The color workaround for Schematics is clever. It would be even better if it was 3 for 3 and gained control of the creature 2 or less instead. You want to play something like this turn 2 or 3. One turn might not be that big a stretch, but not ideal either in competition. I would have limited this more (including the CMC of the creature you can gain) so I could get the cost down, and for what you're getting, there's still a lot of be grateful for.
Pretty simple utility. Limited format would definitely eat this up. For the 3 life to be worth it, I'm not sure what it accomplishes as an extension on another demon (which are normally expensive); where development-side you wouldn't simply want a universal tutor for the set/block. It creates an odd scenario where you'll need to implement something like Abyssal Persecutor, powerful and cheap, in order to make this fly successfully in limited.
Maybe it's not as creative as it wants to be, and could probably be changed to a modal spell that can tutor you a card or give you a demon creature token.
"Exile the top five cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may cast a creature card from among those exiled cards. If you do, that spell can’t be countered, and that creature enters the battlefield with haste and gets +2/+0 until end of turn."
Here's a brush up. I think it's vague grab for Generator Servant. The potential in limited might be a little overzealous even for the net-gain in cards with two additional bonuses all in a single mana. Even limiting the range down to only two cards is still risky for this collection of bonuses. A card like this might want to make the user battle a little bit for the card it gets; or it wants to have more flash dynamic; in the style of Heat Shimmer. Maybe whenever you lose life due to a source an opponent controls, you may exile [enchantment], creature token copy effect. Add a shield counter as a cooler bonus even, especially in red. It might need to be 1R or 2R then.
That wheel of cheese is going to be an instant lol win in squirrel decks.
That kind of life drain on a land is a yellow flag for the interaction danger.
Nexus probably just wants to do what it's doing more directly. The hoops your jumping through matter almost insignificantly for the application. It would be cool if it could pay 2>tap>stun itself>create a cached copy of a 1 CMC spell that can be cast later for tap (plotted?)>and exile both after. That would open up the functionality alot and make it very dynamic.
Reliquary is giving a lot for asking little. You normally only get mana fixing for this effect without an additional mana. I think it would need to ask for a second land or something like 3 life. It would be costly for sure.
SymbiogenesisG Instant
Mill four cards. Then you may put up to four creature cards and/or land cards from your graveyard on the top of your library in any order. Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep.
Jump-start (You may cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a card in addition to paying its other costs. Then exile this card.)
Looking for a nice green utility that does something interesting for the color's most prominent focus. I wanted it to be a throwback spell to classic green card advantages like Natural Selection and Commune with Nature. I would have liked to use my replacement for mill (Traumatize) instead, but for simplicity of discussion decided to just key in mill instead. After seeing the concept of milling cards before an effect pitched to me a few times, I decided to finally take a shot at it to show how I would style this.
I think we can argue that it is a text-changing ability when we are replacing all of the text with another pre-defined text.
AS mentioned, I think it's needed here for coherence of replacing all the text at once, whereas otherwise, the confusion will exist towards the potential for replacing each spell ability a card has with an instance of "draw a card"—which we don't want.
I am maybe just out of touch with Wizards using the term "they" as acceptable context. That's a clean application.
If you write it that way, it comes out to [that player scrys 2] which just seems awkward.
I've amended the text with a small adaptation that I think it necessary to prevent confusion of replacing multiple lines of spell abilities with multiple "draw a card" instances, which is not the intention. We want to replace all the spell abilities text with a single "draw a card".
Neural Necklace2 Artifact
You may replace all spell ability text of instant and sorcery spells you cast and/or copy with “Draw a card.”. Dreamers dare to push the envelope. And where you draw that line is, of course, the art; what decides a good artist from a bad artist.
Not sure if this needs to read "ability text" or not. I instantly feel that if we don't, we'll get jabs about it replacing the flavor text also, and cards no longer having any flavor text, so it is legal to read the flavor-text off or not. It's very difficult to do a chain draw type of effect, as they get out of hand almost instantly, but that's what I wanted to do here. It was inspired by the name first, which randomly popped into my head. I had thought about doing this effect for activated abilities with tap in their cost (except mana abilities—or maybe just except mana abilities of lands). That would be very dynamic and interactive. But again, I think this gets out of hand too easily, and starts quickly creating anti-climatic environments. Blood tokens, Food tokens, and Powerstones get enhanced tremendously. The potential certainly is there, but it's just not as responsible as it wants to be I fear. I question if it preserves enough challenge. It's easy to argue either way.
