For Challenge # 043. I'm taking advantage of the fact that all Link asked for was that the casting cost be 7+. That's pretty easy to abuse, admittedly. Morph springs to mind. Suspend, too. There's way too many ways to walk around that.
Mind you, if I'm going to walk around it, I want the card to at least have a "pay full price mode" so I don't feel like I'm super cheating. The First ability on Fountain Geyser doesn't look like much, but, having designed a similar uncommon in Magic 20XX, I can assure you, that incremental life gain is a pain in the ass to fight against. In Magic20XX, I solved it by forcing ": Gain 2 life." which put a big crimp on it. On a Mythic, though, the uncounterable cheap life gain for every time I have a spare two mana is probably acceptable.
The second ability is kind of Timmy, true. I don't think Spike would complain when it pops. I also kept the activation reasonable, so if you, say, Tinkered this into play, you could activate it.
Oh, yeah. When I randomly generated a card to get this card's type, I got Fountain of Youth. You can see how it inspired the design...
Hm. I like the idea, and I agree repeatable life gain can be very overwhelming in a repeatable damage way. But there's several common and uncommon artifacts that can gain 1 life a turn. And 5 life a turn might well be an outraceable advantage on turn 4 or 5. But if I have ten mana or a way of tutoring an expensive artifact into play, I feel mindslaver, or blightsteel colossus, or something is more likely to swing the game in my favour. So I'm not sure it's anywhere near strong enough to get spike excited. Although to be fair, if it were, I probably still wouldn't notice because I'm not that spikey :)
Well, to be fair, this is as many Fountain of Youth activations as you want each turn. It's also got the "mild advantage over time for the amount I pay attention to this card in my hand" as well as, "I must always make decisions as to whether or not the thing I want to do right now is better than gaining 1 or 2 life", which is something that only Spike is interested in thinking about. A card doesn't need to be powerful for Spike to like it... though, that sure does help.
Huh! So it is. I think I must have automatically read this through the lens of Forecast cards (Plumes of Peace etc), and so assumed you could only do it once per turn.
Yeah, I missed that too. You're right, that does make the ability a lot spikier.
In fact, why not use that ability on a card which does something else, such as a big artifact or white vanilla or near vanilla creature, that sounds very attractive to spike.
Or possibly a Sorcery that wins you the game if you're at 50 or more life? Yeah, there were probably better 'base' cards to make. I just couldn't get "Super Fountain of Youth!" out of my head.
, Reveal Fountain Geyser from your hand: Gain 1 life.
, 
: Gain 10 life.
For Challenge # 043. I'm taking advantage of the fact that all Link asked for was that the casting cost be 7+. That's pretty easy to abuse, admittedly. Morph springs to mind. Suspend, too. There's way too many ways to walk around that.
Mind you, if I'm going to walk around it, I want the card to at least have a "pay full price mode" so I don't feel like I'm super cheating. The First ability on Fountain Geyser doesn't look like much, but, having designed a similar uncommon in Magic 20XX, I can assure you, that incremental life gain is a pain in the ass to fight against. In Magic20XX, I solved it by forcing "
: Gain 2 life." which put a big crimp on it. On a Mythic, though, the uncounterable cheap life gain for every time I have a spare two mana is probably acceptable.
The second ability is kind of Timmy, true. I don't think Spike would complain when it pops. I also kept the activation reasonable, so if you, say, Tinkered this into play, you could activate it.
Oh, yeah. When I randomly generated a card to get this card's type, I got Fountain of Youth. You can see how it inspired the design...
Hm. I like the idea, and I agree repeatable life gain can be very overwhelming in a repeatable damage way. But there's several common and uncommon artifacts that can gain 1 life a turn. And 5 life a turn might well be an outraceable advantage on turn 4 or 5. But if I have ten mana or a way of tutoring an expensive artifact into play, I feel mindslaver, or blightsteel colossus, or something is more likely to swing the game in my favour. So I'm not sure it's anywhere near strong enough to get spike excited. Although to be fair, if it were, I probably still wouldn't notice because I'm not that spikey :)
Hmm... this is basically Fountain of Youth. And I don't think I'd call that a Spike card.
Well, to be fair, this is as many Fountain of Youth activations as you want each turn. It's also got the "mild advantage over time for the amount I pay attention to this card in my hand" as well as, "I must always make decisions as to whether or not the thing I want to do right now is better than gaining 1 or 2 life", which is something that only Spike is interested in thinking about. A card doesn't need to be powerful for Spike to like it... though, that sure does help.
Huh! So it is. I think I must have automatically read this through the lens of Forecast cards (Plumes of Peace etc), and so assumed you could only do it once per turn.
Your last couple of points are good as well.
Yeah, I missed that too. You're right, that does make the ability a lot spikier.
In fact, why not use that ability on a card which does something else, such as a big artifact or white vanilla or near vanilla creature, that sounds very attractive to spike.
Or possibly a Sorcery that wins you the game if you're at 50 or more life? Yeah, there were probably better 'base' cards to make. I just couldn't get "Super Fountain of Youth!" out of my head.