#Bad End: Psychomancer

[sadboytournament]

ROUND ONE

Propaganda

Jonathan: Jesus Christ this poor man. He’s had severe survivor’s guilt since he was 8. He got eaten by worms. He’s been kidnapped like five times. He spent most of a season slowly starving to death and yearning for his boyfriend who went to work for an evil god of loneliness. He literally lives in his office. He is literally so scared of everything that he was used to kickstart an apocalypse of pure fear. I Am So Sad About This Man.

Sev: Sev is the Earth-97 version of Psychic, a psychomancer who works for the antagonists of Friday Night Funkin'. Sev is a younger, kinder, and ultimately more tragic version of Psychic in a universe where his employers, the Dearests, are crueler to him than in the original universe. In his universe, he was born in a lab as an experiment to recreate the Psychomancer species, and being artificial, cannot enter the dimension where others of his species reside. Like the original Psychic, Sev is a being entirely made of energy, but unlike him, he must feed off of the mental energy of others in order to stay alive. In this universe the Dearests took him in and raised him when he is very young, in return for his service. Being much kinder than his original counterpart, Sev would have been horrified had he known about his employers' actions behind the scenes. In order to keep him beholden to them they twisted many truths and essentially manipulated and abused him into serving them without question. One way they did this was by shaming him for his need to take others' energy to survive, despite that being his only option. Eventually, when he by chance caught them trapping one of their rivals in another dimension, he later confronted them about their misdeeds in righteous anger. This led to a fierce magical fight that ended with him being expelled from the family and forced to survive in the streets on his own. A year and a half later, he has become an urban legend in the city, as he resorts to luring passersby into alleyways and draining them of energy before moving on. He cannot eat or drink and so has no other means of sustaining himself. Additionally, every time he uses his magic, that expends his power and so he uses it very little in order to stay alive. He's the ultimate sadboy due to his incredibly low self esteem and inability to trust anyone, including himself. He believes himself to be a bad person by the very nature of how he survives. He sees life as a give-and-take situation and his own life as a situation where he takes and takes and gives nothing back. Sev doesn't feel like he deserves anyone's help, and if he did receive help he would wonder how to make up for it. Still, he would gratefully accept it out of pure necessity. He used to be much more vibrant, but now he can't afford to indulge in any kind of pleasure as his priorities have shifted entirely to survival.

[kingsglaivecaptain-blog]

GAME OVER

(HUGE body horror, death and gore warning)

Titus kneels, hands grasping at earth as he fights to keep it together both figuratively and literally. Miasma rises from his body in smoking trails, gaps in his flesh filled in with roiling ink. A pained groan leaves him as his flesh knits together again, flits of liquid metal flicking across his skin, forming briefly into jagged armor fragments, but never quite holding. Ichor pours from his eyes and mouth and pools on the ground, hissing as it dissolves. Nails shift in and out, talons to blunt rounds, then back again. Flesh pulsates angrlily around the kukiri buried in his chest, desperately prying at it, but never able to fully dislodge it.

It’s agony.

I’s agony, and he deserved this. Titus should have seen this coming the moment they put that demon inside him. He was damned from that time onward, living on borrowed time that stretched on further than it had been fair. Other people, kinder ones, more deserving (Nyx, he thinks), got a fraction of his time.

He covers his mouth with one hand and chokes back a sob. There’s ash in the air and he recognizes it as Nyx - Nyx stinging in his eyes and lungs, Nyx dissolved into the skyline of the city that he loved. And it’s Titus’ fault. Titus did this, Titus pushed him to this end, he took this future from him and there would be no going back. Insomnia burned and Titus could turn away, but Nyx..

Even crossing swords with him, he’d never wanted this.

Even betraying the kingdom.

Perhaps he thought he could sway him somehow. Perhaps he didn’t think the Empire would go this far. He believed they wouldn’t. But why wouldn’t they? Mercy wasn’t a resource they held in spades.

A rattling hack wracks Titus’ body, bits of his esophagus coming up around his hand. His fingernails shift to talons and nick the side of his face open, skin sloughing away to reveal a skeletal visage, twisted bone forcing its way out of his body like overgrown roots. His clothing fades to greying rags, hanging loosely from his daemonified body.

Suddenly, the pain ceases. Nerve endings disappear and neurons pop out like string lights, the last vestiges of Titus’ soul burning away bit by bit. There’s a strange nirvana to it - his humanity drifting away past return. Something like a death rattle overtakes him, and it’s done.

