Name That Card: Recent Activity

Hm. Giving it a high casting cost the first time makes sense to avoid the "why is it like that" problems. But it creates its own problems, that people feel more cheated by an expensive cost than by an infinite cost. But I guess people get used to expensive spells that turn out to be worth it. Unburden does make it hard to price this in a way that's not too good, but gives a reason to play it other than that.

Agree on that; the most likely fix would be to give it a high casting cost (say... 6?) so that you can use it twice if you really need to. But usually you'll cycle it. But, well, that's not what the initial comment on the card says. And sure, I can imagine a set trying out a cycle or two of uncastable cards.

Grave Beckoning

I'm not sure it's flashback though, it fits the mechanic, but it doesn't fit the idea, since you don't get to cast it twice. Maybe it'd work if there was a group of cards like this. Or as a one-off ability "3B, exile from graveyard: mind rot." Or another one that should be an enchantment. But I submitted a name for the original version :)

Well, it's not free. It's a price premium - instead of the rot's . But the added cantripness of it is probably worth that. And as you say, it's a subtle madness-like effect too. So as I said, 6 mana is probably fair. Just sticker-shock inducing on a first glance.

Yeah, originally this cost . But if you cast that straight, it's on par with Fugue/Three Tragedies, and looks rather odd next to Unburden. The truth is that being able to separate costs is very valuable. Plus, you don't need to cycle this card to get it in your graveyard. Free Mind Rot due to incidental self-mill/discard is pretty good.

Most everyone made fun of Think Twice when it came out. Then it became a staple of Standard blue decks. I'm pretty sure this card is balanced as is. It's more a matter of players changing their expectations as to when they would plan to cast their discard spell, and which decks it would be most useful against.

Huh. this card is a lot of reminder text! Especially given you'd probably want to reminder-text the "No mana cost means cannot cast, not cast for free". But the overall effect is... 6 mana for a cantrip tourach's. Which is probably fair :) Oh wait, not at random? Their choice? This just became a lot less desirable.

So maybe lean in on the Tourach connection? Better see if there's anything more recent that's the iconic "Discard two cards" first... huh. Davriel's Shadowfugue is a thing that exists. And that more or less blows this out of the water. And Deception is the simplest iteration of it. Though Mind Rot is the current go-to. But most of the effects of this type do seem to like being chants, hymms, even a waltz.

Or we can look from the other direction. Unburden is very nearly this; but this card is "And" where that is "Or". So mixing these together?

Unburdening Hymm

Which word is both usable as a verb, and nicely suggests the feel that you have to get rid of it yourself, before it makes your opponent get rid of things.

That's not a typo. This card has no mana cost. The point is to cycle early, then cast it later from the graveyard. Name away!

Well this card went on a journey. Thank you Continuumg, Vitenka, Froggychum, and Jack. Your idea of how to make this card stay a sorcery was inspired, Jack. I added a couple more things (including letting the card finally go to the graveyard when done, and separating the timing between upkeep and beginning of combat so it could stuff on the first turn without having to create a separate clause.) and used Continuumg's Chorus and verse counters.

Before your suggestion popped up, I was just going to let this be an enchantment with Vanishing. Considering how much space I was tapping into, it seems that there's an incredible amount of design that Wizard could be using with vanishing. A pity they're unlikely to touch that space, though, since vanishing gets a bad rap for being a drawback. Ah well. Maybe post-2025 it will happen.

See everybody in a couple of days for (((Challenge #014))). I promise not to let it get this crazy. ;)

Battle Hymn 4G Sorcery Sustain 4 (Exile this with four time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter.) {When you add or remove counters from ~, } put a +1/+1 counter on up to X creatures, where X is the number of counters remaining on ~.

{} indicates wording that would be used in common on all sustain abilities. Kudos to continuumg for the song concept, I think that might be the best.

I thought "enchantment" as well, but I think this sort of waning effect might actually make more sense off the battlefield. Like, a split where creatures have +1/+1 counters, other permanents have charge counters, and graveyard or exile has time counters.

I'm not even sure if this should be exile or graveyard, I think it works either way.

