Link's Unplaced Cards: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2025-12-01 20:24:00)
| Link's Unplaced Cards: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2025-12-01 20:24:00)
Jack, I thought about that when I made it, but now that you mention it, I do like that flavor better. I'll change it.
Alex, that's a good idea. I should have realized it needed that when I made it.
This is most reminiscent of Sengir Nosferatu.
This is fantastic Phoenix flavour. Unfortunately it's infinite with any sac outlet, so perhaps one trigger or the other could cost a little mana?
Oh, awesome. I love the idea of the egg mechanic, and this uses is as a fillip to a good flying creature.
In fact, I think I prefer it to be "When ~ dies, put a 0/4 ... with 'When this dies, return a creature card named ~ from your graveyard to the battlefield'". That's slightly less good, because exile or graveyard hate can get rid of it but that interactivity is probably good for the game, and it's slightly shorter, and I actually prefer the flavour of the bird actually dying: I always imagined Phoenixes physically died, even if they were reincarnated into their egg...
Except that it was made a bird on the Gatherer. :(
Rukh Egg too. But it IS.
This seems like an actual valid use of a dual-faced card, annoyingly enough.
I can't believe this hasn't been done... or has it, and I missed it?
As a sidenote, I wish egg were a creature type for this, Roc Egg, and Ludevic's Test Subject.
I wouldn't say that I particularly like tension. I just feel that the tension here is something of a balancing factor for his potential power.
Regardless, I think I'll change it.
Tension is very funny. I should write an article about it some day. It has a very weird place in game design, because the people who like tension the most are the same type of people who like to design games...
Yeah... for me, it's a tough choice. As he is now, he can still hurt the player even when he is blocked, which was another factor in how I ended up with his abilities as-is. You're right, though, that it doesn't feel nice to have to decide whether or not you need to burn something.
Heh. "Tension" was the topic of lots of discussion in the GDS2. I wouldn't go as far as the GDS2 judges did in condemning cards that give you tension, but I think this card would have you wishing it worked differently every time you attacked with it, and that's not a very positive thing.
Hmmm... I had created that tension purposefully, but if you view it as a negative, maybe it deserves some further review on my part.
I think this is an interesting enough card to play with. It's an intriguing one-drop legend.
It does have one point that's arguably a design blemish, though. That's the way that the
ability has to be used before you know whether you need to use the 
ability. So if the opponent has a simple 1/2, you need to either not drain at all (and then the opponent lets him through for 1), drain for 3 less than you could do, or do the full drain (at which point the opponent blocks and kills him on the assumption you don't have a no-mana combat trick).
So perhaps it might be scarier if the
ability were limited to "Whenever ~ attacks and isn't blocked".
(BTW, well done on the order of the mana symbols in the abilities. Most people would get that wrong, like I did in my earlier comment.)
I wonder if I could make this version as interesting as (((Marthanos, Battle Paladin))) and Marthanos, Sage of Battle. I think those both have very fun abilities to play with, and while this Marthanos has raw power, I just don't find his abilities as intriguing.
The whole point of this version in regards to the story, though, is that he's given up his subtlety for the power to lay waste to his opponents... so I suppose I succeeded here, flavor-wise.
I guess that's fair enough.
As a one-drop, I purposefully made him dependent on creatures for growth. Four-drop planeswalkers have shown themselves to be powerful enough that I'm scared of what a one-drop could do.
Changed first ability entirely, and cost of second.
Changed ability... again.