DEFTMUTE) I would like to point you to every other card that relies on CMC. Excepting Ancient Ooze, they either trigger when a spell is played (Chalice of the Void, Counterbalance), are X-cost spells (X=0 except on the stack), or themselves are Instants/Sorceries or similar temporary effects (Spellstutter Sprite, Spell Snare).

SAÏX) I have two pseudoes, Gut-Check and Suppression, which trigger when the creature it's on attacks or blocks, respectively. Maybe include similar pseudoes?

thanks for that info

I'm going to swing in favour of Noble but think it needs to be a little more elegant.
Noble {value} (This {cardtype} cannot be the target of abilities of permanents with converted mana cost less than {value}.)

Apart from some wording changes and the ability to use it on any cardtype (not strictly necessary but potentially useful) is by fixing the Noble value. Most of the time this can be the same as its CMC, but gives greater flexibility.

The main drawback of Noble is that it's only going to be interesting if there are lots of cheap or token creatures with targetted abilities. It might be much more interesting to twist the ability:
Noble {value} (This {cardtype} cannot be the target of spells or abilities controlled by [opponents or players] with [more or less] than {value} life.)

Considering the keyword is Noble, it's probably best to say More than, so they are untargetable near the beginning of the game. Making the keyword Vicious would be the nastier version, where opponents get more screwed at low health. You could also decide to fix a static value (10 seems good, but 15 can also work). Using Opponents instead of Players is the more powerful version, but it will decide on your preference and other balance issues.

I've designed some planeswalkers I'd like you guys to take a look at. I'm looking for input specifically on both the flavor the mechanics as a means of conveying their personalities, and on their entertainment to play with, and against (i.e. would you run them at this cost or complain when you opponent does.) Also, I'm concerned about how "spectacular" or awesome they are (specifically, avoiding +1: draw card, -1: bounce, -5: Time Warp)

First one is inspired by a warp world deck my friend made, which I'm afraid scatters the abilities a bit. I've also got a quote from Trovha Warpmind on another card, "You want them to move fast? Tilt the ground!" That sums up his personality nicely: direct and simple.

Trovha Warpmind -
Planeswalker - Trovha
+1: Search your library for a permanent or sorcery card, reveal it and put it into your hand. Shuffle your library.
-3: Put a noncreature permanent from your hand onto the battlefield.
-8: Warp World
5

This next one was brainstormed as I was thinking of building a multiplayer deck that doesn't try to win, just to affect the game and focus on defense. Rayik's best described as either a guardian or an adventurer, seeking out challenges and facing them with calm responses. It's really difficult to defeat him in a straightforward fight (at least with summoned creatures).

Rayik Watchful -
Planeswalker - Rayik
+2: Return a creature to it’s owner’s hand. It’s controller gains 2 life.
-X: Put X 0/3 Wall artifact creature tokens with defender into play.
-8: Exile any number of target artifact, creatures, and/or enchantments.
5

The third one is a planeswalker that likes to mess with land and mana, and yes I don't intend for mana burn to return here. Bryson lived as a elemental summoning shaman of a vastly diverse world. He has taken up pulling or mimicking land from various places and arranging them in his own private plane. Some say he can merge with the land itself, wading in fields of wheat or mountains.

Bryson Valleyforger -
Planeswalker - Bryson
+2: Bryson Valleyforger deals 2 damage target player. That player adds two mana of any color to his or her mana pool.
-2: Destroy target creature or land you don’t own.
-7: For each basic land target player controls, Bryson Valleyforger deals 2 damage to that player.
4

Fourth one was for a challenge game entry. It reflects my preferred style of play and how I might act if I was planeswalking. I might keyword the last ability to save space. Alric's style of problem solving involves looking at what might happen, avoiding those things, and backing up when things don't go as planned.

Alric Eversight -
Planeswalker - Alric
+2: Each opponent plays with their hands revealed until the beginning of your next turn.
-X: Target creature with power X or less is unblockable this turn.
-8: Creatures cannot attack you and spells and abilities your opponents control cannot target you or permanents you control until the beginning of your third turn from now.
5

This last one I'm concerned about flavor and what thoughts his abilities invoke. That's why I'm hiding his full name; I'll reveal it after I get a few responses of your reactions to him. The Ancient One is patient, calculating, and opportunistic.

Ancient One -
Planeswalker - ???
+2: Target player puts his or her hand on the bottom of his or her library and draws that many cards.
-X: Gain control of target permanent with converted mana cost X or less.
-8: Take two extra turns after this one.
2

My friends and I loved Ravnica so we created a "Guild Wars" concept a while back where you built a deck based on one guild and were not allowed to use cards, even monocolored cards, that were aligned with another guild. Recently, I discovered MSE and I decided to try my hand at creating Planeswalkers to add some flavor to Guild Wars. We took the leaders and turned them into Planeswalkers (as you can see). Pretty rough but let me know what you think.

