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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-05-22 08:13:20)
Made for Challenge # 043. Spike's usual problem with big, expensive enchantments is that they don't usually impact the board immediately. This is my attempt at circumventing that problem, by adding an ETB trigger. This way, even if the opponent has instant-speed enchantment removal, you've still gotten some good value out of it. And if they don't? Prepare to get overwhelmed by big green fatties!
@jmg: Yeah, it's not more powerful then Cruel Ultimatum, but then again Cruel has a much stricter casting cost, and Cruel was one of the most playable 7-drops of all time. I think bumping it up by
is a fair place to start.
Made for Challenge # 043. I used Jace's Ingenuity as a reference point, but I'm still not sure if it should be 3 cards or 4. Four is probably ok, seeing how Jace's Ingenuity wasn't quite good enough to see a lot of constructed. In any case, I'm sure Spike will both love drawing a lot of cards, and also dreaming up scenarios about what the best free card to cast will be in any given matchup. Also worth noting that you can chain these for almost INFINITE CARDS!!!1
Looking at some decklists from tournaments, 7+ cost cards seem to generally be:
I went for Librarian of C'tl, which I'm not terribly proud of.
Mmm, yes, this is pretty Spikey.
True, it fulfills a primal titan-y role of being a body and a mana accelerant. Assuming you can accelerate mainly with mana creatures. Maybe I was too hasty, even if it only hits one or two opposing lands, that's still a very nice tempo boost, and situational tempo-boosts are very spike.
Hmm... this is basically Fountain of Youth. And I don't think I'd call that a Spike card.
Except, y'know, let you cast Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre next turn.
Yeah, I like the design a lot. I'm not sure about the cost: I guess 7 is enough, but I'm not sure.
:) And I like your attempts at a spike-friendly card.
FWIW, I think the key things for a spike card are:
Not that it can usually have ALL of those, but 2-3 out of 4 is good. But I'm not very good at designing or judging spike cards :)
Hm. I like the idea, and I agree repeatable life gain can be very overwhelming in a repeatable damage way. But there's several common and uncommon artifacts that can gain 1 life a turn. And 5 life a turn might well be an outraceable advantage on turn 4 or 5. But if I have ten mana or a way of tutoring an expensive artifact into play, I feel mindslaver, or blightsteel colossus, or something is more likely to swing the game in my favour. So I'm not sure it's anywhere near strong enough to get spike excited. Although to be fair, if it were, I probably still wouldn't notice because I'm not that spikey :)
Yeah, getting a body and a tempo advantage at the same time seems plausibly spike. My biggest worry is that most people would want to accelerate into this in green, but that doesn't actually work, since if you can play it on turn 4 or 5 it won't do much.
Hmm. Well, it's got, roughly, one half of Tooth and Nail in there (albeit, for black things only). I'd argue that that's the most powerful half, but only because if a player is paying 7-9 for a sorcery, dropping a few creatures into play is no big deal.
Personally, I'm thinking 8cc, but I agree, it's hard to cost these things when they get to this level. I do know that this card would represent a huge 'can't come back from it' swing in many games. At the very least, I'd call this a better card than Rune-Scarred Demon, who sits at
.
Made for Challenge # 043. Kind of like a mono-black version of Cruel Ultimatum. It's hard to say exactly what the cost on this should be since I can't really think of a card that's very close to it... maybe 8CC is more appropriate. In any case, the idea of a potential 4-for-1 must light up the eyes of a Spike player, even if the casting cost is a bit high. I can hear the cries of "finally, mono-black control returns!!!" on the forums already. :)
Added Master of His Domain and Fountain Geyser. Arguments about Spike's needs and desires are often tricky. Possibly because I like to humanize Spike, while many people prefer to vilify him.
For Challenge # 043. I'm taking advantage of the fact that all Link asked for was that the casting cost be 7+. That's pretty easy to abuse, admittedly. Morph springs to mind. Suspend, too. There's way too many ways to walk around that.
Mind you, if I'm going to walk around it, I want the card to at least have a "pay full price mode" so I don't feel like I'm super cheating. The First ability on Fountain Geyser doesn't look like much, but, having designed a similar uncommon in Magic 20XX, I can assure you, that incremental life gain is a pain in the ass to fight against. In Magic20XX, I solved it by forcing "
: Gain 2 life." which put a big crimp on it. On a Mythic, though, the uncounterable cheap life gain for every time I have a spare two mana is probably acceptable.
The second ability is kind of Timmy, true. I don't think Spike would complain when it pops. I also kept the activation reasonable, so if you, say, Tinkered this into play, you could activate it.
Oh, yeah. When I randomly generated a card to get this card's type, I got Fountain of Youth. You can see how it inspired the design...
Random Generator gave me Seeker of Skybreak which is a Creature - Elf. Really? Just an Elf? Kind of weird. I tried to keep this elf a sort of a loner with no class (no pun intended). I kinda failed, since adding mana is generally considered "Druid", but I don't know many Druids that destroy lands, so I'm claiming net neutral.
Is this really Spike? Well, it's cruel, but cruel isn't neccessarily Spike. It knocks people down a peg... but other Spikes will often not care. It taps for 3 green, while still having a decent body... that's actually kind of Spike... Choosing whether or not to swing with this guy is an important decision. Timmy would prefer to just get both.
End of the day? I'm not convinced, but I think I'd put this in Spike's camp over a few other ones. I'm hitting the drawing board one more time, though.