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sexhaver · 18 days

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I don't actually play MTG, so I'm probably missing something, but Protection Racket doesn't actually interfere with your regular draws, right? Is the issue that it messes up your tutors, or is it just not worth the mana spent?

it doesn't mess with your regular draws, no. the issue is that it "draws" THREE times per upkeep (in a regular 4 player EDH game). in a deck where you play it without any added shenanigans, your turn will start with "drawing" three cards off of Protection Racket, then drawing your real card for turn during your draw step. therefore, at baseline, roughly 75% of the cards you would have otherwise drawn can just be vetoed by your opponents. i cannot overstate how bad giving your opponents veto power over just one of your draws is, and this does it THREE TIMES. PER UPKEEP. EVERY UPKEEP.

and that's just in a deck where you're playing it normally with your one upkeep per turn. in Obeka decks, it gets even worse, because you're taking WAY more than one upkeep per draw step. like, imagine the last scenario where you just have Protection Racket out, but then you hit someone for 2 with Obeka. this gives you two more upkeeps, which "draws" you six more cards. except, again, your opponents have veto power over all of those cards, so they're going to make you not actually draw the ones that would've won you the fucking game (along with any lands because those get exiled for free so congrats you're mana screwed forever now). oh wow, you drew Fury of the Horde and Hatred to create another combat step for free and then kill someone with commander damage? no you didn't, actually.

i know there are people reading this ready to write a reply/anon about how it's not really "free" to veto the card draw because they pay life for it, and to them i say: you know most of the cards in a Voltron deck should represent more face damage to your opponents than their CMC (i will be cold in the ground before calling it "mana value"), right? even in the bonkers magical Christmasland scenario where you manage to hit someone hard enough to "draw" literally your entire deck (probably killing them with commander damage), there is a very good chance that your remaining two opponents will have enough life left to exile any followup plays you would have drawn (extra combat step spells, X-cost instants while you have a Braid of Fire out, etc) and team up to kill you on the crackback.

also you raise a good minor point with the tutors thing. tutors like Mystical and Vampiric that put the card on top of your deck aren't completely fucked over by this card, but it does make it impossible for you to do the usual play pattern of holding up mana for a turn cycle and then casting them on the end step of the player before you. you'd have to actually spend the mana on your own turn during your upkeep after Protection Racket resolves, giving you 1 less mana to work with that turn. barely worth mentioning but it is obnoxious.

tl;dr: stop trying to make fetch Protection Racket happen. if you want a 3 mana black card draw enchantment that scales with multiple upkeeps, you want Phyrexian Arena. if you want to draw 3 cards per upkeep, you want Struggle for Project Purity (yes, letting your opponents draw cards is better than letting them pay life to veto your draws). if you want to have your opponents lose a bunch of life when you take a lot of upkeeps, cast one of the 15 other cards in your deck that does that without making the damage optional. stop handing your opponents the MTG equivalent of the fucking Millenium Eye on crack

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itsnothingofinterest · 1 year

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Do you really think this isn't going to be the final arc? I don't know how much table turning there is gonna be before deku talks no jutsus shigaraki into helping him beat up afo, I could see seeing the mina and kiri fights but I don't know if it's gonna be a huge oh no the villains are gonna win swing since we just got one from the kurogiri twice dump and are currently in the middle of the crackback from the heroes arriving here.

Thinking about it, yeah I am. As for why: well, it’s a few things.(Warning, this gets quite a bit ranty.)

Power-sclaing wise, it’s just a terrible final arc because the heroes are so much stronger than their opponents that there’s been no stakes since the villains were ambushed. Just jumping off what you say here; the closest thing we’ve had to a “the villains might win” swing was Kugoriri & Toga’s parade combo, which lasted 2 minutes and then got beat by one hero, because duh, that’s how just outmatched the villains have been this whole arc.

And on a related note, Deku or Tomura hardly need each others help to beat up AFO; either could 1v1 him and smash his face into the pavement easy. What does a 2v1 with the strongest people in the world on the same side even look like? I actually think AFO may not even leave the mountains if this is the final arc; because if his defeat isn’t in service of Tomura surpassing him, then getting wrecked for good by Tokoyami, Jirou, Shinsou, and everyone else he called an extra is probably the more fitting end for him.

So from a Shonen spectacle angle, this arc’s doing terribly as a finale because victory was tension-lessly assured from minute one.

But there’s also the emotional and narrative angles; how many dangling plot elements are there and how ready are the addressed plot threads to be properly resolved. And the answers to those are “more than there probably should be” and “not very, unless things suddenly become very rushed”.

