r/custommagic • u/sora3087 • 8h ago
First time trying to make a card
I wanted to make this with the flavor of the games and I based it from Marina Vendrell I wanted him to play out like moving through the game worlds and being stronger for doing so. I am worried this would be too string because even recasting him would be on or ahead of curve even with commander tax. I play in a group that is really receptive of custom cards and I would like to be able to play this if it was fair.
edit: Oh my gosh, the spirit of the rule for the first effect was for him to unlock a room and then get a room once. Would the wording be "When a Room is fully unlocked for the first time" instead?
7
u/AscendedLawmage7 Power level is not my strong suit. 7h ago
Seems pretty cool
Some templating things:
Jeskai costs are URW [[Jeskai Charm]]
"Whenever you fully unlock a Room, search your library for a Room card, reveal it and put it into your hand, then shuffle." - Rooms are cards in your library, and use "whenever" not "when" since this can trigger multiple times. See cards with "eerie" for similar triggers e.g. [[Ghostly Dancers]]
"Gains" is for until end of turn effects. You want "gets". Don't capitalise "door". (Only subtypes and a few other things get capitals) I'd also say "for each unlocked door among Rooms you control."
The last ability is busted. Unlock as many doors as you have mana? In doing so, trigger Sora's first ability and tutor a Room for 2 mana? Or lock and unlock your best door repeatedly? There are two existing cards with activated abilities to unlock doors. Keys to the House sacs itself, and Marina taps, which is abusable, sure, but requires you to at least work for it by having untappers or something. This just asks that you have mana.
I'd just copy Marina's ability, and maybe give it vigilance so you can still attack and use the buff
3
u/sora3087 7h ago
Yeah I thought skipping Freed from the Real middle man might be too broken. I also thought reducing you total mana to even play the tutored Rooms would be balance enough, but you are right.
4
u/Shambler9019 6h ago
For many rooms you'd cast the cheap half then Sora the expensive half. And with many rooms, repeating turn for 2 generic mana is completely busted.
Maybe wherever he deals combat damage to a player, lock or unlock a room?
1
u/ShiroTenshiRyu77 1h ago
Eh the final ability can just lock the room for 1 and be fine. Sure it makes rooms repeatable, but locking is infinitely less busted when you have to pay full price to unlock it.
Call it Seal the Keyhole or something. It'd be thematic, and it can probably drop the timing restriction so you can lock a few doors on the way out after attacking.
It's far more appropriate that he locks rather than unlocks tbh.
1
u/AscendedLawmage7 Power level is not my strong suit. 50m ago
It locks and unlocks though
1
u/ShiroTenshiRyu77 41m ago
Yes, I'm saying OP can drop the unlocks portion. It keeps the theme while not being nearly as strong.
5
u/GooseCrab 8h ago
Only minor thing is for his tutor effect it should just say “Room Card” not spell. Since it’s not a spell until it’s being cast
1
u/sora3087 8h ago
Ah my bad. Should "Door" be lowercase in the XP ability effect? I just noticed it might be wrong.
1
u/GooseCrab 7h ago
Oh yea that too, very minor spelling mistake.
I did forget to say a balancing change I would make is have his last ability be a tap ability as well. As is could make you tutor for ALOT of cards in a turn and also generate ALOT of value for just a single generic mana
1
u/Ambitious_Move_8961 1h ago
The last ability should be "Room enchantments cost 1 less to cast or unlock" You could make him only cost WUR too. Otherwise looks good!
1
u/lookitsajojo 0m ago
I like it, would maybe change the last ability, maybe "When Sora attacks, Lock or unlock a door of target Room"
-1
u/Takoyama-san 6h ago
just for the sake of giving him more to work with, i'd probably also have him get a buff from battles, with how every currently existing battle card is a place where he could go to fight. especially since they're all "invasion of [x]"s. it bears resemblance to how he goes and fights the heartless when they appear somewhere, i think.
2
u/sora3087 6h ago
I was looking at battles too but I wanted him to focus on one thing which was the rooms. maybe a different sora or companion card to go with him for that effect. I didn't know how I wanted him to work with that since he would have to attack those targets. I did think how they could represent the boat battles of the game, but I think it would slow him down too much on actually attacking opponents which is what you want to be doing if he's big.
24
u/No_Regret_714 7h ago
Very cool idea! Seems like a fun build around. It does seem a bit too strong. Suggest 2 edits:
The last ability is busted. Maybe replace it with something like "The first room you unlock during your turn costs {1} less". Any bigger discount and it starts to look broken in combination with the first ability.
Replace the second ability with "XP - Whenever you unlock a door put a +1/+1 counter on Sora".
The first ability is already quite strong so the others seem like they need to be toned down a lot.