Planeswalker Sorceries
Custom Cards forum
Posted on Dec. 21, 2021, 3:06 a.m. by TypicalTimmy
Just wondering how the community would feel about a card design, such as the following: (Obviously casting costs, mana values and loyalty costs could be tweaked to more appropriately fit a set, theme or balance. Please don't get hung up on the values used as placeholders, and instead focus on the wording and design elements. Thank you.)
Teyo's Photobarricade
Sorcery - Teyo
Create a 0/3 white Construct creature token with defender.
Loyalty 0 (If you control a Teyo Planeswalker, you may instead reveal this card from your hand and exile it. If you do, until end of turn up to one target Teyo Planeswalker you control gains the effect of this card as a loyalty ability and you may activate that ability for 0.)
Jace's Recollection
Sorcery - Jace
Draw ten cards. You get an emblem with "You have no maximum hand size." and "If you would draw a card with no cards in your library, you win the game."
Loyalty -8 (If you control a Jace Planeswalker, you may instead reveal this card from your hand and exile it. If you do, until end of turn up to one target Jace Planeswalker you control gains the effect of this card as a loyalty ability and you may activate that ability for -8.)
Liliana's Dreadcall
Sorcery - Liliana
Each player sacrifices two creatures. You may cast up to one target creature from a graveyard this turn and spend any color mana to do so.
Loyalty -4 (If you control a Liliana Planeswalker, you may instead reveal this card from your hand and exile it. If you do, until end of turn up to one target Liliana Planeswalker you control gains the effect of this card as a loyalty ability and you may activate that ability for -4.)
Chandra's Jet of Flames
Sorcery - Chandra
Chandra's Jet of Flames deals 4 damage to any target.
Loyalty +1 (If you control a Chandra Planeswalker, you may instead reveal this card from your hand and exile it. If you do, until end of turn up to one target Chandra Planeswalker you control gains the effect of this card as a loyalty ability and you may activate that ability for +1.)
Garruk's Call of the Hunt
Sorcery - Garruk
Create two 3/3 green Beast creature tokens. Each of those tokens fights a target creature you don't control.
Loyalty -4 (If you control a Garruk Planeswalker, you may instead reveal this card from your hand and exile it. If you do, until end of turn up to one target Garruk Planeswalker you control gains the effect of this card as a loyalty ability and you may activate that ability for -4.)
Ugin's Transmutation
Sorcery - Ugin
Add three mana of any one color.
Loyalty +1 (If you control a Ugin Planeswalker, you may instead reveal this card from your hand and exile it. If you do, until end of turn up to one target Ugin Planeswalker you control gains the effect of this card as a loyalty ability and you may activate that ability for +1.)
TypicalTimmy says... #3
Lastly, I feel the reminder text is a great addition rather than have every single card spell it out in body text. The reason for this is because, as reminder text, it can be entirely dropped for premium artwork cards, not unlike how Embalm / Eternalize / Mutate were dropped for their premium artworks. This means a smaller text box and thus a larger piece of art, when appropriate. It also means that if you have a design that would add a massive amount of text to a card, such as Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast's -2, you can entirely drop the reminder text and free up multiple lines of text.
A card like that may look like the following:
Lukka's Animalistic Bond
Sorcery - Lukka
Gain control of target non-Human creature with mana value X until end of turn. Untap it, it gains haste. As long as you control a Lukka Planeswalker, instead that creature remains under your control. At the beginning of each end step, if you no longer control a Lukka Planeswalker, return that creature to its owner's control.
Loyalty -X
Very wordy, very confusing. Basically what it says is the following:
- Act of Treason but for non-Humans.
- Wait you control a Lukka Planeswalker? Okay nevermind you keep control of it.
- Wait you no longer control a Lukka Planeswalker? Okay, return it to it's owner at the beginning of the next end step.
Lots of delayed triggers to keep track of, making it painful to read and painful to understand, thus requiring extra love and care in the text box. Since the Loyalty -X comes with reminder text, for the purposes of this card, that text can be sloughed off. Had it not been reminder text, it too would need to be applied and thus there wouldn't be room in the field.
- Shit card is shit. If you want an MV7 creature, it would cost you 10 mana for potentially 1 turn. Or, it would cost you -7, which likely kills Lukka and thus it's still only for 1 turn.
The design isn't the focus, it's the example of what a very wordy and convoluted card may look like, to showcase the reminder text gently being dropped for sake of formatting.
December 21, 2021 3:45 a.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #4
Let me just say first off all: sometimes cards need negative attributes. I would personally like to see these a legendary sorceries, but that little bit is honestly not the most important bit here and it could go either way.
Past that, WTF are you doing putting fuckin Teyo in the same league as the OG Gatewatch and Ugin?? I know Gideon is dead, but man he's rolling in his grave right now.
Further past that, I feel like the exile clause is a tad bit unnecessary--after all, it's not like the effect is massively overpowered; you still need to pay a relevant amount of loyalty. So I'd personally put "discard" instead.
Continuing further (man I'm so tired), you don't really need the bit about "if you control X...", because you need the planeswalker as a target to activate the ability in the first place, so already requiring a specific target negates the need for the first criteria point.
December 21, 2021 3:48 a.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #6
Omniscience_is_life, LMAOOOO BRO WHY THE HATE ON TEYO?!
