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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-12-14 08:01:15)
My comment on Sol Elemental was meant to be a suggestion that you consider costing it at
or 
. I can see your argument against that though.
I didn't even think about changing the cost. You're right; at the very least, it should cost
to Morphtrap. It's possible that that only goes to highlight the problem (your opponent gets a semi-efficient creature on round 2?) but it makes some of the abilities more palatable.
Costing it
or less, however, is probably a bad idea. First you got the problem of Timmies being overrun by their own creatures. But second you're lacking the stress of needing to leave the morphtrap on the field for a couple turns. It's already questionably easy to wait until you have seven mana lined up to cast, then morphtrap your Root-Buster Wurm. No need to make it that much easier.
I think all those ideas are good for a control-changing mechanic, but ideally it should work with simpler creatures.
One way would be, you get the morphed creature. That's lots simpler, and means its like morph but with the extra cost of giving your opponent the creature for a couple of turns. It wouldn't even have to cost 3 if you didn't want it to, since it's different to morph anyway. And the only built-in "surprise" is when their creature goes away (though many creatures may have an extra effect) but that might be enough -- they can't rely on it as an attacker or blocker if you might be able to unmorph it.
Another is to have a big enough "when its turned up" effect. It still seems like this has to depend what the opponent DOES with the creature, else there's no real "trap" effect. But it has to be big enough to offset giving your opponent the creature. I think morphtrap as is, tends to BE bad, not just LOOK bad, unless it has a fearsome penalty.
Ideally, morphtrap would punish the opponent for guessing wrong about the creature. But the trouble is, there's almost no creatures which are BAD when attacking, or blocking. At worst they're ineffective. So giving your opponent a 2/2 which is sometimes not a 2/2 is still mostly a bad thing. Maybe morphtrap should GIVE you mana when you play it, not cost mana? Or all the morphtrap creatures should have a clear downside?
As an aside, if I continued to design these creatures, I would probably include a Sleeper Agent type card, a Chromeshell Crab type card (which traded a permanent you controlled for the 6/6 morphtrap you revealed) and something approaching Jinxed Idol.
I will admit, it's tough making cards like this that people would like/find useful. It's inherently funny, so I'm guessing people would like the mechanic. But each card comes with a drawback to the person casting it, which makes all the cards, on an individual level, look bad.
The more examples I see, the more I like morphtrap, but the more I don't quite get the examples...
If I were designing it, I think I would say the guidelines for morphtrap would be:
I'd like the idea of cards that can either be played yourself, or surprise-gifted to the opponent to their detriment, but I can't think of many that work. One might be:
Danger Elemental #1/#2
Morphtrap
When this deals damage to an opponent, it deals 10 damage to you.
That way, it still looks like a creature, one you MIGHT play (as a defender, or to attack just once when you can kill the opponent), but it you can trick the opponent into attacking with it, you get a big benefit. But it has to be big to cancel out giving them a large creature. And I just can't think of many cards like that that are playable and not too swingy, hence the suggestion of getting the creature back when it unmorphs -- that still has a big downside of giving opponent a 2/2, but not AS big.
Added Nest Warden.
For Challenge # 134. My last two Morphtraps were both objectionable. This one works fine for me, but it does showcase how many words the morphtrap reminder text requires...
Um. This can put anything onto the battlefield attacking, but after the declare blockers step. So you get one free hit with any saboteur you like (that's cheap enough). I guess that rules out the really ridiculous things like Liege of the Tangle, and Master of Cruelties doesn't work either because of its wording. And I guess that was the idea of my Infiltration Raid, after all.
It's a shame you can play this after combat. It kind of takes some oompf out of the drawback. Maybe that's not such a bad thing... People like the occasional card that defeats the point, like Roar of the Wurm. Does bug me, though.
In a lot of games, however, when playing green, it may be better to play this early-ish, and activate it later. For example, if you have two of these it's probably best to play both, wait until the end of an opponent's turn in which you have 7 mana, then demorph and demorph on your turn.
Either way, though, you're right that there can only be one card that works like this because it's too easy to take advantage of. I got a better idea for a morphtrap. I'll post it tomorrow.
