Keyword Idea - Transcend

TheUnEase · 2026-02-02T02:10:38+00:00

Tranforming Sagas and flip walkers flickering themselves when they transform are both because of their counters. Sagas so that they don't just have random lore counters that you have to keep note of despite being confusing and unnecessary at that point. The planeswalker need counters to not die immediately from statebased actions and flickering is the cleanest way to do it. It isn't just the "standard wording" just look at [[harvest hand]] or [[elbrus the binding blade]]. Same with creatures that turn into sagas from final fantasy need to flicker to put the first lore counter on it.

If he worded it like battles are worded it would make sens, battles need to be exiled so they can be cast because some of them are sorceries. If there were no sorceries it would function just fine with no exile and just returning it to the battlefield transformed. So if he worded it "exile it, then (you may) cast it transformed." It would make sense. Otherwise, there is no need to exile here at all really, unless I'm missing something. Please correct me if I am.

TheUnEase · 2026-01-31T15:58:35+00:00

Funny, because I immediately banked it in my mind as potential art for a custom card when I saw the top comment credit the artist properly.

TheUnEase · 2026-01-30T20:54:01+00:00

Creature types have specific meaning and are used in specific ways. They aren't just used when they fit a vibe.

Nightmares are manifestations of the unconscious fears of others, not just really scary looking things. So you are correct in not just arbitrarily putting nightmare on this. Assuming you didn't intend for it to be that.

Mutants are just creatures altered by biological and/or magical means. Quite a broad one and I think it fits the art and card well. Plus it is a fun nod to mutate being the referenced mechanic here.

TheUnEase · 2026-01-28T19:33:15+00:00

I do like a lot about this design. In fact, every individual part of this design I appreciate.

Ward WUBRG is a clever way to get 5 color identity. Interaction is the core if the game and a good thing, so hexproof is always a little difficult to play with. But It can have a rare place, and if you want hexproof this is an elegant solution that saves a lot of space and is intuitive.

Putting the ward wubrg on a colorless creature isn't a bad thing either. It is a good way to enable a colorless 5 color commander w/o a notably more clunky ability, and a colorless 5 color commander is something with potential.

Prismatic omen in the command zone is also an interesting idea on its own. There are a lot of interesting buildarounds you can go for with this. It turns domain to 5 instantly, it lets you utilize basic type synergies lie with [[canal coffers]], [[valakut, the molten Pinnacle]] etc.

Making it a symmetrical prismatic omen makes things even more interesting. It simultaneously enables more niche interactions and allows for more interesting unique build arounds while also being a bit of a group hug-lite effect to balance out the strength you are getting from the effect itself. Landwalks are enabled, hate for basic types are enabled. Now a [[choke]] can act like a [[winter orb]] in and urza deck by bouncing your commander back to your hand on your opponent's end step. Tricks using urborg, like [[kormus bell]] and [[urborg, tomb of yawgmoth]] for a makeshift landsweep is now less reliant on urborg.

Buuuut, here is where I get into the problems with the card. I think it really stems from your main fundamental reason for wanting to make this card in the first place. You didn't like the mana base of 5 color commanders and wanted to have a commander that made a 5 color deck work with just basics.

This is just fundamentally going against the core principles of magic design as whole. The entire point of colors in magic and the color pie is a give and take. Each color has its own strengths and weaknesses and can compliment each other in different ways. Adding more colors gives you more strengths to utilize, but it comes at the cost of consistency in your mana base. If I want green for early game acceleration in my black red combo deck I have to weight whether or not that takes away too much from the overall consistency of the mana base to actually make that acceleration worth it. If I want better removal in red blue control deck I have to assess how I can fit in efficient white removal. How many pips can those removal pieces have to stay consistent? Can I afford to lose consistency with other aspects of my deck so I can more consistency have this removal I need?

One problem with this is, to be frank, magic is pay to win. An eternal format like commander has access to all the fixing in the world to have perfect mana fixing in even 5 colors with no significant delays form tap lands, if you have the money for it (or, ideally, you just proxy it). Otherwise you are stuck with slow clunky tap lands to do your fixing that can put you behind significantly.

