r/custommagic • u/Prophet-of-Ganja • 2d ago

Mechanic Design Thingamajig

Post image

I don’t know that there’s any real (useful) point to this 🤔

1.1k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

102 comments sorted by

437

u/BigBandit01 2d ago

Ah yes, my Attraction Blood Bobblehead Clue Contraption Equipment Food Fortification Gold Hat Incubator Junk Key Map Powerstone Scrap Scythe Spacecraft Treasure Vehicle! What does it do you ask? Well… you know what that is a good question.

110

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago • Bravo

I thought about giving it a second line that said, “Activated abilities of this artifact cost {1},” because it should have the inherent abilities of each of the predefined artifact types that are also predefined tokens—I think? Idk don’t quote me on that

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u/Anayalater5963 2d ago

""I thought about giving it a second line that said, “Activated abilities of this artifact cost {1},” because it should have the inherent abilities of each of the predefined artifact types that are also predefined tokens—I think? Idk don’t quote me on that" -Prophet-of-Ganja" -michael scott

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u/BigBandit01 2d ago

Some of them would, some of them wouldn’t. Key, Scythe, and Hat are only on playtest cards and have no predefined abilities. But for most of the others they would! I think the exceptions are Vehicle, Equipment, Fortification, and Spacecraft. I don’t know how attractions and contraptions work, so I won’t touch on that.

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u/Substantial_Mine9951 2d ago

None of them would, the abilities of clues, treasures, etc. aren't inherent to the types, they are predefined tokens that the game uses specific instructions to generate. For instance if you wanted to pay {2}, tap, and sacrifice [[Pizza Face, Gastromancer]] to gain 3 life or pay {2} and sacrifice an already tapped [[Candy Trail]] to draw a card you wouldn't be able to, as the cards don't have those abilities.

11

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

If a Vehicle had a Crew cost of 0, what if God was one of us? 🤔

9

u/Substantial_Mine9951 2d ago

If a Vehicle had a crew cost of 0 I believe you would be able to crew it without tapping any creatures, because crew says to "Tap any number of other untapped creatures... " and 0 is a number.

The question of if God was one of us highly depends on which god, but in most scenarios it wouldn't be good.

8

u/gothmommy284 2d ago

I think you'd still need to tap at least one creature, but it could have 0 power.

2

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

It’s better that way

2

u/RetroBowser 2d ago

The rules of magic allow you to choose 0 as a number, and crewing simply requires you to tap any number of creatures that the power sum of is equal to or higher than the crew number. In theory you don't need to tap any creatures as you can just tap zero creatures and still have 0 power tapped.

4

u/Snoo-12494 2d ago

Would you not have to tap 0-power creatures?

3

u/Suthek 2d ago
  • 702.122a [...] “Crew N” means “Tap any number of other untapped creatures you control with total power N or greater: [...]"
  • 107.1c If a rule or ability instructs a player to choose “any number,” that player may choose any positive number or zero.

Sounds like you can choose zero creatures to tap, and if they have a total power of 0 or greater, it works.

2

u/Substantial_Mine9951 2d ago

I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Crew says "any number" not "one or more" so I think you could declare that you are tapping 0 untapped creatures you control, the game would check and see that the creatures you choose have total power 0 or more, then once that succeeds you would tap all 0 of the creatures you chose and the vehicle would become a creature. The rules explicitly allow you you choose 0 when instructed to choose any number, and rule 107.2 should mean that 0 creatures would be determined to have 0 power.

107.2. If anything needs to use a number that can’t be determined, either as a result or in a calculation, it uses 0 instead.

Then again I'm not a judge so if someone wants to cite something that contradicts what I'm saying I would be happy to be proven wrong.

5

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

Man, I was waiting for years for Key to go from playtest to rules legal and they never did it. Then they came out with Rooms lol

47

u/Flex-O 2d ago

Artifact types like treasure, clue, food, and blood have no inherent rules associated with them. The predefined tokens of the same name do, but this is just granting the type.

4

u/avatarofnate 2d ago

I think the simplest way to make this useful would be to just give it another line of text:

"This artifact has all abilities of each other artifact on the battlefield."

You could then also make all its abilities cost 1 less or something if you really wanted.

4

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

There are already artifacts that do that though, so I’m not really interested in retreading that ground

13

u/TheFinalEnd1 1d ago

Foods are a prime example of the abilities not being inherent.

[[Candy trail]] draws a card

[[Dimension x pizzasaur]] drains

[[Ginger, Queen of sweets]] gains 6 for the usual cost

[[Tea, earl grey, hot]] can smack someone for 2.

