Voracious Imp

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Alright, so I know very very little about the game, especially now. But I want to try and come up with some ideas. We'll see if they're worth anything.

Thanks to J-Max for the early help with the OCG.

 

 

 

"You can only use each effect of "Voracious Imp" once per turn. If this face-up card is sent to the Graveyard: Your opponent must discard 1 card, and if they cannot, they must send 2 cards from the top of their Deck to the Graveyard. During your opponent's End Phase, if your opponent controls a monster that inflicted Battle Damage this turn: You can return this card from your Graveyard to the hand. "

 

 

Let me have it guys. *braces self*

[Blake]

Terrible, terrible design.

First off, its particular form of making a +0 synchro is an unrestricted hand hit. Which means bluff setting it punishes the opponent for not overextending. It doesn't even let the opp choose, just rapes their hand each time it hits the grave, which means there's almost surely a hand loop with it.

It goes off when you use Armageddon Knight or Mathematician to send it to the Graveyard from the deck, not to mention discarding it/sending it from hand to grave/milling it. Given that it's a level 2 DARK Tuner and Shaddolls exist, the send from hand part is actually relevant, and the milling/excavating part is relevant in builds that lay Kuribandit. Not to mention Lightsworn are rogue atm.

Then it recycles itself. As if +1ing off of the opponent's hand wasn't enough, it proceeds to return should they dare try to kill you but not OTK. So it's a +1 in the long run, being an opponent reliant Sinister Serpent that doubles as hand kill.

Nothing about this is suitable design for RC. The only remotely salvageable part is the mill 2, and that is both too small an amount and too weak an effect to be relevant. Yet, if you made it more, it would deck them out with a loop.

Oh, that reminds me. If you loop this, after you hit their hand out, you just mill them to death. Sounds fun.

Even barring loops, all it does is punish the opponent for playing the game and daring to preserve resources/to not OTK you. And there aren't any Once Per Turn limitations applied to even imply it was so much as intended to be anything but absurdly powerful. Maxx "C" can't stop it, Veiler can't stop it, the only thing that saves you is D.D. Crow or Abyss Dweller.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

I see.. Huh I had no idea I was making something so broken.

Well what if it was only if it goes to the grave from the field? Would that make it better?
I figured the loop wasn't as big an issue since it only comes back to the hand at the End Phase. But apparently it's not enough.

Mostly I was just going off the "Voracious" idea. I admit I don't know much, just trying to come up with ideas.

[Blake]

Loop isn't due to the recursion. Due to the fact that loops are fairly easy to make modern day.

Field to grave would be better, but still punishes smart playing as opposed to punishing bad playing, still is unrestricted in any way, and still is just overall not a fair concept.

The recurring makes it more unfair, but it's not the main reason. Hand hit in general is unfair.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

I see. Well I will make at least the field to grave change soon.

What about if it's not a random card they have to discard? Is that more fair?

Being mostly a MTG player the idea that making people discard is unfair is an odd concept to me but I'll take your word for it.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Gonna bump this just the once. I want to see what I'd need to do to make this work even a little so I can try and get better at creating.

[mikel.]

Gonna bump this just the once. I want to see what I'd need to do to make this work even a little so I can try and get better at creating.

Well, I will say I LIKE your name. Alright, so you want to make it better how about you first fix it then bump it with that. Then I would ask you if read the whole: 

 

Realistic Cards - Single Cards

 

TO ALL NEWCOMERS - PLEASE READ THE GUIDE TO RC AND THE CARDMAKING GUIDE BEFORE POSTING.

If not, go right ahead and do so, when your ready and fixed your card I will be more than glad to edit this post and give the review but if not I will just outline what has just been said. 

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

I basically wanted to check about the discarding thing before changing it (don't like making only one change) but giving it some thought, this might work better.

Made it have to be sent to the graveyard from field while face-up and I changed it to making the opponent discard a card not at random.

Hope that makes it better.

[mikel.]

