CardName: Grixis Roulette
Cost: br2
Type: Sorcery
Pow/Tgh: /
Rules Text: You roll a d6. Gain that much life.
Each opponent rolls a die. Each opponent whose die value
matches your die value loses that much life and sacrifices a
creature.
Flavour Text:
Set/Rarity: Retards of the Bay Rare
Grixis Roulette
R
Sorcery
You roll a d6. Gain that much life.
Each opponent rolls a die. Each opponent whose die value matches your die value loses that much life and sacrifices a creature.
What makes this least appealing to me are two factors:
The base effect (some life) is negligible to the improved effect (removal (+ life loss, but that's not even the big part)) - at a low chance of the improved effect this fits the definition of a swingy card.
The die rolls are tied in a "rich get richer" sense. You roll high on the first die, you also get more life loss. Compare that to the (still not top-notch design, but better in this regard) Convoluted Helix. You get a balanced outcome that doesn't swing towards either extreme (though you likely have a favored outcome anyway).
By double-tying this effect to die rolls, you just add a swingy effect onto a swingy effect.
You could easily go the other direction and have something like "Each opponent that rolls a lower result loses that much life, each player that rolls a higher result sacrifices a creature" (or vice versa, or allow an overlap - just raise the floor level a little and make an appropriately cost card)
Just looking at the chances to get something valuable out of this, the card is already unappealing, but you can't cost it more aggressively with your edge-cases being so extreme.
As another note: I actually feel like making each opponent choose a value and have the effect be worse the more they undershoot, but really bet if they overshoot might be a good representation of a gamble (more Blackjack though) that also is self-balancing e. g. Grixis Blackjack.
What makes this least appealing to me are two factors:
By double-tying this effect to die rolls, you just add a swingy effect onto a swingy effect.
You could easily go the other direction and have something like "Each opponent that rolls a lower result loses that much life, each player that rolls a higher result sacrifices a creature" (or vice versa, or allow an overlap - just raise the floor level a little and make an appropriately cost card)
Just looking at the chances to get something valuable out of this, the card is already unappealing, but you can't cost it more aggressively with your edge-cases being so extreme.
As another note: I actually feel like making each opponent choose a value and have the effect be worse the more they undershoot, but really bet if they overshoot might be a good representation of a gamble (more Blackjack though) that also is self-balancing e. g. Grixis Blackjack.