So, even with more focused templating like user suggested, this effect at its core doesn't work in regular Magic due to the multitude of corner cases it creates. It works just fine in the big picture for silver-bordered/acorn Magic but falls apart when applied is some specific situations, just like how Far Out is perfectly understandable until someone tries to play Outlaws' Merriment with it.
For example: Call For Blood can't see the creature that was sacrificed when its time for the ability to eventually trigger.
If I have a spell on the battlefield and Ephemerate it, it never comes back.
Nonsensical text like animating Spark Spray which would gain "When this creature attacks, Cycling R"
TLDR: Works fine in an unset, but has to be reworked majorly to be doable in the core Magic rules.
Looking over these effects I don't see anything that doesn't work. For Call for blood and similar effects I don't see why the game can't remember the sacrificed creature. While for spark Spray there is no problem as Cycling isn't a spell ability.
I've looked at various spells and can't find any that don't work with the rules text I posted. Yes, blinking will cause the creature to exile and never return but its hardly the first time that's happened. In fact you can achieve this exact result right now with manifest.
Edit: "don't work" is a poor choice of words. Obviously many spells work work such as any spell that targets a spell. The correct words I should use are "catastrophically fail".
Unfortunately, outside of silver-bordered land, something has to work 100% of the time, not just not "catastrophically fail". This sets aside that the "Its spell abilities gain and start with the text "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to an opponent," are already a bootstrap that doesn't work in the rules as Maro has said that text can be copied between cards but things that change the text don't work (outside of replacement of specific game terms a la Magical Hack).
This goes back to the core question to the OP of, do they want a silver bordered card or a card that could actually see print in a regular set.
So, even with more focused templating like user suggested, this effect at its core doesn't work in regular Magic due to the multitude of corner cases it creates. It works just fine in the big picture for silver-bordered/acorn Magic but falls apart when applied is some specific situations, just like how Far Out is perfectly understandable until someone tries to play Outlaws' Merriment with it.
For example: Call For Blood can't see the creature that was sacrificed when its time for the ability to eventually trigger.
If I have a spell on the battlefield and Ephemerate it, it never comes back.
Nonsensical text like animating Spark Spray which would gain "When this creature attacks, Cycling R"
TLDR: Works fine in an unset, but has to be reworked majorly to be doable in the core Magic rules.
Aetherwell Animator 3
Legendary Artifact
Instant and sorcery spells you control have “Create an elemental creature token with this spell’s colors and base power and toughness equal to its mana value.”
Putting non-permanent cards onto the battlefield creates rules weirdness and trying to change a spell on the stack into an ETB effect is also too complex to actually write out. This way, the spell (even if it was a copy or wasn’t cast somehow) just resolves normally and you then get an appropriately sized token.
Now that you've shown off these marquee cards, the meat and potatoes of the set are the commons. How can you show the way you intent to flesh these factions out in a way that wil be playable and allow for a lot of depth in design?
As a note, posting your future designs as text rather than image files - especially for large batches of cards - will make it easier for people to read and respond to your designs.
Well, I personally believe it's easier (and more coherent) to compose the effect like this rather than saying "Target spell's controller re-selects all selections made for that spell. That player can't make any of the same selections previously made. All additional costs and alternative costs must be repaid. If that spell becomes illegal, exile it instead.”
What you wrote here is definitionally more coherent than your first version because it actually (kinda) spells out what the card is supposed to do. Does your first version make it clear the spell would be exiled if it didn’t have legal targets? No, that’s completely news to me when you wrote it out.
Its still janky and just worse that Remand or mana leak, but at least it’s more understandable.
I can't unsee how playable Lotus would be. It's literally three alt mox in one—on the band of Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Mox Opal. My concern though is really that it might still be overbearing that it enables mega burn on the band of Banefire, Crackle with Power, Lavalanche; even if it forces a player to splash and fix three colors.
