Wonder Woman: Changing Her Spots, Magic the Gathering Custom Cards.
As a way to celebrate two of my favorite things, my AU Wonder Woman Fanfic “Changing Her Spots” https://archiveofourown.org/works/77523361/chapters/203018506 and the card game Magic the Gathering, I decided to make a bunch of weird kooky (probably overly complex and overpowered) MtG cards designed to capture the feel of the five most important characters from my story!
As a fair warning it’s been a while since I’ve actually played Magic, so if I screwed up the relative mana cost of these cards for how powerful they are, now you know why. I’d rather change their cost than alter their abilities since all of their abilities are perfectly calibrated to achieve the effect/feeling I want.
Casting Costing: Red+2 generic mana
Partner with (when you cast this spell search your library and reveal a card with the appropriate name, put it into your hand and then shuffle your library, or in a commander game you may have two cards that both serve as your commander) Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist.
Flash (You may cast this card whenever you could play an instant)
Haste (Can attack and use tap abilities the turn it comes into play)
Bastet, Mirthful Goddess cannot be countered.
When Bastet, Mirthful Goddess enters play for any reason other than her own abilities, you lose all “life” counters (life counters are not a valid target for the “proliferate” effect/ability).
Divine Restraint: Bastet cannot attack opponents unless they control a God.
Divine Resurrection: If Bastet, Mirthful Goddess is removed from play as a result of any source/effect (this includes spell, abilities, or being dealt lethal damage by a creature controlled by an opponent) that you do not control, check to see how many “life” counters you have, if it is less than 8, gain another life counter and return Bastet, Mirthful Goddess and all cards enchanting her to play. No effect may cause you to increase the number of/gain additional life counters when triggering this ability.
Divine Will: Any time Bastet, Mirthful Goddess is effected by a spell or ability controlled by an opponent, if you have less than 8 life counters, you may instead gain a life counter, remove Bastet, Mirthful Goddess from play, and all cards enchanting her, then return those cards to play after the spell or ability resolves. No effect may cause you to increase the number of/gain additional life counters when triggering this ability.
Divine Blessing: Tap Bastet, Mirthful Goddess, she becomes a legendary enchantment granting +2/+2, and haste to target legendary red or green non-villain creature you control. That creature also gains Bastet’s, Mirthful Goddess’ Divine Resurrection and Divine Will special abilities (those abilities now apply to both Bastet, Mirthful Goddess and the creature she enchants, if one source would effect both Bastet and the creature she enchants only gain one life counter) and becomes a cat in addition to its other creature types.
2/2
Flavor Text: "Arrre you challenging me to brrreak out the 'nine lives' blessing to prrrove a point, Maf, because believe me, I'll do it!”
Barbara Minerva Ordinary Archeologist.
Legendary Human Archeologist.
Casting Cost: Blue + Green.
Partner with Bastet, Mirthful Goddess.
New Research Topic: Whenever Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist deals combat damage to an opponent or does lethal damage to a creature you don’t control draw a card.
Extraordinary Archeologist: So long as she is enchanted, Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist gains the following abilities based on the number of “life” counters you have (she gains all abilities equal to or less than the number of life counters you have).
1, Amazon Training: Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist gains +X/+X where X is the number of life counters you have.
2, Divine Beast: Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist gains trample (excess damage to blocking creatures is instead dealt to their controller).
3, Secret Identity: Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist gains vigilance (can attack without tapping).
4, Forgeries Belong In The Trash: When Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist deals combat damage to a player you may destroy a non-creature artifact that player controls.
5, Thesis Material: Whenever New Research Topic triggers, drawn an additional card.
6, It Belongs In A Museum: Whenever “Forgeries Belong In The Trash” triggers, you may choose to gain control of the artifact instead of destroying it.
7, Cheetah Speed: As long as Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist is in play you gain an Emblem that says “The first spell you cast during each of your turns gains split-second” (As long as this spell is on the stack, players can't cast spells or activate abilities that aren't mana abilities).
8, Endless Slashes: After your first combat phase, if you do not have an “attack counter”, give yourself one and then if she attacked, untap Barbara Minerva, Ordinary Archeologist and start a second phase during which she is the only creature that can attack. At the end of turn lose all attack counters.
2/2
Flavor Text: Barbara Ann Minerva would never be a genuinely good person like Diana, but maybe if she tried hard enough, she could be really bad at being bad….
