Well, we're at the big crux of the entire process of card designing in Wizard's You Make the Card 2, and I was wondering what everybody thought might be a good mechanic for the artifact we're helping to design. Has anyone here submitted an idea yet?
So far I've got some general thoughts about what direction I'd like to see the card go. We've already had plenty of artifacts that generate creatures and counters, so that would be a fairly boring way to take things. A more interesting direction to go would be to create an artifact that changes the nature of the game, such as removing the graveyard from play, or changing the availability of mana. There's precedent for this already, but it has hardly been plumbed for its depth.
I've already got two rough concepts for things I'd like to suggest, but it's late and I don't feel like filling them out. I'll list the basics here so I won't forget them:
1. A non-creature artifact that can add component tokens to itself before activating and strengthening itself until end of turn via expense of the component tokens. (sort of an evolving robot)
2. An all-players mana generator that generates more and more mana with each successive use. (You can use the mana if you like, but more will be available for the next guy who activates it.)