MLPlaneswalker: Side Characters

Some miscellaneous side character cards that may or may not appear in the future. These cards aren’t final, so if they do appear in future chapters they may be tweaked a bit.

Dizty Doo, Eyes of Insight WU

Legendary Creature — Pegasus

Flying, indestructible

Whenever Ditzy attacks and isn’t blocked, look at the top card of defending player’s library. You may put that card on the bottom of their library.

”The Doctor once said that each of my eyes sees a different possibility for tomorrow. I just wish I could see well enough to stop crashing into everything.”

0/1

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Starlight, Friendship Alumnus 3WU

Legendary Creature — Unicorn Wizard

Whenever you cast your first instant or sorcery spell each turn, you may reveal another instant or sorcery card in your hand and pay its mana cost. If you do, copy the revealed card’s text box onto that spell. (The revealed card’s effects are added to the spell.)

”Two things working in harmony are greater than the sum of their parts.”

2/3

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Sunburst, Spell Archivist 3U

Legendary Creature — Unicorn Wizard

Sunburst enters the battlefield with a lore counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.

1U, T: Look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal an instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of lore counters on Sunburst and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

1/4

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Capper Dapperpaws 1UR

Legendary Creature — Cat Rogue

Flash

When Capper Dapperpaws enters the battlefield, put a bounty counter on target artifact.

Whenever Capper Dapperpaws deals combat damage to a player, gain control of target artifact that player controls with a bounty counter on it.

”You can’t survive in Klugetown without picking a few pockets. Take my advice, keep your purse strings tight.”

2/2

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Very nice designs, and I see what you did there with Sunburst. I will note that the female of "alumnus" is "alumna," but aside from that, love it. And I have a wonderful mental image of Capper hijacking a Darksteel Colossus and piloting it like his own personal mecha.

[Drachos]

My only comment is since starlight essentially gives all spells in your hand splice and all spells you cast Arcane, using the phrading from that era is likely best. Either:

Starlight, Friendship Alumnus 3UW

Legendary Creature — Unicorn Wizard

The first spell Instant or Sorcery card you cast a turn is Arcane in addition to its other types.

All Instant and Sorcery cards in your hand have splice. Their Splice cost is equal to their casting cost. (As you cast an Arcane spell, you may reveal any instant or Sorcery card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card's effects to that spell.)

"Two things working in harmony are greater than the sum of their parts.”

2/3

Or

Starlight, Friendship Alumnus 3UW

Legendary Creature — Unicorn Wizard

Whenever you cast your first instant or sorcery spell each turn, you may reveal another instant or sorcery card in your hand and pay its mana cost. If you do, add the revealed card's effects to that spell.

"Two things working in harmony are greater than the sum of their parts.”
2/3

The first option gives extra synergy with other Splice and Arcane cards from Kamigawa as well as interacting with Spiritcraft, so you may wish to avoid it. (Personally I like such interactions.)

The second just makes the card read as the Splice cards did so is in line with how Wizards would phrase the card.

[Zennistrad]

4835568

The reason that I went with the current wording for Starlight is that, according to the comprehensive rules, Splice doesn’t exactly work the way its reminder text says it works (emphasis mine):

702.46a — Splice is a static ability that functions while a card is in your hand. “Splice onto [subtype] [cost]” means “You may reveal this card from your hand as you cast a [subtype] spell. If you do, copy this card’s text box onto that spell and pay [cost] as an additional cost to cast that spell.” Paying a card’s splice cost follows the rules for paying additional costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2f–h.

“Add this card’s effects to that spell” isn’t a wording that currently has support in any card text, only in reminder text. To remain consistent with the actual rules, it has to specify “text box.”

I also wanted to avoid the splice mechanic because Splice only works with instants or sorceries that have a specific subtype, and I wanted Starlight’s ability to work with instants and sorceries that don’t have subtypes. I wanted to avoid mentioning Arcane spells especially, since Arcane and Splice onto Arcane are Mark Rosewater’s go-to example of a parasitic mechanic, which is a mechanic that only works with one set or block. Parasitic mechanics, generally speaking, are considered bad design nowadays.

[Drachos]

4835573
I wish they remembered parasitic mechanics when they made Rise of Eldrazi. The whole block is full of them, and the line "The block was designed more for block format rather then standard format. " is really annoying.

Although I don't mind parasitic mechanics for EDH, just as it allows a lot more flavor. I can understand why it is annoying from both a design and Standard perspective though.