Giovanna wrote:

Oh god you people rock and I want to participate but I don't remember the rules well enough and you're all using newfangled Shadow and this that and the other thing.

I was playing Mirage for god's sake. (Actually the deck I did keep, because it's almost entirely rares, is mostly Invasion-era.)

My advice is:  If you don't know the modern game rules too well, don't worry about it.  Just try to describe in real English what you think the card should do, and someone'll probably template it correctly.

On the other hand, once we get the DB up we may need our own forum so things like card discussions don't get confused.

Yeah, this thread is made of awesome and love.

o; ::tries to catch up on the modern rules::

"Oh!  That's Mr. Mongoose!" -- underpowered.  cf. Time Spiral's Sprout, which is G to get a 1/1 Saproling token anytime, including during combat.

Elephant Herd -- overpowered.  Might as well read "4G, pay 8 life: get 8 3/3 Elephants on turn five."  I like the attempt to use Flashback to make it hark back to Call of the Herd, though.  (Also, on this and the mongoose: wisdom of using sorcery and instant slots to make creature tokens in a set where we're already having trouble finding creatures?)

Musical Henchman -- not bad!  Two mana for a 2/2 with haste is questionable, though; that would be a very powerful two-mana creature even in green with no extra abilities.  The relevant card is Goblin Chariot, 2R for a 2/2 with haste and no extra abilities.  I think Musical Henchman should be 2R or 1RR.

Feint and Push -- fine, but when would you want to prevent damage from an attacking AND a blocking creature?  Presumably you control one of them.  Whatever you have in mind (multiplayer?), it's pretty subtle.  The card would be a lot cleaner if it just said "prevent all damage dealt by target creature in combat this turn."  You could even keep the fencing flavor by putting Replicate or Storm on it.  Entwine is cool, but it ought to have a purpose.

I heartily second CMK's suggestion that you should just throw something out there and someone'll try to make it work within the rules.  Shadow, by the way, is similar to flying.  The difference is that while a flying creature can block a creature without flying, a shadow creature cannot block a creature without shadow.  Shadow almost creates a second battlefield, on which only shadow creatures can and must fight.  It wasn't used in Kamigawa block because it really isn't as fun as it sounds like it should be (I mean, c'mon, basically it's flying but worse).  But they brought it back for the current block because it's nostalgic and oozing with flavor.

Last edited by satyreyes (12-01-2006 11:58:32 AM)

satyreyes wrote:

"Oh!  That's Mr. Mongoose!" -- underpowered.  cf. Time Spiral's Sprout, which is G to get a 1/1 Saproling token anytime, including during combat.

Elephant Herd -- overpowered.  Might as well read "4G, pay 8 life: get 8 3/3 Elephants on turn five."  I like the attempt to use Flashback to make it hark back to Call of the Herd, though.  (Also, on this and the mongoose: wisdom of using sorcery and instant slots to make creature tokens in a set where we're already having trouble finding creatures?)

Pay *16* life.  I updated when you pointed out my typo in PM.  I really didn't intend it to be that good.

Also, when it comes time to count up, I'm considering counting these as critter slots.  Like the Odyssey cards they're similiar to, they don't really feel like spells.

Musical Henchman -- not bad!  Two mana for a 2/2 with haste is questionable, though; that would be a very powerful two-mana creature even in green with no extra abilities.  The relevant card is Goblin Chariot, 2R for a 2/2 with haste and no extra abilities.  I think Musical Henchman should be 2R or 1RR.

Perhaps move the Haste ability onto the 'must have three out?'  We've already got a fair bit of removal floating around.  I don't know if that would make them two dangerous in threes...

Feint and Push -- fine, but when would you want to prevent damage from an attacking AND a blocking creature?  Presumably you control one of them.  Whatever you have in mind, it's pretty subtle.  The card would be a lot cleaner if it just said "prevent all damage dealt by target creature in combat this turn."  Entwine is cool, but it ought to have a purpose.

I had planned on a number of "retaliation" effects that trigger off a creature being damaged in Black and Red.  This is White's counter.  See the end of this for an example.

I heartily second CMK's suggestion that you should just throw something out there and someone'll try to make it work within the rules.  Shadow, by the way, is similar to flying.  The difference is that while a flying creature can block a creature without flying, a shadow creature cannot block a creature without shadow.  Shadow almost creates a second battlefield, on which only shadow creatures can and must fight.  It wasn't used in Kamigawa block because it really isn't as fun as it sounds like it should be (I mean, c'mon, basically it's flying but worse).  But they brought it back for the current block because it's nostalgic and oozing with flavor.