Images De-Linked

Trovha
+1: Seeing how Liliana already does basically the same including instants but puts it on top your library for -2 on a same cmc walker with same loyalty...vastly overpowered. And why leave instants, the card type that blue and red share the most overlap with, out? :/

-3: I like it as blue and red are the colors that care the least about creatures (i. e. tend to use utility ones and not bash you with them). Since you can also sneak another planeswalker in for free I would recommend to up the walker's cmc up to at least six.

-8: Doesn't win you the game. Timmy/Johnny effects aren't out of consideration per se on ultis but they should be in your favor and pushing you towards victory. Also it's two-sided not good at all.

Rayik
+2: With base loyalty five and ulti eight this must be +1 no discussion.
The rest I like especially juxtaposing the ulti to Revenge Liger's ulti.
From all five walkers this is tied for best overall feeling with Alric. I know that the life gain is supposed to make the bounce less severe and play into the main colors philosophy but then again it suggests a Hippopotamus themed walker which one's dissapointed not to see fully realised.

Bryson
+2: Underpowered, unaesthetic, meeeeehhhhhh. BR is never saying "sorry have two mana plz!"

-2: Why the "you don't own?" Am I missing something? At this point it seems unneccessary and artificially prolonged. Too powerful of an ability on a four mana walker.

-7: Hindu pilot does that better by a long shot.
This is a failure.

Alric
+2: Very good, my Melvin (Voice of Balance) likes!

-X: Very nice way to include -X on a blue walker. Design territory that gets seldom explored, my Melvin is heavily excited.

-8: While I'm not against SuperMoat effects in general this is clunky with the three turns and stuff. From Vorthos' perspective yes I embrace this direction for the ulti because it makes sense and is a nice finish on the walker. But if you cannot make it more elegant discard it and go for a new approach.
First ability must be +2 or it would be too weak so the base loyalty should be three. As mentioned before along with Rayik this is the most successful attempt.

Ancient
+2: Do you really want to put all the cards in your hand every turn on the bottom of your library? Look at the colors and cmc and it shouldn't come as a surprise that this would be played in a control deck not aggro so your not topdecking at the time this is casted. Why throw your burn and counters away? You want to keep them and save them for the right time. This showcases what's most important about +1 abilities: A practicability in their use!
At least it can target other players too...still not good enough.

-X: So we have to pay X loyalty instead of -2 like on Nicol Bolas to be able to target permanent types other than creatures? Well balanced! You can steal walkers too!

-8: Too obvious of a game winner, one turn is enough.

Up the base loyalty to 4 and the cmc to 7.

Just my 2 cents.

Wisdomcube, please read the forum rules. All renders that have art must also have artist credit, even if it seems obvious who the artist is. Thank you.

Sorry about that! Here they are again!

Borborygmos
Chorus of the Conclave
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Niv-Mizzet The Firemind
Rakdos the Deflier
Razia, Boros Archangel
Savra, Queen of the Golgari
Szadek, Lord of Secrets
Tyesa, Orzhov Scion

Let's try my own take on your planeswalkers, wind. While there are problems - after all, planeswalkers are /difficult/ - I think you've got some good ideas down there. Now, time for the scissors:

_Trohva_
+1 - I'm inclined to believe you made a typo and it should say instant or sorcery. However, I don't believe a + ability should ever give search to hand. However, it can go on top of your library. Even this seems too strong for a +1, especially in blue with it's drawing. I would suggest limiting to instant OR sorcery, or "Search your library for an instant or sorcery and reveal it. Shuffle your library, and place the revealed card one card from the top."

-3 - Very suitable ability. My only question is if -3 is enough. I think on a 6 mana planeswalker it would be fine (and on a 6 mana planeswalker, you could make the +1 on top of the library w/o further complication.

-8 - There's a very simple reason why this won't work. Warp World barely fits on its own card! I would suggest thinking again.

Overall: Your could put the search into the -1 slot, upgrade the -3 into an ultimate and come up with a different 1st ability (e.g. the Capricious Efreet ability, although that might be too strong). Unfortunately, the current first two abilities work completely against each other so it might we worth starting again.

_Rayik_
+2 - It should say target, and should be +1. I actually like the lifegain here.
-X - I'm not a great fan of -X abilities, but this one works. However, since it seems to be missing a green element, I would suggest 1/1 saprolings.
-8 - This seems really powerful, but is not much more powerful than Austere Command. You could actually add lifegain here too, to mirror the first ability.

Overall - Yeah, I like it. It's 3-colour so should be as strong as it is.

_Bryson_
+2 - compare to Chandra's first ability. I don't think giving your opponent mana is really that much of a drawback. Maybe something "Two target lands you control do not untap during your next untap step." would let you use this, but drop either the cost or the damage to 1.

-2 - Fits cost for Terminate. Choose nonbasic land or creature for this ability (nonbasic land would still be strong, but I have no qualms about hitting on nonbasics).

-7 - skip 'basic'. You don't want to punish people for playing basics.