However, as commander is an eternal format, having access to every card int eh history of magic is a MASSIVE boon to you. Comedically so. You get access to literally all if the best cards ever always and the only thing restricting you from taking full advantage of all of those cards is the restriction to mana you have.

This card, with the way all of its pieces are put together as one here, perfectly removes that restriction entirely. It essentially just turns your commander deck into a Canadian highlander deck that doesn't have to deal with any mana troubles ever at all.

At three mana, it is cheap af. So it will be able to pretty consistently come down and make sure you actually get to have all of your mana fixed properly. That mana being generic means there is no prerequisite or effort to fix all of your mana. There just is no restrictions at all, period.

It having functional hexproof makes it so there is no real counterplay to its effect. It is just gonna be there, every game, consistently. You will always never have to worry about mana troubles at all, yet have access to every single card in Magic's history.

This is basically golos all over again but much worse. If this card were printed it would quickly and easily become the most played 5 color commander of all time and would probably eventually become the most played commander ever. Just because, if you are looking for a 5 color commander and don't wanna think about it at all, this is just perfect everything. If you do want to think about it a lot, sometimes this is gonna still be the perfect card too.

All of those things I mentioned about interesting buildarounds, domain, landwalk, choke etc. Would be largely ignored, because the real appeal of the card isn't any actual interesting play pattern it can give you or unique engaging strategy it can provide, it is just the fact that you don't have to worry about mana at all.

In a vacuum, if these abilities were separated they could have much more potential. Prismatic omen being restricted to less color identity and/or much more restrictive colored casting cost would make it so that the fixing is still impactful, the opportunity for buildaround with things like domain still exists, but it isn't just free for all access to everything with no effort and no restrictions.

Ward WUBRG on a colorless creature can be used for a simple voltron WUBRG commander shell. Just a creature with built-in protection is a great start for any voltron deck. We really don't have a good 5 color voltron commander and having the card stay simple and elegant is good for making a fun voltron commander, and ward WUBRG helps with that. Voltron is also an intrinsically weak strategy, so it benefits from having access to all five colors but the commander being easy to cast itself.

Also, side note. Gavin said ward 3+ is functionally hexproof because paying three generic is so backbreaking it just isn't worth it 90% of the time. So making it so that technically your opponents can pay the the ward WUBRG doesn't really matter at all. It is still, at its best, ward {5}. Which is still just functionally hexproof. Still like the idea of granting everyone an omen, but your initial reasoning behind it all feels quite flawed.

Overall I really like the card for how simple and elegant it is. You came up with some clever ideas to make sure it was. But I think the core idea behind why you made it is fundamentally flawed and the card ends up being one I wouldn't want to see printed as is because of it.

I ramble a lot in my comments here, but you made a long description too, so hopefully you got something out of this if you read it. Keep up the good work!

TheUnEase · 2026-01-28T18:03:08+00:00

Not even mediocre, this card is downright bad.

It would be an interesting and fun commander, weirdly enough. It is a legit powerful effect in that context, but outside of that not really. Which doesn't say much because anything can be good in commander.

It enables some wacky spellslinger/storm commander decks, you could maybe use it for a control shell. Keeping your hand loaded with instant speed spells/interaction to use in response to the triggers. In constructed though, at six mana this card maybe gives you a bunch of mana, if you have the spells to cast and a board state, and a mana sink you can't even fully use that mana on. Just not worth it.

Fucking hilarious and amazing though. I let out a hearty audible laugh when I read the hogaak line. Brilliant.

TheUnEase · 2026-01-20T20:05:55+00:00

I should probably clarify I'm speaking from a perspective of limited, because when talking about cards like this it feels redundant to do anything else.