Instead of a trigger, it might be easier to phrase with a "remove a counter, tap:" cost especially if it's a permanent. But they haven't quite decided how best to implement once-per-turn coloured-casting-cost permanents yet. Or if you're open to wider tweaks, "Sustain counters" could be a resource produced and shared from similar spells, like energy. Or be energy. Or it could be a repeatable effect keyed off something that usually wanes over the course of a game.

I picked "Sustain" to convey (a.) a positive connotation of lasting, not a negative connotation of fading (b.) not being an existing mtg word. But maybe a different synonym would be better.

i really like continuumg's suggestion

i totally feel you that it's hard not to edit.

Going with mechanics that already exist, how about Ripple? (i've actually reused this name as a totally different mechanic in a set already) Ripple 4 is the mechanic, and 'Put four ripple counters...'

the card can be called Rippling Growth. The art is a picture of a muscly boi (probably an animal because ) having really steroid-like muscles , probably only in one arm that is being shot with a green blast coming from whatever direction looks best (i'm not art director)

kind of silly, really cool, and something that they don't technically do anymore because they are so serious... but still i'm already recycling a mechanic name ,so this card wouldnt exist... it's for the challenge. (even tho art was nt requested0)

ye

Heh, fair enough. But it does feel like you've designed into an old place rather than found a new one :)

Sometimes you design a card for a contest, then you realize all the things you did wrong after the fact. In hindsight, this should have been an enchantment. I wasn't going to say anything until someone else pointed it out, though.

I also thought about, in hindsight, just copying the spell from exile. You'd have thought that would have taken less words, but I found myself stumbling over word count and stopped working so hard.

Anyhow, the rule of thumb is that while it might better card, I try to avoid making functional changes once I post. This card sure is trying my patience for that rule, though. If people would like, though, they may submit their entries as if this was an enchantment. Seems only fair.

Huh. So it's almost the opposite of cumulative upkeep. A spell that fades away. A decaying echo. Except, um, echo is already used as almost the exact opposite of this mechanic. And - damn it; they already used all the good words. Fading would have been perfect for it. .. in fact; hang on - this is fading. The prototypical fading example Tangle Wire activates a number of times depending on the number of fade counters.

So. Um. This is literally expanding fading into non-permanent space. Fix the comp-rules, and you're done. Or, indeed - don't. But we've had plenty of examples of a keyword that is different for permanent and non-permanent versions. Still, the counters are clearly fade counters, the spell is fading away.

Even so; I would reword the keyword at least like this: ? N. (~ is cast to exile with N fade counters. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove one.) At the beginning of your upkeep put a +1 counter on one creature for each fade counter on ~.

For the keyword itself... You know what? The more I think about it - the more I think this is trying to do the wrong thing. Why make this a sorcery? Why isn't it a class of enchantment? The only thing being a sorcery in exile does is add mechanical complexity, and make it non-interactive. While the player using it will like the idea of an unremovable effect, it's not good for the game. and having it on permanents opens it up to be an effect you can use on creatures too.

So. This gets changed to an enchantment, and the mechanic is fade.

Name... well, this is clearly the set's Giant Growth-using-the-mechanic. So, why not just call it Fading Growth?

Song of Growth - Chorus 4 (Four Verse counters)

A pity that mechanic is so wordy. Some ideas are simpler in concept than in execution.

Here's the simple version of what this does: ­

Another example of 'Any of these could have been the winning choice.' I'm giving it to Jack this week, because the name strikes me better as a way to explain how three lands are forced to become four of one thing.

Btw, now that the challenge is over, I can now say that this is a 'fixed' version of Scorched Ruins. It's possible the Ruins don't need fixing. It has a 4.33 rating from Gatherer after all, from when Gatherer ratings still meant something. The drawback might be keeping it in check. But man, what a drawback. Honestly, the reason why we didn't see more Ruins at the time might have had something to do with the prevalence of Ponza during the same time, and how that deck packed 12 Stone Rains.

(((Name That Card #013))) will be out in two days!

Ok, can't find my original long thinky comment - so in short: It made me think of the urza lands, the second ability is pure Armillary Sphere - so Urza's Armillary. Less of a land, and more of a horrific contraption that sets lands into orbit around it, squeezing the mana out of them by cetripital forces.