Overall - if I have a criticism, this card barely feels at all black. Either make it more red, and make it single colour, or adjust.

_Alric_
"You and permanents you control cannot be attacked or targeted by permanents controlled by an opponent until the end of your turn after next."
All things considered, I think "end of your next turn" would be just fine for this ultimate. I mean, they can't attack your planewalkers either, which means that you will be building Alric back up with the +2 almost immediately.

What bothers me is the 2nd ability. I can't see anyone burning enough loyalty to deal any proper damage. Why not just make it a flat -2 for any creature?

I know I normally advocate loyalty = cmc, but I think this works.

_Ancient One_ (another elder dragon?)
+2 - "in any order". There's no shuffling involved and at 6 mana a +2 is fine. BUT it allows you to cycle through your library really quickly which is an amazing ability. I would prefer this at +1 (because it's so good), and put starting loyalty at 6.
-X - Interesting. It could just take countrol, but the limit both makes it more black and allows you to steal tokens for free.
-8 - You, see I think that's a really good ultimate, and is fine at -8 BUT

The big problem with this card is that there's no black. Worse, the ultimate is extremely blue. A better ultimate would be to steal the opponent's turn. The first ability is definitely UR, or at least R. The second is BU or U. You could make this a UB planeswalker (for 7 mana) without much adjustment.

Wait, 'steal the opponent's turn' as in exactly what Sorin's ultimate is going to be? Or am I missing something here?

Um, yes it is. So maybe something else, but it does prove that it was a very black ability

Nightmare <number> (Whenever this permanent is sent to the graveyard from play, target player loses {english_number(param1)} life.)

Unsheved <number> (In an additional cost to play this spell, return {english_number(param1)} land(s) you control to it's owners hand.)

Life-linked (Whenever this creature is sent to the graveyard from play, you lose life equal to it's original toughness.)

Shared Pain (Whenever this creature is dealt damage, you lose life equal to the amount of damage dealt to it.)

The idea behind nightmare is to drain your opponent by letting him block the attacking creatures.
The idea behind unsheved is with more power equal less speed. Just like in real life. More physical power you have, the less speed you have. So creatures with unsheved would natural have a +1/+0 to them.
Life-linked is to make sure you keep your creatures. It balances out extremely high toughness creatures.
Shared Pain is intended to balance powerful creatures with your life. If a creature would deal it damage, you lose life. Just remember, you can't deal damage to a creature that isn't there anymore. Thus, if it's toughness is 3, you can only deal 3 damage to it, the fourth damage is non-existant and does nothing to the creature. At least that is what I hope.

How would you all use the mana with these abilities. Would it cost an additional 1 mana for each nightmare or a 1/2 mana for each nightmare?

Does unsheved really help in balancing power and speed of game play?

What would you do with life-linked?

Does shared Pain work the way I want it?

First of all thanks for the help with the walkers.

I've cleaned up Alric Eversight's ultimate: "You and permanents you control cannot be attacked or targeted by sources an opponent controls until the end of your next turn."
(That was a pain to get "turn" out from underneath the loyalty box.)

For his -X, I was going with a direct Minamo Sightbender costing. I want the player to think of tricky creatures like Ophidian eye when they see this, not so much Inkwell Leviathan. Maybe it should make a single blue creature unblockable for 2? I'm not having much luck finding a recent temporary unblockablility without restrictions (either target merfolk, target creature with power 2 or less, ect).

After reviewing my ideas for Bryson Valleyforger, I'm completely re-designing him as a walker. It'll be a while before I create his new abilities.

I'm changing Rayik Watchful's +2 to a +1 ability. I did notice the lack of green here (other than possibly life gain) and made the 0/3 walls into Wall of Wood. I don't think this set is very sapproling friendly, and Rayik's personality is more focused on neutralizing danger then amassing forces (Yes, I know sapprolings can be defensive in nature: Flash Foliage, but would you rather toss a sprout in the path of a charging minotaur or a wall of branches?)

I thought about adding lifegain to his ultimate, but it's definatly too wordy for anything other then "You gain <blank> life." Also, I think green and white would take a look at an empty field and declare victory, so there's not much need for lifegain.

Since Trohva Warpmind started out as "what could make that insane warp world deck run better?" his +1 did search for sorceries or permanents. I'm currently in the process of re-designing him and looking for those type of crazy or that he might like.

I do like his -3, so I'll probably move him up to a 6 CMC. In the spirit of the long text of Warp World I'm considering changing his ultimate to "put 3 creature from your hand into play" but not exactly that. Maybe turning your mountains into dragons and your islands into leviathines (or octopi).

I'm working out the implications of shifting the Ancient One's colors around. He's definatly blue, and I'm trying to figure out what makes him red or black (personality wise). I'm also taking a look at my options for moving costs around.
His first ability is straight up selective [card]Teferi's Puzzle Box[/card]. I can confidently say his -X ability isn't going anywhere, as it's one of my favorites (He's a very persuasive guy). Right now his ultimate fits the character, but it may change after I re-examine his colors. I think I'll leave his full name blank still, at least until I get this color thing wrapped up.

davebold, welcome to the forums. It's good to see you asking the good questions, although some of them don't have a good answer.

