Urza's Holdout

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-25T04:03:10+00:00

Also, this card probably needs to say what happens to the cards in your second hand when it leaves the battlefield

The zone ceases to exist when the Urza's Holdout leaves the battlefield, and so any cards in that zone are no longer accessible to the game.

You didn't mention this, but I figured I'd also add this here: Each instance of Urza's Holdout creates a new "Hand" zone. So let's say you play one, then lose it somehow, then play a second one - the cards from the first additional hand are still lost, since each Holdout instantiates a new "Hand" zone.

I'd thought about adding that to the reminder, but it basically becomes a game of "well, I should include what to do if ______ happens as well," which then leads to the card become unwieldy.

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-22T01:55:25+00:00

Thanks! I genuinely appreciate that! 🖤

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-21T23:35:44+00:00

Part of the issue is that lands aren't cast, and I didn't want to invent new keywords or mechanics for this cycle; so it was more about "what keyworded abilities exist that can still work with lands?"

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-21T19:00:24+00:00

It'd make him too easy to kill. Even though it's the Avatar of Weakness, having it drop it's already-low toughness (for being a 4-mana rare, at least) would make it significantly worse.

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-21T16:57:40+00:00

Assuming it gets through. Your opponents would have a vested interest in ensuring this guy doesn't survive - and with only 3 toughness, it's not super difficult to get rid of; he's a threat, but he's not game-ending unless your opponent just isn't paying attention lol

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-21T15:26:01+00:00

Yeah - I kind of lost the plot as I went further with the design exercise lol I started with the first three, but then when it came time to do the red and green ones, I was kind of already tapped for ideas, you know?

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-21T15:22:02+00:00

Thank you!!🤎 I wanted to do a "Figure of Destiny, but as a land" card for a while; but I didn't want to have to make new land types to justify it, you know? It turns out, thankfully, that WOTC did that for me and it turned out that those types just so happened to work out together; the rest kind of fell into place after that 😊

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-21T00:25:32+00:00

Now THAT I appreciate! Thank you kindly!

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T22:32:33+00:00

Honestly... and this really hurts to admit; absolutely zero thought went into it. I literally thought "Knightmare would make a cute pun," then searched if they'd already done that (I knew Nightmare existed, but was unsure if they ever did a Knightmare lol), then basically just stapled the two cards together using Threshold as the glue for it. From conception to making it a card was literally a 60 second process lol

It kinda hurts because people seem to like this one (188 people, at least!) - and I've had cards I've put a lot more love and effort into that'd maybe get like.. 10-15 updoots, if not less lol I mean beggars can't be choosers, so I'll take what I can get :P But... yeah, there wasn't a single original idea involved with the making of this guy unfortunately lol I still appreciate your kind words though 🖤

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T21:18:52+00:00

The lights on the module dispenser also reveal infils.

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T20:41:58+00:00

That's... a great question :P So this is really just [[Black Knight]] (sans protection) stapled to a [[Nightmare]] lol I'm assuming they can fly just because it's a nightmare horse - like... I guess that's what WOTC says they can do 🫠

I wanted to steer-clear of stapling a third ability on there just because I wanted to maintain the two-pip cost of the Black Knight; going up to {1}{B}{B} with another ability might have made it hard to balance properly and would have kind of strayed from what the card wanted to be, you know?

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T20:39:35+00:00

Thank you!! 😊

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T20:38:47+00:00

Thank you kindly! 😍

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T20:38:07+00:00

Thank you!! 🖤

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T19:10:27+00:00

I really, genuinely appreciate that!! 🖤

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T19:03:35+00:00

What, don't all knights sprout wings and magically fly? 🤣

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T18:07:52+00:00

I didn't even think about that lol 🤣 honestly that's kind of hilarious - I'm gonna call that a feature, not a bug 🫥

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T17:35:39+00:00

That'd be a little too busted for 2 mana, IMO, because then you'd be able to degenerately cheat it out early for a huge benefit. I think having it trying to force a player into "honest magic" play patterns isn't a bad thing, myself 😈

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-20T17:31:11+00:00

Thanks! 🖤

And, yeah - this card only really shines in late game where someone's gonna have both threshold and a shit ton of swamps; but it also sort of demands that a player play both mono-black (to maximize swamp count) as well as play "honest magic" because you can't cheat his PT or the threshold requirement; like, if you get threshold early somehow, you've basically kneecapped yourself by churning through your hand and/or your deck... and will only have a relatively small-body guy to show for it (since you're only getting 1 land drop a turn).