"When this face-up card is sent to your Graveyard from the field, your opponent must discard 1 card from their hand. If they cannot, they Send the top 2 cards of their Deck to their Graveyard. If this monster is in your Graveyard during the End Phase of a turn that you take damage from a card that your opponent controls, return this card from your Graveyard to your hand."

Bold: Any card the opponent has that inflicts/ battle damage and more on the issue: You have that card as your only monster and summon it, in ATK position as it battles the opponent's monster that exhibits "the underlined" making Imp return to your hand.     

Overall:

[Nightmare Stomper]

When this face-up attack position card is sent from your side of the Field to your Graveyard, your opponent must discard 1 card. If they cannot, they must excavate the top 5 cards of their Deck. If this monster is in your Graveyard during the End Phase of a turn that you take damage from a card that your opponent controls, return this card from your Graveyard to your hand.

 

Try this - it's better.

 

Though as to why, you're probably right that milling five is too much.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

"When this face-up card is sent to your Graveyard from the field, your opponent must discard 1 card from their hand. If they cannot, they Send the top 2 cards of their Deck to their Graveyard. If this monster is in your Graveyard during the End Phase of a turn that you take damage from a card that your opponent controls, return this card from your Graveyard to your hand."

Bold: Any card the opponent has that inflicts/ battle damage and more on the issue: You have that card as your only monster and summon it, in ATK position as it battles the opponent's monster that exhibits "the underlined" making Imp return to your hand.     

Overall:

Am I reading wrong or is there something missing here? Anyway, I see the issue. How would you suggest changing it? How would I word it if I want to make it only when I take damage on the opponent's turn?

 

When this face-up attack position card is sent from your side of the Field to your Graveyard, your opponent must discard 1 card. If they cannot, they must excavate the top 5 cards of their Deck. If this monster is in your Graveyard during the End Phase of a turn that you take damage from a card that your opponent controls, return this card from your Graveyard to your hand.

 

Try this - it's better

I don't see how making them lose more cards makes it better when it's already too strong apparently.

[Nightmare Stomper]

Because the condition is harder to reach, therefore making the Mill more powerful in the instance.

[mikel.]

 

 

How would I word it if I want to make it only when I take damage on the opponent's turn?

Okay:

When this face-up card is sent to your Graveyard from the field, your opponent must discard 1 card from their hand. If they cannot, they must send the top 2 cards of their Deck to their Graveyard. If this monster is in your Graveyard during your opponent's End Phase: If you took Battle damage from a card that your opponent controls, return this card from your Graveyard to your hand. 

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Because the condition is harder to reach, therefore making the Mill more powerful in the instance.

True, but that's a steep difference. Plus having it be in Attack position isn't a terrible thing for the card.

 

 

Okay:

When this face-up card is sent to your Graveyard from the field, your opponent must discard 1 card from their hand. If they cannot, they must send the top 2 cards of their Deck to their Graveyard. If this monster is in your Graveyard during your opponent's End Phase: If you took Battle damage from a card that your opponent controls, return this card from your Graveyard to your hand. 

Thanks, I fixed it to that now.

Hope it's looking better now.

[Sleepy]

If we get strict about the lore, card effects of this sort always must be written "from - to". 

 

Ok now about the card itself. I don't know how it was but from field to Grave is more reasonable than from anywhere for sure, and having your opponent choose the card they'll discard is an improvement, however, I think it still needs work. Anything that has the chance to loop needs to prepare to try to prevent it. In this case, "You can only use this effect once per turn" will help stop said loops. There might not be a visible one as of right now, but sometimes it's a very fragile thing that could change way too easily.

 

The "once per turn" is for sure needed, though you can also add a variety of restrictions, should it turn out to still be problematic to the eyes of the public after the edit. I must note though, that I'm not advising you to necessarily use these ones right now, and definitely not all together (that'd be overkill).

-You could only allow the discard to trigger when your opponent has a specific range of hand size (like "when your opponent's hand is 3 or more cards" for example).