Nightmare - I like this as an ability, although it has potentials for very quick games. Mana cost is tricky though. The nearest comparison we have is Mudbutton Torchrunner. It's a good comparison because it was constructed-worthy but not dominating. If you consider red damage to creature or player equivalent to black life loss, the cost is actually about 1 mana to 1 damage. It will actually be a bit less than that, so you can slip small bonuses in there.

Example: Black Knight is an incredibly efficient 2/2 for 2. A Black Knight for with nightmare 2? It suddenly becomes cumbersome and you might wonder about making it Nightmare 3. Without testing it, I don't know what it would be like en masse. I would also expect a fairly linear escalation - commons have Nightmare 1, uncommons Nightmare 2 and rares any level. This allows the commons to remain playably cheap.

Unsheved: Careful with this one - you don't want so many available that people never have a chance to build up land (and consider teh unpopularity of Sweep). There's no doubt however that it's a valid design space (consider Rogue Elephant and the recently spoiled Scythe Tiger). If sacrifice a land implies a cost saving of or C, bounce a land probably has a cost saving of half that. This would fit bounce lands.

Life-linked: This is too close to lifelink for safety. I would also use the same model as Nightmare, just for yourself. However, I think this might be better if it gave life to target opponent when it died. Firstly, you cannot risk playing many of these without a way to gain life (especially with Nightmare around). Secondly, changing this around makes the cards much more fun in multiplayer. In fact, this would be awesome in multiplayer because it would let players without many expensive cards play some very efficient creatures with arguably no penalty.

Shared Pain: This might be better as, "Whenever this creature is dealt damage, prevent half of it (round down). This creature's controller loses 1 life for each damage prevented this way." -that- would be a good keyworded ability, and worth only a small cost increase (sometimes it is a flaw not a benefit). (E.g. A 2/2 with shared pain would be strong but far from the strongest 2-drop ever.) Note that creatures can be dealt any amount of damage - damage in excess of toughness is still damage.

HTH

I've been busy as of late trying making keywords, and before I go much further, I seek the wisdom of the thread.

first:
Incant mana1- cost2 ({param2}, Sacrifice this permanent: Add {param1} to your mana pool.)
(I know I already asked about this a while ago, but still would like more opinions)

Conduct - cost1 (At the beginning of your next upkeep, if this card is in your graveyard, you may cast this card from your graveyard for its conduct cost.)
I wanted to call this channel, but oh well :/
I'm not quite sure about the wording yet, and this took me a while to develop to begin with.

Spellborne (This card costs less for each spell cast this turn.)
Possible balance issues

Spellbloom (psudo)
(permanent, triggered) whenever a player casts a spell, (ability)
(instant/sorcery/ability,activated) For each spell cast this turn, (ability)
Still need to work out the wording for this one I think

A-any way, I gotta go to class, so please give any critiques and/or suggestions you have.
k, thx, bye

Incant is a tricky one. I had a failed keyword like this a while ago that had you return it to your hand instead of sacrificing it. You might want to post some examples of cards with it so we can get more of an idea of how it's working. In that way it's kinda like Cascade, which could be utterly broken or mildly useful depending on how it's used.

Conduct's like a permanent flashback, right? I think it should just say "At the beginning of your upkeep," because it doesn't care when the next upkeep is, just if it's now or not. Because this is going to be a lot like flashback, only re-useable (flashback and graveyard-buyback would be a cool card) it should cost more then a flashback cost would have, and that limits it somewhat. Some might say it's too close to flashback to be unique. I think it looks a bit like an epic spell without the backfire; you can only cast it during your upkeep and might want to cast it each turn. Take a look at Thunderblade Charge for something kinda close to this.

I like Spellborne. But you need to be sure not to just toss it at any creature/spell that needs a keyword. Probably just a few cards from each color is fine. I'm not sure if your wording would reduce it's cost by if it's the first spell played. Probably not, but I'm no expert on the timing issues.

Spellbloom is like Incant, I'm not sure how to evaluate it because I'm not sure how you want to use it.

Incant: It (as of now) is going to be entirely on creatures, and the main idea behind it (originally) was to have it on lower cost creatures so that they could be used later on in the game (if they stick around).
A simple one would be:

Mage Soul

Creature- Wizard Spirit
Incant -
1/1

So it's just a simple investment in the form of an otherwise vanilla 1/1

Another could be:

Necromancer's Apprentice

Creature- Human Wizard
Incant -
1/1

This one could be used by delaying one turn to have your next be more productive (6 mana turn 4)

I'm trying to make sure these don't get broken by balancing the mana cost of the creature plus the incant cost with the amount of mana the incant gives. I'm being conservative with the ability now because I don't want it getting out of control, so it probably doesn't look too impressive.