Neural Decay Enchantment
If a player would draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, they scry 2 instead. "I wanted to believe my experiences in life had made me a prime specimen. But now I see, as the end draws nearer, I've lost so much functionality in how desensitized I have become."
—Barrin
This was the first effect I came up with for Neural Necklace, which was secondly tagged as [Genosha Slave Collar]. Lol at X-Men 97' Secret Lair. I felt as an artifact it might be open source for its own good, so I changed it to an enchantment for contrast. The effectiveness is certainly here, but I think this would want/need a Deus Ex Machina ability to bring it full-circle. Give the tri-color spread, the ability to pitch this to several different Alt Cast spells, Force of Will, Force of Despair, Fury, serves as critical potential that should be taken into considered as balancing elements against any additional effects.
I can't blame you for not liking the ramp. It's an overzealous bit of potential that we know will create new Ubers and enhance existing ones.
I understand the circumstance of colored Ward. It was the entire basis of the design, and the thought that it could be done in some stylish way. I'm still on the fence about the two +1/+1 counters. Damage prevention is that kind of special corner case effect where it should be reasonable. Standard/Limited is where it will shine the best. Getting out of those waters and it gets more obscure to play off an opponent's resources. Even so, with the colored ward it does seem a little off-center with hefty two counters a piece. Very powerful one-two combo with Swans of Bryn Argoll. Not that there's anything wrong with that—it's not infinite or anything. In the event of blending down the abilities, I would put the counter at one, the cost reducer stays the same, and bump the scry up to 3, cause that's the only balanced option.
Noble Lancer1W Creature — Human Knight
Disarm (Whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked, detach all cards attached to that creature. It permanently loses up to one of its colors and/or all instances of a keyword of your choice.)
As long an opponent owns a card in exile, you may play an additional Plains during each of your turns.
2/2
This concept revolved around wanting to bridge on card advantage for white, that instantly cascaded into something that would be cool with another prominent potential for white I reflected on for this regarding another custom card, Sign of the Cross. It's not quite a Bowmasters, but I think it almost wants to be.
Grand Arbiter of the Cross1WW Creature — Human Cleric Knight
Ward W
Once each turn, whenever a source you control prevents any amount of damage, you may choose one —
• Scry 2
• Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.
• The next white spell you cast this turn costs 2 less to cast.
2/2
The design broke off from the Lancer where I had thought to add the Ward ability in exactly as it is here. It didn't fit in with the Lancer, but I had said to myself it's something you would see on a design like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV; while probably adding U to the Ward alongside white for fair flexibility. I had first envisioned an ability like, "Whenever a source you control prevents any amount of damage, you may put that many +1/+1 counters on target creature. If you do, remove all counters from that creature at end of turn." for this one; while another design I had going in parallel hosted a split effect by removing a shield counter from a creature you control. It would be great if only shield counters were more pronounced, but since they're not, I felt the best thing to do was blend the two lines together; and that's how we've come here. I do feel like the two +1/+1 counters risky powerful, but for damage prevention as an effect, maybe not enough for it to be broken. I had tinkered with making this Legendary, but that also I dialed back on so I could prevent this in it raw form, cause I do like it a lot exactly as it is, and wouldn't mind the ability stacking in multiples.
To balance it, I had considered a 1, 2, 3 cascade between the effects. That would be a single +1/+1 counter, then the other two effects in succession, but a dilemma situation appears where both Scry 3 and "the next white spell you cast this turn costs 3 less to cast" becomes incredibly polarizing.
Being able to look at your opponent's hand all the time is kinda anti-climatic. Very powerful effect, worth everything you've put into it, even though most people would struggle to run it in place of removal; but being able to do it all the time puts a heavy reducer on the fun of the effect. That's my only concern here.
Stylish Scion is definitely going the distance to be a great common. It would probably be one more color-heavy though if printed.
Necropolis Gallery Show has amazing flavor and puts a showcase on some advanced potential. I see why you limited it to creatures only, and that's great style, but I also agree that it might struggle more than it wants to in this form. It might want to be able to exile cards from "any number of graveyards" in the least. I think there might be ways to make it more interactive even. I would ditch the X and make it a graveyard wrath probably for CMC 4 with the same effect. It just removes all creatures (and maybe all planeswalkers) from all graveyards and then gives you that many statues. Hard to get something more fluid and attractive than that.
Whenever a land leaves the battlefield, its controller mills a card, then puts that card face-down on
the battlefield as a basic land with, "Tap, Add one mana of any color in your commander's color identity".
Here's a brush up on the wording composure, but you do want a type if you're making it basic.
even "with all basic land types" would be acceptable and dynamic.