The problem is its use case is incredibly narrow. You have to have three different colors so you mana base is exceedingly complex and and you need six mana worth of spells to maximize it. It’s narrowly super powerful - especially if drawn in multiples - but useless outside of those situations, which is the kind of card that narrows a format around being able to maximize it and that is bad for the meta game.
Lotus is not broken, but it’s probably too narrow to actually be worth playing, but lotuses are tough to hit the “balanced-not-broken” mark on in general.
Titillate is one of those cards that works in silver-borders-land, but the actual thing you want to do is too rules complex to actually write out on the card.
Is the intention with Layleva that you get the Elf when you choose not to mill, or when you mill but don’t return a land? The multiple If-then statements make that ambiguous.
For Kristik, note that granting Ward in response to a spell or ability targeting it doesn’t do anything - ward is a triggered ability that triggers of being targeted so once the spell or ability is on the stack getting ward afterwards is too later for it to trigger.
The commander pack structure is built around a few considerations: Two cards per pick, 2 legends guaranteed per pack plus the usual spread of rarities. I imagine the next time we get a commander draft product it will still have 20 card packs, but with some extra variance in rarities and maybe a basic land slot to bring them in line with play boosters.
Unfortunately, UX03 doesn't work the way you want it to for "Commander Damage". From a rules standpoint, there is no such thing as "commander damage", but rather a rule that "a player who has been dealt 21 damage by any commander loses the game". While the intention of your card is understandable, the templating for it to work doesn't exist outside of it being a silver/acorn type design.
On a larger scale, if your intention is designing for a commander draft, you should be fine basing your plans on the 20 draft pack model. There's not a new commander draft set in the expected future, so no indication how the draft/set/play booster model would effect those types of products.
My only concern for you is that fortifications (even with a reconfigure type riff) are incredibly narrow for usable and game relevant design space. I think you will likely have a difficult time finding enough depth to make a full theme for your set around them.
In line with the thought experiments I've done about fixing problematic draft environments, I've been thinking about what it would take to have made Dragon's Maze more impactful in its format.
What I've come down too is that, as you may know, the Cluestone cycle took up too much real estate at common without providing needed benefit. The fixing wasn't necessary and getting that many cluestones in the first pack of the draft was mostly a chaff pile.
My answer is rearranging and expanding the Gatekeeper cycle into a hybrid guild cycle, meaning the cards are versatile enough to fit in more two color decks and they add multicolor creatures to make the Maze creature cycle more relevant and add more creature options to fill out draft pools. Removing the Cluestones and current gatekeepers opens up 15 slots, 10 to be filled with new cluestones and 5 for new land/artifacts which I may pontificate on here as well.
Azorius Gatekeepers
Creature - Vedalken Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, you may exile another target creature you control. If you do, return it to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.
2/4
Dimir Gatekeepers
Creature - Vampire Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target player mills four cards.
2/4
Rakdos Gatekeepers
Creature - Human Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target creature gets +2/-2 until the end of turn.
2/4
Gruul Gatekeepers
Creature - Human Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target creature gets +3/+3 until the end of turn.
2/4
Selesnaya Gatekeepers
Creature - Elf Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, create a 2/2 green and white Elf Knight creature token with vigilance.
2/4
Orzhov Gatekeepers
Creature - Spirit Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target creature gains indestructible until the end of turn.
2/4
Izzet Gatekeepers
Creature - Goblin Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, gain control of target creature an opponent controls until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
2/4
Golgari Gatekeepers
Creature - Zombie Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, put target permanent card from your graveyard on top of your library.
2/4
Boros Gatekeepers
Creature - Human Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens.
2/4
Simic Gatekeepers
Creature - Elf Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, draw a card.
2/4
Filling the rest of the slots should be a mix of artifacts and lands that help the player stay open while figuring out their strategy for the rest of draft. However, I want to be careful about opening up too much access to mana in a way that pushes players to 3+ color decks more than they already are.
Guild Armory
Land
CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped.