Analysis: I once heard“Temur” (Blue, Green and Red) described as “the color combination of bad ideas.” It was a bad idea to give blue and red the mana acceleration of green, it was a bad idea to give green and red the card draw of blue, and it was a bad idea to give green and blue the aggressive firepower of red. Well, it was a bad idea to let a cat goddess who draws amusement from chaos bless an archeologist whose life becomes incredibly chaotic the moment she gains abilities outside the human norm.
I designed Bastet and Barbara have some of the most aggressive “let me cook” energy imaginable, where in a commander game, nine times out of ten, Bastet is going to give Barbara her divine blessings, and then dealing with them is going to probably become a topic of debate /discussion/reason to make everyone gang up on whoever played them for the rest of the game (I wrote Divine Will such that not even untargeted board wipes get around it)
That said, when joined together with no life counters they’re only a 4/4, without trample for five mana, so theoretically an opponent can just chump block them as needed or get/get out a great big wall to block with. There’s no way a deck with green or red in it could manage to give one of their creatures trample and or increased power! Especially not when they’re probably drawing an extra card each turn due to Barbara’s New Research Topic ability…
Also if you’re not careful with her its entirely possible that you will eventually rack up eight life counters at which point, yeah she’s a 12/12 trampling creature that attacks twice each turn who could theoretically knock a player out of the game while drawing you four cards, but now she can be taken down by any removal spell.. it’s certainly not the case that you’ve been stockpiling various forms of counterspells for exactly this situation by that point…
Diana of Themyscira
Casting Cost: White + Blue + three generic mana.
Legendary Amazon Princess Hero
Diana of Themyscira cannot attack players unless they have previously either attacked you or targeted you with a spell this game.
Flying (Creatures with flying can only be blocked by other creatures with flying), Vigilance, First Strike (creatures with first strike deal and resolve combat damage before creatures without it do).
Bullets and Bracelets: 0 mana cost activated ability: redirect a spell targeting Diana of Themyscira to a different legal target. You may only use an ability called “Bullets and Bracelets” once per turn no matter how many copies of Diana of Themyscira you control.
Golden Perfect: If Diana of Themyscira would deal lethal damage to another creature, you may chose to regenerate that creature, put a stun counter (the next time this creature would untap remove the stun counter instead) on it, then draw two cards.
I Will Meet Your Anger: When Diana of Themyscira is assigned as a blocker, if her toughness is less than X+Y+1 where X is the power of target creature she is blocking, and Y is the amount of damage she has already taken this turn, you may chose to place a number of +0/+1 counters on her until her toughness becomes equal to X+Y+1.
With Loving Submission: When it is not your turn Diana of Themyscira deals combat damage equal to her toughness instead of her power.
Flavor Text: “We have a saying, my people. Don’t kill if you can wound, don’t wound if you can subdue, don’t subdue if you can pacify, and don’t raise your hand at all until you’ve first extended it.”
Analysis: A theoretically perfect counter to Barbara + Bastet, as regardless of how many Life Token her owner has, Diana’s “I Will Meet Your Anger” and “With Loving Submission” will allow her to grow strong enough to defeat Barbara with first strike damage, and she can even use “Golden Perfect” to avoid giving your opponent more life counters! Granted, this requires your opponents not to have any combat tricks to put Barbara over the top, but Diana is White Blue, it’s not like you can’t have counterspells ready for those combat tricks.
Even leaving aside Diana serving as a theoretically niche counter to Barbara + Bastet, Diana stands solidly as a card on her own merits. She dishes out a respectable chunk of flying commander damage, and her vigilance ensures that she’ll always be ready to protect you even after she gets done smacking your opponents around. Finally, her “Golden Perfect” ability reflects how the Lasso of Truth serves not as a weapon to ends her foes’ lives but a tool to restrain them before extracting useful information.
Also note that the tokens from “I Will Meet Your Anger” are permanent, so between them and “Bullets and Bracelets” she’ll have some noticeable staying power, even if its not up there with Bastet’s.
Veronica Cale, Business Tycoon
Casting Cost: Black + Blue + Red + 1 generic mana.
Legendary Human Businessman Villain
Partners With: Adrianna Anderson, Tech Geek
Smartest Woman in Gateway City: In response to drawing any number of cards, if you do not already have a “flash of brilliance” counter, you may spend one generic mana and gain one flash of brilliance counter and instead draw twice that many cards. During your upkeep lose any “flash of brilliance” counters you have.
