Evolution: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Evolution: (Generated at 2025-11-17 20:28:16)
Page 1 - Older activity
Page 1 - Older activity
Interesting. Seems quite strong.
Or, come to think of it, it could be "2UU. Counter target spell or search your library for an island card and put it onto the battlefield tapped."
That would solve the templating problem even more simply, but sort of suggests it would be too good, since blue doesn't normally get that.
I like awall's suggestion.
fix loyalty ability formatting
Loyalty abilities are [+1] not {+1}.
For what it's worth, this card is almost identical to Denying Channel, the card originally submitted by Taigo Chan when he won the Magic Invitational. R&D tried playing with it for a while and decided it was too strong, so they asked him for another design. We wound up "merely" getting Snapcaster Mage instead. See http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/826 .
Granted, this isn't uncounterable and it etb tapped as a land, but I still think that this is probably going to be a huge boon to slow, grindy control decks. It also doesn't lead to particularly many interesting choices: if you have other lands, you always hold it back; if you're mana hosed, you play it as a land. I'd much rather see the spell half of this be something that was relevant at the same point in the game that the land would help; perhaps something like, "U: Counter target creature spell unless its controller pays 1."
Oh, also the rules don't support split cards that are half-permanent, half-instant. But there are ways to work around this, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Curve seems to keep getting the same response. I find it more funny than anythings else. I definitely understand BD and Link's response, but I don't feel like adding to what's probably a dead subject for you.
I will, however, point out that creatures like this are particularly Spiky. Better on round two, and continues to stay that way throughout the game is probably fine on one or two creatures, but I, personally, wouldn't pull that trick too often. I like curve when it gives me a noticeable effect, then goes away. In this instance, for example, gaining 4 life when the creature comes into play may make a better incentive for curve. Why? Well, you don't feel bad when you play this creature on round 8 because it's smaller. It was always going to be a 2/3... but playing it on turn 2 gave you a bonus.
Yes, it seems more like you'd want to reward players for playing differently. Also, it's unlikely most people are going to want to count their turns up to turn 5.
I like what you're trying to do with Curve. The problem with this implementation is that you're incentivizing players to do something that they would be doing anyway - playing their spells on the optimal turn. Rather than providing interesting decisions, it removes interesting decisions, because players will have less reason to make alternative choices with playing out there curve.
Ertai, Wizard Adept and Ertai, the Corrupted have activated countering on tap. Like those, this does only get one spell per turn. (Unless blue has any untap effects... oh wait.) And I'm not sure you can really call a 3/4 for
an "efficient" creature. That kind of creature gets Ancestral Recall as a tap ability, if you remember Arcanis the Omnipotent...
As an activated ability, it can't be countered by normal spells. Only cards like Stifle can interfere. As an ability, it should be expensive and only soft counter.
Mmm... even with the rule complication this is definitely strong. Not overpowered, per se, but it sure does shore up some holes in the standard counterspell deck.
Also, evoke or discard probably automatically increases the "casting cost", since that would make this card very close to being strictly better than Last Word.
If you want split cards like this, one could tweak the rules so permanent/spell split cards in play are the permanent half only. I think it would still be too confusing, but it seems like a plausible tweak to the rules, an extension of how they work on the stack.
If you just want this card, the simplest way is probably "2UU, discard this from your hand:". Although I think dual land/spell cards are really strong, because you don't get dead land draws later in the game, it might be better to make it a situational counterspell?
Could do it as a land with evoke?
Doesn't work. Once you put it onto the battlefield as a land, the game sees an instant in play and derps out.
I admit, I will not like the day when this becomes an activated ability on an efficient creature. This is a lot of mana, though, and while it may not require the discard or have the restrictions of a card like, let's say Stronghold Biologist, It should be happening in a stage of the game where the control player has already won. At this point, it might as well be Meloku The Clouded Mirror. The game should be over.
I would be a little more concerned with Zombify however. While I know the activation cost will stop this card from being spectacular, free Cancels are nothing to sneeze at.
I'm not sure a repeatable on-board counter spell would be printed with that cost. Most of them involve sacrifice, several put some restriction on the type of spell that can be countered, and many are soft counters. The closest I could find was Ertai, Wizard Adept, whose ability costs more, and he's legendary.
Then the rules would need to be changed so that Lurk works, wouldn't they?
If it's upside-down, the rules turn it into a colorless, nameless, typeless, 2/2 creature with no abilities.
It's possible Wizards nixed the mechanic because it has so much depth. Morph takes up half of the Onslaught block, and Lurk could end up on a very high number of cards. With Traps, Allies, Landfall, and numerous non-basic lands, Zendikar seems complete enough... why waste a block identifying ability on it?
That, and Zendikar is a fast format, which does a good job contrasting it to Rise of the Eldrazi. Lurk, by it's nature, is a slow mechanic. Once I saw how the blocks were aligning themselves, I'd motion to have Lurk nixed, too. I'd be surprised if we didn't see this idea come back, though. I can't imagine it doesn'e have supporters in Renton.
Wizards most definitely have thought of this ability. They playtested it for Zendikar. In the end they killed it for rules reasons, and I still don't really understand why. I believe the rules could handle it fine if there were two kinds of face-down permanents. I suspect in fact it's not so much actual rules problems as potential for abuse in Legacy or Casual when someone has 2+ Lurking cards and 2+ Morphs. But really, how often would that happen?
It also featured in the excellent custom set Verdia, by fallingman. There it was called Earthform. I think it's an ability more people should use, as it's an excellent manasmoothing mechanic, as an approximation to the Dakkon Blackblade vanguard ability, which is an official rule in several later WotC CCGs like Hecatomb.
convert to split card
c
convert to split card
convert to split card
This Lurk ability... I like this ability. It makes you wonder if Wizards has thought of this yet, since so many ccgs operate by allowing you to use any card in hand as a 'land'.
That general approach does work. It's just... ugly design. It does a variety of fiddly things that are generally against design principles, particularly for a common utility spell, like letting you target more stuff than you can target and leaving the opponent to guess which ones you're actually going to tap.
Now if you wanted to make a cycle of spells that deliberately did that, as their thing, that'd be kinda cool. "Choose two target creatures. ~ deals 3 damage to one of them." Which one do you use your pump / damage prevention on? Etc. But it's odd enough that it should be on something that's explicitly doing that as its thing, not thrown in to another card as a consequence of templating difficulties.
How about: Target up to six permanents, tap up to three of them. Curve 3: Tap all of them.