Friday, January 29, 2021

Weekend Design Challenge 012921 - Frostweb Spider

Happy Friday, Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your mission is to design a custom magic card that follows the guidelines. Over the course of the weekend, give feedback to your fellow designers on their designs and incorporate their feedback to iterate on your own. I'll try to offer some feedback of my own starting on Monday.

I went back to the Random Card button for inspiration this week, and it took pity on me: Frostweb Spider. Funnily enough that happens to be a snow creature, but it isn't from Kaldheim, and it has no snow synergy-- just the supertype. It's kind of cool that its web is frozen in the art, I guess.

The text box does a typical spidery-thing (see also: Woolly SpiderNetcaster Spider) where it can block fliers, and also it super-duper wants to block fliers, because did I mention it hates fliers? Unfortunately this creates a play pattern where it never gets to block fliers, because the opponent just won't attack with any fliers it could block profitably. That makes Frostweb Spider sad.

Your challenge for this week is to design another [Something]web Spider. Is the web ethereal? Covered in acid? Shaped like a pentagram? Made out of squirrels? That's up to you. For bonus points, make your [Something]web Spider less sad than Frostweb Spider is: in other words, make it more likely to interact with fliers in an interesting way.

Good luck and have fun!

21 comments:

  1. Warweb Spider 2RG
    Creature - Spider (U)
    Reach
    Creatures your opponents control with flying attack each combat if able.
    2/4

    Baby Thantis. Surprised this line of text (or anything similar) hasn't been done yet.

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    Replies
    1. Not much to say about this or Mythrilweb Spider except that they make a ton of sense for this challenge. I agree that I could totally see them showing up in a legit Magic set.

      Delete
  2. Mythrilweb Spider 3gg
    Creature Spider
    Reach
    Flying creatures must attack each turn if able. 4/5
    Their nets can both capture and make a noise that scares their pray to fly into another dirrection - ine where she waits

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  3. Replies
    1. I had not refreshed before submitting, I mean. I think I have posted a similar design ages ago on this site.

      Delete
    2. Going back through the archives to see if I could find what you were referring to (I didn't):

      Holy heck, I've been here for EIGHT YEARS??

      Delete
    3. At least :)

      I have been around at least as long as that, since I started a bit before GDS2. I used to run the week-end contest too for a bit, but due to my poor english, I was not made an artisa.

      I used to send the contest to Jay, then judge them. It is a lot of work, and at some point I burned out a bit. Huuuge props to Luke for having taken up the mantle.

      *Ranting intensifies then deflates*

      Regarding the submission, if it is not in the archives, then either I dreamt that I had already designed this, or I posted it as anonymous way back, or it is in my design folder in my old pc. It is interesting never the less that we went to the same place and that it does not exist in print.

      Delete
  4. Websharing Spider 2G
    Creature - Spider (R)
    Reach
    When ~ enters the battlefield, you may put a reach counter on another target creature.
    Creatures you control with reach assign combat damage equal to their toughness rather than their power.
    1/4

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    Replies
    1. This is a great place to use the Doran ability and I like the flavor a lot. Interesting that either ability on its own would already make for a fairly exciting and novel card.

      Delete
  5. I started thinking, how to make the opponent suicide their fliers into your spider and got this:

    Feastweb Spider 4G
    Creature - Spider
    Reach
    At the beginning of your end step, if an opponent controls a creature with flying, create a 1/2 green spider creature token with reach.
    Whenever CARDNAME blocks a creature with flying, gain 1 life for each spider you control.
    2/4

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    Replies
    1. I tweaked the rewards a lot, I'm not sure what's right. I wanted a reward that would be meaningful but not too powerful unchecked, and not too disappointing that it wasn't one you could turn on reliably.

      I wanted to make the tokens "squirrel tokens called Flying Fox" but I reckoned spiders made more sense.

      Delete
    2. Doesn't seem too broken with Zephyr Charge to me! I wonder if this should be bigger so it can kill more fliers instead of bouncing off of them. Maybe change the lifegain out for something else because it's a very stally card to begin with?

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    3. The idea is good, but indeed it promotes a turtling playstyle. Some players like that, and with a 2/4 body it will probably not withstand a NWO onslaught of creatures.

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    4. That's an interesting inverse of Warweb and Mythrilweb. Those try to make sure the opponent doesn't keep fliers around; this one dares them to!

      I'm not sure how well it would play, though. If the opponent has fliers it's a huge beating, while if they don't it's very below rate. That kind of swinginess scares me and it seems like the best counterplay for the opponent is not to cast their fliers in the first place if they suspect this is going to come down.

      Delete
  6. Cradleweb spider | 2WG
    Creature - spider
    Whenever one or more creatures attack, you may have target attacking creature get flying until end of turn
    Whenever CARDNAME blocks a creature with flying, create a 1/2 green spider creature token with reach
    1/4

    The flying bit was inspired by duelists heritage, and seemed like a neat way to get to feed some fliers to your baby spooders.

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    Replies
    1. After making this, I realize I’ve made a mistake. My card essentially just says “whenever this blocks a creature, create a 1/2 spider...” having the flying trigger be at the start of combat instead of on attack would have this make more Sense

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    2. Is this supposed to be able to give flying to your own creatures?

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    3. Well, it was modeled after duelist’s heritage, so “yes”. But that is in no way important to the card. And can be removed entirely

      Delete
    4. "Giving opponents' creatures flying to punish them" is a fun design idea (see also: Predator, Flagship). As with Feastweb Spider, the token-making effect seems kind of swingy and likely to stall a game. Also, I'm confused by the flavor here-- why is a spider helping things fly? I assume it's supposed to have reach?

      The name makes me wonder what a Graveweb Spider would do.

      Delete
  7. It catches food for its babies. They are in it’s cradle.

    Also: Graveweb spider? What about it triggering some sort of graveyard hate upon blocking? That or something graveyardhatey when it enters

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  8. My idea is very simple: Hit 'em with the surprise block.

    Flashweb Spider | 2G
    Creature - Spider
    Reach, flash
    1/3
    Whenever ~ blocks a creature with flying, put a +1/+1 counter on ~ at end of combat.

    ReplyDelete