> "Target player reveals three cards at random from their hand and you choose one of them. That player discards that card."
Okay, so first of, the name has been used already: Mind Extraction.
Second, this is a strictly better Blackmail, which I at least personally see as a rather decent card so uhh.
Third, and the most troubling thing, is that this unlike usually discard cards of this nature, this can hit lands. That should be alarming to any designer I think. I've seen several custom designs in the same vein, and I recall this issue was brought up often with them - I don't remember if any good way to resolve it was found.
A basic scenario is that players tend to keep hands with roughly 2 lands in them, so if you cast this on the first turn and happen to hit one of their few lands, it can easily severely damage the rest of their game. Especially in constructed I would imagine it would be so warping that it might generally be preferred to construct your decks in a way that you can aim to keep three landers over the usually two-land keepers.
Is this something other than the Dampening Blast cycle? This seems like it's backwards in that this is the uncommon sign post card that does nothing without the other cards while those of the cycle are the ones you should be trying to hoard - yet since they are uncommon you aren't that likely to get more than one or two of any of them. To reiterate, shouldn't they be common and this an uncommon?
As I recall, it was mentioned in MaRo's podcast that Memnite was specifically moved to uncommon rarity because it could result in absurd hyper-aggro/high-roll scenarios in limited. This card to me btw seems like a generally better version of Memnite, which is a bit insane, and plays even more into that aforementioned high-roll scenario of multiples of these coming out before the opponent react properly. It's virtually a 1/1 basically at least as far as attacking goes which I is a far assumption with this type of card. More likely it's about an average of a 2/1 or 3/1 throughout the game I would say, but it could certainly reach say 7/1. All of this is just bonkers for a 0-cost card and even more so for a common.
Tucking a creature at instant speed is really pushed at . All the archiving stuff is just extra gravy. That seems especially troublesome at common where you could end up drafting 4+ copies of this card. That's a soft-lock starting at like turn 2, and the card is already really good as is even if you don't just ruin the opponent's game straight-up.
I think it would be a bit clearer if you turned this into...
> "For each card you've discarded this turn, draw a card and lose 1 life."
... as currently the text could be interpreted as "Draw a single card, then lose 1 life for each card you've discarded this turn" and technically I think it might even be the proper way to see it.
Archive seems quite peculiar here - how often would it get used on this card? I would say the card has notable intuitive complexity due to that.
... Looking at the other cards in the set, I feel rather doubtful that these pay offs are worth exiling a card in your hand...
Having this mechanic along side madness also seems counterintuitive as they are antisynergistic. Like now while you drafting, you might be presented by Rumors Hounds early on, then by Bank Chaser - so far so good - and then you start seeing cards like Sanity Eclipse and Blossoming Souvenirs and you go like "did I just get bamboozled?" The cards pretty much actively work against each other. As far as I call recall back to the past, if a set has graveyard focused mechanics such as madness, then it's often supported by other cards caring about graveyard - and never stuff that specifically discourages or prevents bin filling except as hosing cards.
The alternative frames have also had me a bit confused. I looked through planesculptor description and didn't see anything mentioned about them. After I went through the cards looking for a pattern, it seems that all-nonartifact cards with set mechanics use the alternative frame, which is somewhat weird, erm, take?
"Discard" should be capitalized there. This as a 1-drop common seems like it would potentially be quite oppressive. 3 damage will take basically all early aggressive drops so I'm rather unsure how will any aggressive deck push through this with creatures. That's fine-ish for cards of higher rarities since you can spend your removal on some of them, though spending your scarce limited removal on a 1-drop is rough, but when that is compounded by the card being common, this just seems too much. We are talking about a strong, repeated removal engine here.
Some potentially comparable cards: Arbalest Elite(sucks of just how reserved the card developmentally is prolly exactly because of concerns I highlighted, also uncommon), Stern Constable, Netter en-Dal? I don't think the two other spellshifters are even close to being just straight up delete any Hill Giants trying to get involved in combat.
Btw, while it's a pretty obscure creature type with no mechanical relevance, I think "Spellshaper" would fit this card really well and be a neat little callback
None of those words fit a machine powering up. I'd say reboot, but that's too sci fi rather than fantasy. What about hibernate? And when you remove the last counter, it awakens
I also thought it was this kind of mine, thus a land. Maybe call it Forgotten Landmine to remove the ambiguity
"Reactivate" is the correct English word. The problem is not one of the English language. In the game of Magic certain words have special meaning e. g. "trigger", "cast", "die", "activate".
Since "activate" is a fundamental important term of Magic, related words like "reactivate" will always carry that baggage.
Maybe there is another word you'd like, to. "reinstate"? "reestablish"? "refresh"?
I m not an English speaking person. I mean with reactivate, the fact that system of the machine were off, and slowly restart themselves with the time. Is the word reactivate not the one for this?
Lost Mine would be better to describe an explosive mine?
> "... a charge counter from a permanent..."
> "Target player reveals three cards at random from their hand and you choose one of them. That player discards that card."
Okay, so first of, the name has been used already: Mind Extraction.
Second, this is a strictly better Blackmail, which I at least personally see as a rather decent card so uhh.
