Cards With No Home: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity
Mechanics | Other non-themed cardsets | Skeleton

CardName: Hex Lag Cost: 1W Type: Instant Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Target permanent enters the battlefield. (It can't attack unless it has haste. If it would enter the battlefield tapped, tap it.) Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Cards With No Home Common

Hex Lag
{1}{w}
 
 C 
Instant
Target permanent enters the battlefield. (It can't attack unless it has haste. If it would enter the battlefield tapped, tap it.)
Updated on 05 Oct 2018 by jmgariepy

History: [-]

2018-10-02 03:08:19: jmgariepy created and commented on the card Hex Lag

Lately (offline) I've been making a massive, oversized master list of all possible modes that one can get off of a one casting cost charm. The eventual plan is to make a program that spits a charm at you with three random abilities when you hit a button. It started simple, but it's been going off the rails. I'm pretty sure I'm into the thousands of abilities at this point (spreadsheet is a bit of a mess right now, so I'm not sure the exact tally.)

Anyhow, in order to dig this deep, I've just been going through every Magic set and looking for any ability that seems unique. Don't know how I got this one, though. It's simple enough, but it's a puzzler. Instead of Flickering, the permanent never leaves the battlefield. It's just treated as if it entered the battlefield a second time.

That can cause some rules weirdness. What seems like the two obvious questions to me, I shored up in the reminder text. I figure that the answer to those two questions would help players figure out what the answers to a bunch of other questions are. If it taps creatures that would enter the battlefield tapped, then it probably can change a Clone's subject. Etc.

For many situations, this is a weaker ability than Cloudshift, since it won't stop a Doom Blade. The creature doesn't go anywhere, and the targeted spell blasts right through. Also, if damage is marked on the creature, Hex Lag won't wipe it clean. It also can't kill a token creature.

However, the creature doesn't lose auras or counters (for better or worse) either. And it jumps into overtime with cards that expected to leave the battlefield in order to trigger again (see also Oblivion Ring.) Admittedly, that can be a broken interaction. But in the majority of those cases, this card just becomes a better Swords to Plowshares. It would usually take a crazy expensive rare or mythic to make this card do something bonkers. That might be acceptable.

Oh, I love your "every possible cantrip size ability" project :)

I do love this kind of edge case, although I do see it being hard to justify having over a flicker effect, when the rules are weird and its mostly just a weaker version of the same effect.

It's an interesting question about haste, because the current rules say "a creature can’t attack unless it has been under its controller’s control continuously since his or her most recent turn began" which would be true, but the existing rules don't distinguish between that and "has it entered the battlefield this turn" because previously those were always the same.

Oh, I guess "enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters on it" is also a reasonable use for this. Or divinity counters?

Heh. Yeah, there's so many weird interactions with this. I thought about cards like Triskelion just getting more counters, but forgot again.

It looks really similar to Flicker, but it operates so oddly different that I think it's printable in nearby sets. At least, as long as Surveil and Scry can both be in Standard, I can't see why this and flicker can't share the spotlight.

I figure it really comes down to: 1. Weirdness, and 2. Too broken to justify a reasonable low cost.

I actually didn't think too hard about the haste question, to be honest. I might need to reverse that reminder text. Probably best that way anyways, because the reminder text doesn't fully explain what happens if it's an attacking creature and suddenly gains summoning sickness. Easier to just say "It does not gain summoning sickness." I know they avoid using that expression on cards, but it's used in pretty much every beginner rules set...

A card that you as an enfranchised card creator get wrong and have to outright revert reminder text on is generally not something you can just put into a set.

You put it at common.

You are doing rarities wrong. ;)

Pedantically this effect has no effect at all. Just like tapping an already tapped creature has no effect and is ignored. Qed your idea is a dud.

@SecretInfiltrator: Flicker was once a confusing mechanic, and completely mollified the Magic community when it first came out. Hence, it was made a rare. The mechanic quickly dropped to uncommon, then common, as it proved to be very useful. Hex Lag isn't intended to show the first card that would display such a mechanic. It's intended to be a peek into what a common might look like, if a mechanic like this would be approved.

@amuseum: The rules doesn't cover what happens when a creature that enters the battlefield enters the battlefield. Your QED would have also applied to cards with Transform. "Since cards only have one face-up side, you can't flip it face up to another orientation. QED, your idea is a dud."

I think a card "You see that card with an 'enter the battlefield effect? That effect goes off. And anything that triggers on things entering goes off too" is a very reasonable card to make exist.

I agree that it's horrible to template though. Is it really worth the complexity to get the difference from plain old flickering? A lot of stuff will care, sure; but a lot more stuff won't.

It seems like what you want is a Flickerform variant

on 05 Oct 2018 by Visitor:

transform is a new keyword, requires obviously new rules .

this is just normal english sentence. therefore demands nothing in the rulebook.

your sentence is poorly formed gramattically and logically. fortunately there is real easy solution by adding a esoteric clever phrase:

Target creature enters the battlefield as if it weren't on the battlefield.

Now this corrects the condition so it pretends like it's not on the field.

Add your comments:


(formatting help)
Enter mana symbols like this: {2}{U}{U/R}{PR}, {T} becomes {2}{u}{u/r}{pr}, {t}
You can use Markdown such as _italic_, **bold**, ## headings ##
Link to [[[Official Magic card]]] or (((Card in Multiverse)))
Include [[image of official card]] or ((image or mockup of card in Multiverse))
Make hyperlinks like this: [text to show](destination url)
What is this card's power? Runeclaw Bear
(Signed-in users don't get captchas and can edit their comments)