Custom Mechanics! :D
Custom Cards forum
Posted on Aug. 31, 2015, 12:34 p.m. by Crayfish
Me and my buds have came up with some intresting mechanics, and I have taken to the forums to hear your opinions on them! :D
1: Bloodlust
Card Example:
Angered Sangrinite Beast 
Creature- Beast
Trample
Bloodlust 2 (At the beginning of your end step, put 2 +1/-1 counters on this creature unless it entered the battlefield or attacked this turn)
5/4
Bloodlust gives you options. Should I be aggressive and keep my creature's power the same, or shall I wait and trade toughness for power? The choice is up to you
2: Scout
Scout is being fixed, will re-upload this mechanic later. :D
3: Mighty
Card Example:
Srathon Berserker, 
Creature- Ogre Berserker
Haste
Mighty. (This creature is destroyed when it is dealt damage equal to its power rather than its toughness.)
4/2
Mighty is like the reverse Doran, only as a keyword. It makes it so you have to deal damage to the creature equal to it's power to kill it. However, it will still die if its toughness is zero, making -1/-1 counters a great way to deal with Mighty creatures. That way it is a bit more balanced.
4: Efficiency
Card Example:
Efreet Luckminer
Creature- Efreet Slave
First Strike
Efficiency 2 (When this creature attacks, add to your mana pool. This mana doesnt empty from your mana pool at the end of this phase.)
1/3
Efficiency give you the chance to attack with your creatures and get a little mana boost. It was originally the plan for a "slave labor mining" expansion. That expansion was more or less scrapped. :P
More coming soon! :D
Scout is not too good but it's definitely unfun. You're putting Fateseal as on Spin into Myth or Jace, the Mind Sculptor onto repeatable source. You can't have that work.
Bloodlust also won't work because Magic doesn't use +1/-1 counters anymore. It's interesting design space, but I don't think that's where you want to be.
August 31, 2015 12:51 p.m.
Scout is a blue mechanic. White and red don't spy on the opponent, so scout is heavily out of the color pie. Unfortunately.
Bloodlust, however, is really well thought out. Very well done there.
August 31, 2015 12:54 p.m.
RoarMaster says... #5
Scout is literally Fateseal BTW. Mesmeric Sliver as an example of A Fateseal card.
August 31, 2015 2:28 p.m.
Bloodlust is very interesting. Also very flavorful; as they're kept out of the fight, their craving for battle causes them to become more feral.
Scout is probably too good. Repeatable Fateseal wasn't fun on Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and much less so on a flying creature.
August 31, 2015 3:57 p.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #7
+1/-1 counters are not outdated, those have never been used at all. Funny that you would use the one odd counter wizards didn't. However, that is no reason to abandon them. Cards using odd counters are not printed anymore to avoid confusion. But then, they made the same decision for protection, so that doesn't really say much. Most importantly, it doesn't mean they don't work anymore, or that your mechanic wouldn't.
Long story short, it's a custom mechanic, and your custom mechanic. Don't give a damn about how easily confused WotC thinks their players are as long as your audience can keep up.
Scout on the other hand... Way too good. That's one card single-handedly controlling the opponent's card draws.
If I may make a suggestion for scout, maybe just revealing the hand would be better. Then, to spruce things up, you could have different effects based on the revealed hand: Choose and exile a card until next turn, or maybe deal damage based on the number of lands in their hand. Make sure that the effects are in tune with the color pie, though. Scout not being blue is already quite the anomaly.
August 31, 2015 6:09 p.m.
RoarMaster says... #8
Triforce-Finder They used to use +1/-1 counters back in the day. They are not used by Wizards any more due to complexity issues.
August 31, 2015 6:14 p.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #9
Name one card that used +1/-1 counters. Not any odd counter, but specifically +1/-1.
August 31, 2015 7:01 p.m.
Hey guys
Thanks for all the input. After reading what you had to say and looking at scout again, I realize it is a little bit... bad. The original idea was to have a group of R/W Bird soldiers who could fly around and scout things out. I will have to redesign the mechanic to make it a bit more... viable.
I will be uploading more mechanics shortly. Hopefully, y'all like them. :D
September 1, 2015 9:54 a.m.
Bloodlust is ok, it is thematic, however, having +1/-1 counters in the set is not good - it eliminates any usage of other counters.
Mighty does not work within the rules, but I do not see it as a useful ability. I would urge you to riff of the Phantom Nishoba et al ability - "This card enters the battlefield with X number of +1/-1 counters. If damage would be dealt to it, instead prevent that damage and remove one +1/-1 counter."
Efficiency - should probably be worded "... does not empty from your mana pool this turn". Still, it is incredibly overpowered and out of left field, not to mention the color pie(this is a very green ability, see Upwelling).
September 1, 2015 10:18 a.m. Edited.
Hmm... here's something for Scout that you could look at:
Scout X (Whenever this creature attacks, defending player reveals X cards from his or her hand. You choose one of the cards revealed this way and put the chosen card on the top of its owner's library.)
And I think you could/should use +1/-1 counters on Bloodlust. Super flavorful and cool. And they've definitely used "+1/-1"
September 1, 2015 10:26 a.m.
edit: Maybe it should be on bottom instead of top. I'll let you dictate which.
September 1, 2015 10:30 a.m.
JDMCRIB: library manipulation of that kind is only available in blue. White only has access to stuffing permanents in the library (Unexpectedly Absent), red gets to exile cards until EOT (Chandra, Pyromaster's 0). These colors do not get to touch too much of their own library, let alone the opponent's. Getting to know hidden information is reserved for blue and black.
If you want something similar, just use scry.
September 1, 2015 11:03 a.m.
Triforce-Finder says... #15
Scouting birds sounds a lot like a WU thing. Maybe just shifting the colors to fit the mechanics would be a start, if the flavor allows that.
Mighty looks good. It should also be possible to fit it into the existing card pool, provided you don't create cards that grant Mighty to any creature. Imagine that on Nova Chaser or Ayumi, the Last Visitor...
Efficiency is very interesting. Maybe the wording needs to be improved to read "Until end of turn, this mana doesn't empty from your pool at the end of steps and phases", but otherwise it's a very nice design. That said, it sounds green-ish to me. Red-green, to be precise. Red and white usually don't get much in terms of ramp, especially not with mana that doesn't empty from pools.
@ JDMCRIB
"And they've definitely used "+1/-1"."
Yup, as static effects. Not as counters. To be clear, they used a lot of odd P/T-altering counters such as +1/+2 or -0-1 counters, but no +1/-1 counters have been used.
MTGbrewer says... #2
Bloodlust looks awesome. Maybe scout should be "Whenever this creature attacks, look at the top two cards of defending player's library. Put one in the graveyard and the other on top of their library." I say cause I feel scout is a bit weak as it is.
August 31, 2015 12:46 p.m.