Shivers, Finicky Fennec
Custom Cards forum
Posted on Aug. 22, 2021, 4:16 a.m. by seshiro_of_the_orochi
I tried to come up with a legendary fox, and this is how it turned out. This is an Azorius commander I'd actually try building.
Thoughts?
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #3
Grubbernaut: That's right, how could I miss that. Thanks a lot.
August 22, 2021 12:01 p.m.
Necrosis24 says... #4
I like this card it seems fun. I do have to say it seems little too powerful for casual play. Assuming you play a Plains then Island then cast Shivers on turn two and turn three you will have 5-7 cards in hand likely so Shivers will be a 7/7-9/9 on turn three that has built in board control and card draw. Now of course they all have to have the same cmc but with how the deck is built it will likely have a bunch of small spells.
Throw Paradox Haze into the mix and you can be getting 10-14+ counters a turn.
August 22, 2021 4:01 p.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #5
Necrosis24: That's true. Any suggestions to make it a little weaker?
August 22, 2021 11:22 p.m.
Necrosis24 says... #6
Hmm i there are a couple options I can come up with
- Lower the amount of counters obtained (perhaps one per pair of cards revealed)
- Add a mana or additional cost to the activated ability
- Remove the “doesn’t untap at the next untap step” clause
August 23, 2021 1:26 p.m.
It seems like the OP suggestion has received multiple changes since it was initially posted, so I lack some of the history.
However it seems weird to want to reveal more than two cards, as there's no benefit to reveal more - it's the same effect. So I would remove that and just have the triggered ability require you to reveal two cards of same MV.
Additionally, I think you can too easily void the information drawback of the triggered ability and just keep showing lands to filter your draws and possibly fuel a graveyard centered combo/strategy - all that for a 2 mana 2/2. I would probably change it to reveal two nonland cards of the same mana value.
Alternatively have you discard one of the revealed cards so if you do reveal lands, you have to discard one of those lands. That's borderline irrelevant if you are getting mana flooded but if not it is more risky and you might be more inclined to reveal some actual info on your hand. This drawback also removes the option to just keep showing the same two cards over and over and negating the information drawback without actually putting in some kind of effort.
After consideration I think option 2 is actually the more interesting.
August 30, 2021 9:26 a.m.
I see the change you've made seshiro_of_the_orochi - however the wording probably needs some changes. Right now it basically says for each card revealed; draw 2, discard 1, put a +1/+1 counter on Shivers. I doubt that was what you wanted. You probably want to word it like this:
"If you do, draw two cards, then discard a card. For each card revealed this way put a +1/+1 counter on Shivers."
I think this version grows the Fox a bit too fast for any format. The trigger itself is also a net +1 card draw and a filter. Even in Commander if you play this turn 2, turn 3 you reveal 5x lands/other 0 MV cards and hit an opponent for 7 Commander damage. This would quickly eliminate players and white has access to a few double strike enablers like Silverblade Paladin and Duelist's Heritage and Battle Mastery and a few temporary enablers.
I think the point was to make this a control Commander, but this reads a lot more like an aggro Voltron Commander. With built in card advantage and filtering, you can run a very low curve decklist that enables some hefty buffs on this Fox and the Fox is cheap, so removal is not that effective. You could consider to have it put a counter on for every two cards revealed. Although that would really make it difficult to stack some counters on it. You could also change it from +1/+1 counters to a specific counter, like a "frost counter" so you can utilize it for the controlling aspect, but not pump up the creature.
Have you put any thought into the information drawback I mentioned? Right now you can continue to reveal the same two lands to draw 2, discard 1 and grow Shivers and there's little to no drawback for the controller but a lot of benefits. And if you have more lands, you might as well reveal them to grow the whiskers even more. All for the cost of 2 mana. That's a bit much if you ask me.
August 31, 2021 5:53 a.m.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #9
Tzefick: I'm reading your comments, but I need to find time to properly answer. Your feedback is very apprecited!
August 31, 2021 6:26 a.m.
Grubbernaut says... #10
Sandbagging lands and/or building a UW deck based around 0 CMC doesn't sound very competitive, to me, so I don't expect that would be a busted t3 play. There are boatloads of decks winning on t3, and with that in mind, I don't find the card overpowered by commander standards.
August 31, 2021 10:37 a.m.
Grubbernaut My point is more that the effect doesn't seem to match up with the intend of the Commander - if I understood the OP correctly. Moreso blue-white isn't really an aggro orientated color pairing.
Zurgo Helmsmasher is a T3 deck on the competitive cEDH scale (at least to some lists), so while building an exclusively 0 MV deck is unlikely a wise strategy for this Fox, there's already Voltron strategies on the competitive scale that seems slower than what you can do here. In the 0 MV spots you can take advantage of cards like Mishra's Bauble, Spellbook, Briber's Purse, Everflowing Chalice, Chalice of the Void, and there's a few more 0 MV artifacts that are decent enough that they wont hinder you much in an aggro shell while providing opportunities to massively grow the fox (not including high priced cards like the Mox Sapphire). Anything past +4/+4 per turn seems too much for a free trigger on a 2 mana card. Include most if not all of the Cycling lands so you can ditch lands for gas if flooded. Blue and the built in card advantage + filtering of the Fox is sure to give you cards in hand to use your mana or keep it open for responses. And blue gives you plenty of ways to avoid combat blocking as an obstacle, so you only really need to mind responding to removal.
And I haven't even thought that much about how to built that deck, so there's probably more you can do. (The more I think about it, the more I actually want to build the deck, just to see what you can possibly do - but I don't think that's the intent of the Commander and I don't actually want this version to see print.)
Obviously Paradox Haze for double the draws, double the counters.
It's definitely not going to be a T1 deck, but are we really trying to make competitive ready Commanders with little thought?
Also how many decks are really winning on turn 3? It's definitely possible, but I doubt it's a majority of the time. I don't have much experience with cEDH, but considering the decks that are put into the top tiers of the cEDH lists, I think it's more realistic to say they end around turn 5-6 on average.
(And if we're talking cEDH you can speed up the clock and cast Fox t1 and attack on t2 for 6+ damage and then again next turn to take that player out most likely and at that point you can possibly clap a player per attack.)
Grubbernaut says... #2
I think for it to work as intended, it needs an "x must be 2 or greater" clause. As it stands you can reveal one of zero cards and get the effect, unless that's the idea.
August 22, 2021 11:35 a.m.