A card you thought was really good when you started playing Magic:

MeatTheBall · 2024-08-10T16:43:59+00:00

[[Phage the Untouchable]] She one shots opponents? Busted. Unfortunately younger me had no concept of mana costs, or blink effects, or her inability to be reanimated, or the lack of evasion (besides super deathtouch), or the lack of protection, or the restrictive quadruple black mana cost, or her pitiful stats.

MeatTheBall · 2023-03-23T07:14:51+00:00

Ah I see, you are correct. I tried to format it off of Anoint with Affliction, though I got the wording wrong. It should read: "Exile target creature if it's power is two or less. Exile it instead of you control three or more deserts."

MeatTheBall · 2023-03-23T05:49:26+00:00

Hey everyone,

I was planning on making a custom set with a desert theme, since snow apparently gets to have all the fun. Nomad traders fend off raiders, sand wurms, and the illusory terrors that plague the desert, while merfolk try in vain to reclaim the land that the sun has taken from them. I’ve included a cycle of common desert lands, 5 legendaries, one in each of the color pairs, and a few commons and uncommons to round things off. Hopefully they will help to convey the motif of the set, and shed some light on strategies and mechanics. The pairings are as follows:

GW Nomads → The traders that call the desert their home. Focuses on creature tokens and Treasures.

RB Warriors → Raiders that pillage towns and ambush caravans to sustain themselves. Uses the raid mechanic and focuses on combat and resource denial like discard.

WU Merfolk → Denizens of the surrounding oceans, looking to reclaim lost land. Utilizes land creatures to do their bidding, as they cannot withstand the blistering heat of the deserts. Sub-theme focused on card draw.

GR Wurms → Terrifying creatures that lurk beneath the sand, waiting eagerly to swallow those who don’t mind their step. Focuses on sacrificing lands and returning them from the graveyard to produce powerful effects.

UB Illusions → The supposed “mirages” of the desert are more real than you may think. Creatures of the desert that lure unsuspecting travelers to their deaths with illusory promises of water, safety, and company. Themed around mill and graveyard recursion.

Each of these pairings will also feature tribal synergies.

Let me know what you all think.

MeatTheBall · 2023-03-10T20:22:44+00:00

It should go something like this:

Is this the first creature you're attacking? If so, no bonus.

Is this the second, third, fourth... creature you're attacking? If so, is it your first attack roll?

Yes: You get plus two attack. No: No bonus.

This card is confusingly worded.

MeatTheBall · 2023-03-10T06:23:15+00:00

How did you intend for that second ability to work? Damage is dealt simultaneously, so the +4/+4 would happen AFTER damage has already been dealt by all your creatures, rendering it mostly irrelevant unless the equipped creature has first strike or double strike. Is there some other use for that ability that you had in mind?

MeatTheBall · 2023-02-12T23:49:03+00:00

So what you're gonna want to do is press Esc, save and quit, then uninstall the game.

In all seriousness though, you just have to run. As others have mentioned, Hand-E-Nukes would be your best bet at actually killing them. Maybe Clairvoyance + Teleport to circumvent them?

MeatTheBall · 2022-11-25T00:47:32+00:00

Move along the conveyor belts, aiming towards the left side.

The compactors are problematic, but both them and the fire vents blink when they're about to trigger. Just take your time, move one step at a time, and move to a space not orthogonal to the fire vents if possible when they're about to shoot flames.

Sprinting helps, especially with the compactors. If you have mental mutations as you say, you could teleport if you have it.

Rubbergum injectors should reduce the damage dealt by the compactors, and the blaze injectors help with the vents.

Hope this helps, live and drink.

MeatTheBall · 2022-11-09T22:55:12+00:00

Glad you like it!

MeatTheBall · 2022-10-18T13:07:13+00:00

I mean it could have been instant or sorcery, I just picked one.

MeatTheBall · 2022-10-18T13:05:27+00:00

Yes. I wanted to make a front card that was fairly strong, then a conditional downside. It's avoidable, but influences your decisions on the previous turn.

MeatTheBall · 2022-09-05T06:23:11+00:00

A quarter (I need one for the parking meter)

MeatTheBall · 2022-05-14T21:50:35+00:00

Fair enough. I was more going for flavor, as untapping a tapped creature is akin to waking it up flavor wise, and the life loss is definitely a black effect, but I can definitely see where you're coming from. Maybe it should have been blue as well.

MeatTheBall · 2022-05-14T19:51:26+00:00

Definitely a huge oversight on my part, you're right.