But just focusing on what’s most pressing to me (this is already long); a lot of the inciting issues in hero society are not set to be addressed by the next generation, most kids aren’t even thinking about that while staring their foil villains in the face, any other attempts at ‘talk no justu’-esque communication have been falling though entirely, and the kids just don’t look ready to resolve they or their foils’ arcs. The only exception to any of that is Shoji, who came up with a total non-solution to prejudice that I feel would be a great start to an arc foiling Spinner, but a terrible finish. If that’s the precedent set for how these issues are getting resolved, then it’s shame how doomed class 1A feels to repeat their predecessors’ failures.

Overall, the arc feels to me like the kids are still learning. Deku, Shoto, & Uraraka are still learning Tomura, Dabi, & Toga’s deals; which makes sense when they only just realized to ask last arc. I really feel they’re all being set up more to finally get a clue then to resolve things here and now, as they're lacking the knowledge, tools, and development for that. And I’ll be honest; supposing for a moment Hori decided to end the war at chapter 400, I do not think 18 chapters would be enough time for the important kids' to gain that development even if it was entirely dedicated to them. (Not without rushing things so, as I said I was worried about, hero society goes unaddressed and loops back to where we are now in a few decades). But it would be enough time to get everyone going in the right direction.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(As an aside, did your ask somehow get edited? I have a copy of the original and it includes at the end of this ask: "...in the middle of the crackback from the heroes arriving here.I get your point. I'm just too used to shonen manga where the inverse ninja rule is heavily implemented. I don't really view the the mobs of bodies being thrown at the problem on either side as more than a way to get characters we haven't seen much show off and get their moment in the final arc."

Which I also answered. But for some reason is gone from the text box. Spooky.)

Never mind.

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inventors-fair · 1 year

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Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork Commentary

I’m sorry for the delay; I’m bad at time management and school had to be my priority but now that I’m out I’m gonna try to be faster on the draw. This was a fun contest to judge though, and I hope a fun one to do.

- @loreholdlesbian

Atarka and Dromoka by @lich-of-the-golgari

It’s hard to picture the first mode being chosen very often. It still gives your opponents an opening to cast stuff, they just can’t surprise you after blockers. And the whole card pushes you toward the board wipe option, cause this is something you’re gonna be using to close out a game so clearing out a lot of potential blockers or things that might hit you on the crackback is gonna be much more relevant than stopping combat tricks.

Krenko and Yeva by @greensunzenith

Seems odd for a multicolored card to push you to only really play one color. What about something like “Once each turn, you may cast a green creature spell as though it had flash” and “Whenever you cast a red creature spell during an opponent’s turn, create a number of 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens equal to its mana value.” That pushes you in a more multicolor direction than a monogreen one.

Liesa and Sigarda by @little-red-rabbit

First of all, templating stuff. You forgot both “Angel” and “Legendary”. Lifelink and hexproof should be lowercase, Human should be uppercase since it’s a subtype, and it should be “each player” not “each players”. Secondly, I really think this should require exiling that creature card, rather than any card. It feels more natural and is less prone to loops.

Tajic and Zegana by @sparkyyoungstartup and @dimestoretajic

Excellent job getting into the spirit of team ups by teaming up irl. I feel like Tajic is contributing much here, just the indestructible, otherwise this feels all Zegana. And frankly the indestructible on this is worrying me. This is a huge value engine and the ability to stop any removal from disrupting it makes it really scary. Something more like Iroas’s ability like “prevent all damage that would be dealt to this creature while it’s attacking” would be less problematic and still in flavor. I’m not exactly sure how to make this feel more Tajicy though, cause the design feels pretty solid and contained as is; anything added would just feel tacked on, i think you’d have to completely rework to integrate hum better.

Silumgar and Sidisi by @halfsilveredmirror

Part of the stipulation of this contest was that I didn’t want either to have their colors swallowed up by the other. Two UB characters would be fine, but a UB character and a B character isn’t, cause I wanted both characters represented in the mana cost. The mechanics are kinda similar too; while I can see where you’re coming from with what Sidisi adds to this (and I’m not counting off much for this), with the deathtouch and the sacrifice, nothing about this really feels like it couldn’t be silumgar. Sidisi just feels a little lost in this design. The biggest problem though is that I think this card is just gonna be a bit oppressive. Repeatedly mindcontrolling your opponents’ creatures is gonna make it really hard for them to develop any kind of board state.

Krenko and Lavinia by @dabudder

Image Description: Krenko and Lavinia stand in the middle of a ravnican square, with lavinia commanding krenkos forces during the phyrexian invasion. We can see goblins performing various actions, including tackling a phyrexian, calling for more goblins, and pulling allies off the ground. Krenko is revelling in the chaos of the scene, whereas lavinia is much more focused on strategic execution of the plan.

This is a cool way to combine the two characters (not to mention how I like the flavor of combining them; an azorius person and a mob boss is a cool team up for the MOM-unlikely-allies-style), and in a vacuum the modes seem relatively even. The problem only comes up when it’s combined with the trigger. I think the “number of goblins” thing really pushes you to choose the token mode most of the time.

