Multiverse Design Challenge: Recent Activity
| Multiverse Design Challenge: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| All challenges | Upcoming Challenges | Make a new design challenge! | All challenges (text) |
Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-05-19 13:36:25)
Heh, yeah, Multiverse doesn't have any way to use the Planeswalker frame without actually being a planeswalker at the moment.
I do love the idea of summoning Bosses though.
Actually, the reason this uses the planeswalker card type is so that I can make it have the planeswalker frame :)
updated the wording now that this has a keyword.
The reminder text may also need "(You may only play Bosses during your post-combat main step)". It wouldn't seem fair to drop this on a tapped out player when you have a titan up. ;)
Yeah, may not be balanceable, but is an excellent idea :)
Oh, I really like this. I think you could get away with this not being a Planeswalker and just using the planeswalker rules... but I'd love to set myself up with extra challenges while playing the game.
Another idea: Bosses. They're like Planeswalkers, except they enter the battlefield under an opponent's control, and you get a nice reward for defeating them.
Spore Fiend
Wavemaker Leviathan
For the record, I know these are hilariously unprintable. But I thought it would be a fun idea anyways. I think these would be especially fun in multiplayer.
I stressed casting cost because, in theory, Spike is defined by a lot of factors... but a lot of people like to focus on how Spike plays 'good' spells. That being the case, if Fact or Fiction cost
, or Liar's Pendulum cost 
and 
to activate it, Spike would still like those cards. He'd hate that they cost so much, and only bust them out in casual decks that he plays against his Timmy and Johnny friends, (or lament that such a cool card is unplayable) but he'd have fun when he played them, probably making fun of himself in the process.
I do know Timmies who love Wrath of God, for what it's worth, and I know a fair share of Spikes who would swear by it. It's probably too difficult to cut it right because it doesn't really fall on the Johnny, Timmy, Spike psychographic... but on another axis tilt. In the same way that "griefer" v. "friendster" has little to do with Timmy, Johnny or Spike. Any of those 3 can be griefers (and heaven help you when you deal with the "Timmie Griefer". That guy's like a cat that keeps toying with the half-dead mouse and won't let it die). I'm probably pointing at "Crazy Timmy" and calling him Timmy, and "Straightforward Spike" and calling him Spike. I suppose I should know better than that.
PS. jmg, I agree with your general point that non-symmetric effects are often simpler, and that downsides (even symmetrical ones) are hard to balance because they have to be quite severe to be balanced even when someone is looking for the maximum abuse potential, enough they're not very fun in the usual case.
But your description of wrath of god was exactly the opposite of how I think of it. Destroying everything can be awesome, but blowing up your own stuff is normally seen as un-fun. My stereotype Timmy says "I have to killl my own creatures? Really? That sucks." but "One-sided wrath! Wow, that's going to be so powerful." Whereas my stereotype Spike says "It kills my own creatures? Cool, it's useful exactly when I need it, when I'm behind. And because there's a complex trade-off between advantage and disadvantage, it's probably aggressively costed for people who know how to use it best" but "Seven WHAT? Seven mana? OK, yeah, right. Look, if I'm going to pay seven mana, give me something that wins the game right then. Sheeesh."
Thank you! Yeah, I was very pleased when I thought of terrain.
jmg: Oh yeah, I like the idea, but I don't think the rules for terrain are anywhere near finished. I tossed some ideas around, and it seemed like some terrains wanted to be symmetrical and give a small bonus or handicap to all attacking creatures, and the fun is in how to choose creatures that go well with them. But other terrains probably want to be one-sided, and they're interesting because of what they let you do, or prevent your opponent doing.
I considered a couple of variants: maybe terrains could be played on a player? Maybe there were two sorts of terrain, obligatory and optional? Maybe terrains tended to work like that but it was specified in rules text.
I went with the simplest version, and think that's a good start, but I agree design should brainstorm a lot of possibilities and see exactly how the rules for terrain might work, before even involving development :)
Oh, I have no qualms with printing cards that Spike doesn't like. My issue has more to do with the fact that there's less design space in cards that everyone can use than in cards that only one person can use. Cards that everyone can use automatically need two parts to make them work: Part 1 - Good for me, and Part 2 - Not as good for my opponent as it is for me. That may make some excellent design, but, if you were going to make terrain a new addition to the game, you'd aim to have terrains be capable of doing the simplest thing that they can do while still maintaining flavor, and to do that, I think you need to eliminate part 2 (your mileage may vary).
That being said, I don't think Spike likes Wrath of God. Oh, sure he likes Wrath of God because it's a powerful spell that X-for-1s, giving him card advantage. And he likes deciding when the best time to employ Wrath of God would be. But he would prefer Wrath of God said "Destroy all creatures your opponent controls", and he'd prefer to play more cards that operate like Violent Ultimatum. The fact that it destroys his creatures doesn't enamor him to the card, it just makes it costed effective enough for him to be okay with playing it. Timmy, on the other hand loves Wrath of God. It evens the playing field for everybody, and allows him to play the game longer. Timmy will play Wrath of God when there's no real reason to... he can even be winning the game, and he'll press the shiny red button, just to see all the creatures a-splode.
Or, to put it another way, if Wrath of God cost
, do you think Spike would play it? How about Timmy? Now, imagine Violent Ultimatum costing 
. Do you think Spike would enjoy playing it, even at its absurd inefficient cost? How about Timmy?
Yeah... That was one of my concerns about my card type, and I tried to minimize the non-interactivity issue by making all of them symmetrical and trying to make them change the nature of the interaction between the players rather than reduce interaction. (Except for Decree of Nature, which prevents spells from being countered, but I put that at 6 CMC.) My other concern is: Would anyone actually want to play these?
By the way, in my opinion, I don't think there's anything wrong with Terrains being able to benefit the opponent. I think the card type works quite nicely as a symmetrical effect, and there's nothing wrong with printing a few cards Spike doesn't like. Besides, one could easily make a Spike-friendly Terrain by designing one that strongly benefits a specific type of strategy. Just because Wrath of God, Balance, Exhume and Hypergenesis are symmetrical doesn't make them non-Spike cards.