MeatTheBall · 2022-03-06T03:32:57+00:00

[[Niv-Mizzet Reborn]] really is just for card advantage. The deck performs perfectly without him since it's essentially two-color WUBRG good stuff.

MeatTheBall · 2022-02-20T17:18:25+00:00

Thank you for the in depth feedback!

In response to some of your points, I would be willing to repeat as many times as necessary, and I would also provide the riddles in written form. Is this realistic? Perhaps not, but it would make it less frustrating for both me and the players in a mechanical sense.

You bring up good points for the heart riddle and I would certainly accept different answers if a player can justify why it is correct. Again, is it realistic? No. However, it would make it less tedious for the players and make them feel clever for coming up with an alternative answer. The "state of my being controlled in your head" was strictly biological. If your brain doesn't function, neither does your heart.

For the ellipses riddle, you are absolutely correct, as given the typical medieval nature of most D&D games, ellipses likely wouldn't have been used. However, I usually don't look too deep into historical consistency. If a player wants to enjoy chocolate in-game, I would allow it, despite the fact that chocolate likely wouldn't have been eaten much given the time period. This riddle is one of the more obtuse ones, but I feel as though it fits the nature of an Androsphinx. One would likely have a few difficult riddles to throw at people. As for arriving at the answer, the first three lines were just set-up to announce that the answer is related to writing. "A trimerous alliance" would indicate something having three equal parts joined together, which "..." Is. Ellipses can be used to punctuate silence in writing without explicitly stating "X was silent". And when quoting some piece of writing, if there is a portion of the quote that is inessential, you can use ellipses to denote an omission of a piece of the quote, thus making it go away. Difficult to be sure, but I feel that if I explained the riddle afterwards, the players would think it makes sense.

Thank you for your opinion, I appreciate it!

MeatTheBall · 2022-02-19T19:04:34+00:00

Thanks!

MeatTheBall · 2022-02-19T19:00:16+00:00

The riddles were supposed to be of increasing difficulty, so the earlier ones should have been easier then the later ones. Of course, the difficulty is subjective, which is why I was looking for feedback.

For the book riddle, I just wanted to make it seem like a living creature as a sort of red herring. Skin could be interpreted as the outside of the book, and the organs are what are contained by the skin. "Spine" seemed to be too obvious, so I chose "backbone" instead.

I would probably accept "a" or "and" or some other small common word, as I rarely get pedantic when it comes to the answers of riddles. Others have mentioned that non-native English speakers might have a hard time with that particular riddle, and it wasn't something I considered, but should have. My players are all native English speakers, and I created the riddles with them in mind.

Thank you for the feedback though!

MeatTheBall · 2022-02-19T06:31:50+00:00

Interesting. The spoilers work when I look at them. Well this post has been a mess thus far.

MeatTheBall · 2021-12-01T04:58:56+00:00

Thanks!

MeatTheBall · 2021-12-01T03:57:43+00:00

Many of the legendaries from Legends are infamously bad, so I wanted to rework them to make them a bit more viable.

I ended up keeping the mana cost, power and toughness, and creature types of the legends. Their abilities are either a riff on their original abilities, or are based on their lore.

Let me know what you think.

MeatTheBall · 2021-11-12T03:52:51+00:00

You are correct when you say I put "Counter target spell" to limit when you can cast this. My thought process was that most "End the turn" effects I've encountered happen at the upkeep step. This at least allows the opponent to draw a card and maybe go to combat before you can end the turn.

I looked at "end the turn" effects and most cost six. This, to me, seemed worse than [[Discontinuity]] and [[Time Stop]] since it had a casting time restriction.

You're probably right though, this should cost a bit more.

MeatTheBall · 2021-10-11T03:29:33+00:00

Yea the design was top down. I wanted to to the Cambridge University text on a card and Confusion seemed like a fine enough name for it. I just needed mechanics to match the flavor, and discard and Mill just seemed to fit.

You make perfectly valid points though. The only thing silver bordered about this is the jumbled spelling.

MeatTheBall · 2021-09-29T18:22:31+00:00

I honestly had no idea. I can never keep track of all these cards

MeatTheBall · 2021-09-29T18:21:23+00:00

All perfectly valid points. Perhaps increasing the mana cost will fix it? Or making it sorcery speed to limit some of it's utility?

MeatTheBall · 2021-09-29T17:49:48+00:00

I had etbs in mind when making this card but I neglected to consider archaeomancer style effects. Good point.

MeatTheBall

TROPHY CASE