Nora's Custom Card Highlight

This card was made by Zarepath, for the set Netropolis, a cyberpunk set with many new mechanics.

Upload is one of the new mechanics in the set, letting you exile a card face-up and later pay 2 mana to put it into your hand at sorcery speed. In different contexts, it interacts with cards in different ways. When you upload the top card of your library, it functions as card selection. When you upload a permanent on the field, it functions as a more expensive bounce. When you upload a card from your hand, it functions as a discard with possible recursion. In this case, it makes the otherwise cheap tutor spell functionally 4 mana, with the exception that you are able to pay half of the mana on a later turn.

This card was made by It's Not Good, for the set Bloodborn: Universes Beyond, a set that visits the dark world of Bloodborne.

Whenever you deal combat damage to an opponent using Mensis Defector, you will create a Blood token, that will let you fill your graveyard with cards, which you can later use to activate its second ability to increase your insight, and with enough insight, you can put multiple cards into your graveyard. The only thing stopping you is the life loss.

This card was made by ThisisSakon, for the set Skyrim: World at War, a set based around the world of Skyrim some time after the events of the game.

This set introduces Thru'um, a keyword that reduces the cost of a spell by 1 for each Dragon permanent you control and for each Dragon card in your graveyard. On top of that, the card is also considered a Dragon.

Reachman Flamespeaker works well with those instant and sorcery spells that are still considered Dragons and become cheaper if you have Dragon cards in your graveyard (like those instants and sorceries youre casting).

This card was made by Aura-Warrior, for the set Legends of Nova City, a set based around a cyberpunk world.

Irane mainly interacts with the undernet. Mechanically, it works like shadow, where only creatures with shadow can block and be blocked by other creatures with shadow. The main difference is that the creatures can be plugged and unplugged from the undernet.

Irane is the exception, she can't be unplugged. On top of that, she rewards you for playing plugged creatures and attacking with them.

This card was made by ThisisSakon, for the set Primal Wilds, a set about a world where dinosaurs never went extinct.

Primal Wilds introduces a couple of original mechanics, one of those being Territory. Your Territory is the name of the greatest number of lands you control, so if you would have 2 Mountains and 3 Islands, your territory would be Islands.

Volta's assistant interacts with territory by rewarding you to invest in monocolor (probably blue since its mana cost is so demanding of it) and lets you get a sort of landfall: draw a card without it being overwhelming.

Other cards in the set care about the number of lands in your territory, that your territory is a specific land name, or just the opposite, having it not be a specific land name (which is very interesting when you need that land to cast the card).

This card was made by Feralitator, for the set Nerotomea, a set about a flooded world where islands are few and far between and where merfolk, krakens and fish rule. The set has a focus on the library, something really innovative that I love to see.

Syza has two abilities. The first one introduces the keyword Sink, a condition that checks if three or more cards left your library this turn. A card can leave your library in a lot of ways: drawing it, milling it, surveiling it, exiling it, hauling it (exactly what Syza does), searching for it and putting it anywhere else, etc.

Haul is the second keyword Syza introduces. Haul creates the harbor, a new libraly-like zone that uses face-up cards instead of face-down cards. The haul mechanic lets you put cards from your library into your harbor, either on the top or the bottom. It's worth noting than you any action you could do that interacts with your library (even hauling, now working as scry) can be done with your harbor instead.

This card was made by Provocative, for the set The Fabled Masquerade, a set about romance, a dark plot and a grand party of the aristocracy.

Masque is a mechanic introduced in this set that works similarly to Riot, letting you choose between two effects (one card does pretty much that, letting you choose between +1/+1 or Haste). I really like how this decission works to influence the way creatures play.

Shaleville Seductress makes that choice even more interesting, with double strike letting her get two activations of her ability whenever she isn't blocked, and trample letting her go over blockers. It's a really good way to adapt the card to the way the game is going. The second ability also synergizes well with the other red cards in the set that care about sacrificing permanents.

This card was made by Blender-man, for the set Adventure Time: Land of Oo, a set based on the animated series Adventure Time.

Madness is one of my favourite mechanics in Magic because of how flavourful it is. It's easy to succumb to madness when you are constantly cycling cards in your hand. This set uses the mechanic in the Esper color combination, ignoring red completely.

The set also adds the Sadness mechanic for the Esper faction, which lets you discard a card and draw a card at the beginning of your end step if you control only one Wizard and no other creatures. This allows you to cast other spells with madness without losing hand size.

There's also common Wizards that let you discard a card to activate an ability, such as gaining 1 life, phasing out or giving a non-Wizard -2/-2 until end of turn.

This card was made by Aura-Warrior, for the set Scriptures of Urshad, a set based on the trope of the first civilization.

Inside of this set, there is a new mechanic called Civilized. Similarlly to Threshold, its a condition that many cards check for and get benefits if that condition is met. And while Threshold checks for a number of cards in your graveyard, Civilized checks if you control an artifact, an enchantment and a creature. This is meant to symbolize the complexity of civilization.

Due to this, a lot of the set's removal is modal, letting you deal with often two of those types of permanents, keeping your opponent in check by attacking the less prominent one.

Master of Marble Row is probably one of the best cards in the set if getting Civilized online is your main game plan. When it enters, you get a creature and your choice of an artifact or an enchantment. If you choose the artifact, your creatures get a general stat buff, and if you choose the enchantment, you can remove a problematic piece from an opponent's board.

I kinda wished Ixalan's Ascend was something more similar to this, even if it kinda makes sense that it would care about permanents in general since its meant to be the opposite of Descend.

This card was made by Alkhalim, for the set Last Days of Tlaxcaltan, an Aztec Mythology focused draft set.

Blessing is a really interesting keyword for an Aura, even more when talking about offensive Auras. When a nontoken creature enchanted by it leaves the battlefield, the Aura creates a 1/1 token and attaches itself to it.

Casting this on a flier turns it into a blocker unless the opponent can get rid of the Aura or pump its power in any other way. Then, if the opponent uses that creature to chump-block your attacker, you get a 0/1 creature that can protect you from a counterattack.

This card was made by BBIrregular, for the set The Complete One Piece, Part 1, a One Piece based MTG Set.

Usopp is a character known for winning through cheap tricks and deceit, specially before the time-skip, and I love how this card replicates the shock factor of dealing a lot of damage but not really doing it.

This can easily close out a game, since once a player hits 0 they lose the game, even if they would later gain life. It's a really silly card perfect for Usopp.

This card was made by DarkPrince010, for the set Exiles of Ravnica: Remastered.

This may look as a mix of the classic discard one, draw two and exile the X top cards of your library, but in the context of the set it becomes a really useful ramp piece.

This set introduces the Forbidden mechanic, that lets you flip exiled cards you own from face-up to face-down to help pay for your spells. This card not only exiles a card from your hand, but also gets another 4 cards into exile, and not casting them doesn't even feels that bad because they are still gonna help you pay for your forbidden spells.

This card was made by Fadedsoul, for the set Age of Fire, a Dark Souls based MTG Set.

This custom set introduces the keyword Hollowing, that makes a creature enter with a number of humanity counters on it and lose one of them each turn, and when it loses all of them it becomes a 1/1 Hollow with no abilities.

This makes cards like these create a sense of urgency, while still having cards like the Bonfires that can put them back into your hand, letting you cast them again, with renewed energies.