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CardName: Prisoner Exchange Cost: 2ww Type: Sorcery Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Each player chooses target nontoken creature they control. Starting with you, each player chooses one of those creatures they don't control that hasn't been chosen yet. Then each player gains control of the creature they chose. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Infinite Potential Well Rare

Prisoner Exchange
{2}{w}{w}
 
 R 
Sorcery
Each player chooses target nontoken creature they control. Starting with you, each player chooses one of those creatures they don't control that hasn't been chosen yet. Then each player gains control of the creature they chose.
Updated on 07 Nov 2018 by dude1818

History: [-]

2018-11-04 21:23:24: dude1818 created the card Prisoner Exchange

So, no downside if you control one or zero creatures when you cast this spell. Intentional?

(Whether or not it is, I do find it odd that the spell named 'Prisoner Exchange' is unlikely to result in an 'exchange' the majority of times that players play this spell [presuming most people build into avoiding the drawback.])

It's even funnier than that. Building to it means giving your opponents things they cannot afford to feed, that then eat their face :)

Oh yes. Casting this with double Bronze Bombshells is living the dream.

No, you shouldn't be able to use it unless you actually have a creature to give up. If it requires targets, that should enforce that requirement

2018-11-05 14:30:23: dude1818 edited Prisoner Exchange

Now it just enforces that you have a first creature to target. It doesn't currently enforce giving a creature up, if you don't have a second creature to give.

I think this might be easier if you use the word 'exchange' in the text of the card, since that enforces that the two creatures exist to make the exchange (while also making the targeting restriction unnecessary. Or perhaps makes it a spell that targets players.) The downside: Exchanging with one player means no multiplayer shenanigans. Or, perhaps a shell-game of multiplayer shenanigains where players can exchange control of creatures with creatures that have previously been exchanged. Which may not be so bad, actually, presuming you make the caster of the spell the last person to choose.

Oh, that points to another problem of the current wording. You can gain control of your opponent's creature, but they can just take the same creature right back.

What? That's not what it does at all. Each player picks one of their creatures, and then everyone essentially drafts from that set of creatures. It's not "exchange," because that requires a 1-for-1 swap. Everyone gets a creature back, but it's never the creature you put in. There's no "second creature" at all

2018-11-06 06:14:42: dude1818 edited Prisoner Exchange

I'm not understanding jmgle's two-creature thing, either. Though the wording was confused.

Seems a lot better now. I don't like overloading the 'target' to enforce there having to be that many. How about just "If they do..." on getting to choose? Allows you to initiate a prisoner swap that you're not involved in - but then you don't get to benefit from it. Could be fun in multiplayer. "Yeah; you lot, go swap something."

I see where the confusion lies. You're making a subset of creatures to choose from. I didn't presume that going in. Let me show you how this played out in my mind:


Let's presume that I have a Pearled Unicorn, and you have a Grey Ogre and a Mons' Goblin Raiders.

I cast Prisoner exchange.

Then each player chooses target nontoken creature they control.

I choose my target Unicorn. You choose your target Ogre.

Then, starting with me, I choose one of the creatures I don't control that hasn't been chosen yet.

The only creature that hasn't been chosen yet is the Mons. I take Mons.

Then my opponent takes a creature that hasn't been chosen yet. All creatures have been chosen. My opponent gets nothing.


Technically, there's a clue here in that you used the word 'those' when referring to 'those creatures'. But it's a pretty weak clue for establishing that a subset of creatures are being locked in.

I think the easy solution to this is exiling all the chosen creatures... which is what Wizards tends to do with spells like this if I remember correctly. It involves flickering everything, which is an unfortunate aside, but it cuts right through the confusion. And at least white is the best color at flickering anyways.

Oh, and also excuse my "gain control of a creature then opponent gains control of it right back" comment from above. That was just a moment of temporary insanity.

Yeah, Thieves' Auction is the version of this that flickers. I wanted to avoid that, though it's making the template harder

> So, no downside if you control one or zero creatures when you cast this spell. Intentional?

I don't know. "Each player chooses target nontoken creature they control." The "target" here means each player must be able to make a legal choice at the time of casting.

Obviously you can sacrifice a targeted creature with this on the stack, which will leave someone empty-handed.

I'm not certain, but usually the caster makes alll target choices and choices made by "each player" are not targeted to begin with, so the confusion is understandable.

Right, the targeting ensures everyone has a creature when you cast this. I guess there could be a way to template it such that if someone doesn't have a creature, they just get excluded from the swap, but that's less fun. If we want to talk about "choosing targets," I'll just point at The Abyss.

Giving the opponent the choice of target isn't particularly unique, though it is rare. Echo Chamber, Goblin War Cry, Imperial Edict, Mogg Assassin, etc.. Though, admittedly I can't find a card in Modern that does it. [The Shrug Emoji]

­Goblin War Cry doens't appear to be a good example. You target the opponent, they choose a creature. The Mogg is a better example and yeuch the wording is messy.

So is this using Evangelize as a precedence or what's going here? If I understand this correctly, it looks to be a bad Switcheroo in most cases. Why is this white instead of blue? I would probably consider {b} over {w} here (if not {u}).

I was trying to create a white Switcheroo. A question about that came up on Blogatog

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