­Time Stop in Portal

Should change type to Sorcery, to match Mystic Denial etc ;)

Your comment has me wondering, Circeus... why does this card cost more than Time Stop? I could see you arguing "Players can use it after combat is assigned as a post-combat trick"... but you can't even do that...

@Alex: But Mystic Denial is now an Instant ;D

@jmgariepy: a) it's got the same CMC as Time Stop, and technically cheaper by one colored mana. b) in the context of portal, it didn't seem to be an improper cost and anyway, it seems like a pretty typical kind of effect where it's a good idea to err on the slightly costlier side.

Ah, my apologies. You mentioned Time Stop, but I was thinking Time Warp. Allow me to rephrase this question, then: "Why does this card cost more than Time Warp?"

Because it's portal; where all spells must be bad?

I'm not pretending to be particularly good at costing card. Heck, I'm the first to admit I'm not that good at it. I'm just telling you why, at the time, I costed it that way. shrugs It's not like a) this is is a full set I'm actually intending to balance and b) spikes should have it their way always.

Well, it's still pretty powerful. "Go ahead, untap. That's all you get to do." (Or, huh - they can attack you. Leaving that hole open feels nicely blue somehow.)

Eh, sorry, I didn't mean to sound harsh. I aim for a rough ballpark when designing for these games since it's not a set per se and I only have so much time to come with an idea.

No, no, that's fine. I do agree that it isn't neccessary for every card to have a perfectly maximized cost... though, I don't really think this is a 'making Spike happy' issue. After all, both Johnny and Timmy like to see the cards they like cost less as well... and this is a Johnny and/or Timmy card. Even if this cost 4, this would be a fine example of the type of card that Spike hates, really, since it cuts down on interaction in the game.

But I'm just blathering now. As long as you know that Time Warp is functionally better and costs less, and you still prefer to make this card cost 6, then I'm happy. It's a neat card. Had it popped up in a Cube Draft, I'd enjoy slamming this down on the table no matter what it cost.

I own to the mistake that not looking the cost of Time Warp (or more accurately IMO, Temporal Manipulation) was. or even would probably have been more accurate costs.

Though I suspect a monoblue Time Walk with only one in its cost would not be allowed anyway, so the comparison may be difficult to make since we'll never if it would be CMC 6 or 7.