Inspired by Nevermore.

Can I say "Name a non-basic card?"

FYI, I'm pretty sure you could say "nonbasic card", as Basic is indeed a type, it just happens to be paired with Land.

Good design, though I have my doubts they'd ever print it just because its actual game impact would only be marginally different from Nevermore's.

I'm going for "nonbasic."
I don't think they have a problem printing cards that behave similarly, by the way.

Well, it doesn't stop instants and sorceries, hits non-basic lands, can wipe out token armies as they hit the table, and stops reanimator strategies. That seems like enough of a difference to me to be 'printable'.

Did you put "printable" in quotations because you think it isn't?

I think he was just means that it's as hypothetically printable as any idea.

And to clarify, I guess I just feel like the added words necessary to distinguish this from something like Nevermore aren't entirely worth the added complexity. It takes a little too much to process what this precisely prevents, whereas Nevermore and its ilk are immediately grokkable.

Fair. I'd also say that this doesn't really need the in it's casting cost, and should probably be . I get the impression that's there to make it feel different, but that doesn't make it different. (Although, on second look, maybe Link was using that as a justification for graveyard trickiness. Okay, I suppose it depends on the set.)

But, yeah, I think M Houlding and I are both talking the same point in different directions, but neither of us disagrees with the other, really. This card seems like a fine card to me. I would put Nevermore in a core set, because it reads more straightforward. I'd put this card in a set that wants to secretly hose token and graveyard strategies. It's not really a 'good' or 'bad' card... I don't think you can make value decisions on the card itself so much as how you apply it.

Obviously I made this card a while ago, so I can't tell you exactly why the black is there, but it probably has something to do with Leyline of the Void and other such things, like jmgariepy said. It is also there, I'm sure, to push this to not be in a monocolor deck and to make it harder to to cast, because of the ways it's more flexible than Nevermore.

I agree, though, that the effect could probably be mono-white.

FWIW, the "can't be played" mechanic appeared on Conjurer's Ban, sort of, maybe this was inspired by that? I have a feeling (?) that could have been white, but wizards felt that the flavour fit Orzhov well so they wanted it to be WB.

I don't think wizards has firmly decided where it should go. My analysis of the current choices is something like:

W: Because white likes rules, likes pre-emptively preventing dangers, and likes forbidding things to everybody that secretly it know only its opponent ever wanted to do in the first place. U: Because blue likes rules, likes messing with how people play cards, and is a little bit of a jerk about "haha! you thought you could do that, but actually you can't". B: Because black likes being an AWFUL LOT of a jerk :)

I think "nonbasic card" works under the rules, but I think wizards would prefer to print "card other than a basic land" (seen on several existing cards) as I think it's less confusing.

As written, I think it DOESN'T hose tokens, because it prevents "cards" and tokens are "permanents" but not "cards". I think it probably SHOULD affect tokens because that's interesting, although two problems (a) I'm not sure how to word it and (b) most people probably don't know what the name of a token IS (it's something like, if the effect specifies the name or copies a card, it uses that, else it uses the creature type?).

To hose tokens, it might have to say "choose a name" rather than "name a card," but the "name a card" has the advantage that you can easily say "name a card other than a basic land." With "choose a name," it would have to say "choose a name other than plains, island, swamp, mountain, or forest." It's already way more words than Nevermore or Meddling Mage, and that choice has the additional baggage of not being worded at all like similar effects.

Tokens have names according to the rules. Their names are the creature type they represent (So, for example, the name and creature type of tokens created by the card Thunderheads is "Weird")(Also, knowing this makes cards like Winnow look a little bit better...)(Oh, also, also, that's what used to make Unnatural Selection such a bomb against my old Grizzly Fate deck. You used to be able to call "Legendary" (since it was still a creature type in 2001). Since all Bear tokens had the name of "Bear", there would be a mass panic when all the bears realized that they were the same bear from divergent universes.) Jack is right that they aren't 'cards' per se, though. So if this card read "If a permanent with the chosen name..." it would do what I expected it to do.

Weird isn't the name of any card, so you couldn't choose it with a "Name a card" effect to prevent Thunderheads from working. The only tokens you would be able to hose that way are the ones that coincidentally share a name with an actual card: Splinter (tokens from Splintering Wind), Illusion (because it's half of Illusion//Reality), Shapeshifter (tokens from Crib Swap), the tokens from the Llanowar Mentor cycle and other TS block cards like Kher Keep, and assorted names like Atog and Juggernaut that require something like Volrath's Laboratory to make a token of the appropriate type and name.

Well, yes... I kind of assumed you'd have to change the first part to "Name a non-basic permanent..." as well. It'd be kind of silly to ask for card names, then look for permanent names.

The name is now taken by Spirit Away in Avacyn Restored. Shoot.

That's okay. The name mostly brings up images of Luck Dragons and Ogre-sized Grandmothers.

­:)