Planeswalker Slobad

[BruiZar]

Planeswalker - Slobad  

+1 Assemble a Dynamo that counts as a contraption. Dynamo has" : Add a charge counter on Dynamo. When Dynamo has 2 charge counters on it, sacrifice it and put a Mana Battery contraption on the battlefield"
-1 Assemble a Combustion Engine that counts as a contraption. Combustion Engine has " sacrifice a Mana Battery: draw two cards and discard two cards unless you discard an artifact card."
-4 Sacrifice 3 Mana Batteries and a Combustion Engine and exile Slobad: Put a 4/4 red indestructible 'Slobad, The Tetravite Salvager' Legendary Rigger token with haste into into play that has:" : Put a -1/-1 counter on Slobad, The Tetravite Salvager to return target artifact to play under your control.

1 Loyalty

I had a couple of important things in mind while creating this:
1) I wanted a cheap planeswalker
2) I wanted to do something for workshop decks, preferably welder style, especially the fact that there is no real draw engine other than ubamask/bazaar
3) I wanted to do something with Riggers and Contraptions

This card is inspired by the following cards:

Steamflogger Boss
Thirst for Knowledge
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
Goblin Welder
Tetravus
Red Mana Battery
Grim Poppet

Please don't put a bunch of images in a thread where just listing the names will do. It can mess up the display or make the thread load slowly. -Matt

[Matt]

Couple problems I see with this:

1. The Mana Battery's ability should be written as "draw two cards, then discard two cards unless you discard an artifact card" for clarity (your wording could be interpreted as "Unless you discard an artifact, draw two cards and discard two cards").

2. Last ability should be, "to return target artifact in a graveyard to play under your control."

3. This card is way too complex.

4. The card text is too long to actually fit on a card!

5. From the mechanics you've chosen, it seems like the Slobad planeswalker is supposed to transform into the legendary token. You may have overlooked the possibility of simply ramping the 'walker to 5 loyalty before making the token...?

[Anusien]

I think as an ultimate, removing this Planeswalker and getting a Creature instead is a huge demotion.

So to get the ultimate, you have to do +1 three times, pay 6 mana, do -1, do a +1 to get enough loyalty, and then do the -4.  Just to get a 4/4 with some abilities.

I don't think you really get what Wizards is doing with Planeswalkers.  This guy really doesn't give any benefit for his original abilities, and his Ultimate is kind of mediocre.  And you don't even get the option of firing off his Ultimate twice if you wanted to build him up.

His abilities aren't really in color for red; if you want a draw engine for a deck, the card probably has to be blue.  That said, it's +1, -1, 2 mana just to draw 2 and discard 2 or an artifact?  I'm not sure he even goes in the deck you want him to.  That said, we try not to design cards to go into specific decks.

[andrewpate]

Did anybody here ever do the Vapor Ops sample test they posted years ago?  It's a list of cards they make you critique when they are screening you for a position in R&D.  Maro posted a few examples, most of which were cool at first glance but turned out to be overpowered, rules nightmares, or otherwise undesirable upon further consideration.  This reminds me quite a lot of one of those cards, which put two different proprietary counters onto things and made three different kinds of creature tokens.  It read a lot like this card, and the verdict was basically, "Nothing, no matter how well it plays, could be worth this level of complexity, confusion, and potential for disagreements about game state."

[Matt]

I would have sworn on every holy book ever written that we had a thread about the vapor ops test, but I can't find it. Anyway here's the links to Buehler's articles on the subject:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/rb62
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/rb66
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/rb68

[Darkenslight]

That card makes me go 'bwuh?'

I'd recommend something like this:

Slobad the Tinkerer      
Planeswalker - Slobad
+1: Target artifact becomes indestructible until the next beginning of the end step.
-2: Sacrifice an artifact.  If you do, Slobad the Tinkerer deals 5 damage to target creature or player.
-7: Costs of activated abilities you control requiring mana have those costs reduced to 0 for the rest of the game.

Starting loyalty  4

EDIT: Missing bolded phrase; would have made an amazing multiplayer 'Walker.

[BruiZar]

Thanks for the comments.

I was struggling with the text due to me wanting to play around with the idea of contraptions. The problem is that contraptions don't have any specific wording or rules to fall back on.

The reason why I chose a somewhat mediocre final was because this is a one-drop. For  , how much can you expect? (Yes, you have to invest mana for Mana Batteries)

I agree that the current wording is too complicated and it must be brought down to something that is short and easy to understand. I also agree the final ability shouldn't exile Slobad. Instead it should put another contraption into play.

I'll come back to this thread and revise the idea later.

[Anusien]

I don't think Contraptions are a very good design space.  And I don't actually know if your version gets any better with Steamflogger Boss in play.