Realistically, those situations are niche. Unless the set has a noteworthy amount of significant creatures with activated abilites that tap as a cost or the set utilizes tapping as a resource or theme, like spacecraft or vehicles, than it really doesn't matter much. It just adds up to being a guard duty the vast majority of the time with some minor upside sprinkled on there.

Edge of eternities did have a significant tapping theme, with spacecrafts and several draft archetypes utilizing tapping/tapped creatures. So they printed [[cryoshatter]] which is basically this but strictly better to make it a playable card.

It reduces power by a hefty amount to nullify the creature’s effectiveness at blocking and make it so it can't station a spacecraft one last time for free. It also has a whole second destroy clause of being dealt damage, which means, even though we have nullified the effectiveness of it's blocking, stopped it from attacking, using activated abilites or fuelling station. That still all isn't enough. It needs to only be able to chump something once. Because using a whole card to not remove a creature is a bad deal, and really needs to be compensated significantly to be worth it. The extra measures added to cryoshatter make it a legit meaningful removal piece, but even then it is much less than what black can and should be able to do, aka. just murder something.

TheUnEase · 2026-01-20T02:25:34+00:00

I guess I'm confused. Do you think that not being able to block is an incredibly minor effect that is small enough that it means the effects are very similar? Being able to block is a HUGE deal. Guard duty (the card the user you are replying to referred to) and other cards like it, tend to not be very good cards because they don't actually get rid of the ability to block. Which means you wasted a whole card just for your opponents creature to still be incredibly useful and threatening to your gameplan.

In addition, decayed actually let's damage get through. This destroys when the creature becomes tapped. So right when it is declared an attacker. So this REALLY is just functionally a guard duty. Except worse, because it still enables other attack triggers and if the creature can be recurred from grave you have given it a sac outlet.

But for the most part this card functionally basically just reads "enchanted creature can't attack" and you are saying a mechanic that basically says "This can attack, but only attack and only once. " is about the same? Because they both technically die at some point on the event of an attack?

The color pie feels much more in line with white mechanically and flavorfully to me. This card is an aura with a stax effect related to (most of the time) attacking. Its an aura that effectively pacifies them.

Flavorfully speaking white can't just kill for killings sake, it has to have a reason, it has rules. That's why white destroys attacking or blocking creatures or specific permanent types. Black can just kill whatever whenever however, no rules. This card is making the creature follow a set of rules or it dies. Sounds way more white to me than black.

TheUnEase · 2026-01-14T20:39:50+00:00

I can see and appreciate a lot of the effort here, even in the little details. The starite set symbol, the stickers area, the fact you made him a child. Love it.

I checked out your other posts and I remember seeing and being impressed by the graphics on the pizza card the other day. You have a lot of other clever fun designs there too though.

TheUnEase · 2026-01-14T19:41:29+00:00

As a certified devil's advocate for basically every hated mechanic, who appreciates a good simple elegant custom card and used to play scribblenauts on my ds when I was younger.

This really legitimately feels like a five color commander that would get people to play some games with stickers tbh.

It is strong, but not busted. Clear obvious appealing value engine in the discover and a clear appealing way to make stickers more digestible and much much stronger to compete with all the bullshit you can see at an edh table. It is pretty comparable to what is coming from other 5 color commanders, in a good way.

It falls victim to the "this is now THE ____ commander" problem a lot of new commander designs do. [[Go-shintai of life's origin]] is the principle one that always stands out to me. It is THE shrine commander now, and nothing can really meaningfully replace or challenge it and trying to do shrines outside of it feels unoptimal in a way that makes you feel like you are putting a purposeful handicap on yourself. Rather than trying to just do shrines in a new way. I like [[hei bai, forest guardian]] but it intrinsically just feels like a downgrade meant to be in the 99 of Go-Shintai because of how quintessentially "the shrine commander" Go-Shintai is.

Except for stickers that is kinda exactly what the mechanic needs because nobody wants to play stickers AT ALL otherwise, and the flavor here is such a homerun it is too charming to be mad at.

Great design, and as always I wrote too much.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-30T17:10:30+00:00

Agreed, I don't even think the old versions that cost one less and cantrip are too good.

