Link's Unplaced Cards: Recent Activity
| Link's Unplaced Cards: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2025-12-01 21:25:40)
| Link's Unplaced Cards: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2025-12-01 21:25:40)
Does this version seem better, or worse? Should it cost
?
That would be the gotcha I happen own, yeah ;) (Unlike the pitmage though, you're still looking at spending 3 or 6 at activation time - which means you've forgone casting your own win the game spell...)
The discussion reminds me of Disruptive Pitmage.
I like Vitenka's point.
Yeah - pay one extra is an awesome trick; it's a lot less good if your opponent knows it is coming. (And even as a trick, it's not that often you get to use it to best advantage)
Back to hand, rather than shuffling into deck would make the card better - but the second casting your opponent knows it is coming, and it's still not as good as flat out "Counter target spell"
Mind you, it DOES have the built in trick of "Ah, you paid 4 to be rid of it forever, smart. Ok, I cast my second one now you don't have 2 untapped...."
So I think I could get behind that version.
I was going to comment on my enchantment, and claim it fair, but I didn't want to warp an honest first appraisal from other people. It seems worse than Stone Rain, for what it's worth, and only gets better when it's controller has access to
... at which point, the opponent probably has 
...
But, yet, you're right. In fact, now that I look at it again, I notice that it is missing the line "Do not announce that you have cast ~. When this is on the battlefield, it hides in your hand."
It's not quite the same, since could be gotten rid of by all of the colors, and spells are much easier to deal with than abilities. I think that enchantment might be fair, though. That's a big mana investment that basically amounts to "some of your opponents spells cost more."
Hmm... tricky. I suppose that depends on whether you think this card is fair...
Example card for purposes of determing fairness
: Counter target spell, unless that spells controller pays 
.
Enchantment
What if it went to the hand instead? That was my original idea, but I feared it would be too good. What if I made it cost
, reduced the payments to 
, and made it return to the hand unless?
Mmm. Seems like this wants to be a counterspell that's okay early on, but spectacular later. Trying to make one that isn't convoluted is kind of tricky. I keep wanting to send it off to Veredictum's set "Evolution". Make it a hard counter, cost it at
and give it "Curve 4 — (If you cast this spell on a player’s fourth turn, it gains this effect.) Shuffle ~ into your library." Of course, that's straying a bit far from the original design...
I also think (2)(U) is fine, as is "Counter target spell unless... Shuffle ~ into its owner's library unless...".
I don't think the card would be particularly bad at
. I do think however that it's a lot of rules text for something that won't be relevant very often. With the Zeniths and Beacons it's a big splashy spell that the opponent will dread seeing you draw again.
You could easily change this to
. It's a soft counter. Soft counters are usually splashable ala Mana Leak and Convolute. That would seem like a good first step to me, since this card is clearly worse than Cancel. I got to admit, it would be a rare deck that I would be playing against where I would activate that second ability. One that constantly tapped out at every stage of the game... there just aren't too many decks that do that. Most of the time, to me at least, this would be a very expensive Mana Leak with a drawback that makes it even worse in multiplayer.
I didn't want to make it a hard counter, since it is potentially reusable. Perhaps I could drop the casting cost to
, I'm not sure. I wanted the numbers to line up, which is why I had them both at 
. I thought a total of 
might be too much, but maybe not.
I was worried that "Shuffle ~ into its owner's library unless..." wouldn't work, for some reason. I was worried about whether it needed to specify where it would go.
I think the wording can be "Counter target spell unless... Shuffle ~ into its owner's library unless..." in parallel to Blue Sun's Zenith.
I'm not sure about the cost; I'm not sure how much the last ability should cost -- it's not very useful (may even be a disadvantage) but will slowly increase deck quality. My biggest worry is that it simply won't matter often so it'll seem superfluous to make opponents make a decision, but OTOH, I like the pleasing symmetry of the two effects.
And I'm not sure where the mana cost should be: I feel if I'm paying 1UU I'd normally prefer to have cancel, and "pay
" is notably less good than mana leak. OTOH, mana leak can be really annoying, so I'm not sure I want to advocate for another 2-cost contingent counterspell...
Or the wording.
Not sure about the costs.
That's what it was intended to be. It would be fewer words without the milling, but not a ton fewer.
Yeah... this has basically ended up as "O-Ring into deck" with some random milling tacked on when it leaves. Pity, because there's definitely some interesting potential in the mechanic.
Fixed things according to suggestion, though I'm still thinking it's not really a valid card due to how many words it takes.
Points taken.
This should probably say "nontoken" somewhere. Not too many tokens even have the same name as a card, let alone a card their owner is likely to be playing, so that just makes it too easy.
Should this card say "another target permanent"? Otherwise it's an arbitrarily scalable amount of self-mill with a lot of shuffling mixed in.
Have you seen Noel's Thursday article on the Phantasm? He's got a combo deck that gains control of your opponent's creature, turns it into a copy of your own Phantasm, and then activates the ability. The copy of the phantasm goes back to it's owner's library, then that player mills their library until they find a Mirror-Mad Phantasm. Classy.
Yeah, this was definitely inspired by Mirror-Mad Phantasm.
What an awesome mechanic Innistrad left us with, though. When are they going to put two and two together and make a card where the less cards you reveal before you put this in your hand, the more powerful the effect. Something like:
Shuffle ~ into its owner's library, then reveal cards from the top of that player's library until ~ is revealed.
Deal 13-X damage to target creature, where X is equal to the number of cards revealed in this manner. Shuffle your library.
I haven't made a card in a while...
.
Anyway, this has a ton of words. Maybe I'll get rid of the milling element, since it doesn't seem too
Would it help to make the unequip not during combat, or perhaps, make it an "equip
unless an opponent pays 3 life", then you can have your bidding war in your main phase before combat, but your opponent can't always trump it by unequipping at instant speed during combat?
OTOH, maybe cheaping the price and letting them unequip during combat is more interesting after all: it can only happen once a turn, and you can't attack with impunity, but also, the ability causes you to chip away at them three life at a time, that's probably still quite nice.
Alternatively, you could combine the last and first ability: make it "+3/+0. Equip 2. Pay 3 life: Equipped creature gets -0/-1. Only any opponent may play this ability" :)
Design philosophy aside, I like this card and I like what it's doing. You should expect people to complain about this design because other people will probably like it, and want it to fit their expectations. In other words, their complaining because they like it... good news.
If I was to change anything about this card as it stands, I'd get rid of the -1 to toughness. I know it's probably there to support the flavor, but I personally don't think it makes the card more compelling... just more confusing.