Conduct: I was originally going to try and make it like a suspend that goes off each turn instead at the end, but that got really complicated and wordy really fast. This next one was based off of some spells like in video games. Ones that keep working as long as you keep pumping mana into it, but stop entirely if you don't (or turn it off). I was hoping/thinking that the "at the beginning of your next upkeep" part would allow it to function as I intended. I also noticed how it looks similar to 'epic'.

Spellborne: Yea, I was thinking of only using this on a few cards, like 3-4 per color. I'm also hoping it doesn't take off a mana if it's the first cast in a turn as its worded now.

Spellbloom: Here's one:
Fire Lotus

Sorcery
Spellbloom — For each spell cast this turn, add to your mana pool and Fire Lotus deals 1 damage to each player.

or for a permanent (and as a drawback):

Ghastly Figure

Creature- Spirit
Fear
Spellbloom — Whenever a player casts a spell, remove Ghastly Figure from the game. Return it to play at end of turn.
3/3

These are just a few of the early concepts I've had for it so far

Also, see Halcyon Glaze

Incant is really interesting, but it might start to get confusing with having <cost> - <cost> both mana costs. Maybe the activation cost could reflect the color of mana it produces? Like if black made you loose life or discard a card, blue made you bounce a creature you control, etc. Judging by the name you'll probably have it on a couple very flavor-driven cards, which means the simple creatures will become even more awesome and flavorful:

Runepelt Bear -
2/2
Incant -

A good way to balance the cost may be to draw up a table/pattern of standard mana resources per turn, then compare what happens with Incant X - Y on a two drop, a three drop and so on.

If the wording of Spellborne does make it cost less if it's the first spell, you could word it to say "for each other spell..."

Fire Lotus looks fun. I'm not one to balance it but I know Fire Lotus + Fireball could be very bad. Ghastly Figure is also a very cool card; reminiscent of nightmares that leave when someone turns on the light.

Are you going to put Spellborne on a card with Spellbloom?

I had more time then I thought I would and managed to brainstorm up three cards from my earlier planeswalkers.

Here's my new Bryson Valleyforger. This is the first time I've used land in a design, so I'm feeling funny about how well he works.

Bryson Valleyforger -
Planeswaker - Bryson
+1: Target player searches his or her library for a land, reveals it, and puts it the battlefield tapped.
-2: Destroy target land. It’s controller can’t play lands during his or her next turn.
-7: Gain control of all lands target player controls.
4

I realize that red doesn't care much about lands other then their destruction. Do you think he would be better as a mono-green card?

Here's the new Ancient One, with a revised name. And he brought along a pet:

Thanks Picks-at-Flies.

Thanks Picks-at-Flies that really helps.

Here's a couple cards I've been working on. They're both designed to flesh out different concepts I've seen used in Magic, but not very often.

For example, this one's a factory worker:

Scrap Forger
Artifact Creature - Factory-Worker
, : Exile X artifacts in your graveyard. Put an X/X artifact creature token with Vanishing X into play. As long as the token is in play, Scrap Forger can't untap.
0/4

And this one makes Steamflogger Boss...not useless.

Rigger Automaton
Artifact Creature - Rigger
Assemble 1 (When Rigger Automaton comes into play, you may discard any number of non-creature artifacts. Put a Contraption token into play with the abilities of the discarded artifacts.)
1/3

So, what do you think?

I'm trying to make my set a bit more flavorful and cohesive, so I'm giving some new keywords. In my universe, those truly skilled at magic can manipulate time. As I was thinking about how that would be represented in Magic, I came up with the following:

Chronoshift (When you cast this spell, you may move it to any position on the stack. If another spell is cast while this is on the stack, you may move this spell to any position on the stack.)

Any help on balancing or any issues with the wording/combos that would break it?

It's a good concept, but it's ridiculously broken.

Spells with Chronoshift can't be countered, and if it's a pump spell, it'll ALWAYS work. It's much too powerful.

Something a little less broken would be something along the lines of like

Chronoshift X (When this spell goes onto the stack, you may untap up to X lands)

Or something like that. But being able to move a spell on the stack at will is just retardedly overpowered.

@Kiligir: You should add a cost to it, to make it more balanced like a kicker cost.

Here's the first part of a little set my friends are putting together based on the many versions of Arthurian legends. For many of the most famous legendary creatures (King Arthur, Morgan Le Fey, Merlin etc.) we've decided to make different versions with the new Mythic Keyword. Take a look at our first draft of Merlin:

Merlin - (based on Le Morte d'Arthur)
Legendary Creature - Wizard
,: Scry 2 then draw a card.
,: Scry 4 then draw two cards.
Mythic - (Discard another Legendary creature card with the same name as this card to regenerate this creature.)

Merlin - (based on Once and Future King)
Legendary Creature - Wizard
Flash
If Merlin enters the battlefield during an opponent’s turn return all cards put into your graveyard this turn to your hand.
If Merlin enters the battlefield during your turn draw three cards then put two cards on top of your library in any order.
If Merlin would go to the graveyard from any other zone return it to that zone at the beginning of the next end step.
Mythic (Discard another Legendary creature card with the same name as this card to regenerate this creature.)

