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Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2026-03-14 17:10:39)
I suppose what we're missing in blue is the big boss. If we had one-three type cthuluish creations at hand, we could easily discount soldiers and wizards for, I don't know, freaky starfish minions. Plus we're going to need them Legendary creatures somewhere down the line...
I mean, that is the idea, right? The blue squid thing isn't a religion worshiped by the local denizens, but real tail-kicking abominations. I'm not sure how this all fish eat fish relates to the color Blue, though...
Changed Deepguard and Foamcaster to Minions for now. I'd change away from Eel Minions as well, but while we discuss them in Blue Commons Submissions I don't want to go changing their names.
Yes, I mean in this set.
You mean in this set? Blue has a whopping 65 soldiers in Magic. A lot of them come from Onslaught block, true, but there are plenty of Merfolk Soldiers in normal Magic.
In this set, I don't know. I needed a small race of dudes, and bumped forward an old idea from one of my sets - Moray Eels. It may be possible that this Cthuluish Blue continent, though, doesn't have anything like a normal social structure.
You're probably right.
Well, I was aiming for the concept of an Undertow pulling you back into the ocean to block, or maybe revealing some blockers that were just below the waves. But, yeah, that may be too high concept.
I just don't like having more than one creature that potentially can't attack. I mean, flood should stop that, but it just doesn't look nice to me.
My notes are in Overflood, by I don't mind reiterating them. As far as I'm concerned, there definitely needs to be a card at 1cc that floods a land, so you can start playing with 'likes Islands' cards right away. I'd like to use the simplest application of something we can get away with. After all, if people played Mono-blue, drafted this card, played with it, and won games because of it, would we need to make it more confusing? As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have the weaker version out, playtest it, then have to change it later because the flood mechanic, and/or this card isn't powerful enough, then to sneak a loot mechanic (for example) on this card when it never really needed it.
This is the card Dam Break was supposed to be. I changed it to
only to smooth over the curve in my submission.
@L2i0n0k7: I don't have anything against "Flood target land", I just didn't know which way we were going right now, and to make sure my cards were still acceptable with the long format, I spelled out what the mechanic was doing. Really, I just lifted the text right off Aquitect's Will. Though I prefer the new keyword action "Flood", I fear we will still need reminder text on all the commons anyway.
Also, hmm... yes, I am. Technically, Giant Hermit Crab can have a huge toughness, but doesn't start with one. Though, one of the reasons why blue normally has things like Horned Turtle is because it is trying to hold the ground, while creatures fly over the top. I aimed for mid-range Serpents pounding in... kind of like Green, but requiring some set up. Whether or not that was wise is open for debate.
It seemed kind of natural to me. If swinging with Serpents is the fun thing to do in this set, then we should have more serpents kicking around. I never did get a vanilla common into my set, but most of the common creatures are pretty straightforward.
I would say normally one or the other should have this slot. However, given the "islands matter" theme, it could be reasonable to have a second creature, although they may want something more to differentiate them.
L2, jmg, I like those outlines. I was sort-of writing one myself, but didn't finish yet. PS. jmg, I like your names.
> Minimum 5 creatures. True number is up for debate.
Yeah. I based my assumptions on that article, but just now I looked at several recent sets (2011, 2012, scars) and each was 50% creatures, so I think that may be the new guideline (?). Either way, between 5 and 7 seems fine (we still don't know if we'll stay at 14 mono cards). I'd provisionally vote for 7 on the grounds that more creatures hopefully means more interaction, but I don't really know.
> One Islandwalker
I would vote for more, if islandwalk is replacing flying. Scars had 3 fliers, 1 unblockable, and conditionally unblockable serpent (out of 14). 2012, slightly less, worldwake much less.
If blue had flying, I would go for 2 flying, maybe 1 islandwalk, and 1 serpent (whether that has islandwalk, islandhome, both, or some variation). So maybe 2 islandwalk, one serpent, one other evasion? I agree that's problematical as islandwalk is stronger than flying -- perhaps make sure one has another restriction?
> Aproximately 5 spells that include Flood? Maybe more?
I only have a wild guesses; themes seem to range from a couple of cards to all but a couple of cards. In order to make flood relevant, and since it's a small rider effect, I would guess 5 is reasonable, more if it seems helpful.
> One Hard Counter, and, > One Soft Counter... since people seem to think that's necessary.
That seems right. (Matches the example sets I was looking at.)
> One twiddle effect to mess with Red's "All in" mechanic
Yep.
> One card draw spell, minimum
Yep. Probably either two, or one and a couple of spells that loot or cantrip (?)
> One bounce spell
Yep, although the examples I saw all had 2, so it seems its usually higher than I realised.