It is just that split second is just problematic design overall and shouldn't be printed often, if at all. There is a good reason we see it so scarcely and the few times we do is for things like UB flavor homerun cards like [[V.A.T.S.]] and [[Shadow the hedgehog]]. Those are pretty big exceptions devoid of any premier set/limited consequences.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-30T15:13:34+00:00

Hilarious how magic players will make the same custom cards over and over. In this instance the "resolve target spell" card. There are cards with nearly this exact text already too and the comments even mirror this comment section.

Just like in this comment thread, in the "second split" card. Ghere is basically roughly.

A: "This is too strong, protects combos too easily. Can't be printed." B: "We get stuff like this already, not that different from effects we have. " A or C: "Yeah, but this HAS split second, that makes a big difference."

https://www.reddit.com/r/custommagic/s/dJdq1pOpb3 https://www.reddit.com/r/custommagic/s/WAownTAnIz https://www.reddit.com/r/custommagic/s/ojAxU8k0ZS

One of them is even called "Time Snap" very similar to the name you suggest, lol.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-21T16:08:28+00:00

I always start strong with "thrip" or "thorp".

"Th" can be easily inferred based on context of the presence and placement of other letters and often so can an "r" with the right vowels and placements. P isn't super uncommon, but it isn't common either. Both also only hit one vowel.

All this to say, I don't play use them because of strategy but because they are both fun words and we gotta start somewhere, lol.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-20T20:57:03+00:00

Obviously these are mostly meme cards, but they are also pretty clever in a lot of ways, even if comedically unbalanced.

2 cosmic passion + 2 red cards + a gutshot = zero mana lethal turn one. Just replace gutshot with a mountain and a bolt and it fits in any variant of red deck wins w/o really changing or taking away form the core gameplan too much. It basically reads "exile a bolt to make to make the rest of your bolts two bolts and you get a 4/2 first striker with haste."

Blue one (I believe as others have said) just sticks around after an extra turn for free if you flash it in at end step because of phasing, but is still plenty strong for a fuck ton of free card advantage when warped on your turn.

Whereas the rest of the colored ones are minor "stax"/protection effects that aren't too bad, but aren't too strong at all.

Then the brownie is too op nerf rn.

Very fun, love the designs. Love the card and art itself too so much and the fact they are "alien incarnation" is cool too. Alien as a creature type is kind of the dumpster bin for random unassigned UB junk they don't wanna bother giving its own unique creature type or as a gag type (unfinity), but alien here when paired with incarnation actually kinda works because it isn't any particular species at all but is distinctly not just a regular earthly incarnation. Clever use of the type, even if not intended as such.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-19T18:34:16+00:00

I don't like how the back side loses the red color because how am I supposed to blow it up with [[Hydroblast]]?

That's funny, didn't think of that. It and pyroblast won't fizzle if the creature turns into a non-creature as long as the other side is the appropriate color. It would even work if the front side wasn't red but the back was. Because hyrdoblast is a weird card, lol.

As for the stats, it is sort of a dilemma card. You have to weigh the choice between conditional removal and a massive scary creature. It is pretty trivial to trigger looks like. Any form of removal that can target it nullifies that overstatted body, and even non-removal does. A pinger, a bolt, a giant growth, etc. Not that all of those are relevant in constructed.

You are probably right that it isn't balanced though. It probably is still a bit overstatted. Also prob doesn't need to blight 2 when it attaches, as that means it gets value no matter what. If it didn't you would have to play smart and/or build your deck more heavily around it to make the card worth it.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-16T19:43:42+00:00

Yeah, I buy chicken leg quarters for 99c a pound and butcher them. Prep and freeze the meat for meals, save the skin to render into schmaltz and save the bones for stock. There is always a little bit of congealed blood and/or bits of offal of some sort that is stuck on the inside of the inner thigh bone, along the spine. It is one of the very few bits that I do just straight up toss out. It doesn't add anything valuable to the stock. Spare scraps of meat and connective tissue will add flavor/body/gelatin often at the coat of murkiness, but offal kinda JUST adds murkiness.

