Steamboom Advances: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Steamboom Advances: (Generated at 2024-05-03 07:25:28)
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| Mechanics | Skeleton | Names |
Recent updates to Steamboom Advances: (Generated at 2024-05-03 07:25:28)
Redid to make the ability static and now cost a permanent at the beginning of your upkeep if you have 0 or less life or have 0 cards in your library. I was originally going to use discard instead of exile permanent, but that's kind awful if you 0 cards in your library. I debated making it so that the permanent sacrificed was non-token, but then it's not like the opponent can't remove whatever token gen has out.
I also wanted this to be "You can't lose. (If an opponent would win the game due to a card ability the game ends in draw)" but that was wordy and sounds like a massive rules hassle.
Oops, you're right. "Until the beginning of your next turn's draw step" would do, but that's a pretty nasty turn of phrase.
But you're also right that a static ability plus an upkeep trigger to remove a counter or sacrifice would work pretty well. It doesn't have to be spelled out to be Vanishing.
No it wouldn't; then the problem of the window having elapsed would be pushed back from the beginning of the upkeep to the beginning of the draw step, but it's still there. If you activate it during the upkeep in that case, the effect goes away almost immediately.
The best fix I can imagine here is to make the "can't lose" a static ability and give it Vanishing 1, but then you'd be using Vanishing.
That... comes very close to letting it protect you permanently, but there's still a tiny window during your upkeep when the old protection has expired and the new one can't have started yet. So without keeping your life above 0, it still doesn't really do anything. If you made it say "until the beginning of your next draw step" that'd work.
In addition to your suggestion I changed to it lasting until your next upkeep.
You might want the activation to be a full Angel's Grace effect.
You could reduce the number of words in the ETB trigger by making it a separate activation, at which point it simplifies down to
> Exile a card from your hand: Put a charge counter on ~.
, 
, Remove a charge counter from ~: You can't lose the game this turn and your opponents can't win the game this turn. Until end of turn, damage that would reduce your life total to less than 1 reduces it to 1 instead.
>
Of course, that does have the problem that it's easier to last forever - you can keep exiling each fresh new card you draw...
Even with a proliferate effect, it still doesn't last forever: it's only active for one player's turn out of every turn cycle, and for losses like poison counters or 0 life, the protection goes away in the cleanup step of that very same turn with no chance to start it back up in time.
About the only this this reasonably protects you from is decking out, making it an extremely expensive, extremely underwhelming Feldon's Cane.
Having a body is a huge downside.
Still... yeah; this only stops you losing for a few turns. Which seems less exciting, but for anything except a stasis-stall type of deck is identical. But people who care about optimising like that will hate the extra card cost.
It's comboable with Energy Chamber to last forever, at least.
I 'unno. Worth a shot I guess.
This seems pretty bad, considering that Platinum Angel costs only
more, comes with a body, and stops you from dying because your life total is too low.
This definitely doesn't look very mythic; more often than not, it's a completely meaningless effect.
I wonder how painful this is for people playing cards like Inspiration. Annoying, to be sure. But it doesn't flat blank the card, like on Divination. I suppose some cards, like Archivist, wouldn't even be affected... but those cards are exceptions, and not the rule.
I'd just make this an artifact with a flat casting cost that works forever - the rules fiddliness of when you use it otherwise seem painful. It's also kinda niche, and not obvious it's doing anything - so busywork with counters and deciding how much to charge it just seems like pain for not much gain.
A flat "Opponents only draw one card a turn (their draw step)" or something is much more exciting; while being functionally the same in 99% of games.