Aircraft Carrier

[Guardian]

Since Mirrodin brought technology to the world of Magic, I thought I could come up with a card based on something real adn cool: an aircraft carrier.

First, it has to be big. Real big. As a consequence, it needs to be costed high. Since aircraft carriers are big armored ships that are usually not equipped with as many guns as a dreadnought, the power will be smaller than its toughness.

Second, it HAS to have islandhome or else the card doens't make sense. Since Islandhome is a big drawback, this can be compensated by either addin abilities or lowering the mana cost. I prefer the second option as it can become a card with random abilities.

Third, it has to create flying tokens. These will be fighters tokens. As fighters heavily combat oriented, they need an according power to attack. 3 seems right to me. They're fragile if hit, so the toughness has to be somewhat smaller. 2 seems about right. So the carrier creates 3/2 flying tokens. This ability has to be blue. It feels blue and cannot be colorless or else there could be ways to abuse it with infinite colorless mana. The choice is 2UU as it is not splashable. And I want the tokens to be artifact creatures as they are machines. The choice of not tapping the Carrier impose a restriction to the number of tokens you can create. And it makes sense as there's not an endless supply of planes on an Aircraft Carrier. And if the mother ship is destroyed, all fighters are lost as it makes sense with real life.

Aircraft Carrier
6
Artifact creature
Islandhome
Aircraft carrier comes into play with 4 Aircraft Fighters counters on it.
2UU, remove an Aircraft Fighter counter from Aircraft Carrier: Put a 3/2 Aircraft Fighter artifact creature token with flying into play. Remove all Aircraft Fighters from play if Aircraft Carrier leaves play.
3/7


Current wording

Aircraft Carrier
6
Artifact creature
Islandhome
Aircraft carrier comes into play with 4 Aircraft Fighters counters on it.
2UU, remove an Aircraft Fighter counter from Aircraft Carrier: Put a 3/2 Aircraft Fighter artifact creature token with flying into play. Remove all Aircraft Fighters from play if Aircraft Carrier leaves play.
3/7

Changes:

[Machinus]

Isn't this super anachronistic? I think it is too cheap for the abilities.

[CHA1N5]

This is Hasbro, after all...  I propose the following editorial revision

FLAGG
6
Artifact creature
Islandhome
FLAGG comes into play with 4 Skystriker counters on it.
2UU, remove an Skystriker counter from Aircraft Carrier: Put a 3/2 Skystriker artifact creature token with flying into play. Remove all Skystrikers from play if FLAGG leaves play.
3/7


Yo Joe!

[Nova442]

So this is a:

6 mana 3/7 with 4 counters that produces 3/2 tokens and has islandhome, but the tokens have flying?



Sometimes flavor isn't worth making a card so incredibly overcomplicated and ugly   I think if your vision of a card has 5 unique numbers, 2 abilities, and a drawback you might trying to do too much on one card.  Perhaps you can do something where the card is big and bulky but can change to an air attacker for a turn or something similar.  Pentavus is the aircraft carrier of Magic

[Jacob Orlove]

Mirrodin had "machines" like Isochron Scepter, Darksteel Pendant, and Krark-Clan Ironworks. It did not have airplanes or machine guns or internal combustion engines.

The bottom line is that there is no way that this name/flavor would work, at which point a lot of your flavor based decisions just become cumbersome complications. Simplify!

[Ephraim]

Truth be told, the design space that a "fixed" variant of this idea would occupy is actually rather cramped. Pentavus and Tetravus are big creatures that spawn little, flying creatures. Hornet Cannon "cheaply" generates temporary flying creatures and Chimeric Sphere is, in some fashion, both a large groundbound creature and a smaller flying creature at once. That said, if you're looking for inspiration, I think blending ideas from those cards would probably be your best bet. Maybe something like...

Hornet Carrier

Artifact Creature
4/4

: Put a 2/2 Hornet artifact creature token with flying into play. At end of turn sacrifice that creature or sacrifice Hornet Carrier.

***

Yes, it really does have to cost that much. 4/4 artifact creatures with almost worthless abilities (Alloy Golem, Composite Golem, etc.) all cost . Masticore, of course, costs , but it's obscenely broken. Other 4/4 artifact creatures with middling-to-good abilities (Lotus Guardian, Platinum Angel) cost . Of course, make it a 2/5 or something, which may be more in line with the original idea, and this can cost or .

[Matt]

This whole concept was already done, as Ephraim noted, in Pentavus.