MTG Salvation

Nice and simple - is "each of your mains phases" or "each precombat main phase" too good? Any cards that interact positively (extra phase, Savor the Moment)?

Also assuming you have a shard theme for those lands?

I think the numbers on some of these are a little off. Living weapon is a powerful effect and costs should be a bit higher.

Firebug R
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has haste.
Equip R

Perhaps mana cost 1R.

Flameclaw 3R
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +3/+1 and has first strike.
Equip 3R

Screenwing 1W
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has flying.
Equip 1W

Comparing Gryff's Boon, I think the equip cost should be 3W

Purehusk W
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +2/+1.
Equip W

This one is absurd - since a 2/1 for W is already OK, I think equip cost should be 3W or more.

Slitherskin 1B
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has skulk.
Equip 1B

To synergize with skulk, Perhaps +0/+2 would be more interesting, and "Whenever this creature attacks, defending player loses 2 life." Mana cost 2B if so.

Rotwhip 4B
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +2/+5 and has deathtouch.
Equip 4B

Stoneblade RW
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +1/+1 and has double strike.
Equip RW

Suggest 2RW equip cost.

Fright Gear 1BR
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has menace.
Equip 1BR

Suggest "Equip: Sacrifice a creature." if this there is a sacrifice theme in your cube, and to spice things up a bit. This works well with Living Weapon.

Skullsickle 2WB
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +2/+4 and has lifelink.
Equip 2WB

Shriek Shrike BRW
Artifact - Equipment (U)
Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, put a 0/0 black Germ creature token onto the battlefield, then attach this to it.)
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has flying and battle cry.

Could this be changed to make tokens, like Hero of Bladehold?


General comment is that perhaps there is room for some more interesting (if less elegant) designs, here are some ideas:
Equipped creature has power and toughness equal to the number of cards in your hand. Equip: discard a card.
Equipped creature has power and toughness equal to the number of creature cards in your graveyard.
~ may only be equipped to a creature with converted mana cost 2 or less.
Equipped creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.
As ~ enters the battlefield, choose a creature. Equipped creature is a copy of the chosen creature.

Getting the obvious out of the way, Insolent Neonate is too low impact unless it has extreme synergy with the deck - which it doesn't in this case. Structural Distortion is not playable. Two Uncaged Fury, two Aim high is too many combat tricks for my liking, I would try to not play the Uncaged Furies.

I would have (sadly) played these 6 cards instead if I had to be R/G:


Looking at the pool, White and black both seem solid, with a couple of good removal spells each.

I think the best deck is likely BR, GW or RW depending on what has the most synergy and best curve. Red looks like the deepest colour, but lacks removal - good to pair with B or W. GW is good together because of the human and investigate synergies.

Very difficult pool! All your colours seem to drop off after card #7, and your bombs are in awkward colours. I feel like your deck has too few creatures, and a lot of bad cards.

I would avoid these


To have enough good cards in the deck, I think you are forced to go three colour. My instinct is to try make a Blue-Green-Black deck. Blue gives you some good cards (Ongoing Investigation, Altered Ego, Epiphany at the Drownyard), decent removal, but few creatures. Black gives you decent creatures. Green gives you some fixing, which is important given the lack of it otherwise, and some delirium synergy. The deck has a lot of graveyard synergy in general.

Something like this (BGu):



You are losing both Nahiri, the Harbinger and Avacyn's Judgement, but Avacyn's Judgement is only really good with madness, and Nahiri is hard to cast.

I got great draws all day and went 5-0 and literally did not lose a game. Also, the deck was absurd.

Highlights:
2 x Expose Evil + 4 x Bloodmad Vampire (!)
Burn from Within and 2 x Fiery Temper.
Murderer's Axe with the above madness cards.
Nahiri's Machinations

You look to have a very strong W-R deck. Play 12-13 white cards (so many token makers and pump spells, play the two expose evils), 8-9 red cards (good aggressive creature), 1-2 equipment.

Red is potentially better than black because of the Fiery Tempers, although there are also 8 good black cards + the insane fixing, so I am not certain. Would depend on how the curve looks, and I would go with what is most aggressive.