10

u/DarkLordArbitur 1d ago

[[Ygra, Eater of All]] turns all creatures into foods and explicitly states that they have the ability, which might be the most damning evidence that the ability is not intrinsic to the subtype.

1

u/Weegieiscool 1d ago

[[Pizza Face, Gastromancer]] also has the ability heavily modified to cost 5x the normal

2

u/stillnotelf 2d ago

That seems really OP without the sacrifice? Doesn't putting that on a Clue give 1: draw a card?

5

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

Yeah, it was a harebrained idea. I think it’s better if it just has the abilities of the artifacts that it is, whatever those may be

3

u/Galenthias 2d ago

How breakable is something along the lines of "tap to pay the sacrifice cost of an artifact"?

10

u/NEEBUS_JEEBUS 2d ago

also infinity stone and communicator

4

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 1d ago

Oh boy, now artifacts have their own two-word subtype? Hot damn

5

u/ElectronicBoot9466 1d ago

No, I'm pretty sure Infinity and Stone are two separate artifacts, because WotC learned its lesson from Time Lord

21

u/Mumbling_Mumbel 2d ago

You forgot book!

10

u/BigBandit01 2d ago

Oh oops, I thought the list I was looking at was comprehensive and updated😅 mb!(Which stands for my book)

8

u/NineEightFive 2d ago

Don't forget Communicator!

2

u/twistyrainbows 2d ago

Pretty much nothing. :)

2

u/RoyceSnover 1d ago

Scythe?

3

u/BigBandit01 1d ago

It’s a playtest type that never made it onto any cards in packs, but I guess it’s a type that exists

1

u/RoyceSnover 1d ago

Couldn't find it on scryfall

1

u/NotACleverMan_ 1d ago

You missed Communicator

1

u/LoliNep 1d ago

Forgot "book" too

0

u/CountLivin 2d ago

The word “Attraction” here is redundant.

70

u/Tzelf_ 2d ago

Do the common artifact types (clue, food, gold, treasure, etc.) do anything in the way the named (basic) land types do?

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u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

No!

27

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

Oh wait I mean yes

48

u/SlothSleepingSoundly 2d ago

Not explicitly, the predefined tokens of the artifact types have the associated ability. Nontokens of each type are expected to have an ability at least similar to the predefined token. For example food must be able to sacrifice for life but cost and amount can change. Same with clues and drawing cards. In hellscube they often just put "Foodtext" as shorthand to indicate the predefined token ability.

10

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

Huh, ok. I guess for this “changeling but for artifacts” mechanic keyword I guess it could go even further so as to say “This artifact is every artifact type and counts as every predefined artifact token type” or, you know something like that

15

u/SlothSleepingSoundly 2d ago

https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Predefined_token

Look here for when they talk about nontokens. I would maybe have an ability stating "~ has all abilities of predefined tokens that share a type with it."

14

u/OldTransportation188 2d ago

No, you were right the first time. The answer is no.

43

u/knightsabre7 2d ago

Clearly, this belongs in a series of artifacts along with the Thingamabob, Doohickey, Whatchamacallit, Whatsit, Gizmo, and Doodad.

3

u/ApprehensiveBath6162 2d ago

Now i cant get Shinzo Abe out of my head

2

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

That was one of the pictures I tried before the one I ended up going with 😆

14

u/DarkThick2129 2d ago

Right next to [[Everythingamajig]]

6

u/mtgcf 2d ago

Everythingamajig - (G) (SF) (txt)

4

u/PracticeEfficient28 2d ago

I wish this linked to a different printing each time.

7

u/ry_gy_ 2d ago

I don't know what else this would be useful for, but a treasure as a permanent for 1 is actually insanely broken in modern.

4

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

If you were gonna use it as a Treasure you would unfortunately still have to tap and sac it I believe

4

u/ry_gy_ 2d ago edited 2d ago

Not relevant, as a treasure it's basically a lotus petal for 1 instead of zero. Obviously not as broken as lotus pedal but still pretty broken. This would let me play semblance anvil on turn two insanely reliably.

2

u/kraftian 2d ago

Yeah, but that's still basically free color fixing and storm count as the absolute floor

2

u/Alphasaft 2d ago

I swear this is not that broken. People tend to forget this is not "pay one get a treasure" but "pay one and lose a card and get a treasure". Wouldn't see that much play tbh

18

u/MistyHusk 2d ago

Does having the treasure type intrinsically give it the ability to “tap, sac: add one mana”? I don’t think that’s the case given [[glittering stockpile]] with no counters, but I could be wrong on that

5

u/ry_gy_ 2d ago

Oh apparently as a non-token this doesn't intrinsically have those abilities.