Merlin - (based on The Mists of Avalon)
Legendary Creature - Wizard
You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
Discard a card to search your library for a Forest or Island card and put it in your hand. Shuffle your library afterwards.
Mythic (Discard another Legendary creature card with the same name as this card to regenerate this creature.)

Kiligir's Chronoshift: I really don't see how it's *that* broken, considering it would just be split second in most cases... but there's probably something I'm not thinking of, judging by the reaction.

Merlin: A few wording things... The second guy's third ability should read "If Merlin would be put into your graveyard..." The third guy's second ability should read ", Discard a card: Search your library...".

That aside, though, I think there are some things that you're misinterpreting. Regenerate, despite the persistent belief that many people seem to have, does NOT return a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. It reads "The next time this creature would be destroyed this turn, it isn't. Instead tap it, remove all damage from it, and remove it from combat.". If you intended it to return another Merlin to the battlefield, just write that. If you intended it to actually regenerate it, it's horrendously underpowered.

Also, I believe having cards with the same name but different effects doesn't work. You could create some rules about it, of course, but as is it would likely be quite confusing. What you COULD do to get this to work the way you want would be to make them all planeswalkers with the subtype of Merlin and different names based on the stories they're from. Which might fit Merlin more flavorwise anyway, as in many legends (I believe?) he's portrayed as being able to travel between worlds. But onto the cards, as they are:

The first guy I rather like. It would be nice if his two abilities were slightly more different, but it's fine as is. However, the mana cost needs work. Unless you're planning to use a lot of hybrid mana in the set, it would really be easier to just cost him at , which has the added perk of giving all three Merlins a decisively different cost.

The second guy is also cool. It seems fitting that he would have flash, and the second ability is also nice. The third might fit more with him being returned to your hand, with the enter-battlefield triggers. The first ability doesn't seem very blue (perhaps some sort of mini-Sleep effect would work better?) Of course, turning this guy into a 'walker would require some serious reworking of the abilities. But it could work.

The third doesn't seem blue at all. Mana acceleration is green's turf and partly red's, and discarding your own cards for things is mostly red, somewhat green and black. Landsearching is green.

Also, none of your Merlins seem to have power or toughness. I'd recommend putting some on them, likely something around 1/3. So, uh, hope that helped.

Now, a cycle of cards from the set I'm working on. For some reason, I decided I wanted to create a cycle of cards that gave you infinite of something (that ended up being altered a bit), but weren't broken. So, uh, here they are. They probably have massive issues.

Glorious Infinitum
Enchantment (M)
Whenever you would lose life, you may gain that much life instead.
When Glorious Infinitum leaves the battlefield, you lose the game.

Genius Infinitum
Enchantment (M)
At the end of your turn, you may take another turn. If you do, draw ten cards at the beginning of your upkeep.

Vicious Infinitum
Enchantment (M)
Each player’s life total becomes 1.

Infernal Infinitum
Enchantment (M)
Both players search their library for any number of creatures and put them onto the battlefield. They gain haste until end of turn. You lose the game at the beginning of your next upkeep.

Prosperous Infinitum
Enchantment (M)
: Add (infinite, symbol doesn't appear to work) to your mana pool.

Vicious is Broken, Genius is broken, I'm not going to address Prosperous since it's in the colostomy bag, and Infernal is broken.

Vicious: I assume this is a triggered effect (since it would not work as a static), meaning that damage deaths are now impossible. This would be both antithetical to black and too powerful at any cost given that Enchantments are harder to remove than creatures.

Genius: This is so broken I can't even think. Draw ten cards and take another turn without penalty? Killfile it.

Infernal: This is a combination of Incoming! and Final Fortune, without the humor that comes with the former. There's a reason Incoming! was restricted to Unglued.

My concern with Properous Infinitum is that players won't know what it means to add [I] to your mana pool.

Vicious: Yes, that one's messed up. But I couldn't find anything that black would want to do... and it was meant to be an enter-battlefield trigger. Oops.

Prosperous: If people don't recognize the infinity symbol... meh.

Genius: The drawing cards was meant to BE the drawback, since it would mill you to death in a few turns. But it should be more like twenty, I suppose.

Infernal: Yeah, you're right.

Yeah, only one of those really worked, so I'll kill them. Which was really what I was expecting to do, since I figured they were broken. Except I'll probably keep the white one in some form, under a different name... Would the blue one work if it was milling instead of drawing? (Or draw 10, discard 10)

Glorious counters Vicious. Having your life total being set to something counts as gaining or losing an amount of life to get to that total.

Its not recognizing the infinity symbol - its recognizing that it doesn't mean you get truly infinite mana.

I mean, we're talking geeks here - how many won't know symbol for infinity when they see it? But knowing Magic rules - that's much less common.

