Alright, another month, another month of custom cards!
This month’s theme, because of the month of smooches was to make a bunch of cards with Partner. Partner is one of those mechanics where it kinda got accidentally effed up in the first round, and that has had problems that CEDH has had to deal with to this very day. I don’t wanna do that, so I’m playing it safe this time.
- Partner cards should cost 3 mana at minimum. We have a couple of them that were too powerful because they’re really flexible (hi, Tymna, hi Thrasios) and they enable too much stuff (hi, Vial Smasher, hi Thrasios).
- Partner cards shouldn’t be single-card engines. They should do one thing reliably. Any given partner card should have interesting interactions, but also be a reasonably handleable card.
- ‘Almost’ cards for Commander, cards that were good once, but aren’t good any more, can be good templates. Cards that you wouldn’t run, but you would if they were always in your opening hand.
- I’m playing it safe here. Assume that for text space and power reasons, I’m being very careful about how much text they have and if I had my druthers, some of these cards would be a little bigger, a little more defensive and maybe have a keyword or two.
- Also, flavour is hard. I know full well that a lot of fan-made custom card flavour text is weak. Broadly speaking, these are ‘first drafty’ flavour, and I do have ideas for how they work, but I don’t think what I’m doing and my ideas can necessarily be easily translated onto the cards. Rather than force it, I leave it off and will explain as best I can when asked.
What did Reddit have to say? Well, for most of them, not much, which makes sense. There was a hilarious bruhaha about Rinrin, because there were fears that she could, for example, cheat out a Consecrated Sphinx for only 2 mana, which means that you spent 6 mana to get a 1/1 consecrated sphinx. This also brought out the suggestion that nobody in commander uses size-based removal.
Also, some people were mad about Tatiana, because a 5 mana steal card without direct counterplay is… what? Unstoppably powerful? Over pushed for the commander environment?
Helpfully, it was pointed out to me by Enderlord that First’s wording needed some refining (and that’s addressed here, with the up to date wording).
Wide Orgo got compared to [mtg_card]Prophet of Kruphix[/mtg_card], which is hilarious. Untapping all your lands and giving all your permanents flash is kind of important parts of Prophet of Kruphix!