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Recent updates to Xianlu: (Generated at 2025-05-01 19:15:39)
I have too many mythics with too many words on them. This has less words.
It's a strong ability to pass on, but hopefully not unbeatably strong. 3/2 so it dies to most removal spells, because otherwise it might be too good.
Removed "chosen name you cast" from last ability. Now just "chosen name". RTFC.
Now a white card because I forgot that Pithing Needle didn't ban cards. Cost reduction is still there for flavor reasons.
Personally, I don't think that "just splash {color} to get X effect" as a single solution to getting access to effects is a good design principle. In terms of metagaming, I'd much rather the player be able to choose consistency (splashing a color) or cost (using costly artifact spells) when deckbuilding, especially since a lot of players already dislike the inherent lack of consistency that the land system already gives them.
That being said, I completely misremembered what Pithing Needle actually did. This is now a Mono-
card, in line with Nevermore and Planar Cleansing.
Since it's a sorcery, I think it can be
. Not sure I want to make the leap to Instant status yet.
Made it bigger. Testing at
for now, want to bring it down to 
because it doesn't grant any sort of evasion.
That's true, it does feel a little bit like Descend Like Hawk. The latter is more useful in
decks and this (ideally) is used as a finisher for 
or 
aggressive decks. Adjusting to bigger and slightly more similar to Trumpet Blast.
Ahh, thanks for that.
The wording is still messed up...
> Reveal the top four cards of your library. Put up to two creature and/or land cards from among them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
A very nice design - I might reuse this somewhere down the road.
Similar to Descend Like Hawk? Does this really need to be a sorcery?
Reminds me of Ring of Three Wishes. Not sure what else to say about it.
What if you instead added more colors to it rather than removing any? Like, this would be a neat
card. Getting access to more flexible answers is one of the reasons why people add more colors to their decks after all. Colors / color pie is cool, let's keep it that way ;)
I don't like encouraging those Urza's and Locus landed decks.
Gain 1 -> Target player loses 1.
@Vitenka, I mean, in any given game, it's either going to be an O-Stone that requires to have a creature in hand, or a overcosted Pithing Needle, right? I'll adjust it to 2-7 so it's more in line with Perilous Vault's cost.
@Tahazzar, I realize you're only being semi-serious in your complaints, but I feel like board wipes at 4 through 9 mana are always in the pool of abilities that artifacts have access to. At 4 mana you have limited/temporary board wipes, like Boompile or Aligned Hedron Network, while at higher (technically higher) levels you have All is Dust, Perilous Vault, and Oblivion Stone.
Artifacts have always existed in this state where they have slightly overcosted or more inflexible versions of color-specific abilities, too. If you limited artifacts' ability pools to "all colors must be able to do this", I imagine that artifacts in general would be stone unplayable or boring. And I feel like, in order for mono-color decks to exist in any given format, there should be a number of artifact-specific tools that decks can use without being forced to branch out into other colors, as sideboard cards or otherwise. But I'm also a fan of Hornet Sting and Chaos Warp's existence (though obviously not for a place in Green's color pie), so my view on the color pie seem almost antithetical to yours. Not to mean any offense, of course.
Eh;
+ 
is probably a reasonable cost for a nevs disk effect.
Also having the other effect, of allowing you to use it to ban a specific card - that combination probably needs upcosting a bit.
But yeah, artifacts are kinda kooky colourwise.
> "Is that a
damage spell without creature requirement attached to it? Oh no!"
> "
can't have creature removal! That would make it too strong!"
> "Is that a colorless card that wipes the board? Suuure, that's fine. It's not like any color has a weakness related to not being able to remove creatures or anything."
Okay, so
and 
have access to board wiped now? That's greeaaat. We might as well reprint Nevinyrral's Disk. Eh, screw it - why stop there? Let's just make all cards colorless!
God. Darn. Artifacts. I hate them sooo much.
/sulk
EDIT: Holy crap!? Does that say "nonland permanents" there? I thought it said "creatures". OMG I can't handle this. I-I'm out, man.
Pearls grant wishes. These are just kinda shitty wishes.
It's in a Rare slot for now, but I might bump it up to mythic removing something currently there. Second ability has a cost so it's not an insane version of Ring of Ma'rûf. Might bump it up to 6 mana due to its flexibility.
paid in installments seems like a reasonable cost for pulling a sideboard card you need on your next draw.
I guess this goes back to the discussion of whether or not artifacts should have access to abilities that are traditionally not found in certain colors? I costed this similarly to Oblivion Stone (assuming activating immediately; board wipe activation is a little higher due to the utility this has in just sitting on the battlefield). Personally I think mass board wipes is well within the "colorless" color pie. If there's a good argument why mass board wipes shouldn't be in the colorless color pie, I'm all for it. I'd probably just shuffle this off to a second-set mythic if I did change it to an enchantment.
If you want it to be an enchantment, why not have it be
or 
? I really dislike these true color breaks however excused artifacts and mythic rarity may be of that.