-You could further narrow what triggers it. For example "except as a Synchro Material" or "when sent from the field to the Graveyard for a Synchro Summon" could work depending on the intended use.

Just for future reference.

 

I'd say ditch the milling from deck effect completely. It's random, it's insignificant, and half the time your opponent will benefit from it. Besides, you don't really need to have a measure for when the effect can kick off. At play testing those sorts of "must always be able to do something" effects become very obnoxious, believe me. It's more fun if you allow a card to have a window of failure that forces you to know when and how to play it right.

 

Your opponent can technically get around the recovering effect by attacking you and then using their monster for a Summon of any kind during Main Phase 2. Though in reality, many decks cannot give themselves the luxury of having the materials/Tributes be offensive when that's not really their focus. It needs a different condition for it. One that isn't THAT common and free of cost. Even if it returns to the hand rather than field, it's still covering the role that Sinister Serpent had before it was banned, and the ability to Special Summon it anyways might become more of an easy task consistently depending on the direction of future Pendulum Cards. Even without them there's still plenty of effects that can help it achieve that though, so even without speculating like that we can tell the add to hand effect can be as it currently is. 

Though, sorry, I can't really think of any suggestions for this one, at least as of right now.

 

All in all, that's my review. Could say more stuff, but I try not to focus on grammar much, at least not in my first post of threads unless it's crying for a correction, also some things were already addressed in other comments.

 

Finally, random comment: Your avatar is kinda cute.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

If we get strict about the lore, card effects of this sort always must be written "from - to". 

 

Ok now about the card itself. I don't know how it was but from field to Grave is more reasonable than from anywhere for sure, and having your opponent choose the card they'll discard is an improvement, however, I think it still needs work. Anything that has the chance to loop needs to prepare to try to prevent it. In this case, "You can only use this effect once per turn" will help stop said loops. There might not be a visible one as of right now, but sometimes it's a very fragile thing that could change way too easily.

 

The "once per turn" is for sure needed, though you can also add a variety of restrictions, should it turn out to still be problematic to the eyes of the public after the edit. I must note though, that I'm not advising you to necessarily use these ones right now, and definitely not all together (that'd be overkill).

-You could only allow the discard to trigger when your opponent has a specific range of hand size (like "when your opponent's hand is 3 or more cards" for example).

-You could further narrow what triggers it. For example "except as a Synchro Material" or "when sent from the field to the Graveyard for a Synchro Summon" could work depending on the intended use.

Just for future reference.

 

I'd say ditch the milling from deck effect completely. It's random, it's insignificant, and half the time your opponent will benefit from it. Besides, you don't really need to have a measure for when the effect can kick off. At play testing those sorts of "must always be able to do something" effects become very obnoxious, believe me. It's more fun if you allow a card to have a window of failure that forces you to know when and how to play it right.

 

Your opponent can technically get around the recovering effect by attacking you and then using their monster for a Summon of any kind during Main Phase 2. Though in reality, many decks cannot give themselves the luxury of having the materials/Tributes be offensive when that's not really their focus. It needs a different condition for it. One that isn't THAT common and free of cost. Even if it returns to the hand rather than field, it's still covering the role that Sinister Serpent had before it was banned, and the ability to Special Summon it anyways might become more of an easy task consistently depending on the direction of future Pendulum Cards. Even without them there's still plenty of effects that can help it achieve that though, so even without speculating like that we can tell the add to hand effect can be as it currently is. 

Though, sorry, I can't really think of any suggestions for this one, at least as of right now.

 

All in all, that's my review. Could say more stuff, but I try not to focus on grammar much, at least not in my first post of threads unless it's crying for a correction, also some things were already addressed in other comments.

 

Finally, random comment: Your avatar is kinda cute.

 

So, don't think that I'm arguing, I just want to be sure/explain some things before changing it more.

 

The looping seems to be a big problem. I'd like an explanation here though. Doesn't saying that it come to the hand during the opponent's End Phase prevent much looping? I can't see how you'd be able to loop it but I'm not very knowledgeable. I'd just like an explanation before changing that particular thing.