Titus’ last breath leaves him a stream of miasma that wisps into the sky, mixing for the last time with Nyx’s ashes.

[secret-engima]

Someone please come up with a Time Travel Fix it, preferably for FFXV, with the title of Trigeminal. It means "three twins." Am I thinking of three KG coming back? Yes. Am I thinking Lib, Crowe, and Nyx? Maybe, that would be fun. Might make more sense for it be three of the KG that made it to the Dawn though. In other news, fun times with anatomy homework!

Ohhhh.

oooooOOOOOOHHHH This.

This is a good idea.

*picks up Plunny* yes. Yes pls.

Gonna go with three KG that made it to the Dawn because those guys have saved my tail a BUNCH and they need more love. (in this, Iphigenia is an OC who represents the Glaive you play in Comrades btw)

For the record, Luca is the dark skinned, brown haired NPC in the suit and Tabul is the dark skinned, black haired NPC wearing the Galahdian coat and with a cornrow ponytail. They are actual NPCs in the Comrades game and I like them.

...

Luca, Tabul, and Iphigenia do not expect to time-travel. Who does? They do not know why they were picked, or how it happened. All they know is that one moment they are staring at the rising sun, crying at finally, finally being out of the darkness, the next they are waking up, startled and afraid, in their respective beds well in the past. They panic, they stare out at sunlight they haven’t seen in ten years, at a thriving world that they know is in ruins. They wonder if this is a dream, or insanity, or if the Accursed has caught them in an illusion like he was rumored to be capable of.

They are not sure what to make of it. Their younger bodies, the sunlight, their relatives that are alive and well.

Luca and Tabul find each other within the week, they both live in Little Galahd, and they are both desperate to find another who Remembers. They put their heads together, and by week two decide ... it’s not a dream. This is REAL somehow.

Considering they were there when the six Astrals came down to judge them all for the crimes of a few of their number ... time-travel actually doesn’t seem totally impossible.

But they wonder who they are missing. If anyone else Remembers. But discreet poking around Little Galahd reveals no one, not that they can see anyway. They debate and plan and finally they decide to join the Kingsglaive again. If they are going to change anything, they need magic to do it.

And it’s a few weeks into basic training that they find their third member.

It’s easy to spot her, casually towering over the heads of most of the glaives at her looming six foot four inches of pure muscle, her face clear of the network of scars they had grown used to seeing over the last ten years (scars from the Betrayal, a ship crash she had barely survived). She’s a new recruit, signed up as soon as she stepped off the truck she’d hitchhiked to Insomnia on, her skin dark now only because of its nature, not from layers of dirt that never came off. Brown eyes spot them staring at her across the way and Luca whistles, short and shrill in a signal the Glaives had come up with to compensate for the lack of light with which to read hand signs in the field.

Iphigenia, for that is the only name they know her by, her old one abandoned after the Betrayal, smiles slightly and calmly saunters over to them. No one gets in her way, all the other recruits and even full glaives scatter to clear a path. Luca and Tabul aren’t surprised.

It would seem Iphigenia had not chosen to change her style in the slightest. Not even here in the past, years before the Betrayal was anything but a bad dream and not a terrible reality.

That would require forgiving herself as much as forgiving others, and they both know that isn’t going to happen anytime soon. If ever.

Iphigenia lowers herself to sit next to them, one hand absently flicking a few stray strands of newly dyed soft pink hair out of her face. As recruits, they can’t customize their uniforms yet, but they are allowed a few personal items, and the purple ribbon holding back most of her cherry blossom stands out.

Just like the slightly red, definitely new tattoo on her left arm, starting from her wrist and curling up to her bicep stands out. The vibrant green snake with its tongue of thorns, surrounded by pink roses, is as screamingly loud a message to their Galahdian senses as ever.

Pink, purple, green. Betrayal, Loyalty, Watchfulness.

It could mean several things. That she has been Betrayed by one to whom she was Loyal and will not be taken off guard again. That she Betrayed someone to whom she owed Loyalty and others should watch out lest she do the same. It could even mean she considers herself so Betrayed she will never give Loyalty again.

But there is a conspicuous lack of braid in her hair, as there has been for years, and while Luca can see some of the glaives already wondering if the tall, silent new recruit is a Mainlander who doesn’t know the color code, Luca knows the truth.

She is Galahdian. One who chose to sheer off her braid at the base and throw it at the Six’s feet. And the message behind her colors is not one but all three.

