Diaspora: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity
Mechanics | Skeleton

CardName: Diaspora Cost: {3}B Type: Sorcery Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Target player reveals their hand. Choose up to one land and one nonland card in that player's hand. That player discards those cards. Flavour Text: The world can be the cruelest source of displacement. Set/Rarity: Diaspora Common

Diaspora
{3}{b}
 
 C 
Sorcery
Target player reveals their hand. Choose up to one land and one nonland card in that player's hand. That player discards those cards.
The world can be the cruelest source of displacement.
Updated on 07 Jun 2019 by Sorrow

History: [-]

2016-09-15 16:45:25: Sorrow created the card Diaspora
2016-09-15 16:45:42: Sorrow edited Diaspora

So the eponymous spell is a common?

Discard spells with cmc <= 2 intentionally don't allow you to force an opponent to discard land cards since the resulting mana screw strangles games.

You go straight against this with this card and push a desperately unfun gameplay.

Land discard felt flavorful going off of the name. Would increasing the cmc to 3 or make the cost BB work?

Here's the really weird thing about this card: On round 2, it's devastating. On round 7 it's also devastating. It's devastating for the person who cast this spell since its more likely to help the opponent than hurt them.

For that reason, I agree that this isn't a common at any casting cost. It's not about power level. You wouldn't want a new player putting four of these in their deck and casting them whenever they see them. New players don't fully grasp how the game operates yet. They presume that if they draw a spell, they should always cast that spell. Realizing, six games in, that the spell they've been casting makes them lose the game is a sort of betrayal.

Interestingly, since this doesn't say "opponent" late game it's also kinda good to use on yourself (though it's at best a cantrip). But yeah, early game this is devastating.

Opponent casts this on turn 2, and hits a land? Might as well concede right there.

Alright, can I do common land discard, since that's what I'm going for?

Well; not at any casting cost where it would be relevant, no.

You need land to play the game. Early-game land discard is a shut-out in the most un-fun way possible.

Spells that remove lands, even from hand, can't cost less than 3. They can't be common unless they cost at least 4, really

This isn't really about power level. Targeting lands leads to stalled out games. And since one of the biggest criticisms of Magic is about how X percentage of games leads to mana screw, Wizards found it was just better to make land destruction/taxing strategies unrealistic, at least until the late game kicks in.

It's why Wizards is starting to implement the London Mulligan rule. Sure, it leads to more predictable games, and bolsters non-interactive combo decks. But at least, if a player has enough lands vs. spells, then that player got a chance to play the game.

For what it's worth, I think the 'power level' of Diaspora is right on the money. After all, Encroach didn't see much use back in the day... mostly because it was more restrictive than the killer card Duress. But Stone Rain seems perfectly balanced to me too, considering that it was only used occasionally in the highest level of tournament play. Wizards still killed the card, though, because it lead to unfun games and hurt their brand.

The current level of land destruction in Standard is Demolish, and this gets more powerful than land destruction the earlier in the game you cast it. And this is 100% a power level concern, because the more often this locks your opponent out of the game, the more often you win, and the more often you win, the more powerful it is

It's actually plausible that a metagame with this card would be reasonably balanced. After all, you're giving up a card and your 2-drop in order to hit a land. To defeat this card utterly, I just need to have a really good 2-drop; or slightly more land in my deck.

But. The problem is that the games this wins it doens't win cleanly. The game drags on for turns with the caster having a significant advantage but the defender still being able to do SOME stuff. And they might even be able to turn it around. But usually they won't.

@dude: Mm. But Demolish sets an opponent's development back a whole turn. Discarding a land may not effect you until a much later round. And discarding a land past round 6 is unlikely to have any real effect, while destroying a land past round 6 very well could mean the game.

I'm not arguing about power level, because you're probably right when it comes to giving a card like this a proper casting costs. I just wouldn't draw a direct line in power level between land discard and land destruction. They aren't equivalent.

Right, which is why I said their relative power level depends on when you cast them. On turn 6, your opponent probably doesn't even have a land left in hand. Otoh, if you cast this on turn 2 or 3 and cause your opponent to miss their 4th land drop entirely, it's very hard for them to recover from that. Plus you get to develop a four drop on turn four, which is way better than the poor tempo play of Demolish

2019-06-06 14:11:14: Sorrow edited Diaspora:

Was {1}{b} "Target player reveals his or her hand. You may choose a land from it. That player discards that card and reveals the top card of their library. If a land was revealed that way put that card into that player's graveyard. Otherwise, that player adds the card to their hand."

This seems fair. Pretty similar to Davriel's Shadowfugue

Although SI's original point still stands; I'd expect a card named after the set to be rare at least (with a splashiness to match)

Diaspora just doesn't feel like a rar name. The word could appear in potentially any place where people are displaced.

Gotta give you kudos Sorrow. That was a really good compromise.

Add your comments:


(formatting help)
Enter mana symbols like this: {2}{U}{U/R}{PR}, {T} becomes {2}{u}{u/r}{pr}, {t}
You can use Markdown such as _italic_, **bold**, ## headings ##
Link to [[[Official Magic card]]] or (((Card in Multiverse)))
Include [[image of official card]] or ((image or mockup of card in Multiverse))
Make hyperlinks like this: [text to show](destination url)
What is this card's power? Rumbling Baloth
(Signed-in users don't get captchas and can edit their comments)