As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose a color. T: Add one mana of the chosen color. 4, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.
[NOTE: I would have made this a Gate, except DGM specifically has the 10 guildgates and Maze's End for story reasons, so adding a extra gate in that set would have ruined that even though later sets did make more gates.]
Guild Cluestone 3
Artifact
As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose two colors. T: Add one mana of one of the chosen colors. 2,T, sacrifice CARDNAME: Draw a card. Mana of each of the chosen colors must be spent to activate this ability.
Prismatic Golem 3
Artifact Creature - Golem
For each color among permanents you control, CARDNAME is that color.
2/3
Mazerunner's Bauble 2
Artifact 1,Sacrifice CARDNAME: Search your library for a Gate or a basic land card, put that card onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
Its late and I can't think of a 5th filler card now, but my core thesis has been made at this point.
Regarding "Strange Temptations":
I wonder if it would be printable if we edited to " Search for a card with a subtype". Maybe, "Search for a card with multiple types".
Would that make sense?
Aside of the OP just wanting to list out all the subtypes for lolz, the wording would need to be more specific than what you listed above, because the wide wording you had could grab any creature or basic land, as well as the odd cards with non- creature types
Im a mod just for this sub forum, which is something I volunteered for because i was very active here and there was a need for a mod here specifically. I can’t speak to the overall operation, but the site did change hand around 2019 and I’m pretty sure there wasn’t an interest in creating content after that.
Feeding needs to be reworded if you ant it to work the way I think you want it to. As written, the same two creatures keep fighting over and over, but because state based effects don't check mid spell, neither creature will die until all the fights are done, meaning you can have your Llanowar Elf fight an Emrakul, The Promised End 13 times and kill it.
Frenzied Feeding GGGGG
Sorcery (M)
When you cast CARDNAME, you may copy it any number of times and may choose new targets for the copies.
Target creature you control fights target creature you don't control.
Sage seems fine, except the "Draw a card" is undercosted if it can be activated more than once per turn.
Depending your goals for Strange Temptations, you could reword it(but you might have been going for the list soup for funsies):
Strange Temptations 2B
Sorcery (R)
Choose an artifact, enchantment, instant and sorcery, or non-basic land type.
Search your library for a card of the chosen type, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
This goes back to the core question to the OP of, do they want a silver bordered card or a card that could actually see print in a regular set.
For example:
Call For Blood can't see the creature that was sacrificed when its time for the ability to eventually trigger.
If I have a spell on the battlefield and Ephemerate it, it never comes back.
Nonsensical text like animating Spark Spray which would gain "When this creature attacks, Cycling R"
TLDR: Works fine in an unset, but has to be reworked majorly to be doable in the core Magic rules.
Aetherwell Animator 3
Legendary Artifact
Instant and sorcery spells you control have “Create an elemental creature token with this spell’s colors and base power and toughness equal to its mana value.”
Putting non-permanent cards onto the battlefield creates rules weirdness and trying to change a spell on the stack into an ETB effect is also too complex to actually write out. This way, the spell (even if it was a copy or wasn’t cast somehow) just resolves normally and you then get an appropriately sized token.
Legendary so that it’s harder to stack multiples.
As a note, posting your future designs as text rather than image files - especially for large batches of cards - will make it easier for people to read and respond to your designs.
Its still janky and just worse that Remand or mana leak, but at least it’s more understandable. The problem is its use case is incredibly narrow. You have to have three different colors so you mana base is exceedingly complex and and you need six mana worth of spells to maximize it. It’s narrowly super powerful - especially if drawn in multiples - but useless outside of those situations, which is the kind of card that narrows a format around being able to maximize it and that is bad for the meta game.
Titillate is one of those cards that works in silver-borders-land, but the actual thing you want to do is too rules complex to actually write out on the card.
