Hi everybody! This is Ominous, writing to you for episode 121 of Ominous Designs. This week we are still playing around the dark themes of Innistrad, with new scary designs. We will probably hang around here for another week or two, so I hope you like gothic horror setting. Now let’s get started, shall we?
Our first card today is Staff of Punishment.
This design was inspired by the /r/custommagic community which is currently looking for a cheap artifacts for their cube. I wanted to make Staff the cheapest possible artifact that can ping. One is the cheapest I can do and I really want to keep one mana as well for the activation cost, to protect against crazy combos. I’m relatively convinced that for this cheap it needs to hurts its owner as well.
On top of just trading up or even destroying small creatures, it can be used just to reduce both players life total every turn, like a small Sulfuric Vortex.
Next is Aymon, Who Cheats Death.
This one gave me some trouble. I wanted to make demon that would grant you cards for killing your opponent’s creature. The problem is if your opponent has a sacrifice outlet they can kill you on the spot by making you draw your entire library!
I had to limit this to the first time each turn to prevent endless activations. It’ll be challenging, do make your opponent’s creatures nearly immortal and I don’t know for a fact that it’s worth it to transform kill spells into cantrips that do nothing. At the very least it’s interesting to think about. Play with Decree of Pain for added Hilarity.
It’s going to be it for today, we’re making it a short article. I hope you enjoyed the designs, I’m keeping some very tasty mechanics for next week. Hope you look forward to that and until then I’m wishing you a great week
Ominous Designs 