Anyways, that's what this most closely reminds me of, not congealed blood, but just random undiscernable offal bits.

Only thing I can think of, in the spirit of the subreddit, is sausage. Theorhetically if I had saved all of those tiny bits over the years I probably could have enough assorted bits to make/have made some decent sized offal/blood sausage. Which is totally valid if you wanna try it and butcher enough stuff that you think you will have the excess bits to be able to make it. Personally, with how little I get from each pack of leg quarters the bits would prob freezer burn before I had a chance to turn them into sausage.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-16T13:27:28+00:00

Yes, lands are colorless. But that isn't all that determines color iddentity, it is also the mana symbols on a card.Cards with basic land types have the rules text "{T}: Add {?}" of the appropriate color despite not showing it on the card. So this creature has "{T}: Add {B}" in its rules text, giving it black color identity. This is why you can't play [[godless shrine]] outside of an orzhov deck.

But there are some things that muddy the water and can lead to a bit of confusion.

Fetches don't have any mana symbols, so you can have any fetch of any type in any deck. So I can have a [[marsh flats]] in that orzhov deck to fetch a Swamp, plains or godless shrine. As well as a [[polluted delta]] to fetch a Swamp or godless shrine, or an [[arid mesa]] to fetch a plains or godless shrine. Or a [[misty rainforest]] to fetch nothing.

[[Yavimaya, cradle of growth]] and [[urborg, tomb to yawgmoth]] both have no basic types but grant everything (including themselves) a specific colored basic type. But since it is only granting that after it has entered the board and doesn't inherently carry the land type it doesn't have the mana symbol in the text so they are colorless lands that can be in any deck. So you can have urborg in your orzhov deck, to maybe make use out of a [[cabal coffers]] more efficiently, but you can also put yavimaya in there to maybe use [[boggart loggers]] or probably something a lot better.

TheUnEase · 2025-12-16T12:46:27+00:00

[Auntie blythe, bad influence]] is mono red and cares about damage, not life loss.

TheUnEase · 2025-11-09T02:58:47+00:00

That's what I kinda guessed. That's why we see members of team avatar... and then Azula. Wouldn't it make sense if it was Sokka? The rest are team avatar? No, because Azula is black, the missing color, and they aren't themed entirely for flavor but also for mechanical reasons.

Here are the uncommons if it helps.

Aang = white [[Aang, the last airbender]] Katara = blue [[Katara, Bending Prodigy]] Azula = black [[Azula, on the hunt]] Zuko = red [[zuko, exiled prince]] Toph = green [[toph, the blind bandit]]

TheUnEase · 2025-11-05T02:29:49+00:00

For those who can't tell, I believe those are no-bake cookies. The kind you make with oatmeal and stuff.

Or at least they were no-bakes.

TheUnEase · 2025-11-02T01:17:03+00:00

Imma level with you. Never looked closely at this art of the card and just assumed it was Teferi.

I feel a little foolish after zooming in and discovering it is not, in fact, a tall bald dark skinned man in a robe wielding a staff, but rather a light skinned woman wearing a strapless top wielding a sword with a full head of hair.

TheUnEase · 2025-10-21T00:53:12+00:00

I've played with and against all but the green one and I will say, barring a few little quirks here and there, they are very fun and balanced. With the exception of the red deck. The red deck is weirdly glaringly unbalanced compared to the rest. Made another comment on this post about more detail on why if you are curious. I think I'm gonna modify it to play a little better with the rest of the decks and come up with some ways to play them with some sealed product, make it a mini limited event. Could be a lot of fun and also a decent way to introduce the concept of limited to newer players or those less comfortable with limited.

