Meet Vim (Group Hug Commander)
Custom Cards forum
Posted on June 5, 2019, 7:51 p.m. by Unenlightened
I figure some people might get a kick out of this, and I just uploaded a nice pic of the card for my group hug deck so I figure I may as well post her here.
Vim, of Ample Gifts
Legendary Creature - Faerie Wizard
Casting cost:
Flying, Haste
, Discard a card: Tutor a basic land into your hand, reveal it, and shuffle. Do this as a sorcery. Any player may activate this ability.
: Each player may draw a card.
: Each player has no maximum hand size for the rest of the game. Any player may activate this ability.
P/T: 1/3
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She's cheap to cast, but is still a 5 color commander thanks to her ability. I put a lot of effort into the proxies for her.
I've played her in paper for quite a while now and have never had any balancing complaints. Have only had people refuse to play with her twice (which is why I still carry around Child of Alara).
The background image for her card is this Island card by Terese Nielsen. The faerie artwork is by an artist called Slugbox. I'm not posting the uncensored version here, but if you want to see the original faerie art just google 'slugbox fairy'.
What do you guys think?
Funkydiscogod - not actually true. They changed the rules a while back to allow players to generate mana outside of their colour identity, provided their mana source could create that colour. For example, you can use City of Brass in a colourless deck to produce whatever mana colour you want.
June 5, 2019 10:12 p.m.
Unenlightened says... #4
That is no longer true. If a player has a land that can tap for colors outside of their commander's color identity, they are free to tap for those colors. There was a rules change a couple years or so ago on exactly that point.
Granted, it's not likely to happen, but I'm pretty sure somebody else paid the ability once, and I don't think he was running 5 colors.
I was actually thinking of making that ability a join forces type ability, but text spacing is already pretty tight.
June 5, 2019 10:17 p.m.
Unenlightened says... #5
Sorry, my previous post was directed at Funkydiscogod. I didn't see that his was the second comment.
cdkime Thanks for pointing out the discrepancies. I was thinking of making her mana cost , which would actually make her easier to cast. Would this make her abilities more in line with her color(s)?
As for the second ability, you mentioned the word real estate being kind of tight... that's why it's not worded correctly.
June 5, 2019 10:22 p.m.
Unenlightened says... #6
I was actually thinking about making her casting cost and giving her an alternate casting criteria in her abilities, but I'm not sure what. I really want to be able to cast her on turn 2 to make the mana fixing ability available and start tapping her to draw everyone cards. The first few turns are when a group hug deck can have the biggest effect on the game's progress.
June 5, 2019 10:26 p.m.
Regarding your first fix:
Hybrid symbols are designed for cards that could be in either colour, which this does not. I do think the addition of Blue is a good thing--Flying and card draw are very much a part of Blue's identity (plus, Blue faeries are a thing). is probably a fine way to do the casting cost.
It does not, however, fix the haste issue. Is there a particular reason you think Haste is necessary? I would recommend cutting it entirely.
With regards to the long ability, Magic does not allow you to change the language for the purposes of making space on a card; you have to adjust to the parlance, the parlance does not adjust to you.
What is your intended purpose behind the land and card draw ability? There might be a way to combine them into a singular ability that meets your purpose.
I think changing the casting cost to five-colour is going to be problematic, since then you have to dedicate space to an alternate casting ability or you have to increase the power accordingly.
June 5, 2019 11:02 p.m. Edited.
Unenlightened says... #8
cdkime, what if I just make her casting cost ?
I want her to have haste so she can allow card draw the turn she comes out.
I came up with a better 5 color ability and made the hand size thing a static ability that goes away if someone board wipes.
As far as the reasoning behind the card draw and land fixing, it's a group hug commander. The idea is to accelerate the game by enabling other players. The land fixing especially is there to ensure no one gets mana screwed.
As far as the length and language of that ability, the parlance of magic changes all the time. Remember when 'unblockable' was a thing? Now it's 'cannot be blocked'. Anyway, the language is gonna have to stay like that or the text will have to be so small you can't read it.
Also, thought of an interesting twist for that ability: made it so you have to convince someone else to activate it for you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vim, of Ample Gifts
Casting Cost:
Flying, Haste
Players have no maximum hand size.
: Each player may draw a card.
: Target opponent may tutor a basic land into their hand, reveal it, and shuffle. Any player may activate this ability any time they could cast a sorcery.
: Put Vim onto the battlefield from the command zone. Any player can help pay this cost. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
June 5, 2019 11:52 p.m.
You've created a couple new issues. You're still running into color identity issues, this time with Haste (even more so--mono-Blue has even less Haste than mono-Green) and the land tutoring, which is firmly in Green's domain.
Your new 5-C ability is underwelming particularly for how difficult it is for most decks to muster. Remember you would still control the draw ability and if they can muster 5 colours, they probably do not need the ramp so much.
When it comes down to it, I think you are trying to do a little too much with one card. Have you considered changing it to a "Partners with" pair?
Caerwyn says... #2
While its colour identity is five colour, its actual colour is Green, which makes the following abilities problematic:
Flying - Flying is very rare in mono-Green, and is almost exclusively found on older cards.
Haste - Haste is still seen on more recent Green cards, but these Green creatures are generally larger bodies than what you have created.
There are only a handful of Green cards that allow all players to draw a card. Each of these effects is tied to something within Green's domain, such as creatures or lands. The effect you have created would not be found on this card without something else.
The language on the second ability is worded incorrectly. Properly, it should read as follows:
, Discard a card: Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery. Any player may activate this ability.
That's a whole lot of language. You will run into a space problem given how much else is on this card.
June 5, 2019 8:57 p.m. Edited.