Restricted images

Noticed today that some of the images form previous posts have a gray "no entry" preview instead of the real image. Can't quite figure out why.

Well, this blog has been a PITA for a little while now. If it doesn't fix itself or if I can't figure out how to fix it, I'm considering changing the blog provider. I don't really want to use tumblr or image-heavy blog-style sites, so I'll have to do some research. I've got a reddit, hubski, deviantart, and twitter account, so maybe I'll make some kind of swap to one of those.

C'est la vie.

Edit 5/8: Huh. They're all back now. I didn't DO anything!

Sewers Under Kasprah – Gold & Hybrid

The final stretch! Here are all the gold and hybrid cards!

Click to read.

These five hybrids were some of the first I designed. I wanted to make a cycle of cards that show of two of the new mechanics each, and both mechanics had to fit in either color of the hybrid. Each are rare creatures that cost 2CC.

Fading Survivor is unblockable, so the Plunge trigger is inevitable. Spell Fisher is for the Instant & Sorcery deck. Heartening Guide was made for the Enchantment deck.

After coming up with those hybrids, I came up with gold uncommons. Each of these uncommons begins with a V, only costs two mana, and represent the color pairs that were not represented in the first set of hybrids (therefore, the two colors, I think, do not have two mechanics to go with them). Originally, each of these was common, and cost 1 generic mana extra.

Four of them act as removal. I kind wish I had figured out a Simic removal for the last one. Oh, well.

After coming up with all of the previous gold and hybrids, I had some ideas that worked best as gold cards, though they never quite reached a new gold cycle. I've got an extra white and am missing a black. Booooo.

Enraged Humonuculus is kind of the opposite of an Instant/Sorcery archetype, which I might find interesting to try. Imagine if I flipped archetypes on their head, so as to find ways of making them in unlikely color pairs?

Refulgent Armor is another technically colorless artifact, but since both activated abilities require a color, I consider this a gold card. You could use it in a deck that is only one of the colors for only one of the effects, if you like.

Muck Mole goes heavy in the Drain & lifegain decks, and I looked to Dread Presence for inspiration.

The final card is our Planeswalker, Ubrak. I decided for the storyline that he might be a Planeswalker who found himself on Kasprah and decided to wreak havoc, leading a rebellion to sow chaos. I picture him as an orc that looks similar to Dire Fleet Captain in art. His first ability (+1) gives you Flush for free, and fuels his second ability (-3) as removal. His last ability (-4) is simple land destruction, and therefore not particularly an ultimate, per se, but I liked the flavor of Ubrak wanting so much choas and destruction that he's destroying the sewers entirely. Besides, it is flavorfully similar to a mean Burst: instead of blowing up your own lands, you blow up your opponent's (though, of course, they get no value from it).

So that's all the cards I came up with on this first round. Not quite enough for a full set, but now I'll be refining and reworking the concepts and settle on some archtypes. I also have been wanting to make a set with a flavor of old-school Magic (because everything I do is nostalgic, apparently), so the next round of cards will probably have the old style card frame. Which also means I'm probably not going to have new card types, like Planeswalkers, and possibly no equipment or vehicles. We'll see how it all works out. I do like the look of old frame hybrids, though!

Sewers Under Kasprah – Extra Red & Blue

Click to read.

The most interesting card here is Divergent Fork, which is like normal Fork, but you must choose new targets if able. I originally called it Fork Off when it was just a complete joke set, but I kind of liked the idea of the card, so now Divergent Fork sounds more like it's a new tunnel in the sewer.

Hostage Negotiation I think is neat. Not only is it a normal threaten effect, but you get to kill the hostage if one of your own creatures takes damage on your next swing. It no longer becomes a simple "I borrow your creature for one turn" effect, and now the sacrifice effect that makes threaten effects more useful is stapled right on the card.

Purger's Saber is a Red artifact to go in the Red/White equipment deck. It doesn't have to go in a red deck, but it just makes the equip cost much cheaper. Also technically it matters that you're in Purger colors (who are all Humans and Dwarves and cover all colors except blue).

