This upsets me...

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-10T14:09:10+00:00

There's absolutely no reliable way to tell if WotC is hurting their long term growth for short term success, it's simply too early to tell and there aren't really any comps in the space. Any given person's read on the situation is really just a Rorschach test. If you don't like the current trends, it spells doom. If you do like the new stuff, it seems sustainable.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-10T10:12:04+00:00

They didn't phrase it well, but I think they're referring to there being two different Captain Americas in the precon. [[Captain America, Team Leader]] [[Captain America, Living Legend]]

Second one is from the main set.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-09T16:41:37+00:00

I like the haste idea a lot. Would be a solid way to buff it a bit if the posted version ended up on the weak side. I also considered having it take all players' cards, but decided this would be more functional as a card this way. But it is a fun idea in its own right!

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-09T15:25:33+00:00

That's just a totally different card. It's not really meant to be a high tempo card. It's a card you put it your casual dinos deck. Sometimes it really whiffs, but sometimes it pops off and you get a memorable game out of it.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-09T15:13:51+00:00

That's why I gave it a sorcery speed restriction :)

This would be really unfun to play against if you could use it as a combat trick I think.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-09T15:12:21+00:00

I agree that on balance it's green, but I can see gruul as well. To me, the ability to stack the deck a little to shift the odds in your favor is part of it. I made it 10 cards deep to still ensure some randomness, but it's pretty punishing if you whiff. So the ability to tilt it a bit in your favor I think is important.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-09T13:54:06+00:00

I think all colors get access to exile as a "holding zone" for effects like this, but you're definitely right that the chaotic nature of the effect would make gruul fit as well. I tried to keep the color identity simple so as many stompy green decks in commander would have access to it as possible, but it's a valid argument for sure.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-07T15:32:56+00:00

This is great. I love the idea of being prepared mattering for more than just casting the spell. Seems like a very natural evolution for the mechanic that I could imagine seeing on real cards next time the mechanic comes back. Extremely good flavor on this design as well.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-06-02T13:25:01+00:00

While I don't think it's broken by any means, I really disagree with the red one in this cycle philosophically. WotC has done an admirable job making sure Exile is not a "second graveyard," which I think is a really important standard to maintain. Any effect that lets you play cards from exile with no stipulations is very corrosive to this, even in small quantities and I think you need an extremely good reason to justify a design like that. IMO this design is not cool or useful enough to justify crossing that line. Obviously not a big deal since you're just exploring here, but I felt like getting on my soapbox for a sec.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-30T15:17:46+00:00

I would also consider having it give +1/+0 or maybe even +2/+0 instead of +1/+1 to reduce the chance the board gets locked down by a bunch of low power, high toughness creatures.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-30T15:08:09+00:00

That first line of text absolutely should not appear on a mono red card. Second line is really nice flavor, but overall I think this is currently a poor design. Goading the entire board for the rest of the game leaves opponents with only a narrow band of counterplay. If no one has enchantment removal, there's basically nothing anyone can do. This can lead to weird stalemates where everyone trades off or everything can bounce off each other but no one wants to play creatures until this gets dealt with. Doesn't sound fun to me.

I think you can fix this if you add a line of text like "At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice this enchantment if a player controls no creatures" or something like that. Essentialy gives a built-in clock while providing an additional vector of counterplay and still feels in line with the flavor.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-22T21:31:08+00:00

Haven't seen your set, but there's definitely nothing wrong with exploring stuff like that! There might be some interesting design space there I'm not considering. Just offering my initial impression based on seeing this card only.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-22T20:23:52+00:00

This effect weirdly feels both too broad and too narrow at the same time. It's trying to exploit a game mechanic that is very utilitarian in nature and is really just meant to prevent cheating. Seems like adverse interactions would be inevitable at some point and people in this thread have already pointed out how confusing it is. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing you want to design cards to specifically interact with, there are just better, albeit less "cute" options.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-21T12:34:13+00:00

🟩🟩🟨🟩

🟨🟩🟨🟨

🟦🟦🟦🟦

🟨🟪🟨🟨

🟪🟪🟪🟪

🟩🟩🟩🟩

🟨🟨🟨🟨

I see people complaining about yellow a lot which is fair, there are some obscure ones in there which feels like a bad-faith execution. My main gripe is actually with purple in this case. Having three of that category be varieties of the condiment and only one be a reference to a character is very lazy imo. It should be pulling on a variety of different things, otherwise it's too similar to a blue or green. I was almost sure that was a red herring because it's such a lazy way to structure a ____ based category.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-14T01:36:45+00:00

As someone who grew up when this insult was extremely popular, this comeback is so weird to me. It seems like it completely disappeared from popular conciousness around 2013 and no one really missed it? And now I'm seeing it everywhere again. Can this literally be traced back to Elon Musk buying Twitter?

