Link's Unplaced Cards: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2026-06-15 04:25:40)
| Link's Unplaced Cards: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Link's Unplaced Cards: (Generated at 2026-06-15 04:25:40)
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.
Maybe not as interesting as you may think it is. If one value is life, and the other value is life, then the end result will probably be that the creature is never equipped, or always equipped. If we assume that both players have perfect knowledge, then they would know which game state is better (everyone losing life, or no one losing life) and choosing to do that.
While some Spikes will like this, many Timmys will hate this... for the same reason. It makes your opponent and/or yourself look stupid when you are wrong.
With pay life vs. pay mana however, this isn't so cut and dried. You'll always need to pay mana of differing amounts, so the decision to equip or unequip is more complex. And that complexity makes Spike happy anyways...
I made it playable as an instant, but maybe that makes this suck. It would be... interesting if the equip cost was also life.
Changed the numbers and ability.
I can't really see the unattach ability being used much here by opponents. You'd most want to do it on this thing's controller's turn, preferably during combat, but obviously that's not allowed. It looks like it's paying 3 life for something they could just spend 1 mana to undo. Now if the costs were inverted, 1 to cast and 3 to equip, it'd be more interesting.
Not sure about the numbers on this one, but there's the general concept.
Inspired by Nevermore.