For Kristik, note that granting Ward in response to a spell or ability targeting it doesn’t do anything - ward is a triggered ability that triggers of being targeted so once the spell or ability is on the stack getting ward afterwards is too later for it to trigger.
On a larger scale, if your intention is designing for a commander draft, you should be fine basing your plans on the 20 draft pack model. There's not a new commander draft set in the expected future, so no indication how the draft/set/play booster model would effect those types of products.
My only concern for you is that fortifications (even with a reconfigure type riff) are incredibly narrow for usable and game relevant design space. I think you will likely have a difficult time finding enough depth to make a full theme for your set around them.
What I've come down too is that, as you may know, the Cluestone cycle took up too much real estate at common without providing needed benefit. The fixing wasn't necessary and getting that many cluestones in the first pack of the draft was mostly a chaff pile.
My answer is rearranging and expanding the Gatekeeper cycle into a hybrid guild cycle, meaning the cards are versatile enough to fit in more two color decks and they add multicolor creatures to make the Maze creature cycle more relevant and add more creature options to fill out draft pools. Removing the Cluestones and current gatekeepers opens up 15 slots, 10 to be filled with new cluestones and 5 for new land/artifacts which I may pontificate on here as well.
Azorius Gatekeepers
Creature - Vedalken Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, you may exile another target creature you control. If you do, return it to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.
2/4
Dimir Gatekeepers
Creature - Vampire Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target player mills four cards.
2/4
Rakdos Gatekeepers
Creature - Human Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target creature gets +2/-2 until the end of turn.
2/4
Gruul Gatekeepers
Creature - Human Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target creature gets +3/+3 until the end of turn.
2/4
Selesnaya Gatekeepers
Creature - Elf Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, create a 2/2 green and white Elf Knight creature token with vigilance.
2/4
Orzhov Gatekeepers
Creature - Spirit Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, target creature gains indestructible until the end of turn.
2/4
Izzet Gatekeepers
Creature - Goblin Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, gain control of target creature an opponent controls until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
2/4
Golgari Gatekeepers
Creature - Zombie Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, put target permanent card from your graveyard on top of your library.
2/4
Boros Gatekeepers
Creature - Human Soldier
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens.
2/4
Simic Gatekeepers
Creature - Elf Warrior
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control two or more Gates, draw a card.
2/4
Filling the rest of the slots should be a mix of artifacts and lands that help the player stay open while figuring out their strategy for the rest of draft. However, I want to be careful about opening up too much access to mana in a way that pushes players to 3+ color decks more than they already are.
Guild Armory
Land
CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped.
As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose a color.
T: Add one mana of the chosen color.
4, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature. Activate only as a sorcery.
[NOTE: I would have made this a Gate, except DGM specifically has the 10 guildgates and Maze's End for story reasons, so adding a extra gate in that set would have ruined that even though later sets did make more gates.]
Guild Cluestone 3
Artifact
As CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose two colors.
T: Add one mana of one of the chosen colors.
2,T, sacrifice CARDNAME: Draw a card. Mana of each of the chosen colors must be spent to activate this ability.
Prismatic Golem 3
Artifact Creature - Golem
For each color among permanents you control, CARDNAME is that color.
2/3
Mazerunner's Bauble 2
Artifact
1,Sacrifice CARDNAME: Search your library for a Gate or a basic land card, put that card onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
Its late and I can't think of a 5th filler card now, but my core thesis has been made at this point.
Frenzied Feeding GGGGG
Sorcery (M)
When you cast CARDNAME, you may copy it any number of times and may choose new targets for the copies.
Target creature you control fights target creature you don't control.
Sage seems fine, except the "Draw a card" is undercosted if it can be activated more than once per turn.
Depending your goals for Strange Temptations, you could reword it(but you might have been going for the list soup for funsies):
Strange Temptations 2B
Sorcery (R)
Choose an artifact, enchantment, instant and sorcery, or non-basic land type.
Search your library for a card of the chosen type, put it into your hand, then shuffle.