Humm. Almost certainly still horribly broken, because this just reads "Add nine , and unless your opponent can give you the last one, that should let you win"

Still, interesting space to explore; a toned down version is plausible.

I'm not sure how to tone it down. This does get weaker as the game goes on most of the time given the heavy poison type setting.

Any suggestions on how to tweak it to tone it down into a more balanced card.

I guess it depends on whether you're picturing the cards in this set only ever being played with each other, or whether you want to balance them to be played in decks with existing Magic cards as well. It's a lot easier to balance cards if you assume the former, but it does cut out a lot of interaction too.

It's just plain hard to balance. Either the opponent isn't playing poison in which case it has no downside, so practically any upside at all is too good - or they are, and nothing but a major upside is worth having.

Still; it into something with fixed numbers, rather than "Up to 9" would help, a lot.

Well if these sets and thus cards are to be played with the rest of magic, then I guess the benchmark would be Dark Ritual since it's still widely used in casual and was reprinted in the one of the first Duel decks they made.

maybe 2 poison counters per ?

If you are using Dark Ritual as a benchmark of power, you're going to have power level problems.

Uh yeah; that card's kinda considered brokenly overpowered nowadays. Sadly.

If I absolutely had to ballpark this, I'd suggest making this a flat "Gain 4 poison counters, add " - a two mana boost is still substantial; the downside at least means you can only use it twice.

While Dark Ritual is strong it's been a common in every set to use it other than the battle royal in which it was an uncommon and the From the Vault set it was in which bumped all cards in the set to Mythic. Dark Ritual was broken power wise mainly due to it being a common and able to drop first turn. I think a similar effect at rare is doable these days. Just not often.

Although 4 poison counters for four mana also seems workable.

By the way, power level issues aside, rituals are red nowadays.

Yeah, the standard baseline for rituals is not Dark Ritual, it's Pyretic Ritual. (Just like the baseline for countermagic is Cancel, not Counterspell.) Even Seething Song is pretty dangerous.

And the problem is especially to do with how good a card might be on the early turns. That's why Cabal Ritual wasn't too bad: although it could potentially net you 5 mana for 2, it would only do that once you'd jumped through some hoops, and normally not on turn 2.

Actually, that suggests an approach for this card to deal with the brokenness. How about:

> Until end of turn, you gain "Exile a card from your graveyard: Add to your mana pool and gain one poison counter."

Indeed; but poison is, and spending life for resources is black (where, of course, Channel was green).

And Dark Ritual was last available in, what, Mercadian Masques? I think it's fine to call it a pre-modern at this point. Making it rare just makes it happen in limited less often; it doesn't make it less broken.

I'm also kinda liking that this is "Until end of turn" rather than "Right now" though (which my proposed 4-for-4 loses). It brings up all manner of lovely "Can I tempt you into taking just one extra mana?" scenarios.

­Channel was green, Ritual effects are red now, and black does get the do anything to win factor. ­Dark Ritual has been printed in three post modern products though not a set.

I'm changing this a little. I will be adding a lose 2 life payment to the effect so that even if you ramp it up to 9 poison counters you'll only have 2 life left as well.

black is a boring color now that they moved all the cool stuff to red and green. black should get rituals back, but cost life or other resources.

They did what now?

I think black does get "ritual with a sacrifice or life payment cost", just like it gets "card draw with life payment" and "large creature with life payment", etc. (Although I still think this is much too good -- when it matters it's because it lets you win on turn 2 in some format, when you don't care how much life you've lost.)

There have always been cards that turn out to warp one format or another. That's the primary reason for the banned/restricted lists for each format.

If It's a winning 'too' early then this can be printed for three mana and still be part of a 2nd turn win if you run Gemstone Caverns

So I guess the question is without changing the card text... what would you cost this at?

They reprinted Sol Ring in the Commander products, too. If it didn't break the secondary market, they would have reprinted Ancestral Recall. They reprint these cards specifically because they are unfair. You'll never see them reprint Dark Ritual in a core set, though, because it breaks games played at the highest level.

Sure, you could point to cards like Yawgmoth's Bargain and say "Dark Ritual would be fair if cards like that didn't exist." But, given a choice, which would you rather have? An environment where fast mana is a legitimate choice, but there's nothing of real value to ramp up to? Or an environment where there's no fast mana, but the expensive cards are super splashy?

rituals aren't really used to ramp into splashy spells anyway. the most abusive things they enable are combo. red doesnt play rituals unless it's something like storm or pyro ascension. you dont see rituals even if RDW could bring out dragons a turn sooner.

sol ring is a permanent that gives extra mana turn after turn. they're not the same class of cards as rituals.

Amuseum, I think you missed part of jmgariepy's point, which is that they reprint "overpowered" cards in supplemental products all the time, and that the fact that they do that doesn't mean that those cards are "okay."

Humm, fix power level by changing the mna cost? 5 minimum, probably 6; which pushes it right into "do not bother printing" territory.

@jmgariepy - I would never expect this to be printed in anything other than a poison relevant block. And with ramp there is always a middle ground... see elven mana ramp into big stompy creatures.

@L2i0n0k7 - my point earlier was that Dark Ritual was a common with no downside, whereas this is a rare with great risk.

@Vitenka - I could see this going as high a four mana tops. there is no point having a card in a custom set that Nobody wants to play with. That's why we make custom sets. Sure we strive for fair balance but sometimes you just have to step back and have at least a little fun.

I'll be upping the cost to

Oh sure, I've no problem with "This card won't ever see print" cards :)

But be aware that the existence of this card has warped the environment to "Every deck, no matter the colour, needs to run instant speed 'target player gains a poison' at least in sideboard" and has probably pushed black decks heavily.

When a card is deemed format warping and they still want to print it or notice it after the fact they ban it. See Skullclamp or Staff of Domination or um a whole lot of the Apocolypse block when it came out.

Skullclamp's a particularly ridiculous example of it done badly. (I mean, seriously? They print exactly the deck that caused them to realise the card is ban-worthy as a pre-con?)

Not saying "Don't try this idea at all"; just saying "Big red flags. Lots of them. Be careful."

I am going to be careful and if the set ends up with too many things that make this very broken in it I'll tweak the card or remove it.

For know though I've got to work each card into a good start while I'm still filling in the set. Then the second round of tweaking can begin.

I get exactly what he's saying. The fact that they reprint Dark Ritual in supplemental products means that in the context of fair decks, it is still a fair card. Like my comparison with Storm to RDW, if Ritual effects were broken, RDW would be all over them. But fact is, even fast decks like RDW don't care for rituals. OTOH Suicide Black did, that's why I'd rather rituals be black again, since red normally doesn't want that effect. It only uses it for broken decks like storm and combo, which is a waste.

Just because cards are similar doesn't mean they should get the same judgment. There's a world of difference between Necropotence and Greed, for example.

Anyway, this card is nothing like Dark Ritual. It's efficacy should be compared in a different manner.

It's much more similar to Channel.

Yes it is and it's a very black cousin to it too.