Iphigenia had never forgiven herself for falling for the traitorous talk. Sonitus, Tredd, Axis, and Luche had been fellow Glaives, people to whom she had been Loyal (particularly her cousin, her blood clan who she had trusted the judgement of above all others, and the mere thought made Tabul’s blood burn in rage for her), and they had betrayed her by tricking her into treason. But she had also chosen to follow them into treason, which meant she was the one who had Betrayed the man who held her Loyalty (the king, King Regis, father of the Chosen King who was to save them all).

The last is in the tattoo. She has given her Loyalty once, she has been Betrayed and Betrayed another once. She gave the last of her Loyalty to the Chosen King that day the Draconian drew his blades and bid the glaives to defend themselves and prove their right to live, when he declared that they would only be absolved should the Chosen King grant forgiveness. She will not give it to anyone else ever again. Not even Clan.

“Never could do subtle, could you,” Tabul sighs as he sees the way the crowd watches them, watches Iphigenia. Iphigenia just smiles crookedly and shrugs, never one for spoken word, not since a bad encounter with a Psychomancer ripped out her tongue (an injury that no longer exists, but seven years of habit is hard to undo).

“So what’s the plan?” she signs in the hybrid mix of GSL KSL, and the much trickier NSL Biggs and Wedge had taught them, the one they’d studied as a joke more than anything until it became useful for coded communication.

Tabul and Iphigenia look to Luca, their strategist, and the dark-skinned woman sips her water in thoughtful silence. She sets the water down with a clink and then smiles as she signs back, “Step one, get our magic back.”

“And step two?” Tabul signs.

“I’ll let you know when we’ve hit step one.” Luca signs at the same moment Iphigenia casually flicks out-

“Stab Drautos in his-” she ends the phrase with a gesture that is not traditionally sign language but is universally understood as something sensitive and insulting. Tabul chokes on his drink, having not expected a reason to laugh so soon in the day. Luca just sighs.

“I wonder if Lord Scientia had this much trouble wrangling his idiots,” she mutters in sign, the barest waggle of her fingers to form the letters almost like she’s trying to whisper with her hands.

Iphigenia just huffs in amusement and goes back to watching the other non-time-traveling glaives try to figure out whether Iphigenia is a screaming warning sign or just an oblivious Mainlander.

[evolutionsvoid]

Of all the types of Mancers that exist, there are some more obvious and commonly known then others. When you speak of Mancer Syndrome, hardly anyone will think of Venomancers and Psychomancers. The common folk tend to lean towards the blatantly obvious when it comes to magic, like fire balls, lightening bolts and "black magic." Thus, Pyromancers and Cryomancers are often thought about, because if you can wield the power of magic, why wouldn't you spit fire and summon ice? The biggest one, though, is the one that is the most notorious of them all, and probably the first to sour the Mancer name: Necromancers. What can even be written on this detestable field that hasn't been said a thousand times? Necromancers are those who delve into the art of resurrection and reanimation, those who toe the line between life and death. This field doesn't just stick with bringing corpses back to life, it also involves altering dead flesh, contacting spirits, and wielding the power of decay. Any kind of magic that uses a corpse or lifeless parts as a canvas is one that dabbles with necromancy. Some may question the practical uses of such an art, as what can it be used for in day-to-day life? Lots of magics find ways to help their fellow man and ease their burden. Necromancy is honestly not one of them. Of course there are those out there that say that there are many practical uses for such an art, but these claims are rubbish. "You can use it to contact dead loved ones and get closure," some may say, but plenty of people out there figure out how to move on after someone close to them bites it. Trying to contact someone from the dead is also a good recipe to accidentally bring forth a more malicious entity, or give your grieving customer some weird obsession. "We can bring fallen warriors back to life so that they can continue to fight for our righteous cause!" is another that should honestly tip you off that something bad is going down. Yes, it could help in winning battles and wars, but for who? At least enlisting normal people requires you to convince them to join your side, but having an army of mindless zombies makes people wonder about your morals. Also, if you do win the war, then what? What do you do with all these undead soldiers? Toss them back in their graves? Most of the time, the answer is "keep them around just in case" which translates to "use them to chop up dissenters and keep the masses in line." And if it isn't about the soon-to-be dictator, it is about the families who see their loved ones stumbling about and rotting. Most of the times it causes a bit of distress, but in some cases, people try to act like these empty husks are the real deal and then things get weird. Another reason I have heard is that necromancy "teaches you about the dying part so that we can use it to stop the dying thing." I have only heard that once at a drunken dinner party and I refuse to let them live that one down. 

