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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-05-14 15:30:31)
Slowly catching up to modern challenges. I made Magewright Familiar and Grave Muncher. Though, now that I've taken a look at the challenge again, maybe my two cards don't qualify? Is an increasing cost necessary for this challenge? I guess so. I guess I took the expression "As the card increases" too liberally. So I went back and created Untangling Shears to answer this challenge the right way.
For Challenge # 113. Playing around in this space, it didn't take me long to realize that every card with Threshold completes the requirements for challenge #113. But Threshold can be shut off by a Tormod's Crypt or whatnot, so I tried to go for something more permanent.
And yes, I know Eater of the Dead's ability isn't really color pie friendly. I figured it was okay on this one card, even if most players wouldn't realize what it was referencing. Maybe it's still not okay. Ah well.
See Challenge # 113. We had a number of entrants that cared about how much mana you made, and I wanted to make a few cards about how far into the game you must be. After making this, I did think about having this card instead talk about card types in the graveyard, to get even more bonuses. Then I realized I was designing Tarmogoyf...
I thought about a power-matters cycle for Bant, since exalted tends to temporarily combine several small creatures into one larger one, but apparently that was the Soul's Majesty cycle for Naya. Nevermind :)
OK, I've stopped putting it off and put the price up for U and R to a point where they're hopefully useful but not aggressively costed. I agree these are almost identical to flashback, but I think it's fine, flashback isn't in every set, it's ok to do the same thing a different way occasionally, and they play slightly differently. But certainly, I should take the flashback costs as a guide.
Cost U -> 1U
I had forgotten how expensive Wizards likes to make flashback. Even Morbid Hunger was a limited bomb.
As with L2i0n0k7, I think these are flashback spells. This is literally a better Firebolt or Fires of Undeath, and Unearthly Unbinding is literally a better Silent Departure.
Just being seals with unearth is enough to make the cycle obvious. Having them all have unearth 1C is more than enough. I think having their mana costs vary is fine (as long as it's not 4-1).
Yeah, agreed these are all a bit cheap. I always undercost double effects. OK, U and R definitely go up to 1C each. But that might be sad for Unearthly Knowledge, since you'd be paying 2BB+2 life for two cards. Suggestions for how to change it to keep the cycle together?
To me, "creature cards" feels very Grixis, but it's difficult because it anti-synergises with the shard mechanic. I wonder if there's anything similar that would work?
I like the idea behind these, but they seem pretty similar to Instants or Sorceries with flashback.
Yeah, I think you're probably right. +X/-X would be a viable alternative, but not in the same set as Bone Scour.
Strength from the Fallen and Wreath of Geists are the +X/+X version, but with the much more restrictive counting of only creature cards in your graveyard, which... I thought didn't feel quite so Grixis, but I could see that being reasonable.
Like with Unearthly Unbinding, this is probably a bit too cheap, given it's strictly better than Seal of Fire. 4 damage for 3 mana is a rare beast - Flame Javelin does it for
, but after that you have to go to Char with its drawback, or Stoke the Flames which is very popular and powerful. I think 
/ 
would still be plenty good enough; it's possible development might push this up to 
/ 
.
The discussion page for Char points out another comparison point, Staggershock: that's 3 mana, the same as this, but you have to use the second copy precisely one turn after the first - so you can't kill an X/4 with it, and you can't leave the second (or first) one waiting around being a threat for turns after you first spend the mana.
Great job making this and the blue one play differently between their first and second casting.
Cool. A nice exciting effect to get to double.
May be slightly undercosted... Seal of Removal is a reasonable card (not very exciting, as a lot of the benefit of Unsummon is its surprise value, but pretty reasonable: rated over 4 stars on Gatherer). And this is strictly better. Bouncing two creatures for one card is... Into the Void or Undo (or Waterwhirl at instant speed). This seems pretty good, to get to bounce two creatures split across two turns, for the price of Undo. I think I'd expect this to be
to cast and then 
to unearth.
Heh. Splitting Sign in Blood into two Seals. I like it a lot. I can imagine a number of decks that'd find some use for this.
Probably wouldn't actually go into Shards of Alara because it shares similar space with Courier's Capsule. But for Return to Alara (imagined as using the same shard mechanics), I love it.
For Grixis, three unearth-enchantments Unearthly Fire Unearthly Knowledge and Unearthly Unbinding
See Challenge # 116.
I think wizards wouldn't really say "unearthly" in the title, using "un earth" in a different way, but I picked the fist thing I could think of.
Unearth could go on noncreature permanents even though the haste is wasted. I think wizards didn't feel the need, and wanted to avoid the confusion, but it could have happened, so here's a cycle.
I originally wanted auras as they're permanents it would be natural to recur, and replaying them would be interestingly different, but it was wordy.
So we have sac-chantments. I tried to make them so they play a little different the first and second times, even though you'll often play them and pop them immediately.
See Challenge # 116.
See Challenge # 116.
I think maybe this effect just isn't costable at common; "number of cards in graveyard" is usually small but can fairly easily be quite large, so this is effect is just too swingy for limited, and if it were costed expensively, would be not that useful. With "number of cards in graveyard" effects, I try to choose things that are naturally limited (like damage to creature), or things that the opponent can answer (like P/T).
Yeah. It's hard to find a balanced spot where this will be useful without being explosively abusive.
Bant is just easier for me, I think. I like your cycle, Alex.
This could be nuts in Commander.
People seem to prefer Bant to Grixis. So do I, but since there were two Bant cycles here already, I thought I ought to give Grixis a go. What themes did Grixis have? There was unearth, but beyond that? Lots and lots of death, dead things, and dry bones. Lovely. Based on that guidance I came up with Bone Implosion, Bone Scrying and Bone Scour.
Created for Challenge # 116.
Created for Challenge # 116.
Created for Challenge # 116.
Cranked the cost on this one up, relative to Bone Scrying and Bone Scour, because this is a potent reward if you get to ten or more cards in your graveyard, which can be pretty easy. This would be an easy victory condition for old Odyssey-block threshold decks, for example.