Yisan and Jalira by @an-anarchist-shapeshifter

The original Jalira is often used with a strategy of running only a few creature cards, ones you want to cheat into, and using noncreature cards that make tokens as fodder. This feels like it would play the exact same, just with the addition of green beasties and not just blue ones. I don’t think that’s particularly interesting, and I don’t think that’s what you were going for given it makes the whole verse counter thing irrelevant. I think you could fix this with one simple addition: make you have to sacrifice nontoken creatures. That encourages a much more creature-heavy toolboxy strategy that you seem to be going for, cause you need to be running lots of creatures to be able to consistently fuel it.

Urabrask and Sheoldred by @just--a--penguin

This is a cool way to signify their team up. I like the “you may sac. If you do your opponents all sac” combined with different effects when you ssac stuff vs your opponents sac stuff. Definitely does feel more sheoldredy than urabrasky though, and those rewards you get/punishments your opponents get for sacking are really strong, even without the card giving you a way to fulfil them.

Sigarda and Liesa by @fractured-infinity

Great choice for a team up, something like this would be great to see on the return to innistrad to show the two of them working together. This seems like a neat fusion of their respective abilities as well. There are some minor tweaks I’d suggest- namely, rather than caring about whether your ability exiled it, just check whether its a card you own. Isn’t exactly the same, but it just seems simpler.

Jalira and Yisan by @bergdg

I really like that this isn’t just a mashup of the abilities of their previous cards but something new that makes sense for them. Yisan calls up the animals (wolves), and Jalira transforms them. If this is meant to be a replacement effect though, which I assume it is based on the “instead” and the flavor, if needs to be “If you would create a creature token” not “Whenever you do”. I also feel like this card does a bit too much of the work for you and all.

Ravi and the Baron’s Son by @wolkemesser

This is very cool but *damn* does it get annoying fast. Repeatable mind control effects are scary, and really discourage your opponent from doing much- though the power limitation does help. I think if this only gained control for as long as you control Ravi and the Baron’s Son, that would be a lot better. And it would make the deathtouch interesting too. They can throw a big creature in front of this card to get their creatures back but it’ll always trade.

Muzzio and Selvala by @snugz

The wording of the first ability is unclear. Does it only trigger once per turn or once per creature per turn? I like how you have this designed though. It uses the same resources as convoke, lots of creatures you’re willing to tap, but doesn’t compete with it cause of the first ability. Or you could just go the artifact route of course.

Garna and Radha by @curiooftheheart

This seems really pushed. A 4 mana 4/4 menace vigilance haste is already extremely solid base, and the haste means it gives you an immediate near-refund on the mana you spent to cast it. Ramping you by 3 seems like a lot, even without accounting for how the activated ability gives you a good outlet for it. I definitely think the activated ability should be sorcery speed. That would add a bit of tension since your creatures have to survive combat in order to sac them and take advantage of the mana; as is, you can hope for that but if they get unprofitably blocked, you sac them anyway, no harm no foul, you just don’t get a card. The shape of the card is cool, it just needs the numbers readjusted

Adrix, Nev, and Blex by @squeezyboi

Three person team up is a lil odd, but it’s pairing a card that was already a teamup so it makes sense. Sultai tokens is cool, I like what this is building to, and this seems like a thematic combination of the 2-3 characters. I’m kinda confused by the “if a creature token was sacrificed this way, you gain 1 life”. That ability could probably just be “sacrifice a creature token” straight up, but if you like the flexibility of hitting any token but want to still encourage creature tokens, 1 life isn’t really any encouragement. Especially not when you have pretty easy access to lifelink. But if you aren’t trying to encourage that, I’m not sure what that’s doing there. Basically, it either wants a stronger reward for sacrificing creature tokens or no reward.

Krenko and Massacre Girl by @grornt

I like the flavor of this, these two seem like people I could definitely picture teaming up. This massacre girl doesn’t seem all that great at massacring though if im being honest; since this card doesn’t have the cascading death triggers deal the first one does, i feel like it should be at least -2/-2 (with the stats readjusted to compensate).

Haktos and Gaalia by @thaneofstuff

This is a pretty straightforward combination of the two characters’ cards. Flavorfully, it doesn’t really make much sense that Haktos doesn’t have the invulnerability, but it’s definitely the right mechanical call.

Aurelia and Rakdos by @hypexion

Fun combo. They definitely have the “unlikely allies” vibe that the MOM teamups were going for. I like the reference to mentor too, and how it’ll slowly bring all your creatures up to 6 or 7 power (though realistically your opponent will be dead by then).

