BandaBox 3: Recent Activity

Skeleton | Cycles | Skeleton ver. 2 | Ver. 2 Changes

Recent updates to BandaBox 3: (Generated at 2025-05-06 05:51:25)

2012-06-04 03:54:22: Shiny_Umbreon created the card Champion of Lambholt
2012-06-04 03:25:19: Shiny_Umbreon created a card
2012-06-04 00:38:34: Shiny_Umbreon created a card
2012-06-04 00:38:17: Shiny_Umbreon edited a card
2012-06-04 00:37:50: Shiny_Umbreon edited a card
2012-06-03 05:23:22: Shiny_Umbreon edited a card
2012-06-03 05:19:51: Shiny_Umbreon created the card Glare of Subdual
2012-06-03 05:18:30: Shiny_Umbreon created a card
2012-06-03 05:16:51: Shiny_Umbreon edited Iron Flier
2012-06-03 05:16:46: Shiny_Umbreon created the card Iron Flier
2012-06-03 05:11:48: Shiny_Umbreon edited a card
2012-06-03 05:06:13: Shiny_Umbreon edited Soldier of Feast and Famine
2012-06-03 05:05:54: Shiny_Umbreon edited Soldier of Feast and Famine
2012-06-03 05:04:34: Shiny_Umbreon commented on Soldier of Fire and Ice

Okay, now hybrid. It makes a little more sense, and what I first found boring ("another Thieving Magpie-esque blue creature", "another black Specter") will be kinda useful for the redundancy. I'm afraid I don't have many hybrid slots for these, but I'll see how many I truly need. They can go back to being monocolored if necessary.
2012-06-03 05:02:57: Shiny_Umbreon edited Soldier of Fire and Ice
2012-06-03 05:00:29: Shiny_Umbreon edited Soldier of Light and Shadow
2012-06-03 04:59:51: Shiny_Umbreon edited Soldier of Body and Mind
2012-06-03 04:58:50: Shiny_Umbreon edited Soldier of War and Peace
2012-06-03 04:56:07: Shiny_Umbreon edited Searing Spear
2012-06-03 04:55:53: Shiny_Umbreon edited Flames of the Firebrand
2012-06-03 04:55:40: Shiny_Umbreon edited Flames of the Firebrand
2012-06-02 21:08:10: Shiny_Umbreon edited a card
2012-06-02 21:06:58: Shiny_Umbreon edited a card
2012-06-02 21:05:42: Shiny_Umbreon created a card
2012-06-02 21:02:41: Shiny_Umbreon edited a card
2012-06-02 20:59:45: Shiny_Umbreon created a card
2012-06-02 20:52:28: Shiny_Umbreon created a card
2012-06-01 02:30:39: Shiny_Umbreon commented on Soldier of Fire and Ice

Strange slot, I know. I'm a little conservative with power, but people expect many powerful cards in a Cube (even when it's done by me). The Swords (and Jitte) are pretty much THE equipment. But we all know that they all are plain bombs in any Limited format because they are colorless, cheap, reusable, provide huge advantages and are of a permanent type that's not easy to get rid of.

It's not cool when the format is dominated by these few cheap universal weapons (or when Stoneforge Mystic is that easy to pick instead of being a build-around-me). Jitte is out of the question, and the Swords are kinda too powerful. I like having some cards that are obviously powerful (every draft format should), but not a whole cycle, especially if their power is because of their flexibility. What I think kills them is the double protection. Without them, the cards are okay, if a bit weak, but protection not only makes them incredibly easy to trigger (I know it's the point). It also randomly hoses opponents very badly. So I was thinking that instead it'd be cool to reference them (in a card with okay power). That way I wouldn't have cards I didn't like in my format, but people could still relate to these.

I thought about a creature that was supposedly wielding one of the swords. 1CC 2/2 came to mind immediately. Then I realized that the saboteur ability was often things that couldn't be in only one color. (I'll say why in a second.) Light and Shadow in monoblack kinda made sense but the reference to two colors was strange. Then I settled for "multicolored" white cards. One had protection from black and the life gain from Light and Shadow, and if you controlled a Swamp, protection from white and the Disentomb part. The other was was the same for War and Peace. It was a bit sad that monowhite had better protection creatures and that their effect was only life gain. Also, the conditional protection was taking too much text. I also didn't like that more popular swords (Fire and Ice and Feast and Famine) weren't referenced. So I changed it to a whole cycle and dropped the condition for self-protection.

It's in this direction because the effects were more interesting this way if you didn't have the other basic land type. A variable (promising) life gain is better than 3; damage-triggered damage isn't common; damage-triggered draws are common but mill effects are few; damage-triggered discard happens with Specters already, but untapping all your lands does not. Making wolves was the only cool one, but so is untapping your lands.

While these are cool from a design perspective, they look promising in play. I imagine this is the most powerful one (surprise, it has "Fire and Ice" in its name), and it certainly looks like a red mirror breaker. Soldier of War and Peace also seems to be good against aggresive white decks. Soldier of Body and Mind may be the weakest one, but I'm okay with that. And it can actually mill you before it kills you (especially in a 40-ish card deck format), unlike the sword.

The reason they aren't multicolor is that, from experience, I know you don't want many multicolored slots. You want them to be as juicy as possible so that they pull you (or reward you), not "okay, I'll take it because I'm playing the colors". With that said, these multicolor-friendly are definitely helping, and I'm happy to have a splashy cycle of them, but they don't count as multicolor in that you don't have to commit.
2012-05-31 22:54:38: Alex commented on Soldier of Fire and Ice

Fascinating cycle. Less good than the original swords, while still being excellent. The "If you control a LANDTYPE" rider is unfortunate; couldn't they just be gold cards? It'd make them less playable, although depending on how much manafixing you've got it'd make them more splashable... hmm.
2012-05-31 22:46:35: Shiny_Umbreon created the card Soldier of Feast and Famine