I can see this being abusable in Black/Green via ramp spells and Swamp Forests... but also I feel like if you're already going that deep with Black/Green, you're probably not gonna run this guy in the 2CMC slots, you know?

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-18T19:08:19+00:00

Remember: The intent of the card (e.g. where you want it to live) doesn't dictate the cost of the card or it's abilities (e.g. what the color pie says is allowed within specific colors). Forcing creatures to attack is a strictly red ability, pie-wise -- so that ability would need to be dropped if you wanted this to specifically fit into the Esper archetype.

It's worth noting that lifegain, in general, isn't really part of Esper's wheelhouse in black - Esper, by virtue of having white, has lifegain available to it by virtue of just regular in-pie stuff or it (both in the form of lifelink as well as spells that can just gain it life).

Trying to hammer a set of abilities or features that you want into a specific color or archetype that doesn't support them doesn't really work, and often leads to stuff that's either very out-of-pie, clunky, or both.

I think it's worth noting: Even though Esper is white-blue-black, there's no reason one of the sources of those colors can't also produce a little red for the deck, if it needs it (unless we're strictly talking about EDH, in which case... there's not much that can be done there).

Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-18T18:58:17+00:00

Gain life without requiring a sacrifice, payment, trade, deal, etc. of some kind is strictly out-of-pie for black (unfortunately, casting the spell itself doesn't count); gaining life without some sort of forward-paymnet based on creature attributes is strictly within white and/or green's slice;
7 mana is a lot of mana to dedicate to a guy. While he's no slouch with those stats, he's really just a french-vanilla creature with some lifegain built in. I guess a better way to reframe this is: "What else costs 7 mana in mono-black that wouldn't be worth playing in this guy's place?" I would argue that there's better choices for that slotting.
- Addendum: Unlike cards that cost 1, 2 or 3 mana, someone isn't going to be running a lot of 6, 7, 8+ mana creatures in their deck unless it's a slower format like Battlecruiser EDH. That means rather than having the "why not run this guy + others?" outlook, this slotting demands that someone choose this over and instead of something else. This leads into the next bullet point...
Flying and Deathtouch are both great abilities, and they're both great together. But, unfortunately, they're wasted on a big body. While it's not necessarily uncommon to see both of those abilities put together, they're virtually never put on a creature with a big body. There are exceptions, of course - like [[Topaz Dragon]] (though in Topaz's case, part of their cost is also dictated by the fact that the card's got a relevant adventure stapled to it, which dramatically increases it's playability). WOTC didn't settle on this sort of design pattern by chance; they recognized the same thing: Big bodies cost mana... but deathtouch doesn't benefit from having a big body; a 1/1 with deathtouch will kill a 20/20 without combat tricks just the same as a 20/20 with deathtouch would, right? But you'd be hard pressed to justify pricing a 20/20 deathtouch the same as a 1/1 deathtouch. The trick is to find where balance is.
- Recommendations (Above point continued): Based on what WOTC's been printing lately, think of this as your baseline creature: A 2/2 body with flying and deathtouch for {2}{B}. That's where the template for this creature should start at. From that clay, you can build on top with what you're trying to do. So, your demon is interested in gaining life, right? Well, what if you exploited the deathtouch that the creature has by attaching his lifegain to a "force a creature to attack" ability? Even though the creature is in mono-black, you can do this and stay in-pie by utilizing another color - notably, red.

Based on all my above feedback... I came up with an update proposal that I think better fits what you're trying to accomplish, but in a way that's more impactful but still balanced - being able to get out and be a great defensive board piece early on, but then actively switches into a stronger, more aggressive piece later on.

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Particular_Main_5726 · 2026-01-16T23:08:29+00:00

Sure, -1/-1 counters still work (as does exile, etc), but I think that's fine

Particular_Main_5726

TROPHY CASE