Just like any other magic user, necromancers are under constant threat of mana poisoning. All this corpse-raising draws mana from the Splenius magus, and using such magic has effects on your body. There is some debate, however, of what causes the initial infections. Some think a necrotic element is slowly introduced to body whenever a spell is cast, just like other Mancers. Others say that the art of necromancy uses bits of your own life force as fuel, which is what degrades your body and mind. If this second theory was true, it would add some interesting implications to the field. Since most mana poisoning occurs when people overuse certain magic directly from their own flesh, the sickness can be prevented by using outside sources and cleansing your body. If necromancy does indeed feed off life force, then these normal preventative practices wouldn't work. With no current idea how to circumvent this, it would mean that every person who delves into the art of necromancy would be doomed to become a full on Mancer. This idea is what supporters of this theory point to, as many necromancers spiral out of control once they start bringing people back from the dead. It is a tempting piece of evidence, but I don't think it holds up. Many practitioners of this art do indeed go out of control, but I think that has to do with the mental issues that arise when one resurrects dead loved ones and believe they can conquer death. Gaining a god complex is practically a side effect of necromancy. When one starts delving deeper and deeper into this art and they fail to properly protect themselves, the toll will become obvious. Their own bodies will take on the likeness of the death they seek to avoid. Their skin will turn pale, and their hair will begin to fall out. For some, their flesh sags as if it is melting off their bones, while others shrivel like dried sponges. Health issues will arise, as the necrotic energy starts to eat away at their own bodies. At this point, they should stop and seek professional help, but who ever listens to sanity and logic? What typically happens is the weakened victim tries to use their magic on themselves, hoping that it can save them. If it can bring dead flesh back to life, then surely it can overcome a nasty cough and emaciated limbs? When they partake in this bit of self help, they will find that their magic works! Their bodies will be morphed back to normal and their health will be intact, at least it seems to be. What is really happening is that they are doubling down on this insanity. Besides the normal dose of mana poisoning one would get from frequent spell use, you are now pumping your veins with the magic to help keep yourself together. This just escalates things, causing the deterioration to happen faster and faster. Soon appendages will atrophy and bits of your flesh will begin to rot off. At this point, recovery is incredibly rare. Even if you were to stop performing necromancy entirely and ran straight to the nearest doctor, your poisoned body would soon give into infection and whatever lovely diseases you've contracted. It is usually here when people snap, as they watch their form fall to pieces. To fix this issue, they will turn to stitching their lost parts back on or finding suitable replacements from fellow neighbors. As they consume their fellow man and desperately try to keep their rotting body in one piece, the Mancer Syndrome will reach its final stage and a true Necromancer will be born.   What emerges from this transformation is repulsive and barely human. Their decaying flesh will have required them to come up with insane ideas on how to keep themselves alive and intact (well, mostly). They may mutate their own bodies, take pieces from other people or creatures, or find some other vessel to dump their rotted souls in. Whatever they do, it will most likely result in some festering pile of deformed meat that somehow still thinks this is all okay. When a victim succumbs fully to Mancer Syndrome, their minds tend to be lost during the journey. Some Necromancers may come out bestial and mindless, driven by a desire to survive and "reproduce." Reproduction, to them, means raising more corpses and creating more undead beasts. Funny enough, a feral Necromancer is the optimal result to come from the transformation. These creatures are ruled by instinct and obsession, so they are easy to predict and manipulate. Them being mindless also puts aside the whole "but they're still a person" objections that some fools may spout. A jabbering undead beast is easy to rally the people against, and many of these monstrosities are not smart enough to handle this pressure. Tempt them with a nice full cemetery and they will dive face first into any trap you lay. The real issue that comes from full blown Necromancers is when these abominations come out with some of their faculties intact. Like certain other Mancers, there is a chance for the mind to survive the transformation. When this happens, things get real bad. Now able to think and plan, these Necromancers will not be so easily fooled or trapped. They will think that they have ascended to some higher form, and thus they must continue their mission. Often this mission is the same old "kill the living, raise the dead" sort of thing. They will seek to gain power and followers, which often means they need corpses. Lots of them. Ever wonder why some cemeteries and tombs are so expensive to get into? That is because they are heavily guarded and certain folk will pay out the nose to ensure their dead stay right where they are. Necromancers of any sort become scavengers, eagerly scouring the land for corpses to use for their mission. Some may reanimate them into personal soldiers, while others may add this meat to their own form. Regardless of their end goal, Necromancers will go after any source of dead meat, and when that source dries up, they go after the living. Unlike some Mancers who may vanish into the