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Weird to have an oath grant just a temporary effect. The fluff about an oath is that it lasts.
Is this top-down or bottom-up? Do you want to find fluff for this mechanic, or do you want to find a mechanical execution of swearing an oath?
Right now this seems more like Give a Pep Talk, or Encourage.
"is sworn"
The problem with triggering unrestricted of being targeted by abilities is that abilities can be free or as good as free. It's too easy to do and go infinite with it. One of the reasons heroic does not trigger from abilities.
I think you could change this to something like the equivalent of "When ~ becomes the target of an ability of a creature you control, that was triggered by that creature entering the battlefield". It's a mouthful, but it would include "Take an Oath".
See Oath Test. If a creature can take an oath, and the oath targets, can creatures be swore Oaths? What's the wording to make receiving an Oath work? I originally had "Whenever ~ receives an Oath, you may search...," but swore sounded more flavorful.
The next problem is parasitism, so maybe make a mechanic that simply cares about being targeted instead: a heroic tweak that goes off of abilities targeting rather than just spells?
Receiving an Oath is parasitic though.
Basic Oath, no other abilities
That's a pretty minor bonus. If you are casting a 8-drop the likelihood of you having some 1-drop you also want to cast a quite slim. If the idea is to encourage big drops, maybe go for some other reward.
This works for small dudes though, but it was an idea that dawned on me (I would wager the card's CMC would have to increased)
> Add
. If that mana is spent on a spell, you gain life equal to that spell's CMC.
Follwed Tahazzar's suggestion.
Green is the most efficient creature color. Yeah vigilance would probably be fine, since that seems good for a green 1/1.
This is majority of the time going to be a 1/1 for
and that's gonna feel bad - especially in 
. Maybe add in vigilance and/or even trample?
The theme is mana, not lands. So counting lands doesn't match the theme I'm going for.
Not a common. People are going to trip over the way the intervening if-clause works here all the time.
Scute Mob found a more easily processed way to implement a similar idea.
Ransoming from the graveyard is not that deep a well to go for anyway.
I always forget people have memory issues. Unfortunately, you're probably right that players would forget where the card was originally from.
Ransom from exile!
This is a legit concern, I agree. Focussing on battlefield seems the right way to go.
Wait, so what are the zones cards can be ransomed from? Graverobber says graveyard and this battlefield. Library probably doesn't work, but hand I guess could?
I don't see the idea of being able to ransom from different zones being a good idea. It opens a slew of potential mix-ups and memory issues. Say, there are 10+ ransomed cards and you should keep in mind where each of them was exiled from. You could try to keep them in different piles depending on the zones, but that could become messy fast.
Oh ho! I had not twigged that ransoming your own stuff to re-trigger ETB was a thing. Noice.
See Cadrick's Harrier.
Not sure on wording. Switch reminder text to "It gains "Its owner may pay
to return that creature to the battlefield." I intended the ransom to be payable at any time.
That does seem terribly niche. But eh, it's a minor ability on a 1/1, it can be treated as vanilla by most people and hang around in the set to stop shenannigans if you need it.
See Graverobber.
Originally I intended this to be white, but ransom's flavor doesn't seem very white, so I went with red. I'm not sure if red is the right color.
Graveyard ransom. Probably just a one-of, since I don't think I'd have a graveyard theme to warrant multiple creatures ransoming from the graveyard.
See Winged Herald.
Thinking about non-combat white mana sinks. Token gen seemed like a good choice. 6 mana for a 2/2 is terrible. What would be a good way to do this? I put this at uncommon, is there a way this could be common, as a mana sink?
Well for what I'm going for with white, mana generation for the combat phase, I expect most of the designs would be red-flagged, since so much instant-speed white space does go to combat.
But yeah, this could have a lower cmc, no evergreen abilities, and a p/t appropriate to the cmc instead. Maybe require this creature to tap in addition to the mana cost for the ability so that it couldn't be used multiple times in a turn?
Lammasu. Definite red-flag at common. Just because it can be activated in combat doesn't mean it needs to screw with combat e. g. life gain, maybe some commune effect?
I'd go for a mana sink that has either a significantly higher activation cost than the casting cost (so you activate it "the turn after" with ramp) or one that eats up individual/low amounts of mana (so every single mana can be used up).
This feels in-between.
See Bounty's Blessing.
While I liked the last card, I felt I needed to make a buffing combat trick. Originally this put a +1/+1 counter on the creatures instead.
See Submit to Order. Variant on Angel's Mercy. I'm more happy with this than the previous card.
Name is also generic.
See Winged Herald.
Combat instant for white to cast. Ultimately I'm not very happy with this. The name is also filler if anyone cares.
Forgot the mana cost
Mana sink example for white during combat.
Followed SecretInfiltrator's suggestion to use Vitenka's wording suggestion