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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-08-25 08:44:21)
See Challenge # 159.
There's quite a few cards that really should be merchants.
Originally this jumped through some hoops to make you pay the cost except tap again but I decided it was too fiddly.
Boldwyr Intimidator was the inspiration for this idea. Was just wondering what kinds of things you guys would come up with.
Should this use overload's template? I love the effect.
See Challenge # 050 and Challenge # 081
OK, so a token that cares about charms. That's tricky because most tokens don't have much rules text, and rarely narrow or niche rules text.
I decided to make an emblem, which is represented as a physical token, but isn't rules-wise a token. I don't think that's what the challenge had in mind, but it could be interpreted that way.
Fortunately nothing said I needed to design the planeswalker who produced it. But they are often printed with (rules invisible) planeswalker types, so I maybe need to decide who. I felt like this ability would come from a planeswalker who liked ingenious things, but also "go big". No-one was a perfect fit, but I decided Saheeli Rai was the closest, if she liked spells instead of artifacts.
Trotstani's Charm and Emblem
Trotstani's Charm and Emblem
See Challenge # 050 and Challenge # 081.
OK, a charm with a new mana cost and a connection to tokens. Now I need a token with a connection to charms.
It occurred to me, you could make "put a token OTB that's a copy of a token a permanent you control could produce". But I decided that needed to be another card.
Right, I wasn't quite sure of the wording. I think the distinction between "creatures you control when this effect begins gain" and "all creatures you control for the duration of this effect have" is fiddly even if it's just for a turn, not the game, but i can't remember the correct/clear phrasing.
It functions the same way, but currently wizards only use emblems for awesome effects on planeswalkers, not any other permanent effects cf. Obsidian Fireheart. Which I agree with, although I hate emblems anyway -- can't they just say "for the rest of the game" and print reminder cards instead of emblems?
Should this just give you an Emblem? My mind first assumed this only effected creatures you currently control (which, granted, pretty much does nothing. It's why I assume that wasn't the intent.)
See Challenge # 044 and Anger
OK, so a Timmy version of Anger. That should be very doable.
Obviously "for the rest of the game" is a big red flag, but I think it's occasionally acceptable for a splashy effect you'll probably remember whether you triggered or not.
Harak's Charm based on randomly rolling Baloth Null and taking Harak, Malakir Bloodwitch's name from the flavour text.
See Challenge # 144 and randomly chosen Baloth Null.
It's cool which cards I've never seen, since there's been several sets I've not got round to drafting.
"Baloth Null" is not quite a proper name, so I went with Harak from the flavour text. I don't know much about her other than a couple of flavour texts, so I hope Baloth Null is representative of her work. There are some custom cards, some in German, for her, so apparently other people were fans too.
Baloth Null has about three salient characteristic, four if you include colour, so that pretty much determines this charm :)
That makes sense. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but I see the reasons for "produce" over any of the other options.
I'm not 100% on this either, but I do sense there might be some double meanings behind the term "produce" which does bother me.
There were a lot of points about what the precise verb for receiving mana should be, but that was rather long ago so it has already began fading away from my memory. "Gain" I think was mentioned already being tied to gaining life and it's generally considered best that these actions don't share a name since they affect different resources. In the same vein I guess, "get" was considered being problematic because of energy since mana isn't done in counters and is also lost at the end of each step and phase unlike energy. Also, "get" was said to be a loaded word since things already "get" counters, emblems, and abilities. Some noted it wasn't flavorful enough and whatever.
Couple of other suggestions I'm not a fan of were "gather" and "pool".
"Produce" was stated being the "least offensive" since it's already the term much more consistently used by the existing rules text when the event of creating mana is described. It also helps that now the new cards would be more consistent with the cards that refer producing mana.
I think I'm also personally starting to side with "produce" since it makes more sense that mana is "produced" and not "given" or "gained". This would also apply to energy, but since they are handled out in counters, "get" is the precedent set before - poison being one example.
In any case, IMO the "solution" is somewhere there even if the specifics are still being outlined/tested out.
Ah, right. I think I was confused over what you were suggesting should be different, versus what you were saying the rules already said.
I think using energy language for mana makes a lot of sense. In fact, I can't see any downside, although there's presumably some. Maybe new players would be confused between mana they have and permanents on the battlefield? But it seems most things would just work if you "get" mana and "have" mana and have no mention of where you have it.
I'm not sure if I like "
: produce 
" or not. I agree it's a lot shorter, and fairly clear. But "
: Gain 
" is closer to the current language for energy, poison, xp, etc and even shorter.
It looks to me like the rules never actually say "produce mana" can refer to an ability or a permanent. But they do use it for both, so I think that's got to be the standard even if it isn't spelled out. I don't think there's a rules distinction, I think mana production is always via an ability, which has a source which is a permanent (or occasionally another object).
Is that right? I'm not confident my rules interpetation is correct.
