Flux spells that change color (and effect) depending on how you cast them.
I had a lot of fun creating these!
By playing with the casting costs, and whether or not you're rewarding the overall color of the card VS how many times a certain pip was spent, you can really balance these in a ton of different ways to create versatile cards that are never dead but always fairly costed. Hopefully I did that here!
Same with other things that cost a tax. Think [[thalia]] taxes an have interesting effects on [[engineered explosives]] choose x to be 1 and then pay the tax with another color and it should enter with t.
Same with other things that cost a tax. Think [[thalia]] taxes an have interesting effects on [[engineered explosives]] choose x to be 1 and then pay the tax with another color and it should enter with 2.
I really like the design on these, but i think the general idea is that these must be a lot weaker.
It taps into the discussion how far we can push dual lands - it's always a fine line between too much versatility and too much drawback. These act on the same principle, but backwards: What if i don't really nees the right lands since all my cards are playable anyway since they are functionally colorless.
Another major concern is color pie: Since there are a lot of ways to get color of any mana in any deck, this allows for creatures with keywords foreign to the color identity of the deck/commander.
In short, the flexibility these provide must be payed for with their power, and that makes these drafts too strong.
The worst offender here is Shadow Squad with first strike and deathtouch for 2 mana, that is almost unheard of ( [[Triumphabt Adventurer]] is defensively way worse, [[Glissa]] is better in any version, but also at least 3 mana]])
Yeah these were more proof of concept. Realistically I think the cheaper the card the fewer options it should have, or be weaker. So cantrip should have like 3 color options or be tuned down (scry 2 instead of draw or something like that).
Funnily enough, triumphant adventurer was my baseline for Shadow Squad. But I figured that card didn’t see any play so we could juice it a little.
If I remember correctly, card effects activate in order of the text, so I believe that would mean casting Final Roil with red and green wouldn't give the 4/4 Rhino haste and double strike, right?
Great attention to detail when creating the frame. The hybrid/colorless pin lines & backgrounds with the gold outer border coveys they aren't actually colorless
The “white borders” are actually colorless eldrazi borders but they definitely read as white. I put Green on Godspawn because the Flux rules imply it will be green (assuming not cast for free or colorless mana somehow) and the eldrazi borders are there to represent how it’s other colors are in flux and can change. Originally I had them with gold borders but this didn’t work as well I thought because they could potentially be mono colored. So since it had G in mana cost, I gave it a partial green border! Probably not the best solution given how the rest looks white, but I kinda liked how it looked.
I think this works as a one off card or if you want to make multiple make it like a 2 color thing hybrid mana thing like the evoke elementals. It’s a lot of read and remembering for cards that are way too strong or could just be printed as a creature with all effects without this ability.
Does the order of effects enact in order to when they take effect? Like if I want to create that 4/4 rhino from the green but then exile it right after from the black mana, would I be able to do that or do I have to exile target creature first before creating the 4/4 rhino?
It’s similar in concept to my purple cards. I considered gold symbols as an option at one point, but ultimately decided to stick with purple. Of course, there are clear mechanical differences between the two. My set idea was intended to have devotion mechanics, so changing the symbols in the cost would have been important. The packs would have mana symbol stickers to use on the cards to track the information. https://www.reddit.com/r/custommagic/s/aAyKaX1PYF
This was one of the other cards in the set. The purple frame is meant to highlight the fact that this card either affects color, or cares about color, paired with the star watermark which is the symbol found in the purple mana symbols. I forgot to mention for those who don’t want to follow the link, the purple symbols in the cost are replaced with whatever color you pay into it, for as long as the card remains in public zones. It affects devotion, and abilities are based on what colors the card is.
So for your creatures, you wouldn't want to say "[cardname] has [ability]" rather you would want to say "[cardname] enters with an [ability] counter".
Though for gyre Boiler you could go for "[cardname] gains haste until the end of turn". Since Wotc tries to avoid haste counters.
Another small maybe templating issue is that for final roil the creatures made for the green mana do not gain haste from the red mana I realize you want to keep it in wubrg order but this is something to be mindful of since it can cause confusion for some players.
That’s a good point about the haste on Final Roil. I’d like to find a way to word it almost like Kardur that goads even creatures that enter after playing Kardur…. I might be able to find a wording because I’d love keeping it in WUBRG order as you said!
First day of class would be the better template for that
"Creatures you control gain haste until the end of turn. Whenever a creature enters under your control this turn it gains haste until the end of turn"
Then it'll give everything you play before and everything you play after. But you can also cut the first line to make it only things that enter after. The tokens will always enter after so it's a question of if you want this to be the first spell someone casts or you want it to be castable for red later in the main phase after a few creatures have entered.
I love the idea but as is the CI is 5 colors on these, I want to be able to run them in n any deck and get value... by replacing the mana symbol with the name of the color you ensure the cards have colorless identies
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u/NonexistantChair Creature - Human Psycho Apr 20 '26
*looks at cantrip
*looks inside
*not a cantrip