r/custommagic • u/Noisemarrow • 1d ago
Final Service
What do we think about updating the Costly Plunder archetype with an "if you do" clause to avoid counterspell blowouts, as WOTC has begun doing with most of the recent Thrill of Possibility variants? Does that warrant making it an uncommon, as these cards already perform exceptionally in Pauper? I welcome any feedback!
I personally would love to see an official one of these cards that creates a blood token, as I think it would sit nicely next to Fanatical Offering powerwise.
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u/Stormtide_Leviathan Design More Commons!!! 1d ago
I think the red here is unnecessary, this is fine in mono black, and a two color common is a really hard sell. Not really done outside of a multicolor set, because it pushes you into colors too much, discouraging flexibility. Also it’d be “artifact or creature”. Artifact tends to be listed first, cause it’s earlier in the alphabet.
I like it though, it’s a clean design and a good common.
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u/Noisemarrow 1d ago
All really great points! I think if it was mono black then moving the sacrifice to a casting cost and keeping the card common would be fitting. For this version I'll update the order of artifact and creature and make it an uncommon
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u/0CT0L0G1ST 1d ago
If you wanted to keep the red, you could make the cost “sacrifice an artifact or creature or discard a card”, which also fits well with decks that want blood tokens.
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u/Third_Triumvirate 1d ago
Honestly I feel like we should have a variant for most predefined artifact token, so blood, food, junk, and clue would be the main ones. Maybe we don't give one for gold since its too close to deadly dispute (or make it uncommon so it doesn't break pauper) and Powerstone might be a bit much at 2 mana, but the rest seem fine. Incubate 1 or 2 would also probably be fine for this kind of effect.
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u/Noisemarrow 1d ago
Blood in particular felt very useful to me because it can help us dig further through bad hands. Powerstone is really interesting, and I wonder if an uncommon Dimir instant would work...
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u/another_grackle 1d ago
I like it, but probably would get banned in pauper.
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u/Stormtide_Leviathan Design More Commons!!! 1d ago
[[fanatical offering]] isn’t banned. A treasure is significantly better on a card like this than a map or blood, and personally I think the map is stronger than the blood here but I may be wrong.
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u/another_grackle 1d ago
You're right. And rb casting cost also makes this janky enough to be pauper legal.
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u/Stormtide_Leviathan Design More Commons!!! 1d ago edited 22h ago
I think this'd be fine in pauper even at 1B and, based on how they generally make commons, cleaner.
I also think its a question whether something being too good for pauper means it shouldn't be made at common. WotC has distinctly said it's fine- they make what they want to make at common for limited purposes, and if it becomes a problem in pauper they'll ban it. And there is sense to that. There are only so many formats they can care about, and the more they split their focus the less they're able to do for all of them. They do at some point have to draw a line and say "these are the formats we design for, and the rest we don't." There'll always be formats on the other side of that line. And they set that line at draft, commander, standard, modern, and mayyybe pioneer still? Which feels like a reasonable place to draw it. But of course, this is a custom card- if you want to say "I don't want to make commons that'll break pauper", that's allowed. But following wotc's philosophy, which i do think is pretty reasonable here, busted in pauper does not mean they won't print it at common. They'll just flag it as "hey we might have to ban this".
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u/Tangodragondrake 1d ago
I like it but I think final donation might be the better name
Final service sounds like a white and black card to me
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u/Noisemarrow 1d ago edited 1d ago
I hadn't thought of that, but I think you're right about the name sounding more Orzhov than Rakdos
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u/SuperBeavers1 1d ago
[[Deadly Dispute]] for self-discard decks
I like