As per 106.3. & 106.4. & 106.11a (as far as I understand them) "produce (mana)" doesn't mean "an ability with that source adds mana to your mana pool".
It's a custom wording "update" I've been trying out - though it does somewhat stem from the various card that refer to producing mana. In the comprehensive rules "produce (mana)" is a much more used phrase instead of the "add (mana)" for example.
The idea began by trying to make the whole "add some mana to your mana pool" phrase shorter. Also, IMO the whole concept of "mana pool" is rather useless per se in that it causes confusion without any real benefit. Where the mana goes or leaves from isn't crucial.
Along with that idea, came the concepts of "Unused mana is lost" reminder text and phrases like "unused mana", "losing mana", and "mana you have". To me, all of this falls under "streamlining".
There's a long-winded thread I started about this in MTG Salvation in which I originally considered the idea of "You get/lose mana" - like with energy.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/community-forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/774959-wording-update-add-mana-to-your-mana-pool-cardname
EDIT:
For example, the second ability of your card would shorten from 145 characters (including spaces) to 84 characters, so by around 42% (or by 61 characters). It's also arguably much more grokkable.
For comparison:
> Whenever ~ attacks, add
to your mana pool. Until end of turn, this mana doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end.
. Until end of turn, this mana isn't lost if unused.
> Whenever ~ attacks, produce
Add linebreak.
Wait, now I'm confused. I thought "produce" was just a description of "an ability with that source adds mana to your mana pool" or similar, and was used in Uprise reminder text, I didn't think it was valid rules text. I thought both abilities created a delayed triggered ability to add mana to your mana pool (with the creature as the source of the ability). What have I missed, where does the "produce
" language come from?
The "next main phase" is definitely better IMO since that "doesn't empty" effect uses a lot of text on its own: pretty much doubles the amount of text on the card.
Yeah, now that I think about it, Anarchy and Conduit abilities do differ in that in the other it's the creature that produces the mana while in Conduit it's the effect itself.
This is going to go rather off-topic, but whatever.
So... As by Zendikar Resurgent's definition, when a land's mana ability is activated and it becomes tapped, the effect produces the mana - but it's also counted as being produced by the land itself since it's the activated ability's source. This is somewhat ambiguous IMO since the card says "that land produced" instead of "that effect produced" while I think the latter is more correct.
I think these are the relevant rulings:
> 106.3. Mana is produced by the effects of mana abilities (see rule 605). It may also be produced by the effects of spells, as well as by the effects of abilities that aren’t mana abilities.
> 106.11. To “tap a permanent for mana” is to activate a mana ability of that permanent that includes the
symbol in its activation cost. See rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”
> 106.11a An ability that triggers whenever a permanent “is tapped for mana” or “is tapped for mana [of a specified type]” triggers whenever such a mana ability resolves and produces mana or the specified type of mana.
To me, it seems like if I were to go with this "new" wording, Elvish Mystic should say "
: Produce 
" (not produces) so that it remains that it's the effect not the permanent itself which produces the mana.
EDIT:
Coming back to the OP card, the two abilities should be on separate lines since when they take effect and/or are in effect are different instances.
So with this alternative mana wording, which no longer references mana pool by name, I would word it as:
> ~ attacks each turn if able.
. Until end of turn, this mana isn't lost if unused.
> Whenever ~ attacks, produce
Oops, right, this was supposed to do normal mana generation, not just combat-only (or it would have been a bit more aggressive). Although maybe "at the beginning of the next main phase" would be better.
Good point with Sons of Anarchy. I think it's clear by comparison to Conduit, but I'm not sure.
Added "Until end of turn, this mana doesn't empty from your mana pool as steps and phases end."
Eerily similar to Son of Anarchy :) (also see Conduit of Storms)
Hmmm, my new mana producing wording makes it sound like the creature should survive combat for you to get that mana. I might have to look into that.
See Challenge # 122 and Leaf Gilder
This doesn't actually fulfil the challenge, I just really liked it.
Gild Runner
Kate, Uktabi Naturalist, from "choose a random challenge and make a card inspired by a random magic card for it".
Six years later I see when I thought six months was "belated" :)
See Challenge # 016 and Uktabi Kong
I revisited a random challenge and tried to make a card for it inspired by a random card on gatherer. Surprisingly, 8/8 Uktabi Kong converted to a 1-mana planseswalker fairly well.
I did consider something like, "Whenever an opponent casts a spell, note its converted mana cost. When you cast a spell with the most-recently noted CMC, draw a card." But magic has usually eschewed explicitly telling you to write things down, outside conspiracy and silver-border.
Reminds me of our discussion on Canny Major and at http://www.magicmultiverse.net/cards/38401#comment_52570 and following. There we suggested
> At the beginning of each upkeep, predict the colour and CMC of the next spell an opponent casts this turn.
> Whenever you predict correctly, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.