Mashup: the Gathering Workbench: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Mashup: the Gathering Workbench: (Generated at 2025-08-19 18:24:29)
Loss of Life: Yeah, you're probably right. Black can also deal damage, but when it is happening to the opponent, it might as well be loss of life.
Timing restriction: This can't be activated during your opponent's draw step, since you could lock your opponent out of drawing a card with it. You also shouldn't allow this to happen during your opponent's first main step, because many new players will think you can activate this before your opponent gets a chance to cast a spell. Even without the new player argument, I don't want Istvan to auto-KO a card in hand if there's a card like Howling Mine in play. If your opponent is drawing multiple spells, he should get a chance to cast them. After that, I could have the card say "Use this ability during your oppponent's turn, during or after the combat step", but that's too messy.
What I meant was that black gets life loss while red gets direct damage. Also, re pro creatures, whenever I play Uncle Istvan, I always wish it could be straight-up protection from creatures instead of damage prevention. You're right that green is better suited for indestructible currently.
In addition, I don't think the timing restriction is necessary, since even slightly experienced players will know to wait, and every one else won't know what the second main phase is.
Green doesn't really grant protection from creatures, and an argument could be made that protecting your creatures from creatures is the antithesis of what green is about. It is, however, #1 in granting indestructibility right now (which I personally think is odd... but okay). I'm trying to rectify some "wrong color pie" mechanics, and it does has a similar, yet pumped up effect to the original Istvan ability, so I think I'll stick with it.
A change of ability order that makes the card a bit more powerful, though? Sure that seems fine. I'll do that.
Ah. Casting cost games. I suppose I can't help but have this directly compared to Drifting Shade. It is possible that, in some situations it is better (blocking on the turn it comes into play, giving it haste, and attacking with it on the turn after it comes into play (you can activate it with the land you're going to sacrifice)) but I suppose most of the time it's about as good, and often worse. I'm not sure if that means that I must decrease it's casting cost... turning mana into damage in the air seems like a good ability to me at any casting cost... but I suppose the recent comparison will make people unhappy, otherwise.
I do get the "drawbacks aren't fun, therefore, why would you want to take a benefit and turn it into a drawback" argument. I don't know. I think I like it better that way. That's the only explination I can give. But, when I introduced this mashup and the (((Stormscape Stone))) mashup on the comments page, I was doing so because no matter what I did with the card, I didn't like it. Maybe the correct thing to do is to make the card the way that other people would like it, instead, by giving the card all up-side and pricing it accordingly, rather than making it a card that I'm only kind of happy with, by doing something other people don't like. I'm just going to mash the two cards directly... that should make a few people happy at least. Unfortunately, It is probably too good at
at that rate.
By the way, thank you for the templating. It is appreciated, even when it ends up not being used. Who knows? A bunch of people might start complaining that they like the drawback...
The Stormwatch Eagle land-sac ability was a bonus, but you made it into a drawback. You should either change that, or drastically cut its mana cost. Also, templating idea:
"At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice a land. If you don't, return Shade of Prey to your hand."
What about "Target player loses 1 life for each card in his or her hand, then discards a card." Then it's more black and more powerful. Also, instead of indestructible, give him protection from creatures?
Hilarious and quite fun :)
Random Generator gave me Uncle Istvan and Storm Seeker. Wow. Those are two well-loved cards that are the completely wrong color pie colors. I tried to push the two cards together so that their color pie breaking isn't really breaking any more. Or in other words, Green is now supplying damage prevention from creatures, and black is doing the damage to players equal to the number of cards in that player's hand (though, I had to throw some discard in there to help tie it up. Still not sure if that's good enough).
Also, Istvan is activating during your opponent's second main phase so that he can block first. Also, Istvan is Mad, and does things when he wants.
It's true, Jack... sometimes the correct move in a mashup is to just combine the two cards into one card. But only if the new card is a better card for having strictly been combined. If I got Howling Mine and Black Vise, you could put money down that I wouldn't do anything but add the text of Howling Mine to Black Vise (well... I might get rid of the untapped restriction on Howling Mine, and I might have the Black Vise effect all opponents... but you get the idea. Nothing new). That card would be awesome. Anything I did after that would detract from how well that worked.
But when the end result of combining two cards makes a card that's arguably not as fun as the original two cards, I know it's a mistake. It can also be annoying, too, because cards with no ready combination sometimes just sit on me, asking why they haven't been designed yet.
That's alright. I think we got there with the Eagle/Bee. Check it out. It may not be perfect, but, to me, it looks better than cutting and pasting both abilities.
Random Generator gave me Stormwatch Eagle and Killer Bees. This card was discussed on the comments thread, due to the combination being really hard to make a fun card out of. This seems acceptable: it at least feels like a card that I would draft if I saw it, but which my opponent wouldn't think was broken/annoying when he dealt with it.
Jack V was leaning toward Firebreathing, and I think he's right that the card might play a bit better with it... but I'm a strange duck. I want my mashups to be different, but, at the same time recognizable from the original cards... the firebreathing feels like a bit to far away from the Killer Bees, and I don't think the shade ability is inappropriate, so I'll keep that.