IF Vicious is supposed to be a CIP, why the ♥♥♥♥ is it an Enchantment and not a Sorcery or Instant?

PICHORO) I'm pretty certain most people know what the lemniscate represents mathematically.

No, seriously. How many people out there don't realize you can't add [S] to your mana pool, or that when you add [G/W], you have to choose [G] or [W]? I'm just not so sure the average Magic player realizes that [I] means you choose an actual numerical amount.

Its not a matter of mathematics, or as I had already said, recognition of the symbol - its general public understanding of such an obscure rules point that I'm not certain of.

From a player perspective, if my opponent had Genius Infinitum out, even with a drawback, I wouldn't want to be sitting there while he takes turn after turn. Playing against a time-sieve deck is only fun a few times before it gets old.

@Jeske: Yeah, I know. That's why I said it was messed up. I wanted to have them all be enchantments, but stupidly put Sorcery text for that one.

@WindAndFire: Personally, I would think it would be interesting to see if you could hold out for long enough that they were forced to stop taking extra turns.

@Pichoro: True, people might not realize that, and they would be technically wrong if they said they added 'infinite' to their mana pool. But would there be a single gameplay instance where it would matter whether you had fifty billion or infinite mana in your mana pool?

And, uh, I'd rather the conversation on these cards stopped, as they're getting removed anyway (actually, they already have been), so I'll put up another cycle that might have issues. This one's not quite as, eh, broken. Hopefully.

Worldheal
Enchantment (R)
Prevent all damage.
When a creature you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, sacrifice Worldheal.

Worldlock
Instant (R)
Split second
Until end of turn, any spell that would resolve is exiled instead.

Worldplague
Enchantment (R)
Creatures have persist.
Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may remove a -1/-1 counter from it. If you do, that creature loses persist.

Not sure about whether that works... would I have to say "Creatures without Something counters have persist." and then "If you do, put a Something counter on that creature."?

Worldburn
Sorcery (R)
Worldburn deals damage to each creature and each player equal to the number of creatures on the battlefield.

Worldform
Enchantment (R)
Creature spells cost less to cast.

Just as an aside, the way to represent unlimited mana is, ": add to your mana pool" or ": add to your mana pool."

Worldheal - it's splashy, it's fun, it's not going to make a big impact outside combo decks, and I'm not sure lifegain actually enables a combo. I can see creatureless decks running this but within an expected environment, that's fine.

Worldlock - I think this needs to be, "Exile all spells. Until end of turn, whenever a spell is cast, exile it." Seems fine to me. It's probably overcosted to be used much, but I can't really see it at 4 mana. Maybe put "tap all creatures" as part of the effect.

Worldplague - is Persist in your set? On a more practical note, see http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr328 for a problem with your first line of words. It might be more sensible for it to simply read, : all creatures gain persist until end of turn. {cost}, remove a -1/-1 counter from target creature with persist: if target creature leaves play this turn, exile it.
(or such)

Worldburn - Ouch. It's fine.

Worldform - I love this one. It's so green, and it's 'balanced' while being completely unbalanced. It's also sufficiently expensive that it's not broken (but unfortunately a 5 mana enchantment that does nothing by itself is not going to define an environment either).

I've got a new keyword I've created and I want some feedback and I don't tend to get many responses in my set thread. Anyway, it's:

Feat X (Whenever this creature attacks or blocks, roll a six-sided die. If the roll is greater than X, the feat succeeds. Otherwise, the feat fails.)

I know that die rolling is frowned upon in MTG, but since this is a mechanic used with my Warrior tribe which is somewhat reckless, I wanted something that somewhat randomizes their combat ability. Not all of my Warriors will have this ability, but I'll give an example of how I implemented this ability in different types of cards:

Swift Swordsman

Creature - Human Warrior
Feat 2
When ~'s feat succeeds, it gets +1/+1 and gains first strike until end of turn.
When ~'s feat fails, it gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
2/2

Lightning Reflexes

Tribal Enchantment - Warrior Aura
Enchant creature
Whenever enchanted creature's feat fails, you may remove it from combat.

Unnatural Skill

Tribal Enchantment - Warrior Aura
Enchant creature
As long as enchanted creature has feat, its feat is 1 less.

So what does everyone think? Good? Needs tweaking? That's what I think, but...well, we'll see what we get.

I like it. It's an interesting implementation of D&D's feat system, with room for evolution (learning new feats). Maybe you could find another random source other than a dice roll. Say, feat X makes you reveal the top card of your library. If it's CMC is X or less it suceeds. That way, players could balence weak spells with feat triggers.

Hi, I would like some advice on this mechanic/ability:

Diet: __________ (___________ cannot be played on this creature).

Here are two examples:

Diet: Enchantments (Enchantments cannot be played on this creature).

Diet: 3 Enchantments (Only three Enchantments can be played on this creature).

Counterintuitive.

If it has a diet of enchantments, it would be stripping enemies of their enchantments, so I'd word it thus:

<type> diet (This creature cannot have <type>s attached to it. Whenever this creature deals combat damage to another creature with a(n) <type> on it, destroy that <type>.)

