I love gimmicky cards and decks centered around a few central mechanics, so here I am to make some more of 'em! I'll just be dumping the cards I make here, and explain stuff about 'em as I go. Technically I don't intend to aim for brokenness and some of the products might be eligible for R&D, but since I'm going off my ideas for the gimmicks instead of trying to keep them balanced, they'd fit here better. I'll still take suggestions on how to make them more balanced, though.
Here's the photobucket where I'll be dumping the cards. Yes, there is no graphics for them. Sorry but I can't art, and can't be assed into putting random generic Googled images in there :V
So, first concept/set. This would be based around die rolls, the manipulation thereof, transforming, and artifacts. Dice are used as general-purpose counters for which numbers are their quality instead of quantity, and which can't be proliferated. The goal is enough different cards that can play enough different roles to make a black/red (mostly black) semi-aggro deck that involves a few tons of artifact stapled to a few elite creatures, bolstered by very variable, volatile and usually luck-based supports. Yes, I know, don't worship the RNGod, but hey, Unglued, right?
Behold, two of this set's central keyword abilities! Uncertainty allows creatures that have it to start die rolls (which you WOULD like to do. A lot.) and gain bonuses from dice they roll this way (unless said die is grabbed by other cards). It also allows you to give your creature a quick boost when needed, and since the results are both variable and determined at resolution, they won't know how much your creature will be boosted and whether it will be power or toughness until the ability resolves, which might provide an edge. Of course, to prevent diescumming, uncertainty abilities generally have costs high enough to limit its use. Schrodinger's Box provides cheap uncertainty to everything (it is likely the cheapest uncertainty source you'd have in most cases), but as a drawback your opponent can use it too, albeit they might not have any use for the dice except for boosting.
The second keyword is duality. Duality "logs" your consecutive die rolls by leaving the die on the card, where it would either provide some passive benefit or can be used as a cost (such as for mana, demonstrated on the Probability Engine). I'm not exactly sure what the official rules say on this, but duality being an interrupt SHOULD mean uncertainty rolls triggering duality should go straight to the card with duality, instead of the card with uncertainty. There are 2 kinds of duality: general duality, denoted by "duality" without any number, can trigger on any two rolls of the same result in a row, and duality X, which only triggers when you roll X twice in a row. This example here, the Probability Engine, while it can certainly be used as an unreliable mana source (since how much and how often you get is random), but its true intended function is to fuel rerolls uncertainty and any other ability/card I might implement in the future. Not happy with your uncertainty roll or trying to trigger a duality X? You can either leave that roll on the Engine for future needs, or consume the die to fuel another roll right away!
That said, the chances of Probability Engine actually being sufficiently useful to be included in a deck seems pretty low. I'll look into making it better. Also, note that duality, unlike uncertainty, DOES NOT remove the die at the end step. If a creature has both uncertainty and duality, uncertainty WILL remove the die you have from duality when activated, and if you activate duality the grabbed die, although it will not be removed at your end step, will not provide bonuses either.
Aaaand the central figure of this set! At first glimpse, the day Nalzeheim is quite useless. 4 cost and 2 colors just for 1/1 Equipment hogger (which actually renders your Equipments USELESS) with a possibly very expensive uncertainty? Horrible! ...Until you notice that it can transform. It's still a 2/2, and all it does is change the targetting rules for its attached Equipments, so what's the big deal? Well, remember how the untransformed Nalzeheim was a free Equipment magnet? Well, while transformed, the text that renders attached Equipments useless disappear. So, good or not, now you have a creature that now have a whole fat load of Equipments propped on it. Think about what that MEANS.
Oh, and also the transformed Nalzeheim is supposed to have general duality to be more able to keep dice on him, but I forgot to shoe it in :S
So, those are what I've made on MTGMaker for now, although I have many ideas for more. Feel free to comment and leave feedback. Coming up next: Low-cost, high-equip-cost artifacts, support for artifacts and the set in general, actual die manipulation, and (probably) more!
Until next time!
PS How do I resize images here