Being able to fetch things like Mox and Lotus, then Brainstorm them into your hand for a single mana (and a non-effectual additional cost of exiling graveyard assets) holds tremendous power. That's how it would be broken.
Ideally, for cards to be "good", we want them to be "fun", and the fun factors lie in providing interactivity and preserving the aspect of challenge (especially for the caster). We want to dare to challenge ourselves and do more with less. That's what takes our victories and makes them earned, not given.
The color workaround for Schematics is clever. It would be even better if it was 3 for 3 and gained control of the creature 2 or less instead. You want to play something like this turn 2 or 3. One turn might not be that big a stretch, but not ideal either in competition. I would have limited this more (including the CMC of the creature you can gain) so I could get the cost down, and for what you're getting, there's still a lot of be grateful for.
Maybe it's not as creative as it wants to be, and could probably be changed to a modal spell that can tutor you a card or give you a demon creature token.
"Exile the top five cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may cast a creature card from among those exiled cards. If you do, that spell can’t be countered, and that creature enters the battlefield with haste and gets +2/+0 until end of turn."
Here's a brush up. I think it's vague grab for Generator Servant. The potential in limited might be a little overzealous even for the net-gain in cards with two additional bonuses all in a single mana. Even limiting the range down to only two cards is still risky for this collection of bonuses. A card like this might want to make the user battle a little bit for the card it gets; or it wants to have more flash dynamic; in the style of Heat Shimmer. Maybe whenever you lose life due to a source an opponent controls, you may exile [enchantment], creature token copy effect. Add a shield counter as a cooler bonus even, especially in red. It might need to be 1R or 2R then.
That wheel of cheese is going to be an instant lol win in squirrel decks.
Nexus probably just wants to do what it's doing more directly. The hoops your jumping through matter almost insignificantly for the application. It would be cool if it could pay 2>tap>stun itself>create a cached copy of a 1 CMC spell that can be cast later for tap (plotted?)>and exile both after. That would open up the functionality alot and make it very dynamic.
Reliquary is giving a lot for asking little. You normally only get mana fixing for this effect without an additional mana. I think it would need to ask for a second land or something like 3 life. It would be costly for sure.
Instant
Mill four cards. Then you may put up to four creature cards and/or land cards from your graveyard on the top of your library in any order. Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn’s upkeep.
Jump-start (You may cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a card in addition to paying its other costs. Then exile this card.)
Looking for a nice green utility that does something interesting for the color's most prominent focus. I wanted it to be a throwback spell to classic green card advantages like Natural Selection and Commune with Nature. I would have liked to use my replacement for mill (Traumatize) instead, but for simplicity of discussion decided to just key in mill instead. After seeing the concept of milling cards before an effect pitched to me a few times, I decided to finally take a shot at it to show how I would style this.
It's pretty much a softened version of that. And when you look at that on the card, it wouldn't seem as overzealous.
AS mentioned, I think it's needed here for coherence of replacing all the text at once, whereas otherwise, the confusion will exist towards the potential for replacing each spell ability a card has with an instance of "draw a card"—which we don't want.
I am maybe just out of touch with Wizards using the term "they" as acceptable context. That's a clean application.
If it worked with Rebound that would be even crazier.
I've amended the text with a small adaptation that I think it necessary to prevent confusion of replacing multiple lines of spell abilities with multiple "draw a card" instances, which is not the intention. We want to replace all the spell abilities text with a single "draw a card".
Artifact
You may replace all spell ability text of instant and sorcery spells you cast and/or copy with “Draw a card.”.
Dreamers dare to push the envelope. And where you draw that line is, of course, the art; what decides a good artist from a bad artist.
Not sure if this needs to read "ability text" or not. I instantly feel that if we don't, we'll get jabs about it replacing the flavor text also, and cards no longer having any flavor text, so it is legal to read the flavor-text off or not. It's very difficult to do a chain draw type of effect, as they get out of hand almost instantly, but that's what I wanted to do here. It was inspired by the name first, which randomly popped into my head. I had thought about doing this effect for activated abilities with tap in their cost (except mana abilities—or maybe just except mana abilities of lands). That would be very dynamic and interactive. But again, I think this gets out of hand too easily, and starts quickly creating anti-climatic environments. Blood tokens, Food tokens, and Powerstones get enhanced tremendously. The potential certainly is there, but it's just not as responsible as it wants to be I fear. I question if it preserves enough challenge. It's easy to argue either way.
Neural Decay
Enchantment
If a player would draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, they scry 2 instead.
