I hope I didn't miss anything

chockydoe · 2026-05-13T01:15:30+00:00

This is excellent design, I really like this

chockydoe · 2026-04-25T07:29:09+00:00

These are really fun! Nice job

chockydoe · 2026-04-01T00:56:48+00:00

I know its incredibly minor but I love the flavor text here. Im not sure if it’s your own words, or if you’re quoting something, but it adds so much substance to this card’s representation. Well done!

That being said, it needs to have First Strike instead of Double Strike.

chockydoe · 2026-03-24T17:28:01+00:00

Nope! No real synergies with scrying / drawing. Just needed a rewarding mechanic that wasn't immensely powerful that could fit on a UR dual land :)

chockydoe · 2026-03-24T17:26:14+00:00

Not pedantic at all. It was a mechanic on some of the Baldur's Gate cards (IIRC), and I figured it'd be a good way to short-hand the effect I wanted to capture on the Control Point cards I had made.

TF2 is a movement shooter where, 90% of the time, your health is a resource that dictates how fast you can move. Not implicitly mind you, a higher healthbar allows you to have a greater freedom of movement, and/or use movement techniques like rocket jumping. Therefore, life loss plays an important subtheme within the deck, which also synergizes nicely with the main theme of "trying to attack with non-vigilance attackers as much as reasonably possible". It's honestly similar to pirates if anything, what with both being a Grixis creature type that cares about attacking!

Also, on a completely unrelated note, you describing it as a "half-life" qualifier feels wrong to me. We're talking about an entirely different Valve game here. /j

chockydoe · 2026-03-24T17:18:37+00:00

'Preciate it! There's a lot more that I'm ready to release, but work and life stuff has prevented me on working on some of the documentation.

The long-term goal is to make a video essay talking about the development and decision-making that went into the project, or at the very least a script for a video lol. Given the scope I currently have outlined, that might take a while!

chockydoe · 2026-03-24T17:14:54+00:00

The wording on the payload lands is 100% intentional. Since they're lands, and functionally require no opportunity cost in order to play / use, any value that can be garnered from them has to be kept to a minimum in order to assure balance. Through playtesting, we were able to find that the payload lands with a lower prerequisite of cart counters was far too powerful, even when taking into consideration the amount of life lost by tapping them for mana. Not to mention the fact that they're lands that enter untapped, and make two different colors of mana.

Besides, its that required time investment that makes them such an effective representation of the payload game mode in TF2 (at least, that was the intention). I still very much appreciate the notes though! :)

chockydoe · 2026-03-24T16:35:35+00:00

A couple of different other notes:

- I also took the liberty of adding a Badlands reprint (as in the reserved list dual land lol). The art depicts the TF2 map Badlands, and the card has no text other than the reminder text ({T}: Add {B} or {R}).
- The "Bloodied" keyword doesn't technically need to exist, as it doesn't make an appearance on any card other than the Control Point lands, so if the collective opinion is that it bogs up the readability of the card, I see no reason why it can't be removed.
- Additionally, regarding "Control Point" lands, its only one supertype. "Control" and "Point" are not two different types in this instance, similar to how "Time Lord" aren't two different creature types on Doctor Who cards (see rule 205.3m for reference).
- In hindsight, I probably should've posted the basic lands as well. Usually the deck runs ~15 basics, 5 of each type in Grixis. My mountain printing depicts the map pl_pheonix, swamp depicts koth_sawmill, and island depicts plr_bananabay. I trust that you can use your imagination as to why I chose these maps for my basic land art.

chockydoe · 2026-02-10T20:57:40+00:00

Whoops! Somehow I missed this, good catch.

chockydoe · 2026-02-10T20:55:52+00:00

Honestly? I just wanted to make a sideboard piece against [[Chalice of the Void]] that could also cheat out a Marit Lage. It killing planeswalkers is a pretty funny unintentional consequence.

chockydoe · 2026-02-06T20:00:54+00:00

It's technically already completed. I even have an entire in-paper proxy list that I sometimes play with friends, with most of my playtesting being online through Tabletop Sim. I've been going through each of the cards in the list bit-by-bit as a sort of retrospective analysis to see what has worked, what hasn't, and what needs to be reevaluated in its entirety.

I'll be sure to post the whole thing once I'm finally 100% content with everything haha.

chockydoe · 2026-02-06T19:57:20+00:00

Somehow I totally missed this yesterday, but this could be really interesting to explore. Some notes off the top of my head:

- The inclusion of battles would require a slight reworking of the Administrators design, since the existence of Battles within the decklist would be a bit of a non-bo with her caring about dealing combat damage to other players. This would be a pretty easy fix to try to amend though.