 

I can understand that. Mainly that part is because of the whole "Voracious" thing. It needs to feed so if it can't feed from the hand it feeds from the deck. I could change it however if you think it makes enough of a difference. It's more a flavor thing than a practical thing.

 

Hmm, I think I understand what you're saying here. Well thank you for pointing that out, I'll try and give it some thought.

 

And thanks for the review...Oh and thanks to everyone else too! I totally forgot to say that.....

And thanks as well for that random comment.

[Sleepy]

So, don't think that I'm arguing, I just want to be sure/explain some things before changing it more.

 

The looping seems to be a big problem. I'd like an explanation here though. Doesn't saying that it come to the hand during the opponent's End Phase prevent much looping? I can't see how you'd be able to loop it but I'm not very knowledgeable. I'd just like an explanation before changing that particular thing.

 

I can understand that. Mainly that part is because of the whole "Voracious" thing. It needs to feed so if it can't feed from the hand it feeds from the deck. I could change it however if you think it makes enough of a difference. It's more a flavor thing than a practical thing.

 

Hmm, I think I understand what you're saying here. Well thank you for pointing that out, I'll try and give it some thought.

 

And thanks for the review...Oh and thanks to everyone else too! I totally forgot to say that.....

And thanks as well for that random comment.

 

I'll try my best to explain it then.

Your card doesn't HAVE a loop as of right now. Though cards of this nature that don't have a "can only use this effect once per turn" clause attached to them, tend to be very prone to get them down the line.

 

You said you don't know all that much about the game, so I'll take the liberty of linking you to this card. You wouldn't be able to tell that this card has a loop that can drop out 5 cards from your opponent's hand from turn 1. It's an example of a similar effect in the actual game that tried to be moderated, but ended up in the player base finding out how to use it to it's maximum potential. Look for something called the "Wind-up loop" and you'll see in detail what I mean.

 

Another example is an old Spell called "Card of Safe Return". When it got released, it only had 4 cards that could work with it. The trio of Monster Reborn, Premature Burial, and Call of the Haunted, often had 2 of them banned and 1 of them limited at any given time in different combinations, and the only reliable one, Revival Jam, was slow and costed Life every use. Surely, who would want to use Card of Safe Return? Well, as the game evolved, it's design proved to be quite atrocious due to it's inability to think of the future. If it had been made with a simple once per turn clause regardless of how many copies were there, it might have had a chance to still be legal, though it'd still be a mindless +1 every turn for almost every deck in the game. This is mainly because Card of Safe Return suffered from another problem, it restricts future design of a mechanic. Because of this, the game had to be careful about making any sort of reviving effects at all. Until at some point at the start of the Synchro era, people in charge of the game decided it wasn't worth it to keep themselves from experimenting with revival effects just to keep this broken card in the format, so they ditched it and it's been banned ever since. And they lived happily ever after.

 

Your card doesn't necessarily suffer from this last issue I explained, but a safety measure is always a good measure to take nowadays. Just to be fool proof.

 

I hope my weird form of explaining it helped.

 

Well if it's a flavor thing, I guess it's alright as long as potential loops cannot be made in it's favor. Especially if it keeps it, because anything that could potentially loop this card's effect in the future so that you could eat the opponent's hand regardless of size, can also potentially deck them out on the spot. So just adjust it to be loop foolproof and then I'm alright with that. It makes sense that he eats nonstop.

Speaking of, maybe it'd be a good idea if you somehow incorporated that flavor in it's revival effect. It'd contribute to make it less cheap.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Wow, that was quite an explanation. Yeah I am pretty sure I understand what you mean. So just slap on a "This effect can only be used once per turn" on it then? I'll do that in a moment.

 

The idea of the revival effect was that it smelled fresh blood and came back to feed more. But I'll try and think on ways that can make it better once I'm not so tired. (If you can't tell, when I make things I tend to mostly think about the feel of it, and make a story/character out of it.)

 

Thanks again, glad I seem to be getting somewhere with this.