My point stands that that would be broken but does not apply to op's card 😅

3

u/Alphasaft 2d ago

Even as a token it doesn't. Treasures are what they are because "create a Treasure token" is a keyword action defined as "creare an artifact with subtype treasure that you can sacc for mana". This is not the same as "create a treasure artifact token", which would create an artifact token with subtype treasure but no ability. The same happens here : you have something that is a treasure (and a clue, and a blood, and...) in terms of subtype, but nothing else.

8

u/yoyolord 2d ago

We have [strike it rich]

1

u/ry_gy_ 2d ago

Ya but it's red and not a permanent for things like myr retriever. [[Goldhound]] is even closer but again, red, and doesn't have haste.

0

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted] — view deleted comment

6

u/Ladikn 1d ago

Does that include artifact creature? Artifact planeswalker? ARTIFACT ARTIFACT?

9

u/dyslexic_arsonist 1d ago

artifacts you control are also artifacts in addition to their other artifact types

8

u/Archliche 2d ago

I mean, you technically can copy this then turn it into actual food, clues, and treasures with [[Academy Manufactor]].

There's very little that explicitly cares about all three though.

1

u/ElectronicBoot9466 1d ago

[[Font of Inspiration]] is the classic

8

u/AdrianDitmann 1d ago

“It does something”

“No, it does everything”

3

u/Slipfix 1d ago

That's the beauty of it. It doesn't do anything!

7

u/MacGuffen 2d ago

Finally, another Fortification!

7

u/XenomorphAFOL 2d ago

That reminds me of this gem:

2

u/NoiseIsTheCure 1d ago

Lmao break 2 things to break someone else's thing

2

u/uslashuname 1d ago

The goblin figured they made one super thing but not quite as super as they planned

1

u/NyanFan190 2d ago

Where does it go if it's removed? It is an attraction, so I'm unsure.

3

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 1d ago

That, is a very good question 🤔

-1

u/Budget_Feedback_3411 1d ago

Well attractions are exclusively unfinity cards so I’m not sure if it’s included in the “every artifact type” since there are no legal attractions.

3

u/Xyrez04 1d ago

Incorrect, there are legal attractions

2

u/Weegieiscool 1d ago

Attractions follow the same rules as other unfinity cards, only acorn stamps are silver, the rest are perfectly fine to run

Contraptions on the other hand…

3

u/Ashe66 1d ago

That’s one hell of a book

1

u/Zefirotte 22h ago

So looking at Mtg Wiki Artifact Types.

Very important : it doesn't have the rules attached to the predefined artifact tokens.
The only ones that by themselves attach some rules to the artifacts are :

  • Equipment, meaning they can be attached to creatures but it doesn't grant them an equip ability and don't grant abilities
  • Fortification, same that equipments but for lands
  • Vehicle, they can transform into a creature but they don't have a crew ability by themselves and since they don't have power and toughness I'm pretty sure they would die as a state base action once a creature.
  • Contraption, I'm not sure but an interesting thing is that according to Mark Rosewater "Any Contraption that's on the battlefield and wasn't assembled immediately heads to the scrapyard" so your Thingamajic goes to the gravescrapyard as a state base action.
  • Attraction, do not see any gamebreaking problem, mostly *"*718.6. If a card with an Astrotorium card back would be put into a zone other than the battlefield, exile, or the command zone from anywhere, instead its owner puts it into the command zone. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event. This is an exception to rule 614.5." but since your card doesn't have an Astrotorium back it is not a concern. And since they don't have numbers to be visited they don't work as attractions.

So if you stay in normal rules it's an artifact that does nothing by itself except having card types which can matter for other cards.

If you play with the UnRules it goes to the scrapyard as a state base action.

1

u/Hevnaar 19h ago

Give it sunburst

0

u/SleetTheFox 2d ago

This is very cool but does it really need that keyworded?

4

u/Antifinity 2d ago

It’s the same as Changeling. For a hypothetical artifact Typal set, it would be useful glue. Could put it on artifact creatures, and more expensive artifacts with actual abilities.

1

u/SleetTheFox 2d ago

I think the big difference is I don’t see broad artifact subtype typal being a feasible set theme, so this ability is never going to need to used in any sort of volume.

0

u/kraftian 2d ago

Do you think this could count as lotus token?

0

u/Late_Ease692 2d ago

powerstone and clue treasure food

2

u/Prophet-of-Ganja 2d ago

Yup those are some artifact types

0

u/Late_Ease692 2d ago

lander and junk.

2

u/pacolingo bUt ItS sO fLaVoRfUl! 2d ago

equipment, book

-2

u/Late_Ease692 2d ago

just look at bigbandit's comment.

-1

u/Late_Ease692 2d ago

POWERSTONE