Burrow Squad is land destruction on a stick, which makes it a pretty powerful bomb all told, which is why I made it such an expensive card.

Read the Waters is for the Red/Blue Instants & Sorceries deck, though I want to come up with something cooler for those colors, now that I've seen the recent sets with "draw your second card" and "cast a spell on an opponent's turn" as the Izzet archetypes.

Backflow is a huge tempo play, but when you bounce only a token (therefore you do not get to turn off your opponent's next draw step), you get to draw a card yourself, evening out the effect.

Mutating Waters is a blue removal spell, and though in recent sets you make blue frogs instead of green frogs, I already had a green frog theme going before I made this card so I decided it was not important to make another token just for a color change.

Locked Grate is a super slow Millstone, but if you want to make the Esper Mill deck a thing, here's one option. I've seen too many mill decks recently, so the idea has lost its charm, though when you're lost in the sewers you are quite likely to go insane, so it's tough to part with the idea...

Jammed Floodgate works well as both a bounce lock on your opponent, but can also serve as an expensive way to blink your own creatures. The blink deck idea is starting to sound more fun...

Sewers Under Kasprah – Extra Black & Green

Extra black cards, with a Rats tribal theme...

Click to read.

I like the idea of Scrabbling Rats as a deathtoucher that can grow bigger, though of course the activation cost is pretty high. Rat Bite acts as straight removal if you want, but you have the ability to make the momentary deathtouch not be on the brand new Rat token. (I don't know why you wouldn't but I like giving players edge-case options).

Cannibal Orgg is a Flush payoff I forgot to include earlier. Grit Chamber is a black artifact (I swear they look so awesome). With this, I wonder if I could push, say, Rakdos into a discard theme... Long-Tailed Slink is a big powerful 6/6 for 4 with an extra upside, and an extra downside. I do kind of wonder if this is too big of a bomb, but that's what playtesting is for. Unnatural Vapors is a black board wipe, but as there aren't very many artifact creatures, it's pretty much 100% effective (doubtful you'd have too many Slithering Surveyors). Though I could have Black/Something be an artifact archetype...

Not much to say about these simple cards. Blind Hunt is interesting in that you get a consolation prize if your creature dies in the fight. Works well in the Abzan lifegain decks.

Map the Sewers allows you to restock the top of your deck with a bunch of lands, guaranteeing land draws so you can fuel the Burst cards in your hand. You can also have it be an ultra slow Rampant Growth early game if you're really struggling for lands. Knotcroaker generates tokens, though perhaps I might have changed it to "Whenever Knotcroaker is dealt damage" instead. Wandering Minotaur is a huge way to ramp and refill your Burstable lands, making it a massive value engine, though it's not a bomb that's going to win you the game outright.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Extra White

Now we've mostly finished with cards about the new mechanics, but there always have to be a few simpler spells. Some of these I won't have too much to talk about.

Click to enlarge.

Fallback Plan is a good way to save a creature from combat, however, it sort of acts as a Backup payoff, because this would only work onyour own creatures if they had Vigilnce or were targeted for Backup, so they could tap. If you target an opponent's creature with this (a plan I didn't realize was possible until I looked at the card just now), you could tap it down during the Begin Combat step, making it effectively super cheap removal. I gotta pay attention to those interactions in the future. I should probably have made Fallback Plan more expensive, or made it say "Enchant creature you control"...

Inescapable Trap is a much more fun spell to me. It's an O-Ring, but once you've taken an opponent's creature with it, they can pay eight mana to get it out. Inescapable, you say?

Bucolic Homunculus (oops, spelled it wrong in the title) is an Enchantment payoff for the Green/White Enchantment deck (though again, I'm reconsidering that since it's not interesting to me).

Grounding Wire is the first white Artifact, to go with red's Chainbomb from before. In this set, there are a few colored artifacts, in particular giving Red/White an equipment theme (once again rethinking that). Grounding Wire lets you protect your creatures from damage, but it's not really a splashable card because the activated ability on it uses only white mana. There is something so cool about the look of colored artifacts...

