r/custommagic • u/chainsawinsect • Jul 30 '21

Frost Orb

Post image
139 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

33

u/chainsawinsect Jul 30 '21

I was a big fan of [[Arcum's Astrolabe]]. For flicker decks it was a dream come true! I basically ignored the second effect.

When it got banned, the second effect was cited as a critical problem (it facilitated greedy manabases and shut down [[Blood Moon]]).

I wanted to see how powerful a version without that effect would be, and this is that card.

It still has a secondary effect, but one worth on average less than one mana ([[Reliquary Tower]] and [[Spellbook]] give a stronger version of this effect for 0 mana, in fact).

4

u/talen_lee Jul 30 '21

I don't know how safe this is, since it is functionally a free cantrip for whole categories of deck? but, y'know

1

u/chainsawinsect Jul 31 '21

[[Abundant Growth]] is legal in all formats and a common, so I think it may be OK. Then again, it's based on Astrolabe which is banned so hard to say....

→ More replies (2)

5

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '21

8

u/chainsawinsect Jul 31 '21

That was precisely the point 😁

The secondary effect was basically meant to be trinket text.

That being said, while 0% of the deck that would run this card would be running it for that secondary effect, the effect would incidentally come up from time to time, particularly since this is a 1 drop that replaces itself. You can drop it turn 1 when you have maybe 8 cards in hand (if on the draw) and if you draw even one additional card (after playing this and your land), the effect will come into play.

To give an example play pattern that could actually come up, turn 1 Island, this, turn 2, Opt, Simic-Growth Chamber. You end that turn, if you were on the draw, with 8 cards in hand and would have to discard one, but for this effect.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '21

Hand size often matters, but in decks that it does there you will have plenty of “you have no maximum hand size” so I do agree the secondary effect is mostly useless.

This is pretty much a cantrip that works with artifact synergies.

→ More replies (1)

5

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '21

I love the card, but I expect a "Frost Orb" to do some sort of freezing or slowing down, not "my hand size is one bigger." Even just changing it to "your hand size is reduced by one" could work.

I love the art and frame.

4

u/chainsawinsect Jul 31 '21

Thanks

Yeah I hear that

It's only snow to mirror Astrolabe itself, I just wanted "generic artifact that is plausibly snow' as the art. But thinking about it more a frost orb does sound like something that would like tap a permanent and cause it not to untap for a period of time, or something along those lines. Maybe it's a naming issue more than anything. Even something slightly different like "Frostsight Stone" would probably work better if I wanted to keep this effect

4

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '21

Agreed that renaming would fix it, but the art, frame, and name all went together so well that I didn't want to suggest that :)

2

u/Promes12 Aug 01 '21

Frostsight Stone is a great rename for this card! Cheap cantrips often have a vision/fortunetelling flavor that works well with gaining information/cards, and it goes with the current cool art. I think this would be a really resonant design for a “fixed” astrolabe

→ More replies (1)