wilderness, away from man and his cities, Necromancers tend to throw themselves directly into populated areas. This makes dispatching them crucial, no matter how sapient they are. The last thing you want is for a town to get hit by a plague and then have a horde of Necromancers come rushing in for the buffet. With undead beasts at their side and a whole array of horrible powers, Necromancers can be quite the headache. They are one of the few Mancers you will deal with that will have allies, so it is best to have numbers of your own. Eliminating their own zombies and warriors is crucial, as that is their main weapon. Taking them out will allow you and your fellow fighters to focus entirely on the Necromancer, giving you the advantage. It is also good to take out these minions because, despite popular belief, these nasty things don't die when their Necromancer is defeated. No idea why this thought has become so ingrained in people, but it isn't that simple. They may lose coordination and guidance, but they won't just drop to the ground once you lop their master's head off. On that note, beheading and stabbing aren't always a surefire way to kill a Necromancer. Due to their reanimating magic and monstrous form, they tend to survive injuries that would kill a normal person. Honestly, if you are looking at a person who is using their own entrails as whips, you should assume that impaling them probably isn't going to do a whole lot of good. So instead, one should aim to reduce any Necromancer to goop. Pulverize them with blunt weapons or fry them with any magic you can, just make sure you keep going until the remains stop moving. Another piece of advice I have is one that should be incredibly obvious, and that is: don't die. If one of your warriors gets killed in the fray, you can be sure that they will be getting back up to bite your throat out. So if you can't guarantee that every one of you will make it out alive, then everyone should be aware that they are going to bash a turned friend's skull in at some point. Either don't hesitate when that happens, or bring people you really don't like to the battle. Since Necromancers are so hated and reviled, you would think they wouldn't show up so often. The magic that births them is banned in many places, and raising a single dead rat will sound off the dinner bell for every angry mob within ten leagues. Killing a Necromancer is a sure fire way for people to like you, so any adventurer or slayer will be eager to bag one. Despite this, these nasty things keep popping up, and some never get put down in the first place. Turns out many people are terrified of death, and will do anything to stop it from taking them or a loved one. It is not so bad when a common mage falls for this trap, because you can get your troops together and beat them to a bloody pulp. The issues occur when a king or some high up noble decides that they aren't ready to let go, so they get themselves a Necromancer to get the job done. In this case, the abomination will be protected by these wealthy idiots who will do anything to keep their delusions alive. I have seen knights and entire legions being sent forth for the sake of some rotted meat bag, as their desperate court of fools refuse to accept loss. Five different groups of adventurers butchered and she didn't have to lift a freaking finger. I am pretty sure she is just mocking me at this point, because why else would she keep sending me an invitation to these stupid cotillions? I am not coming over to kill you for the same reasons you aren't coming over here to kill me. Lets keep throwing chess pieces at each other and not get cheeky with it, okay?   While some would say that Necromancers are the most dangerous Mancer there is, I would say that is absolutely untrue. Yes, the whole reanimating the dead and warping flesh thing is terrible, but it is something that many know how to combat. Show me a warrior who doesn't know how to fight the undead, and I will show you a fool that is holding a pointy stick. Ever since the dawn of this art, people have been adamant in stopping it, so there are plenty of ways to deal with them. Things like Ferromancers and Biomancers, however, are mind-boggling abominations that wield impossible powers and possess a frustrating resilience. So are Necromancers the most dangerous? No. Are they the most notorious? Yes, pretty much every person who has heard about magic would know about necromancy. And with most religions not taking too kindly to such a practice, they make it known to every person that will listen. The other thing that Necromancers are champs at is being the most insufferable magic users to ever exist. Whether they have turned or not, they just cannot shut up about their art and their desires to "conquer death." The sheer amount of drama they have to add to everything is extremely grating, and it seems like the art of necromancy requires one to take up theater at some point in their lives. "We are rebels against the tyrant, Death" and "The black veil of the void shall be pulled back for humanity to truly see" is just some of the insane drivel these bloated pus bags will come up with. They just act so high and mighty despite the fact that their appendages are falling off. I honestly don't hate Necromancers for raising the dead, I couldn't care less about what you do with a corpse. It is the fact that they turn the public against all magic users and then never shut up about the struggles of the soul and flesh that makes me want to vaporize every last one of them. Cavarious Shaid -------------------------------------- Yeah, I say that it is the most recognizable and commonly known Mancer, but I completely forgot about making an entry for them til now. It is only because DeltaX9 pointed out this glaring gap that I finally drew something up. Was so busy trying to get crazy and creative, that I completely missed one the most obvious one! So here it is and that is one less hole in my gallery!