Third, and the most troubling thing, is that this unlike usually discard cards of this nature, this can hit lands. That should be alarming to any designer I think. I've seen several custom designs in the same vein, and I recall this issue was brought up often with them - I don't remember if any good way to resolve it was found.
A basic scenario is that players tend to keep hands with roughly 2 lands in them, so if you cast this on the first turn and happen to hit one of their few lands, it can easily severely damage the rest of their game. Especially in constructed I would imagine it would be so warping that it might generally be preferred to construct your decks in a way that you can aim to keep three landers over the usually two-land keepers.
Is this something other than the Dampening Blast cycle? This seems like it's backwards in that this is the uncommon sign post card that does nothing without the other cards while those of the cycle are the ones you should be trying to hoard - yet since they are uncommon you aren't that likely to get more than one or two of any of them. To reiterate, shouldn't they be common and this an uncommon?
As I recall, it was mentioned in MaRo's podcast that Memnite was specifically moved to uncommon rarity because it could result in absurd hyper-aggro/high-roll scenarios in limited. This card to me btw seems like a generally better version of Memnite, which is a bit insane, and plays even more into that aforementioned high-roll scenario of multiples of these coming out before the opponent react properly. It's virtually a 1/1 basically at least as far as attacking goes which I is a far assumption with this type of card. More likely it's about an average of a 2/1 or 3/1 throughout the game I would say, but it could certainly reach say 7/1. All of this is just bonkers for a 0-cost card and even more so for a common.
Tucking a creature at instant speed is really pushed at
. All the archiving stuff is just extra gravy. That seems especially troublesome at common where you could end up drafting 4+ copies of this card. That's a soft-lock starting at like turn 2, and the card is already really good as is even if you don't just ruin the opponent's game straight-up.
Some comparable cards could be Whirlpool Whelm, Anchor to the Aether (sorcery, uncommon), Warrant // Warden (rare, limited conditions).
I think it would be a bit clearer if you turned this into...
> "For each card you've discarded this turn, draw a card and lose 1 life."
... as currently the text could be interpreted as "Draw a single card, then lose 1 life for each card you've discarded this turn" and technically I think it might even be the proper way to see it.
> "All nonbasic land permanents lose all abilities until end of turn."
Archive seems quite peculiar here - how often would it get used on this card? I would say the card has notable intuitive complexity due to that.
... Looking at the other cards in the set, I feel rather doubtful that these pay offs are worth exiling a card in your hand...
Having this mechanic along side madness also seems counterintuitive as they are antisynergistic. Like now while you drafting, you might be presented by Rumors Hounds early on, then by Bank Chaser - so far so good - and then you start seeing cards like Sanity Eclipse and Blossoming Souvenirs and you go like "did I just get bamboozled?" The cards pretty much actively work against each other. As far as I call recall back to the past, if a set has graveyard focused mechanics such as madness, then it's often supported by other cards caring about graveyard - and never stuff that specifically discourages or prevents bin filling except as hosing cards.
The alternative frames have also had me a bit confused. I looked through planesculptor description and didn't see anything mentioned about them. After I went through the cards looking for a pattern, it seems that all-nonartifact cards with set mechanics use the alternative frame, which is somewhat weird, erm, take?
"Discard" should be capitalized there. This as a 1-drop common seems like it would potentially be quite oppressive. 3 damage will take basically all early aggressive drops so I'm rather unsure how will any aggressive deck push through this with creatures. That's fine-ish for cards of higher rarities since you can spend your removal on some of them, though spending your scarce limited removal on a 1-drop is rough, but when that is compounded by the card being common, this just seems too much. We are talking about a strong, repeated removal engine here.
Some potentially comparable cards: Arbalest Elite (sucks of just how reserved the card developmentally is prolly exactly because of concerns I highlighted, also uncommon), Stern Constable, Netter en-Dal? I don't think the two other spellshifters are even close to being just straight up delete any Hill Giants trying to get involved in combat.
Btw, while it's a pretty obscure creature type with no mechanical relevance, I think "Spellshaper" would fit this card really well and be a neat little callback
Removed "It enters parallel to it". Typing error
Thank you for your comments! :-)
Changed the Reactivate Ability, I must change it to the other cards too.
None of those words fit a machine powering up. I'd say reboot, but that's too sci fi rather than fantasy. What about hibernate? And when you remove the last counter, it awakens
I also thought it was this kind of mine, thus a land. Maybe call it Forgotten Landmine to remove the ambiguity
"Reactivate" is the correct English word. The problem is not one of the English language. In the game of Magic certain words have special meaning e. g. "trigger", "cast", "die", "activate".
Since "activate" is a fundamental important term of Magic, related words like "reactivate" will always carry that baggage.
Maybe there is another word you'd like, to. "reinstate"? "reestablish"? "refresh"?
I m not an English speaking person. I mean with reactivate, the fact that system of the machine were off, and slowly restart themselves with the time. Is the word reactivate not the one for this?
Lost Mine would be better to describe an explosive mine?
Reactivate is an unfortunate name for a mechanic that has nothing to do with activated abilities.
I came here expecting a land from the cardname. :)