A player is unable to sacrifice a permanent they do not control.

I suppose the wording is redundant, but I thought it sounded weird without it.

Isn't this just a really bad Stone Rain?

Turn four you might get them to hit a nonland perm, pretty much any time past that, yeah its going to be a land.

Why not boost the CC by one and say "Target player sacrifices a non-land permanent." That way you hit something.

My initial goal was to make some "fair and balanced" LD, but like all things Fox News, it may just be awful. This one's on the line to be replaced.

I would sac tokens! I think it's great. Don't get the opportunit to do wacky things without wacky cards.

I definitely like the idea, but agree it either needs some more reason why they would choose something other than their most redundant land, or all the rules words sound good but will never really show up in play. I think nowadays 3R is a reasonable baseline for stone rain, as that's not been printed for ages, but this is even much worse than that, as they get to choose the land.

Conceivably (if land destruction normally tries to eliminate a really useful land) something like "target player sacrifices a permanent other than a basic land", so normally they choose a land, but if they really need the nonbasic land, they get to kick themselves a bit for choosing something else AND taking damage. But that still doesn't work as (1) it punishes people for playing with only basic lands, which is the reverse of what normal land destruction normally does and (2) since the opponent gets to choose, it's still strictly worse than stone rain in any circumstance I can think of, since it only DOESN'T destroy a land when you actually really wanted it to.

It is fine to have some weak cards if they're popular or if they fulfil some role, but I fear this may frustrate people if the interesting clauses NEVER come up.

This will usually be Misguided Rage but more expensive. And that wasn't a good card.

I don't think this should be at common. Red just doesn't do discard, much less targeted discard and while I dig what you're going for and love the name, this has to be at uncommon because it's so opposed to Red's overall themes and mechanics.

I don't know... I know red doesn't do discard often, but if it was going to discard anything, it would be an artifact. It also doesn't do counterspells, but Artifact Blast seems reprintable to me.

Green also doesn't do direct damage or imprison creatures, but when they bled the color pie for it, they made Hornet Sting and Entangling Vines common. If the ability is simple enough, I don't really think it matters what the commonality is... at least that's my two cents.

I'd probably decrease the casting cost by at least , though. It will be rather rare when discarding an artifact at sorcery speed will be better than destroying an artifact at instant speed. And Duress makes this look like a chump. I know Duress is nuts, and Shattered Dreams exists... but Shattered Dreams was in an artifact block...

I can’t say I didn’t expect some controversy here, and this may not be the final angle for the card.

When it comes down to it, I wanted a card that served three goals:

A) Served a narrow but functional goal. B) Played into a story-significant distrust or hatred of technology. C) Allow a peek at an opponent’s hand.

The first is pretty basic. Every set with artifacts needs some artifact control. This isn’t the only card in the set that serves that purpose, so I was comfortable nerfing it a little.

The second goal is a little trickier. This set isn’t solely about the artifacts and equipment, but they play into the setting and flavor. I wanted a way to deal with them that felt more like attacking the maker of the artifacts than the end users, and this was it.

The third goal plays to the truth-versus-conspiracy vibe of the set. Red’s current Evidence trick (player reveals a card, if it’s non-land they take 1 damage) is very conditional, and works better when you know your opponent can’t show a land. If you’re going to, in game flavor terms, accuse someone of having an agenda, you want to be pretty sure they’re not just going to sidestep your allegations.

There’s also a fourth reason I designed the card this way, less about the game mechanic and more about the aesthetic of the set. I wanted to have a common card that could carry flavor text explaining the potential link between the Soradyne Corporation, the Day of Silence, and the Crossblight affecting so many war veterans. This card ability was short and sweet, and allowed the space I needed for flavor in multiple ways.

Yes, it absolutely goes outside of red’s normal color pie space, but I was hard pressed to see a simpler way to execute a common card that represented sneaking in and breaking stuff before it got to market.

Mmm... it's really REALLY pre-emptive destruction. I can get behind red doing that.

Unfortunately, it's also really weak - overcost, sorcery, and you have to get lucky that they have one in hand.

