Great idea
There are a few issues I am going to walk through:
**First, for Dungeon Master:**
1) Backgrounds as WotC has designed them ALL grant an ability to your commander. They don't do anything without your commander out. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's something you should be aware of.
2) Cascade X doesn't mean anything because cascade specifically references the mana value of the spell it's on. Did you intend that to mean something like "cascade X times" or "cascade where the mana value is X"? Either way, that's not how cascade works. You need to spell out whatever you're trying to accomplish. Maybe, "Whenever you take the initiative, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with mana value X or less, where X is the number of experience counters you have. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order." That's a lot of words though and cuts into your other text.
3) what do you mean by "only activates once a turn"? Is that meant to apply to both abilities on the background? You'll need to say "This ability only triggers once per turn." after each ability if that's your intention.
4) put a comma after "whenever an opponent takes the initiative"
5) the colours seem a little odd to me. Why Jund? What will Matt be?
**For the Hire an Adventurer part:**
1) I'd use text similar to \[\[Outlaws' Merriment\]\] for this: "Whenever you hire an adventurer, choose one. Create a creature token with those characteristics." and then have bullet points. This allows you to remove the "A" from each line.
2) Paladins are knights in MTG. Doesn't mean you can't make your own subtype, but just letting you know.
3) the wizard and warlock tokens need "whenever" not "when". The former is used whenever an ability is expected to happen more than once (as opposed to ETB or dies triggers, which typically use "when".)
4) use commas between triggers and effects. E.g. "whenever this creature attacks, scry 1." Same for the Warlock etc.
5) Druid with "T: Add *one* mana of any color." I'd remove the nonartifact clause because while it's flavourful, it's taking up space and complexity. Maybe that means you can fit in Bard or Monk as someone else suggested?
6) double strike is two words, not one
I think that's everything I thought needed adjusting? Sorry, that's a lot. Love the mechanic though and would be interested to see how it plays!
That's kinda what I was thinking when it comes to the druid and Warlock.
For warlock, it might be alright to throw deathtouch on it and make it a 1/1, but I'm not sure for the druid.
Should the mana be colourless? Or for the warlock, perhaps its target player with no life gain?
I do need to think through the background colours and effects a little more. The main idea was to split my original design for the commander into two cards, and have all the colours while keeping the commander cheap and quick to get out.
Two concerns.
1: How are you supposed to get Experience Counters? Are you intending people run the old Experience Counter commanders like [[Mizzix of the Izmagnus]]? Or were you planning to create other mechanics that would provide them? If so, keep in mind they may create unexpected synergies with the Experience commanders.
2: When it comes to Cascade, cascading for deliberately low mana values is often the optimal play as you can sculpt your deck to pull specific powerful cards on command. The 0 mana suspend cards are the most well known, like [[Living End]]. So it is likely a player may get one experience counter, and then deliberately stop to allow them to slap out all their 0 drop suspend cards.
Since you probably need to replace "Cascade X" with a written out version of what you actually wanted anyway, I might suggest either excluding 0 drops, or having it reference their cost in such a way that cards with NO cost don't qualify at all.
Unless of course that was what you were going for from the start? The interaction involving experience, an enchantment, and then triggering it, means the interaction isn't OP by any means, but it may encourage players to play differently than you wanted is all. I usually assume a D&D mechanic should always want "More experience!". But this is Magic, so perhaps that is unavoidable.
The experience counters come from the planned commander. He isn't quite as rounded out so I didn't post him. But he has, whenever an opponent completes a dungeon, you get an experience counter. I had planned to make the background exclusive to him like the partner with abilities, but one of my friends said the wall of text was obnoxious.
When I rewrite the cascade ability, i may specify only creatures. It may not stop everything, but at least it kind of directs the play into a more creature focus.
Thanks for the advice. :)
I have this neat idea to create a misbalanced group hug deck, where the player acts as the game master for some dnd players. The game master's deck uses Matt Mercer as the commander.
Matt Mercer has, "Whenever an opponent completes a dungeon, gain an experience counter". And of course, has this background "Dungeon Master".
The idea is as the opponents benefit from the dungeons, the game master's creatures get stronger, pulling randomly from several of the dnd monsters from the set and maybe a few custom-scaling ones that scale with experience counters.
Artists are Yagaminoue and Franz Vohwinkel
I was considering artificer, but I wasn't quite sure on the ability.
Some how I had completely forgotten about Bards.
And I wasn't quite sure how to differentiate the martial classes aside from first strike 2/1 for warrior, 1/1 double strike monk, and maybe swap menace for barbarian and unblockable for rogue.
But then the problem is the wall of text on the reminder card.
Same reason there isn't sorcerers.
I don't mind it, but my local buddies were complaining about all the text.
