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Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2025-12-16 13:10:59)
If it countered each spell that shared a name with the milled cards, would it be more relevant?
Anyway, I'm just tossing around ideas and attempting to come up with something new. This definitely doesn't need to go in the set. We do need to decide what blue does with the island it makes other than walk on them, and I considered putting them into some sort of mindstrike strategy. Consider Mind Washer.
I like it when cardsets make the amount of cards remaining in library matter. I loved that in triple-Ravnica draft, Dimir Mill was a viable strategy (I won a draft with it at the prerelease). In a set with enough mindstrike and other ways to make it matter, that could be an interesting counterspell - and I'd love to see an environment where that's true. But it'd need to have a lot of support to not have it just be utterly irrelevant (or actively helping them if they have any flashback/dredge/etc), and I don't think we want to dedicate enough of this set to enabling mill.
The same applies to the other ideas. Induce Paranoia was relevant in its set, but it'd be a rather odd choice of counterspell for a casual deck that wasn't aiming to mill you. So I fear such a spell would seem rather out of place.
On the other hand, I guess Tome Scour and Burning Inquiry did enable a rogue M10 draft strategy with pretty much no support, so perhaps I'm wrong...
Obviously these would have to cost a bit more, and probably aren't common. Oops.
What about "Target player puts the top X cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard. If a spell shares a name with any of those cards, counter that spell." Or possibly it's UB, it reveals cards, and counters the one on the stack and exiles those in the library.
I don't dislike it, and I'm perfectly fine with using it. I was just playing around with different options. I always forget that milling "doesn't really matter," because it always feels like it matters to me.
I don't like the "unless they mill" conditional-counter. It's like Perplex, but much worse: 90%+ of games the cards remaining in library are utterly irrelevant, so it makes for an utterly irrelevant spell. The Mana Leak template has a lot going for it: it allows the defender to play around it by being more cautious, and it's differently relevant at different stages of the game.
But if you really don't like that, the other broad category of soft counters is spells that only counter under certain circumstances. "Counter if its controller controls an Island" is the old template for Wave Burst, but we could have a "Counter target nonblue spell" or "Counter target spell with CMC <= 3" or whatever. Most simple variations on that theme have been printed, but I'm sure there are some versions that haven't.
That gets a bit long in template:
"Counter target spell unless its controller puts a card from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard for each Island you control". Any other templating offers?
Also, should I change the skeleton to make this a soft counter slot?
If you couldn't guess, I'm a bit bored with Mana Leak variants.
Can it be "unless its controller mills 1(or 2) for each island you control?" Blue always has some mill, and maybe we could boost it a bit for a creepy mind attack theme.
I think I'm with jmg here. Generally Wizards print cards as 0/0 with "~ has +1/+1 for each thing you control" rather than 10/10 with "~ has -1/-1 for each thing you don't control".
Yes, I'm certainly not going to take any offence :)
I think it's generally worth avoiding making players choose an irrelevant target. This falls into the category of card which will normally work fine, but when played casually will require people to be more cautious than they want to. "I destroy that and that." "Which way round?" "Ooh! You mean you have a surprise instant untapper in hand?!" "...Maaaybe..."
Hmm... the toggle condition didn't seem to bother me. It does tell the opponent which artifact I think is better. I suppose if we're concerned about players asking for unneeded information just to gauge how their opponents value their artifacts... yeah... I can see that.
Number 1., to me, is uglier than the way it is currently worded. "Control no untapped" is counter-intuitive. I accept it might be the better option for a lot of reasons, but not for aesthetic purposes.
That sounded a bit abrasive... and I don't mean it to be. I'm sure you understand that I'm not actually trying to be argumentative, and am in fact talking about my opinions on the design of a bunch of imaginary cards. :)
I think it might be better to have the cards read "This card kinda sucks, but secretly it's awesome!" instead of "This card is awesome, but secretly it sucks!" But, that's one man's opinion.
We discussed what wasn't here, but not what was. I didn't know what to throw in the creature type line, so I just put what was sensible in for now. I expect it to change.
Agreed. I was just skimming the surface when talking about all-in today. But the enablers will probably be as important as the mechanic.
Ooh... I missed Aquitect's Will precedence. I never really played with the card and just chalked it up to how I thought it worked, as opposed to actually reading it. Guess that's another for the 'for' column...
Reading back - I think I REALLY like the idea of "Mindflay" as an equivalent to infect. Presumably it'd want to be 2 or 3 cards per power.
You could also put in something like threshold that cares about the size of your opponents graveyard to continue the horror. "Your brain melts. And now most of my creatures are abombinations with +2/+2 and tentacles."
Do we have a rarity symbol for "Only exists in premium foil"? Because we should :)
Maybe reverse it?
: Deal 3 damage to target; if you control any untapped creatures, deal 1 instead
Same effect, but makes players go "Wow. PUNCH, right on the.. oh wait... hmmm..."
Adding extra targets is a bad idea when the toggle condition can change between casting and resolution. This might be better as a "If... , ~ deals 3 damage to that artifact's controller."
The wording of the condition is currently quite ugly. Just trying out some alternatives for my own interest:
"If you control no untapped creatures and at least one tapped creature, ..."
"If you control a tapped creature and no untapped creatures, ..."
"If you control no untapped creatures and at least one creature..."
"If you control a creature but no untapped creatures, ..."
I think I prefer 1.
I think this wording is sensible, as is the design and the interpretation of the theme.
I also think it's potentially sensible to have two or three different kinds of effect that reward you for going all-in. Although I reserve the right to change my mind on that if it turns out to be more fiddly than it's worth.
BTW, I think we were planning to not have humans, goblins etc in the monocolour factions. Not sure if we want to stick to that.
A nice common burn spell, not very good in many decks although borderline-playable in limited, but great as a combat trick to turn on your all-in guys like Passion Rouser.
I like this effect a lot. It evokes Patagia Viper, which was an amusing card.
/me laughs out loud at @jmgariepy :)
...Actually, as it happens, most of the older cards that said "Use counters" have been errataed to not use counters at all. Quarum Trench Gnomes, Aisling Leprechaun etc just set up static abilities. Cyclopean Tomb has an effect whose duration is explicitly limited to the presence of the counter.
I believe one stated reason that Sensei Golden-Tail uses counters is because unlike most cards which permanently change others (like those I mentioned above), his effect is cumulative and it matters how many times you've done it. You can give something effectively Bushido 5 (technically 5 copies of Bushido 1) by activating him 5 times.
I think it's better to follow Aquitect's Will rather than Quicksilver Fountain, because flood is already following Aquitect's Will in one way: the "in addition to its other types" line.
I personally like using the card as a marker, if that helps - the way people do with Oblivion Ring for example. You're supposed to put the card in RFG and the oblivion ring on your side of the table - but you actually put the ring on top of their creature to mark what it's doing, just as if it were enchanting it.
Of course, that won't work with cards which flood more than one thing.
Most sets have one soft counter and one hard counter at common, and some other counterspell at uncommon. At the moment this and CU09 Dam Break are both hard counters at common. How about something like
, "Counter target spell unless its controller pays 
for each Island you control"?
(Incidentally, I think it's very, very preferable to say "each Island" rather than "each flooded land". It makes the mechanic far less parasitic, and more of a colour hoser (which is both a good and a bad thing)).