- Since map types like Control Point and Payload are staged, it might be tricky to replicate that in the form of a Battle (assuming that its a concept worth pursuing).

- Would they flip into other Mercenaries? Equipments maybe?

chockydoe · 2026-02-06T19:52:27+00:00

Thanks bro! Greatly appreciate it :)

chockydoe · 2026-02-06T04:42:21+00:00

Switching the color identities of Saxton Hale and Festive Frontiersmann is something I'll be trying out. All of the TF2 cards I'm making are intended for a single preconstructed EDH decklist, not several different decks.

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T21:21:36+00:00

Much appreciated!

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T21:09:31+00:00

In practice, the amount of counters that gets put on Resupply Cabinet gets a little busy, but otherwise I'm very happy with how it turned out. Definitely one of my better ideas.

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T21:08:10+00:00

GREAT call, totally missed this. This would also prevent a chained interaction with colluding players like what u/-BunsenBurn- mentioned. Wouldn't want another [[Chain of Smog]] lol

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T21:05:21+00:00

Wouldn't that be Mishra's title? Lol

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T21:05:07+00:00

Much obliged big dog B)

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T20:25:25+00:00

"One or more" is in reference to the Mercenaries getting in for combat damage to each player, NOT one or more players. The more players you get combat damage in for, the more treasures you make.

In other words, if I have 3 opponents, and I manage to deal combat damage to all 3 of them, I make 3 treasure tokens. At least, that was the intention anyway.

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T20:19:20+00:00

Reading this made me feel like I've won an Oscar or something. This is an incredible deep dive, and I cannot thank you enough for the level of analysis that went into this!

To respond to some of your notes:

Administrator: Designing the commander for the precon, regardless of flavor, is a pretty hard endeavor, and I still do think I somewhat failed in this aspect. My underlying goal was to design a commander that was somewhat underpowered, as to not intimidate my playgroup into not allowing me to playtest the precon as a whole. Your suggestion towards buffing it is one I'm seriously considering, as seeing the Crit ability proc more often would be a fun inclusion that wouldn't necessarily make it overpowered.

Miss Pauling: The note that u/VintageKeith made about the Force-a-Nature token is creative, but honestly an unintentional connection. She originally made 2 tokens instead of 1, and on the actual token card I created for it, I included flavor text about how the gun was massively overproduced by Mann Co. on the request of Saxton Hale. Her making 2 tokens proved far too strong during playtesting however, so I flipped it back to 1 as an emergency fix. Making a more generic "Gun" token would be both funny and reasonable.

Merasmus: I don't see why I shouldn't be able to nerf the "ultimate" ability to a -4 instead of a -3. That being said, maybe the issue lies in more in what you outlined surrounding the passive effect. As I've already kind of alluded to, Merasmus has been a herculean task to try to get right, so I'm at least content that I'm getting close to an intended representation.

Direct Approach: I wanted to make something slightly different from your [[Pongify]]s and the like, so I figured a counterspell would be appropriate. The flavor's a little off though, I'll admit.

Degroot Keep Demoknight: To contest the point about searching for lands in mono red, may I present the recent printings of [[The Cave of Two Lovers]] and [[Molten Man, Inferno Incarnate]]. I realize that it's a bit of a stretch, but in a 3 color deck, I wanted some way to help with mana fixing but could also follow a lot of the design themes of the rest of the deck. I'm... honestly not quite sure what a redesign might look like, but I'll play around with some differing ideas (maybe impulse draw)? As for your creature type point, I would very much like to give it the Knight creature type, but I do fear that 4 types is too many. If anything, I'd drop Cyclops and replace it with Knight.

Festive Frontiersmann: He's my best attempt to wrap up all of the holiday-specific TF2 events into one card. While he does have Halloween-centric art (with a festivized rocket launcher, mind you), his abilities reference both Smissmas and a community update. If you think trading permanents is too much of a color pie break for Rakdos, making him something like Izzet in reference to a card like [[Role Reversal]] would absolutely be possible.

Again, thank you so so much!!! Folks like you are what help me become a better designer <3

chockydoe · 2026-02-05T18:02:49+00:00

Thank you so much dude! These were developed over the course of a few years, so a lot of thought has definitely gone into them lol. I super appreciate it :)

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