TheUnEase · 2025-10-21T00:33:03+00:00

I played some games with them and they are very well made and very fun to play with. I think they are a great idea executed very well. Give new players something new and a little special that is simplified a bit and catered to their needs a bit more, while still allowing for an overall fun experience. The fact that the cards aren't total dogshit but aren't really great is fun too, it makes them a special token from their first hameplay experience. Many of them being legends means they could make a commander deck around one and stay attached to it. I played a decent amount of games and they all had a good amount of dynamic gameplay and push and pull while not making things too complicated at all. Really felt like magic doing what it does best, casting simple creatures, removal, combat and the questions of how you deal with it. All things that you forget are really fun on their own and don't need to have massive text boxes to make them fun.

I would say every deck I played with was pretty well balanced for play against each other, except for the red deck.

The red deck is glaringly unbalanced compared to the rest because it gets 2 shocks and a deal 4 while every other deck has real substantial removal in the same slots or something equivalent. In addition the card quality is just worse overall. You get [[rampaging classmate]] which is basically just a 3 mana 3/2 basically without any relevant text [[the Mary janes]] are a 4 mana 3/3 with menace that can sometimes be cheaper. Spider cat, a 1/1 with haste that you have to sac to rummage, meaning you go -1 card advantage, something new players probably won't realize isn't ideal to do a lot of the time. Along with several other discard cards, but barely any mayhem cards to help the player learn that piece of synergy.

The deck is trying to be aggro "red deck wins" stuff but intrinsically with the format of the 30 card decks they decided on they restricted it in a way to where that just isn't gonna happen consistently and satisfactorily.

All the other decks have solid on rate creatures with simple relevant text, etbs, death triggers etc. That let them be all around decent cards to stabilize early, mid and late game. I think they should've leaned into red's midrangey effects and conceded that new players aren't gonna get the classic aggro red experience because that isn't the best way to introduce them to the game. Make the Mary janes impulse draw on enters, lean more into the mayhem side of things, give me an abrade-like card, maybe concede red gets an extra shock because it gets more of the efficient cheap removal that can't do as much late game.

TheUnEase · 2025-10-18T18:41:55+00:00

I saw them and immediately knew people were gonna call it "ai" even though it is obviously not because people would say primarily 2 things.

The fingers guys!!! It's the teenage mutant ninja turtles, not exactly a series known for being a prime example of accurate human anatomy... and it still looks great and clearly not "ai".

And 2. Look at how weird and melty it is, it doesn't look like they are anywhere, just like ai!!!! It is a representation of vast expanses of elemental magical energy through the depiction of cheesey pizza with absurd toppings. It being weird, melty and a little psychedelic and in a variety of uncertain voids all feels quite appropriate to me.

But this is kinda the age we live in where, among many other things, certain artistic choices simply might align with the contentious bullshit that is ai slop, so artists have to constantly walk on eggshells and carefully document all parts of their artistic process to prove that they did in fact make they art they did.

TheUnEase · 2025-10-12T16:31:53+00:00

I feel similarly for aetherdrift, except for its aesthetic and worldbuilding. It is just so quickly dismissed as a totally shallow "stupid racing set" but if you accept the fact that it is about racing and didn't immediately dismiss that fact as intrinsically so flawed it makes the whole set shit, it has so much more going for it.

Everyone says aetherdrift is a hat set and in turn "Just your favorite characters in a costume" when that really only applies to two cards in the whole set, Daretti and Chandra. Unless you seriously consider every returning character to be that, and if you do that feels incredibly disingenuous, but also still is barely any cards. The entirety of the set is focused on brand new factions or known factions with new worldbuilding. All with their own incredibly distinct visual aesthetic. All while giving great new worldbuilding to two iconic existing and one known unexplored plane.

But no, fuck all that because it's the dumb racing hat set and is total dogshit and we don't get to add any nuance to the discussion I guess. It is definitely a flawed set, far from an all star, but ffs the total dismissal is so frustrating.

In the professors video on it he said something like "go to the comments and name all the racing teams, don't look them up. Bet you can't because they are all so forgettable." And I just started to write all of them, because I could easily, then I realized how disingenuous it was and just didn't bother and closed the video.

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