My Universe, My Rules: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to My Universe, My Rules: (Generated at 2026-04-30 00:46:53)
| My Universe, My Rules: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
Recent updates to My Universe, My Rules: (Generated at 2026-04-30 00:46:53)
I'm pretty sure Alex is right.
No, I mean it doesn't actually work. See the continued discussion on the linked card.
Personally, I don't think it's failed. It's more "too close to a different way that we do things"... a bit like Rosewater's lament that everything in Magic is just another take on Kicker. That being said, I like the idea of lands that do something in addition to making mana when tapping. This implementation is probably a bit too left field compared to the simplest version... let's say a Plains that granted +0/+1 until end of turn, or a Swamp that exiled a card in a graveyard. I'd think that a large set that included these as a theme could run something close to 25 of them... they make good utility effects and force interesting draft decisions.
The making the ability a mana ability was that part of it. (A failed part, for several different reasons, but that was the attempt and the justification for the naming.)
Does anyone else think the name feels like this should be something with Split Second, and not a permanent?
I had no idea you were thinking this was Artifact Blast. It isn't, for the reasons I explain on Smelting Chamber.
True, true. Makes it a bit more obviously a cycle, too.
Now to come up with three more....
Simple answer to that last problem: make it cost "
, 
, Sacrifice ~". Just like you had to do with Deepest Delvings.
Actually, especially power-level-wise, splitting it into
:
and 
,Sac:HandShatter is saner.
For this set, the mana-speed part is playing with the rules and importanbt.
For the dwarf set, however, power level would matter. Is this ok? It's colourless artifact-blast.
I like what this card is doing. The power level may be too high, but I don't think that's the point over here, so I'll drop it.
It may be simpler to just separate this into two abilities. Add
and Add 
+ Shatter. The card may look more desirable when you do that, too. I think many people will look at this and go "I don't like it because I don't like to sacrifice my land." Stressing that you don't have to could make those people less squeamish.
It's a hilarious idea to use the "mana ability" concept like that. However, I'm not sure, but since (a) most players won't get the point of the rules subtleties, and (b) most artifacts don't have flash, I think a normal "
, sac" ability is probably more likely to be actually printed, and a sac ability on a land is close enough to uncounterable.
Ah, damn. Ok, rewording required (and I spit on your explicit mana pools, where ELSE are you gonna add the mana, eh?)
But is this utterly horrible as a concept for a sac land? (Eee... thinking about it, it's colourless, which is even MORE dangerous than being red)
Apart from the meaninglessness of "
: 
" (what is this, Revised Blessing?), the fact that it requires a target, even if you don't sacrifice it, is enough to stop it from being a mana ability.
Riff on Industiral Sabotage ( http://multiverse.heroku.com/cards/7163 ).
So, it's a mana ability. Don't get faster than that. And it's a sac land, so I'm actually considering this for the dwarf set.
Thoughts?
I was more thinking reanimation targets, but yeah, that sort of thing.
And pleasing wording. Mainly the pleasing wording.
Circling Vultures.
Useful if you're trying to reanimate stuff or whatever - but I think this lovely short wording actually works.
Statically, whenever you try and check whether or not you can discard a card - guess what! You can!
I hope it works like that, anyway. Clearly this card can exist as
:You may discard a card. But that's just dull.
~
It's strange. Way back when, I had designed a custom set which utelized untapping as a mechanic. I knew the potential for abuse was high, so I worked really hard to make sure there were not degenerate combos. When Wizards tackled the same subject, they saw the elephant in the corner and decided to march him out for everyone to see, feed him a few peanuts and make him the star of the show.
Which is an incredibly awkward double standard. Had I done that, people probably would have looked at my set and declared it broken. That's mostly because I don't have a full team of playtesters to prove otherwise. In the same sense, "get all your land now" can't really be tested for fairness because there isn't 50 dedicated people running it through the grinder.
But I'm pretty sure that most of the arguing that we've been spinning around hasn't been "Is this card fair?", but more "How many cards that we like does this card invalidate?" It's hard to get a positive reaction from a card that says "Hey, you know the way you've been playing Magic? Doesn't matter. From now on, throw away all your old cards, and play this one instead." Sure, it happens all the time, but it's going to come with it's share of sour grapes.
So, semantical arguments aside about power level, if Wizards announced that they were going to print this card in Magic 2013, I wouldn't like it. I'd be upset, actually... in the same way that printing non-basic lands that tap for colored mana would upset me. Because I would find plenty of use for a card that fetched 5 lands, but wouldn't want that card to automatically be better than Perilous Forays, for example, which, by the way, is a spectacular card in the right deck.
But if the intent was something along the line of "I just want this card to exist so I can put it in my Commander deck that doesn't really take advantage of the card, but sure doesn't mind all the land coming out of the deck," then go for it. I think the card is fun, too, and it would be a blast to play and swing around in a casual deck. I suppose that's the reason that silver borders exist...
You don't have to do that. 2-card combos exist; occasionally even in standard. The recent example which irritates me is Geist of Saint Traft plus Angelic Destiny, though I suppose 10 flying untargetable damage per turn starting on turn 4 isn't technically "I win right now". But just a couple of years ago there was Devoted Druid + Quillspike, which is a combo of 2 card from the same block for an infinitely large creature.
So while combos or synergy with other cards is definitely something to keep in mind, you really don't have to let it put you off making a card if the combo piece is obscure, old, or just broken on its own. (There are lots of instant-win combos with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, but they're almost all Emrakul's fault, not the other card's.)
Yeah, sorry, this is my "Dump out a card, see what happens" set. The rarity of a card has no impact on its mechanic; so I don't usually worry about it.
But yeah - the basic problem remains. This would usually be "Hey, get a lot more lands, strip my deck! Useful, has to be a bit expensive, clearly isn't any use at all if it costs too much though" But then, well, wizards have printed some insane stuff themselves; and you have to cost it to stop people going "Hah! this plus another card you've never heard of! I Win!"
Which is a real shame. And probably the only non-profit-related reason I've heard for type-2.
Hmm, I don't think Vitenka necessarily intended for this to be common. It's just the card creation form defaults that way. Vitenka's set is one of the chief motivating factors for me to add the "unspecified" rarity.
The obvious choices seem to be:
The trouble with costing weird things is that they look like they should be fairly costed for the usual situation, but that in order to print them, they have to be fairly printed for the most broken situation. So the idea of "like a more expensive kodama's reach at common" and "like an infinite kodama's reach" are both cool, but I'm not sure the same card can necessarily do both.
Which is more evidence for my "This card costs 5? You SURE you want to waste that on some land? Because next turn the opponent is going to CRUSH you."