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CardName: Heratian Dreadnought Cost: 1 Type: Artifact Creature - Dreadnought Pow/Tgh: 12/12 Rules Text: Trample You may cast Heratian Dreadnought from exile, but not from anywhere else. Heratian Dreadnought cannot enter the battlefield unless it was cast from exile. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Melody Rare

Heratian Dreadnought
{1}
 
 R 
Artifact Creature – Dreadnought
Trample
You may cast Heratian Dreadnought from exile, but not from anywhere else.
Heratian Dreadnought cannot enter the battlefield unless it was cast from exile.
12/12
Updated on 16 Feb 2012 by M_Houlding

Code: RA01

Active?: true

History: [-]

2012-02-14 02:42:16: M_Houlding created the card Heratian Dreadnought

Continuing with the theme of Spike/Johnny throwback cards to represent Heratian artifacts. (For background, Ruins of Herat -- Stereotypical ancient ruins of future technology being harvested by the antagonist Evil Empire, the Vastal.)

I'm pretty sure this is harder to abuse than Phyrexian Dreadnought, as you actually need the trigger to happen, but what do I know.

Hmm. Force of Savagery with a built-in way to keep it alive. Might be cleaner as just a 1-mana Force of Savagery.

That's not very fun.

Is a "cannot enter the battlefield" clause allowed? (Thinking of other possibilities that evade Aether Vial and Heratian Televask.)

2012-02-14 13:56:32: M_Houlding edited Heratian Dreadnought

I think that works. It means if you cast it on turn 1, it'll go straight from the stack to the graveyard (thanks to that weird rule they added to cover Worms of the Earth corner cases).

Whoa, thanks for the reference.

So now, some questions:

  1. How similar to Phyrexian Dreadnought should this be?
  2. Is "five or more spells" an appropriate condition?
  3. Does this seem like a satisfactorily Johnny/Spike card, considering an abundance of alternate cost "free" spells?

Thinking about this some more, I've realized that the "five or more spells" clause is a bit ridiculous, as this isn't really a sensible end-goal for Storm decks or any other deck that could reasonably cast a whole bunch spells in one go. In some sense, that might be appropriate, but I do also want to try and find a more flavorful restriction.

To that end, one thought I had was to instead connect this with Delve, which is something that I've conceptually connected to treasure-hunting for whatever reason. And since this, and all the other Heratian artifacts, are things that are being dug up from the Ruins of Herat, why not make it so this can only be cast from exile. (After it's been "dug" up by Delving.)

­Haakon, Stromgald Scourge has already explored similar territory, and as much as I'm loathe to fiddle with the exile zone, I figure it's ok for a one-off. But the next problem is how do I keep it from also being Reanimated without making the rules super-clunky?

2012-02-16 18:06:18: M_Houlding edited Heratian Dreadnought:

Testing new casting conditions. "Unless it was cast from exile" is a great rules phrase.

Oh, I LIKE.

Needing a way to exile it is a wonderful way to get around reanimation.

I'd be temped to suggest it ETB as a 1/1 unless it came from exile; but that's just me trying to make the wording even froodier.

Oh, neat idea. Vitenka has a point, you could make it "1. 1/1. You can cast ~ from exile. If you do, it comes into play with millions of +1/+1 counters on." I like that because it simplifies the template, but I'm not sure being able to hardcast it makes it look better: I think it more looks disappointing :)

The first iteration that Alex's earlier comments refer was actually more or less what you describe, an 8/0 that required a certain condition in order to enter the battlefield with some amount of counters.

I decided NOT to do that in part because I wanted to make it more explicitly connected to Phyrexian Dreadnought. Also, I've successfully avoided using counters on everything except Immortal Ahriman, and I'm hoping to stick to that plan, as the abundance of Token production in the set makes counters a bit problematic.

2012-02-16 19:02:45: M_Houlding edited Heratian Dreadnought

Someone's been stocking up on Serum Powder and wants them to go up in price, haven't they?

"MODERN FORMAT, I WILL BREAK YOU."

The fact that this is an artifact creature does a great job of getting around most pitch spells. Unfortunately, Affinity is going to love this guy. You can exile him to Chrome Mox, not care that the mox doesn't produce mana, and play him off of your artifact land. The fact that that deck packs Welding Jar sometimes is just gravy.> ­

Edit: Oops! I lied! Chrome Mox says "non-artifact"... that's really weird because it never mattered before Alara... and even then, they probably would have allowed colored artifacts if they knew they were going to do it... weird.

Wondering how to break it.

Like jmgariepy, it's pretty difficult to "exile from your hand", as you can't remove it with any of the Force of Will alternate cost variants. Only some imprint cards and this random rare land Forsaken City. Looks like Discard + Delve probably is the best way to cast.

Cool Johnny card, though. Laughs at Misthollow Griffin.

Yeah, it predates Misthollow Griffin by quite a bit, and judging by the comments from MaRo and Forsythe, the Griffin was probably the last "from Exile" card we'll see.

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