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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-05-19 05:07:59)
For Challenge # 071
It seems the right cost for Lightning Bolt is somewhere between
and 
. So how about this, for a cost of one-and-a-half red?
Obviously the "give mana back" bit evokes the free spells like Rewind that, unsurprisingly, turned out to be broken. But maybe one mana isn't so bad...?
And the two abilities are completely separate design-wise, but they both have a reason to be on the card.
Added another entry: Warlord's Staff.
Created for Challenge # 071. Aiming for 5 abilities that all tie in with attacking and yet have no synergy with each other. I... didn't quite succeed. The
redwhite and green abilities work together, sortof, because damaging blockers means you can trample over for a bit more.But apart from that: Flying and "can't block" are both different evasion abilities that won't normally work together at all. Evasion (blue and
whitered) doesn't have much synergy with hurting blockers (redwhite), trample (green) or surviving combat with blockers (black). Doing theredwhite ability makes the black one less likely to be needed.I didn't want to add a
cost to each ability because that'd make this work the same way as Jack's Sceptre of the Veil. Here you could theoretically activate all of these abilities in one turn, it's just pretty rare circumstances where there'd be much point.
It's the kind of card that will likely have something to do most combats, but very little chance that combining them would have much point.
(There are a handful of circumstances where combining them would be useful. If the opponent has several ground blockers and 1-2 flying/reach blockers, I could see activating the blue and
whitered abilities together. Or similarly the blue and then green abilities to trample over their only reach blocker. But, well, there are circumstances where most of the examples of disconnected cards on Challenge # 071's discussion page could work together. I think this is a reasonably good fit for the challenge's terms.)Mmm. Yes. Mirrored abilities are a nice take on this. More normally mirrors are spread across two cards, but you do get occasional ones where one card has two mirrored abilities on it; and making them both require sacrifice of the card is one good way to enforce that they don't work together.
(And indeed as you point out, they very much would have synergy if it weren't for that fact. I guess if you had two of these, popping them both on the same turn for a 1-sided Wrath is pretty nice :) )
Cost-wise, I think I'd be inclined to keep casting cost and Wrath cost as they are, but make the regenerate cost just "
, 
, Sac" or maybe just "
, Sac".
OK, after a lot of mulling, how about Sceptre of the Veil?
For Challenge # 071
OK, after a lot of mulling, how about this?
The abilities are obviously related, they're mirrors of each other. In some ways they're opposites: each could be the counter to the other in an opposing deck.
And they would be synergistic if you could combine them, except that you explicitly can't play them together, and it's fairly clear that you can't so people are hopefully not going to try and get disappointed that they can't.
In any given situation you're likely to want one or the other. And you're likely to put it in your deck for one or the other. But somehow, perhaps because (i) the other one may be useful sometimes and (ii) the flavour justifies two mirrored but opposite abilities, I hope it doesn't fall into the usual trap of "ability A is awesome for my deck but I can't play it because ability B is anti-synergistic".
I'm not sure about the costing.
Split cards were the first thing I thought of, but I couldn't actually think of any examples. Salvation // Perdition is a good example.
I think split cards are fine if there's no connection between the halves, that being what they're supposed to do. Ideally there'd be two effects which mirror each other thematically (if "wax" and "wane" fit the names a bit more specifically), but don't have any mechanical connection.
I've been trying to think of an example like Swarmlord, with two on-the-board abilities which don't synergise (or complement) each other, but those are naturally the hardest to do without misleading players (either "wait, I thought those two abilities would interact" or "I can't play this, the second ability has nothing to do with my deck").
Heee. I like it. Unconnected, sure... but not as unconnected as some split cards - Assault // Battery springs to mind. 7 and 13 are nice numbers to play with: one that symbolises perfection, one that symbolises betrayal. (Or I suppose it's just the "lucky 7 / unlucky 13" thing. The religious names here made me think of the religious symbolism though.) There's also that 7 + 13 = 20, a significant number in Magic for being the starting life total.
The black side is actually more of a red effect; it's like Obliterate, or a massively overcranked Crack the Earth. But clearly for the flavour it needs to be black not red. And the white side - sure, it's Angel's Mercy, but nobody's going to be excited by a rare sorcery-speed Angel's Mercy. It feels like Cyclonic Rift or Mizzium Mortars: one half of the card is common, but the card as a whole needs to be rare because the other half is definitely rare.
It turns out this challenge became more of a discussion than an actual challenge. I'm pretty cool with that, to be honest... though, it's about time I designed something for my own challenge.
Added Salvation // Perdition. It seems we forgot to mention split cards, which are often two cards stapled together. I mean, really? Wax // Wane? There's barely any connection flavor-wise on that card, nevermind mechanical.
I like Sal//Per, but I'm pretty sure I can do better. Will come back and try again.
For Challenge # 071. This is a sneaky and tricky challenge, neh? Exactly how much connection can be made between the cards before the card breaks is in the eye of the beholder. My first thought when making this card was to choose two numbers that one couldn't make a pattern out of, then move forward from there. But even 7 and 13 feel related to each other, just because their both prime. And, of course, there needs to be a flavor connection...
I get the impression that I can stretch the boundaries better than this... though this is a good first stab.