I do think there's some design space in morphtrap, but I'm not sure this really works either -- you'd usually wait until you can unmorph it immediately, or at least next turn?
I think the color restrictions ninjutsu would bring to morphjutsu would limit this variant's applications. The card is cool, and I really hope it's as much a nod to Meandering Towershell as it Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Added Root-Buster Wurm to help explain morphtrap.
Made Root-Buster Wurm as way of explanation. I know I'm not answering the problem directly, but it was a follow up I was planning on making anyway.
For Challenge # 134. I confused a few people with Sol Elemental because it was a funny card, but not that great. I kind of assumed some sort of bounce could be involved, but the card should be playable without that. I also should have followed up with a morphtrap that gave attacking and blocking relevance.
You attack and block with morphtrap because you don't know what you technically have. Sure, you can choose not to attack and block with a morphtrap that you suspect is a Sol Elemental. You'll be very sore, though, if it turns out you've been holding onto a Root-Buster Wurm this whole time...
Bloodgift Demon suggests that if anything I aimed slightly low here.
That's what I was thinking. Even if there are morphtrap cards that punish the opponent for not attacking and they have to guess whether to use the creature or not, it seems the absolute best case is that you pay 4W, and give the opponent a 5/5 blocker, to gain 5 life. That doesn't seem like a good deal. I mean, actually the card is better than that, because often, a 5/5 blocker for 2W is quite good if you just play it unmorphed, but that undermines the keyword...
I like the idea though. If there's some way of making a "2/2 with downside" to the opponent a fair cost, so the opponent then has to guess if it's safe to use but isn't already ahead. Or if unmorphing gave you the creature back, but also some bonus if the opponent guessed wrong?
Ha! Wow. Okay, I buy your arguments on gigamorph, but there must be rather less room for creatures that inherently give 2-for-1 card disadvantage. At best, your opponent chooses not to attack or block with the creature you've given them, and you've spent
to not impact the board at all. At worst, they beat you up with a 2/2 for a bit, then find ways to take advantage of the drawback creatures you give them once you find time in your mana curve to unmorph the thing. Yow.
Put another way, I suspect this card would be too bad even if you paid
rather than 
to cast it face-down.
Fair enough. Awaken in BFZ seems to support your assertion that a set can cope with many commons having alternate 6+-mana costs.
Added Sol Elemental.
For Challenge # 134.
I find that acceptable. The biggest problem with morph is that we have a blind spot when it comes to its design. We're so focused on trying to make the face down card a potential mystery that we tend to forget it's a good mechanic even if there is zero mystery.
Besides, I'm not sure you can't print a lot of these guys. It swings the environment a lot to have a bunch of Alloy Golems in the set... but most of these creatures can be printed as Sanctuary Cats, Grizzly Bears, Wind Drakes and Hill Giants that happen to go big if you can hold out. Kind of like creatures with Kicker.
Yeah, dude1818's take on it matches what I recall.
The problem with that kind of tweak on morph is it has the Exalted Angel problem that there will be very few of them, few enough that generally you'll be able to guess what ones the opponent is playing. Megamorph is at least secretive about whether it's a morph or a megamorph.
Oh, I really like it!
I thought the reason they didn't print manifest from hand or graveyard was to prevent it from just being Show and Tell or Animate Dead.
Well, they almost never did that before either, presumably because it could be confused with morph. I assumed that they'd be happy to have something else instead of manifest in a future set, as long as there weren't both at once, but I'm not sure shrug
It's smart of them, but simultaneously short sighted. Going forward, every time we turn a permanent upside down, there's going to be the 'doesn't play well with Manifest' problem. Maybe it won't matter in sets that don't include Manifest. But any set that does include Manifest can't include a simple blue instant that turns an artifact into a face down creature.
I guess you win some, you lose some. I just wish Manifest came with a counter or something.
That makes sense, albeit I seem to recall the reason for not doing it is they didn't want to mix manifest cards your opponent knows what they are with ones they don't.
Added Timerian Trapmaster, Halfshell Hero and Animate Via Vines.