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CardName: War Mammoth Cost: 1GG Type: Creature - Elephant Pow/Tgh: 3/3 Rules Text: Trample Uprising {3}{G} (You may have this creature attack from your hand if you pay {3}{G} and put this onto the battlefield tapped and attacking. An uprising must result in you attacking with three or more creatures.) Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: [January] Mechanic Repository Common

War Mammoth
{1}{g}{g}
 
 C 
Creature – Elephant
Trample
Uprising {3}{g} (You may have this creature attack from your hand if you pay {3}{g} and put this onto the battlefield tapped and attacking. An uprising must result in you attacking with three or more creatures.)
3/3
Updated on 05 Jan 2018 by SecretInfiltrator

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History: [-]

2018-01-01 14:49:14: SecretInfiltrator created and commented on the card War Mammoth

So... expensive haste? Well, technically haste with a vigilance trigger when entering the battlefield... which, to be honest, I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen that yet. Another card I'm surprised I haven't seen:

Goblin Tobogganer
­{2}{r}
Creature - Goblin
Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield, it gains first strike until end of turn.
2/2

I also thought about cost reduction, but it's easy to undervalue haste.

I think I originally wanted this to enter the battlefield tapped as well.

"Easy to undervalue haste" Sho' 'Nuff.

That said, I think the Battalion keyword might be throwing you here. Battalion worked not onlhy because Boros was built around it, but because the keyword was stapled to creatures that were part of the Battalion.

War Mammoth doesn't have an ability that triggers when it attacks with two other creatures. Three other creatures have to attack for War Mammoth's ability to kick in. That seems too high a threshold (and will likely result in leaving behind zero blockers as well.) I'd personally stick to two attacking creatures to trigger.

Oh, also, if you do end up using this, you probably want to change it to say 'three or more'.

Ah, now I see the issue. You evaluate this as though it was triggered ability.

Actually the reminder text states clearly that the ability is part of declaring attackers and War Mammoth is also a declared attacker.

Triggered abilities from a hidden zone are logistically not feasible, so this has to be a static ability or activated ability.

Uprising is a static ability that changes how attackers are declared by adding a rule to that section that only applies to creatures with uprising. The cost is paid as part of declaring the attackers the same way the cost for e. g. Propaganda is paid.

The ability cares only that the total number of creatures declared in the end is three.

In theory as the mechanic is conceptualized you can use uprising with no creatures on the battlefield by declaring three (or more) creatures with uprising from your hand as attackers.


Changing "at least three" to "three or more" is fine. I'll alter the reminder text accordingly as I get around to it. :)

I don't know how certain it is that players won't interpret this as something like:

> During declare attackers step, as long as you control three or more attacking creatures, you may pay this card's uprising cost and put this onto the battlefield tapped and attacking.

It seems unintuitive to me.

Ah. Hmm.

Setting aside whether this works the way you intend it to (It probably does?) I'm unsure how many people would parse that sentence the way you intend them to. I presume that many advanced players wouldn't realize that triggered abilities in hidden zones don't work. And if you start with the presumption that they very well could... well... at the very least it should leave a number of players unclear on what the card does, exactly.

For what it's worth, at one point I did think the Elephant might count as one of the attacking creatures. Then I re-read the reminder text and presumed that that couldn't be right.

What about the remidner text made you think that?


For reference - old reminder text:

Uprising {3}{g} (As you declare attackers, you may pay {3}{g} and put this creature onto the battlefield declared as an attacker if you declare at least three attackers total.)

Oh, I'm just saying it didn't penetrate. My mind went to what I thought would be the simpler version, not that this version isn't written correctly.

That said, I've been thinking about it. Part of your premise resolves around things being unable to trigger in hidden zones. But isn't that how the Miracle mechanic works?

I'm not saying you need to do things one way or the other, because I'm pretty sure this is one of those odd middle grounds that can only really be solved by taking a poll. But if Miracle works as intended, I can't see why Uprising as a trigger wouldn't work, if you wanted to do that.

I was gonna suggest some variant with the word "result" but I see you quickly picked up on it on your own. I like the new reminder text though it seems - or at least feels - that there's some redundancy it:

> "... this creature attack from ... onto the battlefield attacking...

Shouldn't there be some mention about timing restrictions? Like, some could think you could attack the opponent with three uprising cards from their hand - on the opponent's end step.

I'm not convinced about the benefits of the design being wrapped around the whole "result in you attacking with 3 creatures" clause.

he "If you have enough uprising, surprise combat step!" might be a valid feature, rather than a bug.

Why not the much simpler:
"~ has haste as long as you control 3 creatures"?

I know it's not quite the same (those other creatures could stay back) but it seems to do most of what you want, without the complexities.

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