Exit Strategy lets you return creatures to your hand, but only at sorcery speed, so this is not like Fallback Plan. This is more for a blink deck, which would be interesting to make White/Blue be a blink shenanigans deck.

Speaking of White/Blue, something I've never gotten around to mentioning is that there are no fliers in this set. I considered Bats for flying and Spiders for reach, but ultimately I stayed away from all of that in favor of pushing forward the other new mechanics. This meant it was tough for White to not have as many combat manuevers (flying and, for the most part, vigilance), which presented quite the challenge for coming up with white cards. I had also considered earlier on to have Swimming be a mechanic, which is literally just Flying but likely moved to be heavier on Blue/Black. I ended up trashing that when I settled on the three-color mechanics.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Lands & Artifacts

Now onto the colorless artifacts and lands! There will be more colored artifacts to come.

Click to read.

This cycle of lands I call Search lands. Each taps for the four colors of a Kasprah faction, but you have to spend a couple of turns 'searching' for the ability first.

Pile of Trash is an Artifact Land that only works once, either as colorless mana, or as an onboard combat trick. I am certainly aware of the trouble with Artifact Lands, though my sets are always designed with Limited in mind, so the Artifact nature of the land is more for flavor reasons—though you could blow it up with Chainbomb!

Diamond-Tipped Tunneler is the only Vehicle in the set. I also considered making more Vehicles, but couldn't come up with anything else interesting. With Diamond-Tipped Tunneler, I like how it's both a Vehicle and essentially a Traveler's Amulet.

Alternate Route is basically an Evolving Wilds for nonbasics.

I almost got a cycle out of these monocolored lands, but could never quite come up with a white one. I tried to go heavy on the flavor with these lands. The disadvantage of three of them is that they come in tapped; Electric Room does not, but it deals damage to you when you use it for mana. Electric Room and Pump Room go together, in that they both have activated abilities for 1CC and a sacrifice. Rat Nest and Brood Muckery go together in that they both make 1/1 tokens, though to make them different I made it so the Rat Nest has an activated ability and Brood Muckery has a triggered ability. The green land, in particular, offers a go-wide creature strategy, though as I mentioned before, I may have tokens be Green/Black, so these lands still work alright.

Sewers Under Kasprah – Red Flush & Green Drain

Lots of red Flush cards!

Click to embiggen.

Lots of these cards are your basic red spells with a Flush tacked on. Shocking Jolt is just Shock with Flush. However, once more it is important to notice that the cheaper and easier it is to get a card into your graveyard, the more expensive the Flush cost. So Shocking Jolt is a cheap little spell, but costs 5 to Flush.

Clear the Well is a common Flush payoff, where you deal damage equal to the number of cards you own in exile. However, since Plunge is also a thing, your opponent with a Plunge deck might actually help you go off with Clear the Well!

Watch out for Blind Cyclops; it can also deal damage to your own creatures! Purgebreaker is an uncommon Flush payoff. You only need to have Flushed one card (or had an opponent Plunge one card of yours) to give Purgebreaker trample. Chainbomb is a fun design that I want to explore more. Originally I had it as only being 'Destroy target artifact' without the other option, which meant that you might blow up Chainbomb itself if there are no other targets. At least you are given a small choice here to deal damage to creatures. However, depending on board state, this might actually hinder you from Flushing. I wonder if I changed it to something like it deals damage to you if you can't do the other options. Arson is simply a rare card (Banefire) with a bonus Flush, though it's not a payoff the way Clear the Well is.

The green Drain cards are pretty simple. Shortfanged Slink has no power, but Drains if it isn't blocked, so it's a bit of an opposite Afflict.

Pesticider and Topside Feeder offer activated Drain abilities. Lifeblood Enchanter is a payoff for the Enchantment deck, which I may make be Selesnya, or even Simic, though I'm not sure I want that to even be an archetype for this set. Enchantment themes are a bit of a late addition when I was struggling for interesting cards.