Link's Unplaced Cards: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2026-06-15 01:39:45)
| Link's Unplaced Cards: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2026-06-15 01:39:45)
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.
Oh, I didn't even notice. Well, it's not like I'm going to change his name.
Hm. You can probably say just "Marthanos" all times after the first, which would help a bit with the excess words. Multiverse isn't doing that because his name doesn't have a comma.
As is often the case, I was afraid of making him too good.
Thanks! I wasn't sure about the wording, though.
Changed abilities... However, now there are more words.
Hee. I think it should be feasible, and will probably happen someday. This one might be a little bit too weak though. Absent any multi-pingers and suchlike, this will take 3 turns to have any impact on the board at all. I think "[+1]: You gain 1 life" or "[+1]: Prevent the next 1 damage that would be dealt to [you/target creature] this turn" would be a little better.
Yeah, I think the effects here are a bit too good for a 1-drop. Costs of
and 
would probably help.
Nice mechanic!