Richest Woman in Gateway City: Whenever you draw a card outside your draw step create a number of treasure tokens (an artifact token that says “tap and sacrifice this token to generate one mana of any color) equal to half as many cards as you drew, rounding up (one token for drawing 1 or 2 cards, two tokens for drawing 3 or 4 cards, etc).
Foiled Again: You no longer discard down to maximum hand size during your end phase, instead do so during your upkeep phase. Every time a permanent you control is destroyed, sacrificed or removed from play, or you discard a card, Veronica Cale, Business Tycoon gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Flavor Text: Well known for her hatred of a certain Amazons Princess, a certain old money archeologist, and a certain black spotted supervillainesses.
Adrianna Anderson, Tech Geek
Casting Cost: Blue + Red + 1 generic mana.
Legendary Human Scientist
Partners With: Veronica Cale, Business Tycoon
Arbitrary Thresholds Are An Engineering Problem: Whenever you sacrifice a treasure token generate an extra mana of the same color.
I Love Learning New Things: All spells or abilities that allow you to draw cards cost one generic mana less.
1/3
Flavor Text: “You mean Odysseus was the original Ciaphas Cain?”
Analysis: Hey Grixis (Black Blue Red) players, do you like drawing cards? Do you like having mana to play those cards? Well Veronica Cale and Adrianna Anderson are here to learn stuff, make money, and do evil with the things they’ve learned and money they’ve made!
Shifting the discard step to the start of your turn instead of the end allows you to more easily hold onto counter spells and other forms of interaction throughout your opponents turns, along with making sure any you do end up discarding will fuel Veronica’s “Foiled Again” ability. Just be careful because with all that card draw and mana generation you’re doing you might end up drawing your entire deck before you can actually get around to winning the game and that’d be a humiliating way to end up being defeated by your own hubris!
That said, unlike Barbara and Bastet or Diana, these two have absolutely no built in protection meaning that they’re far more easily thwarted by any form of concentrated push back, and while if you wind up with a bad hand you can use Flash of Brilliance, to draw an extra card during your draw step, it won’t trigger “Richest Woman in Gateway City” so if things turn against Veronica and Adrianna, they can turn hard.
As a bonus, here’s Absolute Veronica Cale to compare and contrast with her baseline version!
Veronica Cale, Absolute Tyrant
Casting Cost: Black + White + 2 Generic Mana
Legendary Human Bureaucrat Villain
Moral Gravity: Creatures your opponent cast with power four or greater come into play tapped with a stun counter on them.
Cut The Tall Poppies: Tap: Target a player. You may remove one creature they control with power four or greater from the game, play this ability only as a sorcery.
2/5
Flavor Text: Throughout history there have been individuals who acted outside the status quo… and the status quo has dealt with those individuals, one way or another.
Analysis: Do you hate your opponents having cool and powerful creatures that do cool and powerful things? Well so does Absolute Veronica Cale who is here to make the world a more boring place where mundane hierarchy can properly (if you listen to her opinion on the matter) prevail over even the mightiest of heroes!
Yes Absolute Veronica’s "Cut The Tall Poppies" ability being only playable at sorcery speed means it theoretically isn’t as good as Intrepid Hero's (a magic card with a similar ability who can destroy any creature with power four or greater at instant speed) but Absolute Veronica locks down those creatures more than long enough for you to paint a target on their back. Also her wording is especially designed so that she can get around creatures with Indestructible (can't be destroyed) hexproof (can’t be targeted by opponent’s spell or abilities) or shroud (can’t be targeted at all) by instead targeting the player who controls the creature and removing the creature from the game.
That said, Veronica’s ability does not trump Bastet's "Divine Will" since she’s still being effected by a spell or ability an enemy controls, so unless they’ve already got 8 life counters, they’ll only end up gaining another one. Also because they not being cast when they come back, they will not trigger "Moral Gravity" (and both Barbara and Bastet individually are too weak to trigger it when they're first cast).
I very intentionally created Absolute Veronica Cale so that while she’s a powerful control piece against most big creatures, she’s mostly ends up just making a fool of herself if she tries her usual tricks against Barbara and Bastet. This is intended to serve as a reference to the side story I wrote that involves my version of Barbara temporarily crossing over into the Absolute Universe and Veronica's repeatedly failing to murder her...
https://archiveofourown.org/works/86305151/chapters/228295186
Although it’s a bit of unintentional serendipity that Absolute Veronica being White and Black occupies all the parts of the color pie that Barbara and Bastet (Blue, Green, Red) aren’t and vice versa.
yousharknotpass
dailybridgerton
amandla
baratheonpilled