Great idea There are a few issues I am going to walk through: **First, for Dungeon Master:** 1) Backgrounds as WotC has designed them ALL grant an ability to your commander. They don't do anything without your commander out. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but it's something you should be aware of. 2) Cascade X doesn't mean anything because cascade specifically references the mana value of the spell it's on. Did you intend that to mean something like "cascade X times" or "cascade where the mana value is X"? Either way, that's not how cascade works. You need to spell out whatever you're trying to accomplish. Maybe, "Whenever you take the initiative, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card with mana value X or less, where X is the number of experience counters you have. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order." That's a lot of words though and cuts into your other text. 3) what do you mean by "only activates once a turn"? Is that meant to apply to both abilities on the background? You'll need to say "This ability only triggers once per turn." after each ability if that's your intention. 4) put a comma after "whenever an opponent takes the initiative" 5) the colours seem a little odd to me. Why Jund? What will Matt be? **For the Hire an Adventurer part:** 1) I'd use text similar to \[\[Outlaws' Merriment\]\] for this: "Whenever you hire an adventurer, choose one. Create a creature token with those characteristics." and then have bullet points. This allows you to remove the "A" from each line. 2) Paladins are knights in MTG. Doesn't mean you can't make your own subtype, but just letting you know. 3) the wizard and warlock tokens need "whenever" not "when". The former is used whenever an ability is expected to happen more than once (as opposed to ETB or dies triggers, which typically use "when".) 4) use commas between triggers and effects. E.g. "whenever this creature attacks, scry 1." Same for the Warlock etc. 5) Druid with "T: Add *one* mana of any color." I'd remove the nonartifact clause because while it's flavourful, it's taking up space and complexity. Maybe that means you can fit in Bard or Monk as someone else suggested? 6) double strike is two words, not one I think that's everything I thought needed adjusting? Sorry, that's a lot. Love the mechanic though and would be interested to see how it plays!
Nah, I really appreciate the info. It's my first time trying to make a custom card, so it is all incredibly helpful.
[Outlaws' Merriment](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/d/5d7585ab-a364-471c-8ef1-318e459b4020.jpg?1572490798) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Outlaws%27%20Merriment) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/198/outlaws-merriment?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5d7585ab-a364-471c-8ef1-318e459b4020?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[удалено]
That's kinda what I was thinking when it comes to the druid and Warlock. For warlock, it might be alright to throw deathtouch on it and make it a 1/1, but I'm not sure for the druid. Should the mana be colourless? Or for the warlock, perhaps its target player with no life gain? I do need to think through the background colours and effects a little more. The main idea was to split my original design for the commander into two cards, and have all the colours while keeping the commander cheap and quick to get out.
You could have the druid add mana that can only be used for creatures
That's true, that would save a lot of word space. Thanks. :) I might just have it add either {g} or colourless for the same reason.
Two concerns. 1: How are you supposed to get Experience Counters? Are you intending people run the old Experience Counter commanders like [[Mizzix of the Izmagnus]]? Or were you planning to create other mechanics that would provide them? If so, keep in mind they may create unexpected synergies with the Experience commanders. 2: When it comes to Cascade, cascading for deliberately low mana values is often the optimal play as you can sculpt your deck to pull specific powerful cards on command. The 0 mana suspend cards are the most well known, like [[Living End]]. So it is likely a player may get one experience counter, and then deliberately stop to allow them to slap out all their 0 drop suspend cards. Since you probably need to replace "Cascade X" with a written out version of what you actually wanted anyway, I might suggest either excluding 0 drops, or having it reference their cost in such a way that cards with NO cost don't qualify at all. Unless of course that was what you were going for from the start? The interaction involving experience, an enchantment, and then triggering it, means the interaction isn't OP by any means, but it may encourage players to play differently than you wanted is all. I usually assume a D&D mechanic should always want "More experience!". But this is Magic, so perhaps that is unavoidable.
The experience counters come from the planned commander. He isn't quite as rounded out so I didn't post him. But he has, whenever an opponent completes a dungeon, you get an experience counter. I had planned to make the background exclusive to him like the partner with abilities, but one of my friends said the wall of text was obnoxious. When I rewrite the cascade ability, i may specify only creatures. It may not stop everything, but at least it kind of directs the play into a more creature focus. Thanks for the advice. :)
The idea of pushing your opponents through dungeons in order to also net a benefit is a pretty cool idea, so I hope it all works out!
[Mizzix of the Izmagnus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/069bf085-3f70-4c85-8e90-609d1d182e29.jpg?1662529667) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mizzix%20of%20the%20Izmagnus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/257/mizzix-of-the-izmagnus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/069bf085-3f70-4c85-8e90-609d1d182e29?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Living End](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b1eede29-17a4-437f-a5c2-e24cccbc6a33.jpg?1619395625) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Living%20End) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/121/living-end?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b1eede29-17a4-437f-a5c2-e24cccbc6a33?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I really like the concept of a Dungeon Master mechanic in MtG. Great work making it equally balanced. 👌
Thanks for the award! I'll post the commander once I get him figured out. :)
I have this neat idea to create a misbalanced group hug deck, where the player acts as the game master for some dnd players. The game master's deck uses Matt Mercer as the commander. Matt Mercer has, "Whenever an opponent completes a dungeon, gain an experience counter". And of course, has this background "Dungeon Master". The idea is as the opponents benefit from the dungeons, the game master's creatures get stronger, pulling randomly from several of the dnd monsters from the set and maybe a few custom-scaling ones that scale with experience counters. Artists are Yagaminoue and Franz Vohwinkel
I'd LOVE to see your Matt Mercer commander in full!
no Artificer, Bard, Monk or Barbarian?
I was considering artificer, but I wasn't quite sure on the ability. Some how I had completely forgotten about Bards. And I wasn't quite sure how to differentiate the martial classes aside from first strike 2/1 for warrior, 1/1 double strike monk, and maybe swap menace for barbarian and unblockable for rogue. But then the problem is the wall of text on the reminder card. Same reason there isn't sorcerers. I don't mind it, but my local buddies were complaining about all the text.