[loreholdlesbian]

Modern Horizons 2 Booster Challenge

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Modern Horizons 2 Booster Challenge! For the past few sets, a bit after release, I’ve been replicating this challenge from GDS3, in which contestants created a draft booster’s worth of cards that could feasibly be in their chosen set. I made a lot of designs for this one (I have 60 different cards made, and those are just the ones that are completely finished with art and everything), so choosing the best for this pack was quite hard. Some of them are definitely pushing the power level a bit, given the nature of the set, but I think that’s okay at least for designs like this. Now let’s jump into it!

Link to the full booster

Common #1

Servo Trainer 4W

Creature- Dwarf Artificer

Mentor

Fabricate 1

3/3

Modern Horizons sets are great, cause you get smash two mechanics together and see what happens. I was really surprised we didn’t get a fabricate card in the set, since it works well with several set themes, so I decided to make one and then looked to see what interesting things I could do with the mechanic. I scrounged fabricate + mentor from an old design of mine cause I really like the combo- it works well on multiple levels.

Common #2

Crusader’s Arrogance 2W

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant creature

Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on enchanted creature.

I wanted to make sure I had some designs that didn’t use keywords, and callback designs like this make for good candidates. This is a reference to [[Cathar’s Crusade]]

Common #3

Etherium Strix 2U

Artifact Creature- Bird

Flying

~ enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter as long as mana produced by an artifact was spent to cast it.

2/1

I’ve long been interested in cards that care about artifact mana, and Modern Horizons 2, with ten common artifact lands and a bunch of treasure running around seems like a great candidate.

Common #4

Unethical Experiments B

Sorcery

Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

Jump-start

With the various discard and graveyard themes of the set, jump-start seems like a great candidate to use. I wanted to put it in a color that didn’t already get it, and black seemed like the best candidate given draft themes. Creature recursion seemed like a good ability since neither red nor blue could have a card like this. My thought process went jump-start plus recursion, hmm sounds like frankenstein. So i made the card stitcher-themed.

Common #5

Reckless Search R

Instant

Draw a card.

Madness R

This is a colorshifted version of [[Obsessive Search]]. It’s a tiny bit weird, colorpie wise, but not by much. Every color gets cantrips, and while usually cards that are just cantrips tend to be blue, red gets discard then draw, so I think a madness cantrip like this makes a lot of sense in the color. And since blue doesn’t have access to madness in this set, only red black, I think this works well.

Common #6

Sigil of Speed 1R

Enchantment- Aura

Enchant creature

Enchanted creature gets +1/+1 and has haste.

Retrace

I had this spell as one mana for a bit, and I still think it could though it would definitely be kinda strong. I mainly just changed it cause there were already a decent amount of 1 drops in this booster, including the other red common. I really like putting retrace on permanents though, and Auras especially make for good candidates.

Common #7

Acorn Season 1G

Sorcery

Create a 1/1 green Squirrel creature token.

2GG, Exile ~ and three other cards named ~ from your graveyard: Squirrels you control get +3/+3 and gain trample and haste until end of turn.

A deck may have any number of cards named ~.

I really liked the idea of a [[Relentless Rats]] style card for squirrels. So I made one. I played around with the numbers on this a lot, and I’m still not 100% sure if it’s at a good level. I know I wanted the card to cost two though, since at one mana you can fill your graveyard with these way too quickly. And since the card itself is pretty bad on cast, the big payoff could be stronger since it means you’re filling your deck with otherwise bad cards.

Common #8

Relentless Wolf 3G

Creature- Wolf

Undying

Creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them have trample.

2/2

I’ve played around with undying + counter synergy before, and liked the results so since this set has a +1/+1 counter theme this seemed like a really good place. The second ability is often used with these themes, in fact there was even one in this set, and I like how it plays on undying so I put one here- probably as a replacement for the one already in the set, since it doesn’t need two at common.