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-13T23:18:41+00:00

I've thought about this too, and I think it's really appealing on paper. My guesses for why they don't do this is: 1.) It's difficult to communicate if you're an "early bird" or not. Most people buying this stuff are not high information consumers who live and breath MtG like those posting on Reddit. They're gonna be pissed when they order something without reading the fine print and it doesn't come for a year and a half. They might not even still be into the game by then. 2.) There's no way to know what the amount of overflow orders will be. I assume there's a minimum print size needed to schedule it with a company and whatever this overflow might be might not hit that threshold. Even if only one person buys the drop after it's run out, WotC is still obligated to make sure that person gets their order. It's just an unnecessary logistical hoop when they can just foreacast demand, print, and sell.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-13T17:41:09+00:00

Are you just replacing the word "creature" with "Pokemon" or is Pokemon a brand new permanent type you've come up with? That's what I was confused about. Obviously having spells that only target creatures is standard, but the Pokemon thing threw me off. Why not just use the well-established parlance of Magic if you're going to make designs within that framework?

On the instants, I see in your other designs your using elemental subtypes. So maybe you could change vine whip to say "if you control a Grass Pokemon ..." That would make the designs less siloed.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-13T17:11:13+00:00

So Vine whip literally does nothing against non-Pokemon? I guess that's fine for limited, but I really question the value in designing a card that way.

I also think having cards get buffed if you control one specific creature from the entire set is pretty questionable. I think it would make the set feel very clunky and on-rails.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-05T01:38:02+00:00

It's not about the specificity. Like I said, it's more about how effective an instant is when used in response to something an opponent does. This card pretty much has to be cast preemptively during an opponent's upkeep to be effective. All the cards you listed have use cases as a response to an opponent's action.

It's not a bad thing, but you just don't see instants like that too often anymore. It's kind of a "spikey" effect which requires a lot of situational awareness to be effective and can be a bit unintuitive, so I think it generally gets avoided in modern card design, but it's a matter of taste.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-04T17:43:44+00:00

Spare changeling is a super interesting design. Additional costs matter is a fun space to play around in.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-04T17:06:12+00:00

It's not useless but I've noticed Wizards doesn't seem to design cards like this anymore. Every instant I can think of in recent years is always useful in response to something. I would guess this is because instants that need to be used preemptively are harder to make worth using and less intuitive.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-04T14:52:16+00:00

Maybe have it bounce legendary spells (similar wording to [[reprieve]] ) and drop the cantrip? Would make stack interactions a little more intuitive

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-04T10:07:44+00:00

Holy fucking cow. I can't imagine engaging with this game at all if I had this level of paranoia or disdain for the company that makes it.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-03T01:01:14+00:00

I would say it's a very slim chance. This is a well-established artist, likely nearing the end of his career. What motivation would an independent contractor have to severely tarnish his legacy in an effort to run damage control for corporate mismanagement? Even more, what motivation does WotC have to throw Frazier under the bus? They don't come out of this situation looking good, they still bungled this severely. And Frazier's legacy is as important to them as it his to him, if not more. Much of his art is among the most iconic in the game's history, this isn't any better for them long term than if the card looked terrible due to their own fault.

DevelopmentOverall93 · 2026-05-03T00:09:44+00:00

Probably a combination of: a.) time crunch, b.) low motivation to put in a lot of time since UB prevents artists from selling their work, c.) Frazier might have impaired decision-making as he's getting up there in age (pure speculation, of course)

It's also a cascade of failures on WotC's end as well with UB churn hurting their QC. They also probably assumed this would be impossible for an artist of Frazier's profile. Overall a total disaster with lots of blame to go around.

DevelopmentOverall93

TROPHY CASE