Realistically, only the first instance would work. The second runs against the flavor of the ability, since it would invariably eat its own enchants/equipments/Fortifications.

Thanks for the feedback.
I was thinking of changing the name to famished.

Some examples:

Cost: 1W
Title: Hardhead
P/T: 2/1
Text: Diet: Artifacts (This creature cannot be the target of artifacts or equipment).
Flavor: "I don't need your help, I can do it myself."

Cost: 2R
Title: Gobblin'
P/T: 0/1
Text: You may sacrifice any number of permanents except for artifacts: Put a +1/+0 on Gobblin'.
Flavor: "Metal leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

Cost: 1U
Title: Numbskull
Text: Enchanted creature can only have one creature ability.
___________________

A different ability I was tinkering with is Explode.

Explode: When this creature goes to the graveyard, it deals damage equal to it's casting cost to target creature.
Alternate name: Self Destruct

How should I word this ability word?

[effect] when you got the least life total.

@Menasor - Your version of diet is to close to "protection from Artifacts" except for the creature part. I agree with Jéské Couriano comments. Also, you can't target something with an Equipment in your example because Equipments are Artifacts so that part is redundant.
- Numbskull doesn't really work because you have to have a way of defining which ability the creature retains. Also, there is no such thing as "creature ability" within the rules. You would just say "ability".
-Explode - HAS to say When this creature goes to the graveyard from the battlefield. Else, it is broken. Also, why just creatures? Artifacts that explode would be cool too. Casting cost might be a little bit too much because that would mean that every spell you play will at least be a 1 mana = 1 damage which is good in itself. I would suggest going with "Explode - N".

@Powerrox93 - I don't know if the rules can define whenever you have the lowest life as a triggered ability. It would have to be static. It could work like this:

Vengeant Knight
Creature-Knight
~ has first strike if you have the lowest life total among players.
2/2

Deep Knowledge
Enchantment
At the beginning of your draw step, you may draw a card if you have the lowest life total among players.

Is that what you are looking for?

@Guitarweeps and Powerrox93: Just a little correction, "if" clause doesn't fit static abilities. Like Hellbent, it uses "as long as" instead. So Vengeant Knight looked like this:

Vengeant Knight
Creature-Knight
~ has first strike as long as you have the lowest life total among players.
2/2

@ Guitarweeps: Something like that.
@ Alex: That makes works. Thanks

@Alex - Yeah, silly me. However, it would still be "if" on Deep Knowledge wouldn't it?

-------------------------------------------------

An inquiry of my own.
First, I am trying to make the concept of vehicles useable in Magic somehow. Currently, I am trying out a tempplate like equipment. For example...

Spiked Chariot
Artifact - Vehicle
Equipped creatures get +1/+1 and have first strike.
Equip
Capacity - 2

The capacity would be the cap of how many creatures can be attached to the vehicle at the same time. I do not want to use "equip" but I am trying to figure out a better name. I thought about "board" but then you can't say "boarded creature gets <effect>" and "creatures boarding ~ get <effect>" might be to wordy.

Weatherlight, Ship of the Skies
Artifact - Vehicle
Boarded creatures get +2/+2, have flying, and cannot block creatures without flying.
Board
Capacity 6

What do you think on the flavor aspect of the effect and the wording options? Looking forward to better wording suggestions!

@Guitar:
I remember a discussion a while ago that said an enchantment can't enchant two -things- at the same time, so I think the same thing applies to your vehicles. (I just looked at the rules, and while there is nothing about something attacking to two creatures, it does say something along the lines of 'when a permanent attaches to another target, it un-attaches from the first target.' Not sure about if I'm right or if it's even relevant.)

On a similar topic (kinda), I'd like some opinions on a card I just thought up

Banish

Enchantment
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile target creature.
When ~ leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card to the battlefield under its owner’s control.
At the beginning of your upkeep, return ~ to its owner’s hand.

Whatcha think? Less mana, maybe? More? (don't think so)

I think banish should cost , just because it's Journy to Nowhere that easily allows for repeated comes into play and leaves play abilities. Imagine it with shriekmaw, for instance.

hm... hadn't thought about that... Maybe change it to "target creature your opponent controls"?
I guess I only was thinking only about its defensive uses XD
Maybe then it's not good at all since you have to keep using it... though you can always switch targets and/or stop doing it (because you just top-decked Day of Judgement...)

I do like it's ability, Shimmering Wings is my favorite card, and I love the locking auras that can switch targets. I think at it's fine, maybe add a mana cost to return it to your hand during your upkeep (but don't make it repeatable during a single turn then it gets crazy).

Yes, the rules currently do not allow for something to be attached to multiple objects. I guess I should have mentioned that I would have specific rules to allow vehicles to attach to multiple creatures: a vehicle can be attached to as many creatures as it capacity allows, a creature cannot be attached to more than one vehicle, etc.