Common #9

Metallic Growth 2G

Instant

Search your library for a basic land card or artifact land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.

Since the set has artifact land cards, I enjoy tacking them onto where we usually see “basic land”. This started out as a [[Lay of the Land]] but I think I prefer it as a ramp spell.

Common #10

Nyxhammer Golem 4

Enchantment Artifact Creature- Golem

Bestow 6

Enchanted creature gets +3/+3.

3/3

I wanted an enchantment artifact creature for the delirium archetype, cause a three type card does a lot for that. So I needed to justify why it was both of those types, and I think being a colorless card with bestow is a good way to do both.

Uncommon #1

Young Psychomancer 1U

Creature- Human Wizard

T: Draw a card then discard a card. If there are five or more cards in your graveyard, sacrifice ~ and draw an additional card.

0/2

I originally named this card Jace’s Prodigy as a reference to [[Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy]] that I copied used as inspiration, but I preferred the flavor of an imitator than a student of Jace since he isn’t really a teacher which made made Young ____ a good candidate. This is definitely a bit of a strong card though, quite possibly too much. It might be better to go for a different payoff than draw a card, but I liked the simplicity.

Uncommon #2

Wild Bewilderer 4R/G

Creature- Elemental

Cascade

Evoke R/G R/G R/G

3/3

This is a card intended to help the RG storm archetype, since it lets you cast two spells for cheap. It also just is a very fun combination of keywords that I’m surprised hasn’t ever been done.

Uncommon #3

Opal Spire

Artifact Land

Metalcraft- T: Add one mana of any color. Activate only if you control three or more artifacts.

Basic landcycling 1

Here’s one of the cards that’s really pushing it power-level wise. Is this wildly broken? Quite possibly. This is by far one of the cards I'm most worried about. Artifact lands are scary, particularly those that enter untapped. This card is, of course, a reference to [[Mox Opal]], but that’s an ability that’s much less scary on an artifact land than it is on a 0 mana normal artifact, so there’s a little room for something extra, I feel, and still be well within a safe power level. And since they generally don’t like to make lands that don’t unconditionally make some kind of mana (they sometimes do, but not often) that seemed like a good place for the extra. I tried “T: Add C” but that seemed like a bit much for artifact decks, so then I moved to basic land cycling which means you can still use it to get an unconditional mana land but the unconditional mana doesn’t get those same artifact synergies. This also adds discard and graveyard synergy, which works well in this set- I could see the UR delirium deck playing this and never intending to have it on the battlefield. The end result, though, is still something I’m incredibly scared of but I think it’s a cool design. So I’m choosing to stick with it, cause since these cards aren’t really gonna get played anywhere I generally tend toward the more exciting numbers.

“Reprint” Slot

Disgust 3B

Creature- Incarnation [r]

Menace

As long as ~ is in your graveyard and you control a Swamp, creatures you control have menace.

2/2

I ran into a similar problem with “reprint slots” with strixhaven’s mystical archive cards, but there I solved the problem by making a card that couldn’t be in Strixhaven by using the mechanic retrace. That approach doesn’t really work here. Separately from this problem, I realized that while the rest of the incarnation cycle fits well with modern design, [[Filth]] doesn’t as much since swampwalk isn’t really used much anymore, so I decided to make a version that used menace. Then I realized that would be a good candidate for a “reprint” here, so I stuck it in.

Rare

Phyrexian Profaner 6BBBB

Creature- Phyrexian Zombie

Delve

When ~ enters the battlefield, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. You lose life equal to that card’s mana value.

6/4

Here’s another card that’s pushing it, power levelwise. (As I said in the into, that’s a theme in this booster. That’s what happens when I try to make cool cards for modern being the most casual player out there.) MH2 had a joke where they took cards with “eternal” in the name, and gave them the eternalize mechanic. This is a similar reference to [[Phyrexian Delver]], but with delve. It definitely feels strong, and I’m sure it is, but I rationalized it like this- 4 mana reanimation is not gonna make a splash in modern, let alone reanimation with a downside and strict color requirements. So the draw here is that it also comes with a body, which leads to the question of just how pushed does that body need to be to make the card attractive? I decided to stick with the most melviny numbers, where the mana cost and the stats are both double that of delver. But as I’ve said, balancing is not my strong suit.

So there it is! How would you feel opening these cards from a pack? Are any of them wildly broken and going to ruin multiple formats? Let me know in the comments!!!