Playtesting Frostmere -- Day 1, Part 2

For part 1, click here.

Thanks for coming back!  The second deck that I made was a Red/Black ice deck.  It manipulates ice counters to do mean things.  Here's a rundown on some of the more important cards in the deck -

Below Zero was busted in its original incarnation.  Originally it only gave a counter when it ETB, but at the beginning of your upkeep, it dealt damage equal to the number of ice counters on it to a creature or player.  In combination with a few of the other cards in the deck, its original abilities made it way too strong.  What you see is the nerfed version.  We haven't tested this version yet, but it seems more reasonable.

These four cards form the rest of the core of the Red/X Ice counter deck.  Disciple of Gargut was less impressive than I expected, but still really good.  I was thinking about adding 1 colorless to his mana cost, but more playtesting is needed. Cover in Frost is the card that, when combined with Below Zero, is an absolute killer.  I like it in this deck to help get rid of a creature with the Disciple, and I think it will play nicely with the rest of the Ice counter team.

Both of these cards are singletons in the deck, but only Icy Excavation came up.  When I cast it, I drew 6 cards and lost 1 life.  This card needs to be tweaked.   I'd say adding an X to the mana cost and getting rid of the life loss might be the right fit.  A verdict is still out for the Parasite, but a colorless Control Magic probably needs to cost more, even with the drawback.

 Snowy Apex (and the rest of the cycle) was completely overhauled.  They originally only read" 1: Add R to your mana pool."  The clever part was that they were snow lands, so you could filter for a single color and for snow mana.  When I overhauled the snow costs to make it easier for players unfamiliar with the snow rules, I added the ability to tap it for S. It just feels bad not being able to tap your land for mana unless it's a really cool land (see Mammoth Lair from yesterday).

The last card I wanted to mention was Set Fire.  This is an homage to Electrostatic Bolt.  It's also awesome.

Thanks again for listening.  Make sure to tell your friends to check out the blog, and follow me on twitter and like the page on Facebook.

Playtesting Frostmere - Day 1, Part 1

Whew.


Hollee and I spent the better part of three hours playtesting a pair of decks I put together using mainly cards from Frostmere, a set I'm designing. 

Here are a few highlights from the first of the two decks:

Deck 1 - Hollee:  Since Hollee enjoys playing Green/White, I made her a Selesnya deck focusing of the Snowfall mechanic.  Here are a few key cards:

Brenish Hunter is the cornerstone of a good landfall deck in limited environments. When his ability triggers more than once a turn, he gets really mean.

This is the core of snow lands.  If you're familiar with how snow mana works, the main rule is -- Whenever you get mana from a snow permanent, that mana has the snow supertype.  In other words, you can use it for any costs that require snow mana.  To alleviate some of this confusion, I've added it as an option on each snow land that can produce mana in Frostmere.

Side note, all of these lands besides the Basic land changed from when we first started playtesting.  Hidden Embankment didn't tap for mana, and the Icicle Glade had a useless ability word, Frigid.  Frigid was supposed to read -- This enters the battlefield tapped unless you control another snow permanent.  I only ever put it on the two color lands, and it seemed unnecessary, so I removed it. The Mammoth Lair had a triggered ability to sacrifice it and put a token into play, but this version just feels better.

These two creatures, while not being snow themselves, really go along with the theme.  The Badger, while being immensely fun, is a hard guy to block.  It turns out that ability is a really good way to make blocking generally turn out in the Badger's favor.  The Paladin is also a really good card.  It turns out that an 8 point life swing for 3 mana might be too strong.

One other card worth mentioning is Justice of Ice.  This is part of a rare cycle of Snow Enchantments that have a Snowfall bonus.  This one  works really well with Brenish Hunter and is also cray in multiples.  A limited powerhouse, for sure.  This was costed at 1W originally, and it was WAAAYY to cheap, so I fixed it.

That's all for tonight, but don't fret. I will post the other deck's analysis tomorrow, so stay tuned!  Remember to follow me on twitter @madolaf, and like the Facebook page (facebook.com/olafscards) to keep up on updates.

Reworking my Magic - Marduk's Malice/Vaporize

This is just a flavorful reworking of Marduk's Malice.  I asked you guys to help me find a better way to show Marduk's affinity with technology.  Paul Irving suggested that I "lean a little scifi with Marduk's stuff," so that's what I'm intending.  I just renamed this card and put a picture in (both Paul's suggestions, btw).  So, without further ado, I give you Vaporize:

Reworking my Magic - Hypnotic Stare

On November 28th, I posted this card.  Today, I'm going to rework it so it feels better in Gatecrash.  When I created Hypnotic Stare, no one know about Cipher.  Now we do.

Presenting the new and improved Hypnotic Stare:

Let me know if you're interested in seeing more of this type of thing.  I won't be doing these a lot, but sometimes an old design can be improved with a new mechanic.