"I wanted to believe my experiences in life had made me a prime specimen. But now I see, as the end draws nearer, I've lost so much functionality in how desensitized I have become."
—Barrin
This was the first effect I came up with for Neural Necklace, which was secondly tagged as [Genosha Slave Collar]. Lol at X-Men 97' Secret Lair. I felt as an artifact it might be open source for its own good, so I changed it to an enchantment for contrast. The effectiveness is certainly here, but I think this would want/need a Deus Ex Machina ability to bring it full-circle. Give the tri-color spread, the ability to pitch this to several different Alt Cast spells, Force of Will, Force of Despair, Fury, serves as critical potential that should be taken into considered as balancing elements against any additional effects.
I understand the circumstance of colored Ward. It was the entire basis of the design, and the thought that it could be done in some stylish way. I'm still on the fence about the two +1/+1 counters. Damage prevention is that kind of special corner case effect where it should be reasonable. Standard/Limited is where it will shine the best. Getting out of those waters and it gets more obscure to play off an opponent's resources. Even so, with the colored ward it does seem a little off-center with hefty two counters a piece. Very powerful one-two combo with Swans of Bryn Argoll. Not that there's anything wrong with that—it's not infinite or anything. In the event of blending down the abilities, I would put the counter at one, the cost reducer stays the same, and bump the scry up to 3, cause that's the only balanced option.
Creature — Human Knight
Disarm (Whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked, detach all cards attached to that creature. It permanently loses up to one of its colors and/or all instances of a keyword of your choice.)
As long an opponent owns a card in exile, you may play an additional Plains during each of your turns.
2/2
This concept revolved around wanting to bridge on card advantage for white, that instantly cascaded into something that would be cool with another prominent potential for white I reflected on for this regarding another custom card, Sign of the Cross. It's not quite a Bowmasters, but I think it almost wants to be.
Grand Arbiter of the Cross 1WW
Creature — Human Cleric Knight
Ward W
Once each turn, whenever a source you control prevents any amount of damage, you may choose one —
• Scry 2
• Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.
• The next white spell you cast this turn costs 2 less to cast.
2/2
The design broke off from the Lancer where I had thought to add the Ward ability in exactly as it is here. It didn't fit in with the Lancer, but I had said to myself it's something you would see on a design like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV; while probably adding U to the Ward alongside white for fair flexibility. I had first envisioned an ability like, "Whenever a source you control prevents any amount of damage, you may put that many +1/+1 counters on target creature. If you do, remove all counters from that creature at end of turn." for this one; while another design I had going in parallel hosted a split effect by removing a shield counter from a creature you control. It would be great if only shield counters were more pronounced, but since they're not, I felt the best thing to do was blend the two lines together; and that's how we've come here. I do feel like the two +1/+1 counters risky powerful, but for damage prevention as an effect, maybe not enough for it to be broken. I had tinkered with making this Legendary, but that also I dialed back on so I could prevent this in it raw form, cause I do like it a lot exactly as it is, and wouldn't mind the ability stacking in multiples.
To balance it, I had considered a 1, 2, 3 cascade between the effects. That would be a single +1/+1 counter, then the other two effects in succession, but a dilemma situation appears where both Scry 3 and "the next white spell you cast this turn costs 3 less to cast" becomes incredibly polarizing.
Stylish Scion is definitely going the distance to be a great common. It would probably be one more color-heavy though if printed.
Necropolis Gallery Show has amazing flavor and puts a showcase on some advanced potential. I see why you limited it to creatures only, and that's great style, but I also agree that it might struggle more than it wants to in this form. It might want to be able to exile cards from "any number of graveyards" in the least. I think there might be ways to make it more interactive even. I would ditch the X and make it a graveyard wrath probably for CMC 4 with the same effect. It just removes all creatures (and maybe all planeswalkers) from all graveyards and then gives you that many statues. Hard to get something more fluid and attractive than that.
This has no significant restriction that it allows you to stack your deck with multiple power cards.
Requiring cards from your graveyard isn't worth enough. It's like trading nothing almost for what you're getting.
the battlefield as a basic land with, "Tap, Add one mana of any color in your commander's color identity".
Here's a brush up on the wording composure, but you do want a type if you're making it basic.
even "with all basic land types" would be acceptable and dynamic.
Ideally, for cards to be "good", we want them to be "fun", and the fun factors lie in providing interactivity and preserving the aspect of challenge (especially for the caster). We want to dare to challenge ourselves and do more with less. That's what takes our victories and makes them earned, not given.