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Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2026-03-13 11:33:35)
Well, the point was to throw a lot of things against the wall, and have people test black and see what they liked and didn't like. So far, however, it seems that no one has tested Mono-Black. Is that right? I think the fortifications scared off Alex/Jack's group, and I've been fooling around with multi-color.
For want of a better place, I'll complain here that fortifications all seem heavily coloured; but each a different colour.
This card then contributes heavily to black having no theme.
Really needs a unifying theme at least, if not a mechanic.
Currently it seems to be "Not small, but not huge either, creatures. Oh and fiddly removal, but every colour gets that in this set."
You think it's too dangerous? That requires some setting up, after all. It could easily say "you don't own," as well.
So, I give you Nekrataal with my Bazaar Trader. Now I target it with Warp Fracture. Huh. Seems I'm Hellbent. Well, I guess I reveal this Nekrataal...
Sounds reasonable. SotES would probably still be first pick material in mono-blue. Giant Hermit Crab just got a promotion.
I like the abilities that might get played on your opponent's creatures. I can't help myself. How about "Fungus get +0/+1 and lose flying"?
Hmm. Well, that would be a 5/5 for 5cc. It's probably fair, but better than common could normally expect to see. perhaps 3/2 or 2/3 for 5?
Looks about par for the course. Though, I'd directly compare this to Yavimaya Wurm, even without your pointing to it. Maybe 5/5 to make it feel different?
You know, my experience with N tapped lands has been a bit different. I admit, also, that I didn't playtest much, and the card in question is Heavy Plant instead. But my opponent seemed intrigued that his Heavy Plant had to make a decision in combat of whether he wanted to tap out to get trample. I know he called the card 'cool'.
Maybe the direction that Heavy Plant took worked well, but Rootsnapping Kudzu took the wrong direction? I can see how this looks arbitrary here... kind of like odd kicker... but dynamic on a card like Heavy Plant...
While I think we can do just one, if we are only doing one, I think we want that one to be a simple execution of the ability. If we chose polymorph other, we'd be saying that we think polymorph other should be red, but not other bounce. I like polymorph other tricks... but I think that, if we want that, we should probably print a 'bounce other' in common first, to point to the fact that we're cool with the basic premise, before getting into the wackiness.
But but.. Fork was always red!
You know, this card has read Johnny potential. It could get fun with Bazaar Trader and Zedruu the Greathearted.
Type fix.
From the discussion on Cauldron Spoiler. Jack V highlighted several other directions this could take.
By Flood Crab, did you mean Giant Hermit Crab?
"red would be getting, within a small time frame, two abilities that were previously blue"
Yeah, we don't want to overdo it. I think we have the luxury of pushing it a bit further in a nonofficial set, since people won't yell at us if we leave enemy-bounce out of magic in future :)
Come to think of it, a few years ago, red got fork from blue. And ages ago got fast mana from black.
I think the defining thing with red bounce is to be (a) enemy-only and (b) sorcery speed, so it functions aggressively. Since blue doesn't get that exactly, I'm inclined to vote for the simplest versions to start with, although it's good to brainstorm alternatives too.
The chaos-warp effect is interesting. Can you make a card for it? I suspect it'll end up at uncommon, but it'd be a good way for red to interact with a blocker. I'm torn between several possibilities:
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. It is funny, though, that red would be getting, within a small time frame, two abilities that were previously blue (looting and bounce).
I could go for either straight Unsummon-style bounce, or a some variant:
Whiplash
Instant
Return target creature you don't control to its owner's hand. ~ deals 1 damage to that player.
Warp Fracture
Instant
Return target permanent you don't control to its owner's hand. That player reveals a card at random from his or her hand. If it's a permanent card, he or she puts it onto the battlefield.
Perhaps the obvious answer is that this card's mediocre limited history notwithstanding, in this set it should be uncommon, and then Giant Hermit Crab can be blue's common "serpent"?
Edit: Corrected card name. Thanks, link.