 

Edit: It feels a bit too wordy now though.

[Sleepy]

You can only use each effect of "Voracious Imp" once per turn. If this face-up card is sent to the Graveyard: Your opponent must discard 1 card, and if they cannot, they must send 2 cards from the top of their Deck to the Graveyard. During your opponent's End Phase, if your opponent controls a monster that inflicted Battle Damage this turn: You can return this card from your Graveyard to the hand.

 

It seems there was a small misunderstanding on what effect needed the "Once per turn" clause, but thinking about it, the idea of adding 3 copies to the hand in the same turn is also pretty borderline so the clause could very well extend to both.

Sorry, I initially started doing the fix to see if I could shorten the length of the effect, but I just tried it in the card maker and it's about the same.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Oh I see. Huh. Yeah I thought you meant the latter. But I can see where the first ability could be an issue. Okay makes sense. Probably misunderstood because, as I said, I'm dead tired. This will be my last edit for now. I'll use what you wrote, it seems to cover it well.

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

By the power invested in me by myself, I hereby bump this thread.

[Ren✧]

It seems to me that this card has been reviewed to death regard the implications of being inserted to the game. Speaking of which, I want to thank everyone that handled the reviewing and fixing of this card. I read through every comment and was surprised, and delighted, to see that both parties seemed to be handling things with a level head and with a desire to teach/learn. It honestly makes me hopeful for change on this site. *embraces you all*

 

Now, like I said, the issue of balancing has been gone over time and again with this card, and because already more qualified members have gone over it, I am not going to waste your time on that particular issue. Instead, I want to talk with you about flavor. Which, as I have seen through your replies, seems to be very important to you and as a few members might tell you, is very important to me as well when I craft a card. 

 

Now, flavor, when it comes to card making, is all about having synergy within the card itself and with the game format, its intended usage, and the story you are trying to tell/character you are trying to convey. For the most part, this card does a superb job of representing all these things. When I judge a card's flavor, the first things I like at are: Name, Picture, Effect. Those are then followed up with Attribute, Type, Stats, Intended Usage, and Integration into Game. However, those first three are what I really harp on. For the card you have created you have perfectly struck two out of three. The one that I think could use a little bit of work is the image used in the card. While it has synergy with the name and effect, it does not have synergy with yu-gi-oh as a whole. The image is much to realistic and bland to be a Duel Monster. 

 

There are a few minor aesthetic things that bother me. Those being the year of the card and creator. Those are all just personal preference of course and never factor into the card's actual score, but to me they look tacky when it is personalized as such.

 

If you need help finding images I have tons of links to awesome artwork that you can use, or Aix has compiled a pretty extensive list of archives in one of the stickied threads.

 

Hope you continue to pursue card making, we could use some people that are eager to learn and are level headed like you. I think it will help keep some of the ass-hats(points at myself) in line. 

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Wow this is such a nice reply... Yeah I really wanted to listen to everyone so I could try to make this work. It's one reason I decided to post, because I think it's cool to be able to discuss as a group how to make a card work.

And yes, good flavor is the main thing I want to try and convey. I'm glad someone else agrees.

And thanks. The image is the thing I was worried about. I knew it wasn't very Yu-Gi-Oh, but it fit well enough to use. And it's what gave me the idea to begin with. But I am perfectly fine with changing it if I find something better.

I can get the year and creator thing. But it didn't seem too important so I just did that for convenience

And I will look for a better image. I've seen those link so I'll go through them sometime. (At the moment things are happening so I can't focus on it, but I'll try and find some time to look for something more fitting.).

[Ren✧]

I can get the year and creator thing. But it didn't seem too important so I just did that for convenience

 

 

It definitely isn't important, like I said it is really just a personal thing and probably no one else on this site even paid attention to it. 

[LordCowCowCowCowCowCowCowCow]

Changed the art, hope it fits a bit better.

Also, feels wrong to message him, but if Black sees this, I'd like to know what he thinks of it now with the fixes.