I just needed someone to showcase a 0 ability :,3
I also legitimately completely missed that I did OG gatewatch. I did Chandra and Garruk first, needed blue and went Jace. Decided to do Teyo for 0 and lastly needed black. I was going to go for Ob Nixilis and I was like "Eh, Obbyboi is a bit hard to do. I need an easy peasy lemon squeezy one. Liliana is good for that.", lolololol
December 21, 2021 3:53 a.m. Edited.
griffstick says... #7
I love it. It's easy to understand. The only problem is the explanation of how it works is very wordy. This leaves little room for the cards to do complicated and/or exciting things like for instance og nicol bolas ult has a lot of words and add the long explanation of how the card works. You'll just not have enough room on the card for all of that
December 21, 2021 9:57 a.m.
You would need to have a new Card Type, like "Tribal" for these cards to function--they utilize a planeswalker subtype, rather than a Sorcery subtype, and thus need to have a type that would allow them to utilize the Planeswalker subtypes without being a Planeswalker.
December 21, 2021 11:26 a.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #9
griffstick, to your point, I did state that the reminder text can be removed for the sake of additional card text.
Caerwyn, I see what you mean. Perhaps something like Loyalty Sorcery, and do away with the subtype. Though, in that case I wonder if it even needs a Loyalty supertype? Merely Sorcery would likely suffice.
December 21, 2021 1:39 p.m.
a regular sorcery that says something like: "Until your next endstep, Target Garruk plainswalker gains -4 creatures you control gets +4+4 until end of turn" would do the job without new card types or reminder texts.
December 21, 2021 3:42 p.m.
I would probably not use “Loyalty” since that is already a term of art within the game. You could do something like “Spark Sorcery” - “Spark” is a term used in Magic’s lore, but is not currently utilised in the mechanics.
You are also correct - if you dump the planeswalker subtype, you will not need a type to “unlock” putting the subtype on those cards.
December 21, 2021 4:37 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #13
So the reason I was wanting it to be castable as a sorcery, but also discarded / exiled for an activated ability, is because if you lack the Planeswalker, it's a dead card in your hand.
For example, you draft and first pack cracks open a Teyo for . Ayy, nice you can play that on curve and get some protection online. You end up pulling 3x uncommon Teyo sorceries. Sweet.
For the entire game, those sorceries are 100% useless unless you get Teyo on field.
Similarly, suppose you are in Standard and there is a nice Chandra or Teferi making rounds. If you also have sorceries, those sorceries are dead cards until the Planeswalker is out.
That's why I felt that giving the option to cast as a sorcery, or discard/exile for an activated ability, worked best.
Perhaps;
- Loyalty +1 (As long as you control a ~ Planeswalker, you may discard this card. If you do, they gain the effects of this spell as an activated ability for +1 until end of turn.)
Hmm, still a bit wordy. I'm counting 33 words. Let's try for 25 or less.
- Loyalty +1 (You may discard this card. If you do, target ~ Planeswalker gets this spell as a loyalty ability until end of turn.)
Ha! 22 words. That's much better.
Move to Gatherer for the oracle text.
- 12/21/21 - When the card is discarded, the effect of the spell becomes a loyalty ability. The loyalty cost to activate the ability is equal to the value printed on the card. For example, if a spell has Loyalty +1, you may activate that loyalty ability for +1 until end of turn. It counts as your normal activation for the turn.
December 21, 2021 5:23 p.m. Edited.
I really like this idea TypicalTimmy! I agree that you want the card to do something besides providing an additional loyalty ability to a Planeswalker. You could have cards specific to certain Walkers, or make them general and apply to any Walker. I see a lot of potential for interesting interactions.
How about this:
Liliana's Dreadcall [3][B][B]
Sorcery - Spark
Each player sacrifices two creatures. You may cast up to one target creature from a graveyard this turn and spend mana as though it is any color of mana to cast it.”
Spark - Liliana [Loyalty -4] (You may discard Liliana’s Dreadcall. If you do, target Liliana Planeswalker you control gains the text above as a loyalty ability until end of turn).
I tried adding symbols, but I kept getting error messages. Regardless, you get the idea. You could even do “Spark - Any Planeswalker,” and make it apply to any Walker you control.
:)
December 21, 2021 6:51 p.m.
Another idea is to keep it simple, dropping the subtype and going with a traditional Sorcery, with the ability “Spark - [Planeswalker],” like I did above.
I forgot to mention that I like Caerwyn’s suggestion to use “Spark,” has a nice ring to it and makes sense thematically.
December 21, 2021 7:01 p.m.
I have a question about intent. Harald, King of Skemfar and Harald Unites the Elves allow you to find a Tyvar card. Right now, that's for Tyvar Kell. Creating a sorcery with subtype Tyvar would allow that card to be selected by Harald, King or Harald Unites. Is this acceptable?
December 23, 2021 12:38 p.m.
TypicalTimmy says... #17
That was the original idea, yes. But it makes it quite complicated when a sorcery has a permanent subtype. However, Tribal spells exist, which is why I wanted to give the sorceries a supertype as well.
But it sort of just complicated things.
TypicalTimmy says... #2
I was originally going to have the typeline be the following:
But that means the sorcery has a permanent type, which could become super confusing to both new and old players alike. For example, what happens if you Genesis Wave into one? Does it go to the battlefield, or not? So, to alleviate the confusion, I dropped the Planeswalker type and focused exclusively on the {NAME}, which is honestly no different than any Tribal card, such as Eldrazi Conscription.
I almost wonder if they should have the Legendary supertype, as we saw in Dominaria. The issue, however, is two-fold:
Adding Legendary to the typeline gave no added value, and therefore that too was dropped / not considered. All it does is make it much more difficult to cast, not easier. Ergo, it only adds a negative attribute, and not a positive one.
December 21, 2021 3:12 a.m. Edited.