FWIW, Rachel says she thought the larger version of this card was very cute.
Yeah, I like the idea here, but it was fiddly. I think we make an uncommon card that is "Fungus. Bud. P/T equal to the number of fungus", and replace this with a card that cares about fungus in a more proactive way.
ETA: Any suggestions for a common replacement? Common green possibilities would be: fight, +2/+2 once per turn, limited card recursion, deathtouch, or possibly ideas we've already got represented, lifegain, vigilance, hexproof, trample.
"Tap an untapped fungus you control, this gets +2/+2 until end of turn. Only once per turn" "When this enters the battlefield, you may have target fungus you control fight target other creature" (or maybe there should be an uncommon instant with "two target funguses fight"?)
As mentioned on Heavy Plant I think green needs another creature that's larger than 4/4 (at least 3/5, and probably 5/4).
Could this become 3GG 3/3, or is there a better option for upgrading?
I enjoyed playing with bud creatures. Slapping +1/+1 counters on things was simple but fun. I felt there were almost too many fungus and bud creatures, but that's fine at this point; we can always turn one into a vanilla later if we need to.
Upped size to 6/4 situational trample for 5G. Now slightly worse yavimaya wurm for 5G rather than 4GG. However, in this set, it can probably be 6/5 situational trample for 6/5. Or 5/6? Do people agree, or do they think 5-toughness + trample is too good?
4G 5/4 -> 5G 6/4
I mentioned this on blue as well, but it felt backwards that blue had larger creatures than green does! Green usually gets something like a 6/5 and a 4/5 as well, but this is the biggest creature I have.
I know it has trample, bit feels like green should have a 5-6 creature and a 4-5 creature, and one of them have trample. Is situational trample ok on the big creature, or is that too good? It's better than green usually gets, but I think green's commons could do with a slight power injection to equal red, black or white's removal or blue's card draw+filtering.
Edit: OK, if Yavimaya Wurm can be be common, this can be bigger. Never mind, forget the angst :)
I played a couple of games over the weekend, so I've a couple more impressions, but not many.
I liked the "N tapped lands" mechanic, it's a nice but simple reward for playing big stompy spells.
However, "tapped lands" feels a bit arbitrary, since most of the time you'll be able to play a spell on your turn, so it'll just randomly hose you if you wanted to play an instant on your opponent's turn, which doesn't really feel like it's supporting the theme. So maybe it should be "N lands" or "when you play a spell costing at least N"?
I like the flavour of having plants as well as fungus, but I found it a bit confusing to play: every time I had to count the number of funguses, I was confused whether the plants counted. I'm not sure if other people feel the same or not? If so, I would suggest abandoning "plant" and having non-fungus creatures be animals and people. I know someone liked the flavour of "plant", are there good reasons to try to keep it?
I agree we don't want to shift the colour pie unless we're sure it's a good idea. It's too easy as an amateur designer to break the colour pie because something feels right, and not realise whether or not there were good reasons for how it was (or not even realising you're shifting the pie, like when we put lifelink in green or hexproof in white because it feels like they should have been there all along).
However, I think other-bounce in red probably is a good idea. I think people agree red limited can get a bit samey? And wizards have been cautiously shifting some other things into red. And that sort of shift-the-problem-into-the-future tempo advantage is very red. So I like the idea of officially shifting it into red.
But I don't think it does need the planar chaos treatment. I think planar chaos was careful to show at least three cards for contrast, to show where the new pie space was, rather than just what direction it had moved in. However, when wizards have printed a non-planar-chaos new mechanic in red (intimidate and looting), they've generally started to do so with just one card, because that's enough to indicate the direction they're going in, and it expands the pie a bit without committing them to how far it might move in future.
So I don't know what's best, but my best guess for "official policy" would be to print one red bounce spell (or possibly one common and one other) and see how it was received. I think it'd be ok to print more if we decide they're what the set needs (which is quite possible), but not the default.