I don't like green or blue. Green has bad removal and seems clunky.

How about:

Magma Pit
Land
T, Sacrifice ~: Add 1 to your mana pool. Search your library for a Mountain card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.

Thank you, glad to hear that. I should have thought to check the oracle on Banishing Light/Banisher Priest! Perhaps WOTC would not create this due to the ease of mis-stacking the triggers, but I am happy enough.

Consider this card

Flickermare 1WW
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile another target creature until ~ leaves the battlefield.
Evoke W
2/2

I believe this as worded permanently exiles a creature for W if you choose to resolve the sacrifice ability of evoke before the ETB ability.

Can anyone think of a clever workaround so this creature works as intended when evoked? i.e. the creature comes back

Thanks in advance

It doesn't make a huge amount of sense for this to exist (new card type etc.), but does lead to some interesting ideas.

A WOTC version might be:

Sleep Attack 1UU
Instant
Tap target creature. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
Merfolk Skill U (You may pay U instead of this card's mana cost if you are attacking with a Merfolk.)

or

Sleep Attack 1UU
Instant
Tap target creature. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
Merfolk Skill - You may cast this card for U. If you do, target Merfolk creature you control gains "T: Tap target creature. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step."

Both are somewhat different in function to your original, but much cleaner mechanically. This idea could definitely use some further development.

For the card to be pushed enough for constructed/cube it would have to gain 3 life for 0, Sacrifice:, or 6 life (or drain for 3) for 3, Sacrifice:. Any less powerful versions than that are absolutely fine for constructed, and fine for limited if it at least an uncommon.

Bottle Gnomes and Cathodion are not exactly power-houses.

Quote from harlannowick »

Ignoring the balance issues, I really don't like these designs. They feel like traps. They require you to be multi-color, but also be running colorless lands and a bunch of basics. Just doesn't feel good. They are inherently inconsistent. I think you would be better off switching to a cycle of single color lands. For example...

Beasts Bestiary
Land [U]
t : Add 1 to your mana pool.
2G , t : Target creature gets +3/+3 and gains trample until end of turn. Activate this ability only if you control two or more basic lands.

Hybrid might be even better i.e. 2(G/W) < 2G < 1GW

How about giving it more 3's?

Chrome Gnome - 3
Artifact Creature - Gnome (U)
3, Sacrifice Chrome Gnome: You gain 3 life.
3/3

I meant that in the original post opponents could be making the exact same play before a certain player's turn (mistakenly said beginning of)

As in if there are three players against some number of opponents:

Player A
Opponent(s) do 1.
Player B
Opponent(s) do 2.
Player C
Opponent(s) do 3.
Player A
Opponent(s) do 1.
etc.

This is problematic for example with Onori, as Player C gets Decree of Silenced before each of their turns, while B basically wont have ever deal with that.

This is a fun idea. I like the idea of stacking up opponents to appropriately adjust difficulty.

1. Why have colour at all? - they can't be permanents (Beast Within) and surely they can be themed around a colour without necessarily having one?
2. Life-gain might be specifically problematic for opponents to deal with (and combos obviously).
3. The cyclical nature might lead to situations where the Opponents makes the exact same play at the beginning of a certain player's turn. I would avoid this with randomization (dice rolling). This could have a number of varieties:

Example 1, Some abilities more probable:
1-3: Do a
4-5: Do b
6: Do c

Example 2, Simultaneous abilities
1-6: Do a
4-6: Do b
6: Do c

Anyway

Palatine
Opponent
1-3. Until the end of the previous player's next turn, whenever a creature attacks an opponent, that creature becomes blocked.
4-5. Each player chooses a creature with the greatest power among creatures they control. Those creatures deal damage equal to their power to their controller. Return those creatures to their owners' hands.
6. Each player's life total becomes the lowest life total among all players.
{10}

Captain Pollution
Opponent
1-2. Each player sacrifices a non-land permanent.
3-6. Each player loses 3 life
6. Until the end of the previous player's next turn, whenever a land is tapped for colored mana, it produces colorless instead.
{10}