Also, this time they costed it as the really nasty evasion ability it is, rather than as a drawback.

Red Uncommon Duelist
3R
Creature - Human Duelist
When ~This~ is dealt damage in combat, put a +1/+0 counter on ~this~
2/3

Last edited by CMK (12-01-2006 12:09:29 PM)

WOWOWOWOW. If you guys are like...serious about printing these or something, in time I can provide much better images than some of these.

Also, Photoshoot I think needs another name. Those pictures were taken secretly, which strikes me as...not photoshooty, given that there are actual, completely aware and deliberate posed photoshoots in the series. (Which naturally would get a different card.)

Edit: What's this Google Database thing what what what

satyreyes wrote:

Agreed, about Photoshoot needing another name.  I'm not sure exactly how the Google Docs thing works, but CMK seems to know.  CMK, care to elaborate? 

Gladly, to the extent I know how this works.

Rather than a database, we'll be using a spreadsheet.  In a little while, Satyreyes, you'll be getting an email that will invite you to help work on this sucker.   I think at first we'll leave it to us two to be able to edit the central database, and just enter cards as they're posted to a central suggestion thread.  Anyone who asks can get an invitation to look at it, but I'm not sure if it can be posted publicly or how.

The rest we can work through as problems emerge.

RE: "Oh look, it's Mr. Mongoose!"

Should probably be a 1/1 token that can't be the target of spells or abilities.  Untargetable is a Mongoose ability, so....I think that puts this solidly in a Spike realm.  Very powerful if limited effect, and the fast-casting ability has some potential with forced sacrifices.  Also didn't want it to be an 'instant blocker' card.

satyreyes wrote:

CMK wrote:

Rather than a database, we'll be using a spreadsheet.  In a little while, Satyreyes, you'll be getting an email that will invite you to help work on this sucker.   I think at first we'll leave it to us two to be able to edit the central database, and just enter cards as they're posted to a central suggestion thread.  Anyone who asks can get an invitation to look at it, but I'm not sure if it can be posted publicly or how.

Hm.  Not a bad idea, but there's not a lot of room for discussion, or really for anything except organizing.  A PBWiki might be a better idea.  I'll work on getting one set up, but it'll take a bit; I'm at work, and because I tutor it's not likely I'll be able to slough off work for a few minutes to work on Magic.  I've gone ahead and registered a wiki for us -- the URL is utenamagic.pbwiki.com and the edit password is kakumei.  It works just like Wikipedia, except that it is OURS.  I've already put in a text dump of the cards we made last night, not including any that got added since I went to bed. 

I'm not sure what the best way to do this is -- whether each card should have its own page or what -- but go look at it and play with it and see what you make of it.

I think the spreadsheet or some form of database view will be a good tool that should be kept updated for the simple sake of organization.  The PBWiki is probably better for public information and discussion, using the database as a 'safe backup' if someone gets a little out of hand with joke cards.

I'm also thinking we really need a cycle of nonbasic land...and I wanna do something different with it.  I'm thinking maybe a variant on the Odyssey filter multilands.

Home-Ec Kitchen
Land
T:  Add R to your mana pool
1, T:  Add RR to your mana pool

My big problem is, this seems obvious, but I don't know if it has been done.

Wow. This looks so interesting. I have no idea how to play MTG, but I would LOVE to play the SKU version. I'll do some research, though. This is exciting, and I love you guys so much!

Xu Yuan wrote:

Hmm.... do basic lands count as set cards? If not then that leaves 18 style cards for each of the main players We should probably figure out what they are going to be (sorcery, Instant, that sort of thing) before we make cards for those ranges... or maybe I'm think too far ahead?

Small set, no.  And I was thinking that we'd try to limit top-down cards to the named characters (Utena, Anthy, Saionji, Miki, Juri, Nanami, Touga, Kaede, Kozue, Shiori, Wakaba, Keiko, Mikage, and Mamiya), plus one of each effect, with the exceptions given above.  That leaves a large number of 'bottom-up' cards that need to be made to fill niches and make this a complete SET with a solid theme, and not just a tightly connected set of cards.

Ok, now it's my turn!