> One "locking down" enchantment, or enchantment like thing. > I'd say that's debatable, but Mr. Rosewater listed that as > "Blue always gets"
Yeah. I agree this seems usual, but also that it may be ok to cut, although we should probably make sure there's a tapper or a couple of bounce spells or something. We have a reason to cut it if we want to leave as many enchantments as possible for white (or to include it if we want little bits of cross-color synergy).
> One CCC spell > One CC Spell.
Yep.
> One way to fight flying...
Yep. I agree there should be something, whether or not it mentions flying specifically, especially because blue usually gets flying. Something like Air Servant, or another tapper would be fine.
> If we wanted to be realistic, probably one vanilla creature.
It looks (at a very brief glance) like core sets usually have a couple (out of 20), big sets 1, and small sets none. So it's probably fine either way, but not necessary, but good if it's not too squeezed. What's probably more important, and that I always find hard, is to have several creatures that are simple (preferably have only one ability, sometimes flying).
> At least 5 spells that benefit from your opponent controlling an island. Maybe more.
Yep. I agree with the difficulty in making it relevant wihtout randomly hosing blue. I think we need to find out how this is going to play. One or two "remove a flood counter as a cost" cards may help, as that interacts only with flooded lands, without being so many the mechanic is purely parasitic. Cost-reduction or granting other small bonuses are not bad, as if it grants an overall advantage but isn't overwhelming in one card (as opposed to islandwalk, where even one islandwalker can be very powerful), it's much less worth splashing for, so will hopefully mainly be played in blue decks -- and does it matter if blue decks are slightly stronger against each other, they hopefully both get the benefit? I would say 2 1/2 islandwalkers, one or two spells that are strong-ish, one or two that have a small bonus, and one or two that remove flood counters ??
Other things. Mill: there's usually at least 1 card, I'd be fine with 2 or 3 if they have some other effect.
Card filtering ("looting"), there's usually one.
That was everything on my list.
I changed it to "non-land" permanent, making it more similar to Dam Break and Disperse. The extra color commitment makes up for flooding, I think.
Hmmm... You're probably right that it should be non-land permanent. I guess Geyser needn't be so restricted. I'll change it.
Do we want two creatures with this same effect? Serpent of the Endless Sea is already doing this, albeit with a second ability.
Something wrong with Overflood other than that it might need to cost
more?
I feel like the flavor on this would be better if it were tap instead of untap. Undertow just doesn't seem like it would be helpful.
Soldier?
I was under the impression that blue didn't have sentient life, or at least not societal life.
Wizard?
Do you have something against "flood target land?" I thought we decided on that being a keyword action like proliferate. Also, I would say you're missing a high toughness creature.
I originally was going to make this card for my open slot in Blue Commons Submissions, but then realized it made a better uncommon, and stayed my hand. The strange part about this card is that it is probably best employed by a deck that has no Islands in it, as an answer to flood. For that reason alone, we probably shouldn't make a common that removes flood counters. I don't want to see every color but blue get a secret 15th common that can hose Blue.
The main reason why I didn't put removing flood counters at common from my submission is because I ran out of space to put it in somewhere. Still, I do have one open card for something weird, and I could definitely see an alternate use for all these flood counters. Possibly something like the card Flood, except payment is removing counters. In fact, I'm just going to add that right now.
I suppose I can alter my list later if there are some changes to be made. This list includes 6 creatures, is still a low creature count. We may want to up the number to 7, even, to represent the fact that blue is focusing on its serpents in this set.
CU01: Serpent of the Endless Sea - 5cc Creature, Serpent, Likes Island
CU02: Territorial Octopus - 3cc Creature, Serpent, Likes Island
CU03: Giant Hermit Crab 4cc Creature, Firebreathing
CU04: (((Moray Foamcaster))) 1cc Creature, Flying-dealing with
CU05: Weedy Scorpionfish 3cc Creature, Islandwalking, Likes Island, CCC
CU06: Moray Deepguard 2cc Vanillish Creature, Flood
CU06: Erode 4cc Hard Counter, Flood, CC
CU07: Annul 1cc Soft Counter, Secretly deals with mono-white
CU08: Sudden Undertow 4cc, Twiddle, Combat Trick
CU09: Not a Drop to Drink 3cc Aura, Dehydration effect, Likes Island
CU10: Flow of Memories 5cc, Card Draw, Flood
CU11: Dam Break 3cc Instant, Bounce, Flood
CU12: Adrift the Endless Sea 2cc Instant, Shrink, Likes Island, Combat Trick, CC
CU13: Simple Flood 1cc Sorcery, Flood
CU14: Open.
I have additional notes on Erode and Annul that you may want to check out.
I put this card forward in my Blue Commons Submissions because it secretly deals with Mono-White. I also like the fact that when this card was printed, it was the artifact side that was important, and now the enchantment side is more important. Can we make a better answer against enchantments as a soft counter? Probably... but it may not come with an interesting moment of realization for many players...