and sorceries would be getting the most playable of the five, while black, white, and blue would need miserable ones that felt like a drag on your deck. That notion seemed pretty disappointing, so I went for creatures instead.
3) I wanted cards that weren't absolute in-all-ways letdowns when drawn late in a game. They may be puny creatures, but they can still attack and block.
I agree that Testing shouldn't be for 3 cards. I don't think it would "break it in half", but it would make getting a land so common that the times you fail to find a land would be a large let down.
It seems obvious to me that test is more powerful on Sorceries and Instants. I wonder how often you'll go to that well, so to speak. Also, I wonder what kind of design you end up with when you are making cards for players who might be desperate for land, but would also be desperate for creatures in play as well.
Addressing NLewis's question regarding variations on "Test":
I wanted to keep the Test mechanic as simple and straightforward as possible, especially since it takes a lot of copy space to properly explain. By WotC standards, it may actually be too "long" a mechanic for use on commons, but I feel that the end result is both flavorful and easy to understand/grasp. Once you've done it once, you'll always get it right.
The reason for not varying the number of cards tested was forth sake of maintaining a standard. 2 mana, 2 cards, every time. It's easier to do the math and spot shenanigans. I'd already decided that there was more exciting space in varying the KIND of card tested for, so re number of cards was less important, and restricting that part of the equation kept the mechanic as a whole more manageable and less breakable.
There's also a very interesting probability aspect to using 2 as a base; Testing for land is nearly always more effective than for other card types. Testing for a color in a deck where all non-land cards have that color is even more effective than testing for land.
Let's say a deck has a 40% land mix. Regardless of how far into your deck you are, if your land mix is still relatively consistent and close to 40% within the deck, it means that with any given card drawn, you have a 40% chance of hittin gland. Further, any Test for Land actually has slightly better than a 64% chance of netting at least one land (and a 16% chance of showing two.) In fact, if your first card is NOT a land, the ratio of remaining land cards to non-land cards goes UP, meaning it's even MORE likely to be a land.
Then look at WHY you might Test for Land. In a situation where you're land-flooded, you're less likely to need to dig for it, so you may not want to test. On the other hand, if you're stuck at three mana on turn six, you want land now, and getting it without the cost of a turn's draw is a HUGE boon. In this case, your deck is EVEN MORE likely to produce land on a Test, as the ratio of land cards in the deck to non-land cards is higher than the standard proportion.
There is virtually no down-side to the mechanic. It has a high chance to do what it needs to do when it needs to do it, and that's with the standard test quantity of 2 cards. Varying this value by Testing for three or more cards would likely just break the mechanic in half.
You're on the right track but on the wrong card! Aricus Pinn is the "king" of the wizard faction, and he plays with the "cards in the graveyard have Test" concept. Test is supposed to represent a sort of research and discovery, and the wizards employees of Soradyne Laboratories are the primary "scholars" of the set - studying both the physical and metaphysical world around them. Test is all across the boards in the set, but the wizards have the most tools to make the best use of it (peeking, shuffling, etc.).
The planeswalkers (I have a second one planned) are meant to be outsiders looking in. As such, their abilities will play well with factions within the set, but won't be specific to this set. I want them to be more universal, since they don't necessarily originate from this plane. Fezzit and Dyble are (I think obviously) from the Izzet Guild of Ravnica. There are very clear reasons why they'd want to see the nation of Debronia and the Soradyne Corporation, but they're not a part of it.
Callimus Broadmoor, on the other hand, I haven't decided yet.
What if the emblem says "Instants and Sorceries in your graveyard have "test for Instant or Sorcery 2"?
Wouldn't interact well with the second ability but maybe there's something else to throw in there also?
I just love the test mechanic. Imgaine when you cast all your early spells and run out of steam but can make an emblem all the spells you've drawn up from the first ability you can dig for even more!