Mashup: the Gathering Alpha: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity
Skeleton

CardName: Alaborn Drill Sergeant Cost: 1W Type: Creature - Human Knight Pow/Tgh: 1/3 Rules Text: Defender {2}{W}, {T}: Untap target attacking creature you control, Remove it from combat, and put a +1/+1 counter on it. You may use this ability only during the declare blockers step. Flavour Text: Try it again. This time, aim for the head! Set/Rarity: Mashup: the Gathering Alpha Common

Alaborn Drill Sergeant
{1}{w}
 
 C 
Creature – Human Knight
Defender
{2}{w}, {t}: Untap target attacking creature you control, Remove it from combat, and put a +1/+1 counter on it. You may use this ability only during the declare blockers step.
Try it again. This time, aim for the head!
1/3
Updated on 24 Jan 2014 by jmgariepy

Code: CW12

Active?: true

History: [-]

2011-12-15 05:23:27: jmgariepy created the card Alaborn Drill Sergeant

Multiverse randomly generated Interrupting Crab by Vitenka for the set Strike the Earth, and Fleshmass by Sorrow for the set Jyhelm Flourishing. One thing was guaranteed by this mashup: The creature was going to be a 1/3.

This ability may prove too good for common at a converted mana cost of 3. Still, it's a bit restrictive, an means that your creature that is slowly growing isn't attacking... and when it finally is attacking, it isn't growing. Hmm... I would expect a lot of new players to aim their removal at the large creature, though, and not at the creature making the large creatures. I suppose I'll have to watch this later.

Hmm, I like this. You're saying "It's used to pump up one creature" and I'm seeing "I attack with everything else. Whichever you block that doesn't at least trade pulls back".

It's not a huge growth, killing the grown thing isn't always going to be wrong... I think it works. A cllone army or them, or ways to make them untap, could get terrifying quickly. Might be worth adding an 'if you do' - or could you even move the 'untap' part into the cost to avoid that?

Huh. Interesting combination. My first instict was that it had to be too good, but you're right, it's not that necessarily that good if you want to attack. A bigger potential problem is that if you don't want to attack yet, you can use this as "{w}, {t}: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature" by attacking, forcing them to block, and then bringing the creature back. I'm not sure if that's fair for the cost or not. It's probably fiddly to use, because you need two creatures that don't die to use it, and if you're using this (unlike the interrupting crab version) you can't also block with it. But OTOH, if you're in some sort of stall, it will probably make you win, which suggests it may be too good for common. Things like Steel Overseer suggest that "add a +1/+1 counter" can be surprisingly cheap, but otoh, most examples are better than just adding +1/+1 counters to one creature and not common, so I'm not sure.

On a minor rules note, in the rules discussion over feint, we decided that the current comprehensive rules still count a creature as "attacking" in the combat damage step after combat damage is dealt, which required a tweak if removing one from combat was used as a cost. I asserted that everyone would expect attacking creature to mean "before combat damage", and that seems to be bourne out, so I think that's what the comprehensive rules should say, and then cards like this can be written in the obvious way. But assuming you don't intend people to be able to use this after combat damage, you probably need to assume a tweak to the comprensive rules (which I'm all in favour of), or a change the wording slightly.

2011-12-15 11:13:00: jmgariepy edited Alaborn Drill Sergeant

Ooh. Good call, Jack. I added "You may use this ability only during the declare blockers step", which makes me unhappy, but at lest the reminder text seemed less relevant with the timing being spelled out.

I also see what you're getting at with the combo abuse, Vitenka, but I'm not too concerned. If a person put together a combo engine with this card, they'd deserve to get those counters... after all, there are better ways to utilize untappers.

As per usual, I'm bending reality as to what is acceptable at common. While there are too many sentences for this in a normal set to be common material, Mashup: the Gathering needs to take what it can get. Besides confusion issues, it does bring a few things you want to see on a common - Gustcloak is good to new players since it lets them see whether or not attacking is profitable without committing to it. And this card effectively puts +1/+1 counters on creatures at sorcery speed, since they won't be in combat when it happens. So while the card itself adds a bunch of individual complexity, it doesn't add as much on board complexity as it looks like it does. Not to say that it doesn't do that either...

Thanks! Yeah, I agree -- the extra clause makes me unhappy too, but I haven't thought of a better solution.

I'd forgotten I was commenting on the mash-up step. Yeah, if you're short of commons I agree this is a plausible candidate.

2012-07-04 04:14:38: jmgariepy moved the card Alaborn Drill Sergeant from Mashup: the Gathering Workbench into Mashup: the Gathering Alpha
2012-07-04 04:15:17: jmgariepy edited Alaborn Drill Sergeant

Moved from workbench to alpha because I need more cheap common creatures. This guy isn't quite common, really, but we're letting that sort of thing slide here.

When I looked at this guy in the file, I was like 'Ooh! I can just drop this guy's casting cost and p/t, and he'll work as a 2cc creature instead. Turns out the the two original base creatures are 1/3s, though, hence my early comment. 1/3 defender seems fine for {1}{w}, though... I just increased the activation, which secretly makes this card more expensive in the trade. I also find it funny comparing this to the upcoming M13 rings...

2014-01-24 01:08:29: jmgariepy edited Alaborn Drill Sergeant

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? Merfolk of the Pearl Trident
(Signed-in users don't get captchas and can edit their comments)