Oh yeah, Flight of Fancy is a good example, because it looks unconnected, but it's common to like it when you see it, even if you're surprised by it.
Drain Life is interesting, I'd forgotten they'd tried to make it more like actually draining. I think the simpler version is fine, because the symmetry does make it look expected, even if it doesn't literally drain. I think the key there is symmetry. If it was "do 3 damage, gain 5 life" you'd ask "huh?", but because the numbers are equal, it looks like it's supposed to be like that. (It works for non-drain effects too, like Smallpox where the effects are related mostly by being nasty, but because they're all "1" the card as a whole looks deliberate.)
Mm, I was thinking about Obelisk of Alara similarly. Staff of Domination's first ability ties in very nicely with the others, although yes, the rest are very disconnected.
Wow, good call on black lifedrain, though. Originally they were tied more closely together, back on Drain Life and its Ice Age homage Soul Burn. Wizards rightly simplified it with Consume Spirit, but in the process broke any tie between what you could see as two completely disconnected abilities.
Hmm. There are other cards that are composed of two parts like that, usually "do something to a target" and "get a secondary benefit". There's the Flight of Fancy cycle, effects like Thundermaw Hellkite's, Vedalken Anatomist, Heal the Scars, Gore Vassal, Aurelia's Fury...
Sorry to keep posting, but for existing unconnected abilities, how about Staff of Domination?
Come to think of it, something like Sorin's Thirst is an even more blatant example of flavour-justification than Form of the Dragon
Vorthos and Melvin both love the symmetry, because it carves out a specific niche of the colour pie for one particular colour, fits the flavour, and makes it easy to remember that the numbers are the same on both sides.
But there's no actual interaction between the abilities, they just fit together so well that everyone always thinks of them as one single ability.
I was going to mention "destroy X or Y" cards and charms too, but I wasn't sure if they were cheating.
"it seems that this challenge can be answered by going super-Vorthos, or super-Melvin, but not by having Vorthos and Melvin agree too often"
I think the thing is, the challenge isn't necessarily in the abilities, but the style in presenting them. It's like, I'm assured that clothes which contrast colours can work, and clothes that match colours can work, but clothes that have colours which are similar but different often just look like they were supposed to match but were a mistake.
So two abilities which don't have any reason to have anything to do with each other (eg. charms, titans) are ok. As are abilities which are obviously in tension. But the worst is abilities that look like they're supposed to synergise but don't, and may even get people to play them wrong, assuming that because the first ability says "regenerate" and the second says "when this dies", that it must die and then regenerate.
Feast or Famine was the first thing I thought of. Then I wondered whether Rix Maadi Guildmage would count... but I think the idea there is that she's explicitly got an ability for situation A and an ability for situation B, so the opponent is damned if they do damned if they don't.
Of course, the classic examples are things like Ranger en-Vec and Ancient Spider, but I'm not sure they count as "good" cards, which is another important part of the challenge.
Created Swarmlord. And now I've just spotted the "at least" in the challenge's wording. How many unconnected abilities can we get onto one card? Probably not as many as Cromat. His regeneration helps with a couple of the other abilities, but apart from that he's impressively disconnected.
Top down flavor is definitely a path... My go to would have been Form of the Dragon as well. That card breaks a lot of rules.
Incidental breaking the color pie is also an option. Vitenka mentions etb tapped lands. I was going to suggest Sun Titan (Vigilance has nothing to do with the ability... it's just part of a keyword cycle). This option is an odd answer to the challenge, but if you can make it work, go for it.
It's funny... it seems that this challenge can be answered by going super-Vorthos, or super-Melvin, but not by having Vorthos and Melvin agree too often. Crushing Vines is another option which features two abilities that both destroy things, but there's no real connection between what's being destroyed. Vision Charm and most other charms don't really have any connection between their modes, either. People like these type of cards because of the diverse options they provide, not because they 'make sense'.
I also get the impression that tribal is likely to do this (creatures of my tribe get this sort of boost. I do something completely different) but I'm having a hard time coming up with one off the top of my head. I'm sure they're out there.
Then there's the real oddballs. I can't think of many cards in modern Magic with an utter lack of synergy, but old school Magic has a bunch. Krovikan Elementalist and Witch Hunter seem like good go-to cards.
@Vitenka: Oops, sorry, I read the comment before reading the challenge. I think cards with obvious anti-synergy are an exception to Rosewater's guideline because it doesn't look odd, it looks deliberate. But anti-synergy cards would still count for the terms of the challenge.
PS. An example of a flavour-driven card with unconnected abilities, Boromir
Poor Sean Bean :(
For Challenge # 071
Possibly not the best design, but an example of how a flavour-driven design can have two completely unrelated abilities.
I think cards with deliberate tension would count as "connected", even though they're not synergistic, because the "one or the other" aspect is normally obviously intentional.
But I think lands with a useful ability would be a good example of basically unrelated -- just one that's so natural we've basically forgotten about it. (Similar examples would be many cards with cycling.)
My "Cheaty" suggestion was the lands with tap ability. You can get mana, or you can use the ability. There's no synergy at all there; it's outright tension. But it feels like a complete cop-out.
This is a toughie of a challenge though.