Garna and Radha by @hiygamer

This is interesting; it’s not just one ability from one and one ability from the other. Adding mana for each creature that died this turn is a great combo of the two, and sacrificing a single creature to boost this is a good way to enable the card without it doing all the work for you. You’re still gonna want to find better ways to sac stuff

Pir and Okaun by @yourrightfulking

It’s not infinite (unless you’re *really* lucky), but the combo of this plus Zndrsplt is incredible, especially in a coin flipping deck. This card seems really durdly basically and leads to long terms, but it also seems like *a lot* of fun. I really like the second ability, I just think the ability that flips coins itself should be a little more limited.

Melira and Skrelv by @spooky-bard

Flavorfully, I’ll be honest I have no idea what’s going on here, why they’re teaming up. Mechanically though, it’s quite interesting. It’s a poison card that lets your opponents get in on the poisoning fun in multiplayer without putting you at much risk, which is good cause part of the problem with poison in multiplayer is that you’re attacking on a different angle than your opponents probably are so you’re having to do all the work. I did say I didn’t want a monocolor character paired with a multicolor character that includes that color, and Melira was GW last time we saw her but we’ve also seen her mono green before, and besides Skrelv’s influence on this card is extremely obvious, so this isn’t really a strike against the card.

Jolrael and Tinybones by @yd12k

It’s a small thing, but I really like a team-up that cares about both drawing and discard. It feels correct. (GB is an odd pair for it, I’d expect UB, but it does work). I do wonder if that ability should require a tap or something. I’m also not *quite* sure this works lorewise, since Jolrael’s on zhalfir and tinybones is on dominaria, but it’s an edge case and technically we don’t know how long tinybones has been around so this could take place in the past.

Chandler and Joven by @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes

Okay, well, someone had to do it. As much of a meme as it is though, this is actually a really neat design. I’m not exactly sure where this might be played. It’s not really a commander, since it’s so reactive (I mean there’s definitely enough artifacts running around to take advantage of, it’s just hard to build a deck around). And it’s probably a bit expensive for being a hate card. But it’s a cool card even so, it seems fun to play with.

Rafiq and Uril by @shakeszx

Why is this naya? One of the characters is naya and one is bant. I could see just GW if you didn’t want to make a 4 color card, but naya feels weird. I do wish this had exalted though tbh; it would work well with the ability (which was the intention im sure) and would feel a bit more rafiqy.

Mangara and Kaervek by @horsecrash

This is straightforward, but I like it. It’s gonna be pretty annoying to deal with though, there’s gonna be a lot of calculations going on with this.

Moraug and Kazuul by @arixordragc

I really like Minotaur + Ogre tribal; the tribes are similar, and it lets you work with higher card quality than you’d be able to do by doing either individually. My only real critique is that I think the landfall ability might push it a bit too much in one direction.

Ulrich and Henrika by @ozthearistocrat

Werewolves and vampires, together at last. It doesn’t transform in the way I’d expect a werewolf to but that’s probably fine. On the backside though, deathtouch, lifelink, two +1/+1 counters, and fight seems like a lot for 3 mana though.

Hakim and Rayne by @bandswithblog

Why the last ability? Downsides certainly aren’t a bad thing in card design but they should make the card more fun, and I’m just not sure this one does. I like the Auraristocrats of the rest of this though. Okay realistically you probably aren’t doing a ton of sacrificing auras, but even just the basic use of getting a refund when your enchanted stuff dies is good especially in combo with being able to recur your auras.

Adamaro and Soramaro by @helloijustreadyourpost

This card doesn’t feel especially red, though I know counting your opponents’ hand is what Adamaro the red spirit here did so I can see why you went with these two of the cycle. I think this could do with a bit more redness though. Maybe something like “Whenever ~ attacks, any number of target players each discard a card at random. Each player who discards a card this way draws two cards.” I think that both a) makes it feel a lot more red and b) adds some interesting decision making to this card. With all that said though, this is a really neat design that seems fun to play.

Gonti and Yahenni by @shootingstarhunter

This is a really cool way to combine Gonti’s theft with Yahenni’s vampirey stuff. I like this a lot. The stats make this interesting. Haste means you get immediate value of course, and deathtouch means it’s always gonna trigger when it gets in combat, but being a 3/2 means it’s really vulnerable in combat. You’re gonna want to find some way to protect it.

Urabrask and Skrelv by @bread-into-toast

Skrelv’s part here feels small, but it’s pretty important. When you have a card like this that needs to attack to trigger, evasion is a very useful thing. Not to mention the hexproof, cause this can be pretty scary. I almost wonder if it should be more like 2P/W to make protecting this a little bit more tricky.

Kopala and Zetalpa by @stupidstupidratcreatures

I am very intrigued by the image of a merfolk riding a giant flying dinosaur through the air. I really like the design, keyword soup is a cool fit for back up and the multiple backups turn this into a real potential game ender. I don’t feel like kopala actually adds much here though. There’s no real reason this needs to be blue, and the ward just doesn’t add a ton.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventors' fair #commentary #team up contest

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