I'm tempted to try and find clever ways of naming this "Sudden Shatter", but then someone will find an artifact with flash just to stop that working.

So now I think the question may be how to cost it.

­ makes it the same cost as Shatter, but slower and with a chance to whiff. On the other hand, it gives you lots of hidden information, and I don’t think I want to put it quite on par with Duress. Red is supposed to “live dangerously”, and having a card that lets you have that much info goes against that grain. I’m okay giving it that ability for such a narrow purpose because I don’t think anyone’s going to want to waste that slot maindeck.

I absolutely don’t want to go as low as ; that just starts putting the card in real blue and black intel-gathering territory.

That's a fair point - you're paying a premium for being allowed to do something that's normally black.

How about keeping the cost as is, but making it instant? Though it being able to work as an artifact blast in that situation might not be obvious, and not be a thing that deserves to live on a common - and it's still not just a "better than shatter" since if you don't have the mana right then, you can't kill the artifact later (but you CAN take a risk and cast it early in the hopes of catching an artifact you don't know for sure is present)

At that cost I'd be unsure which of this and shatter to pick; which I think is more interesting.

On the flip side; as a sorcery it's more interesting to your opponent, who has to balance the risk of holding an artifact in hand against the risk of having it on the table before they need it / in place of something else.

The debate between picking this or Shatter is easy: Shatter isn’t going to be in this set.

I’m posting the card as a sorcery for now. And I suspect we’re probably overthinking a card I expect and intend to be a thirteenth-pick utility sideboard card.

I will say it's a little weird to bend the color pie (even slightly) just for the sake of some crummy not-ever-getting-played-in-any-format card. Even the flavor is somewhat wasted, as I'd much rather try to sell the concept of my world on a card that people actually want to play.

Formats need crap, it's true, but that's when they bust out the nondescript blah like Fissure Vent and whatnot.

I have to agree with M Houlding a little. I like this card, and would defend this card. But, when you make something new and add it to the game, it shouldn't be given a crap casting cost. Whether or not you want them to, players will judge your set based upon what is different, since that's what they will notice first. If the things about your set that are different are bad cards, they will condemn your set. This thread's a pretty good example of that practice in action...

I guess the question is whether people compare this to shatter, or to 'discard a card of my choice'. The latter is powerful, but sorcery speed makes it a lot less useful.

One thing that might make this feel more red would be to make it discard a random artifact from those revealed.

After reviewing Innistrad for its "14th pick do-nothings", I have to retract my statement about wasting flavor, as there's almost no Fissure Vent equivalent in the entire set, as the worst offenders are either just bland vanillas (Thraben Purebloods) or curious disconnect between flavor and effect (Paraselene).

That said, I really just don't see this effect as being appropriate to the set. Regardless of whether Red should get some form of targeted discard, why is such an artifact-centric design relevant to Soradyne? I mean, the reason this card would be so awful is because the effect has such little relation to what actually matters. Compare that to Innistrad's worst, like Cellar Door, Graveyard Shovel, and Curse of Oblivion. Each of those cards is absolutely awful, but they all directly connect to the primary theme. This is a color-shifted Mirrodin card put into a non-artifact block.

If this was a creature: Industrial Saboteur, then maybe it could stay as is?

Give it morph, a cost of R to flip, then have it reveal opponent's hand: they discard a non-creature, non-land card?

That still feels more black though.

Perhaps this card should be: 1R, instant: counter target activated ability of an artifact; destroy that artifact (non-mana abilities cannot be targeted.)

Or 1R, instant: counter target activated ability of an artifact; draw a card.

Red certainly can't get "discard a noncreature nonland card". The only reason this is vaguely in-pie for red is that it's specifically targeting artifacts.

I like Bombshell''s suggested instants though; they fit the name "Industrial Sabotage" better, to my mind.

As far as I'm concerned, SFletcher, anytime people start arguing among themselves, you're doing something right. Kudos for pushing some buttons.

@Alex: I was thinking non-creature, non-land because enchantments, in the Soradyne universe, are the product of an industry. You're entirely correct though.