Code Geass: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Code Geass: (Generated at 2025-08-28 03:15:25)
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How about something like "Tap 3 creatures you control: Deal (some) damage to target player" (or destroy target something?)
Representing terrorists/freedom fighters/guerillas ability to, with preparation, strike in a way almost impossible to defend against, but a complete inability to defend territory themselves.
Underdog - As long as ~ an opponent controls a creature with a converted mana cost of [~+1] or greater, [benefit]. (Seems especially useful with keywords like Intimidate. Less so with keywords that make the creature better in combat, like First Strike.)
I'm trying to brainstorm for saboteur abilities that don't require commando. Yu-Gi-Oh style traps come to mind, but I don't think anyone wants to see that, exactly. That said, I think traps + morph creates a neat interaction. Something like
Sand Stalker
[no cost]
Morph
Whenever attackers are declared, if a creature is attacking you, you may demorph Sand Stalker.
3/4
Alternatively, to represent Guerilla Warfare, you could just put a lot of Flash in red. I know red doesn't get flash that often outside of Time Spiral block, but I don't see why it couldn't for one set.
Ideas brainstorm:
Superiority— If this has a higher CMC than a permanent an opponent controls, [effect].
Decadence [#] (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay
, where X is your decadence.) 
.
This would be paired with other abilities that cared about your decadence:
"Whenever you pay decadence, you gain that much life."
"Whenever you pay decadence, return a permanent card with CMC equal to your decadence from your graveyard to the battlefield."
The decadence for all your permanents would pool. So if you had one for Decadence 1 and one with Decadence 2, you could pay
Conquer— Whenever a permanent an opponent controls leaves the battlefield, [effect.]"
I'll try to come back later with more ideas.
Hmm. Maybe...
Dominance (At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player taps an artifact, creature or land for each creature with Dominance you control.)
More of a W/U thing, though. Let's try...
Opulence 3 - When you untap during your untap step, if three of your lands were already untapped, [benefit].
Or maybe...
Entitlement 2 (When ~ enters the battle, you may exile a permanent. If you do, put two +1/+1 counters on ~. When ~ leaves the battlefield, return the exiled permanent.)
Your suggested idea for Infiltrate doesn't sound like something that could happen at common, since it's easily repeatable creature removal. I recall an article by Maro saying that Gruul's mechanic changed from being fight-based for a similar reason.
I'll toss out a few ideas based on your names and descriptions:
[Type] Infilration (This creature can't be blocked if your opponent controls a tapped [Type].)
Basically card-type-walk, the main issue here would be lack of interactivity. I changed it to care if the card type was tapped. So we could have "Artifact Infiltration" or Wall Infiltration.
Strike
(
: Put this card from your hand attacking alongside a blocked creature you control. Return this to your hand at end of combat.)
This is an attempt at summarized reminder wording. Basically the idea is that you get a free hit in with the creature when one of your creatures is blocked. It's a bit like reverse-ninjutsu.
Sabotage— Whenever this deals combat damage to a player, [effect].
Why limit this ability to a keyword, when it can have so many different effects? Have it be an ability word.
I'm not especially keen on the way a single kill spell combos quite so well with this. I considered also something like "Choose target creature an opponent controls blocking or blocked by a creature you control with lower power and toughness. When the opponent's creature dies this turn, if your creature didn't die..." But bleh, that's a lot of words.
The cantrip makes the "Use as a hidden trick" more viable, making it able to be less aggressively costed to activate relative to the normal use; was my idea.
I've been trying to think about this. It almost feels like I'm being pulled in two different directions.
Large non-combat-trick spells like Wrath-of-God feel like they want something like the original mastermind (if it could be templated), something like "Mastermind 2-3 -- 1W (Exile this face down. At the beginning of your upkeep put a time counter on it. If it has 2 or 3 time counters on it, you may cast it for its mastermind cost)" I'm not sure if that could work, but that feels like the sort of thing which feels like you're planning several moves in advance. And the discount is reward enough. And can't easily be tied to combat. (And I agree that wording is till too complicated, it only works if it can be simpler than suspend which is hard to express.)
Whereas many combat tricks want to be cheap enough that a cost discount can't easily help (unless you accept them completely for free), but would benefit from being tied to creatures in combat.
But obviously you don't want two different mechanics, because that reduces the "guess what they have" space. I'm not sure this speculation actually helps, but I hope maybe laying out what seems like a good goal may produce more good suggestions. Whether there's any way of combining the two directions -- eg. all spells have a mastermind-like text, but some combat tricks have non-mana costs like "tap a red creature you control" or "cast for free if a creature you control is blocked"??
sorcery 3R +1/+0 untap haste -> instant 3R untap haste
Thing is, with the delayed trigger containing the "choose another target", the wording gets quite a bit nastier if it's also "you may". It either needs to be "you may choose another target creature. If you do,..." or the confusing-with-target-triggers "choose another target. You may have ~ deal..."
Eh, maybe "you may choose another target creature" isn't too bad.
I agree, I don't want to have the colour known upfront, because the mechanic will only work if there are several possibilities for what the face-down card might be, and in particular whether it's something that's good in combat, good if unblocked, or good on defence (not that my Manoeuvre wording above allows that third option).
Cantripping... is a nice thing to do, but I'd have thought getting your combat tricks for free is enough of a draw on its own - why would the cantrip be needed / helpful?
You could tie it to the colour of the creature (or maybe even the mana cost of the creature), with an upfront cost, but that would remove a lot of the surprise.
How about cantripping when you tuck them in?
Set in Motion did turn out to be just too wordy. So another take on a similar idea, based on Jack's comment about exiling cards attached to creatures:
Manoeuvre (R) ((2): Choose target creature and exile this card face down. While that creature is attacking [/in combat?] you may cast this card from exile for its manoeuvre cost. [Manoeuvre only as a sorcery.])
Still has the issue that the spells need to be expensive for the discount to be worth it. I could avoid that by making the spells free if you manoeuvre them first, and use "If you control an Island" wordings.
Also allows you to set up a combat trick like first strike and then just keep it in reserve until the opponent makes an unfavourable block, even several turns later.
FWIW, for this name, I prefer temporary instant-speed stealing because it seems to capture the feeling of "betrayal" a lot better to have it happen at the worst possible moment, more than have it be forever. (But that's not to say the common red geass has to be this card, if uncommon blue stealing is a better card you can come up with appropriate names and replacements.)
Oh! Inspired by V's last comment, could you make "exile under this card" an official part of the geass rules like a simpler haunt (on instants/sorceries only or an all geass cards). Something like "Exile this under its target. That gains protection from..." You'd need to specify whether the two effects are tied together or just usually go together (like the different implementations of flood counters). And make sure the edge cases were specified in the comp rules and obvious enough they didn't need reminder text. But it might be a compromise?
This is true, you do at the moment need to put a Geass counter on the creature, or something similar. Unfortunately making everything an Aura would be pretty odd as well, because it'd leave a bunch of ETB-effect auras just sitting around doing nothing... unless I guess I made them all also have some kind of ongoing effect. Hmm.
That would mean this one would have to turn blue, because it'd need to turn into permanent gaining control. (It would also have to become uncommon rather than common.)
One way to go would have geasses exile, so you can tuck them under to indicate geassiness.
But auras are far simpler.
I was wondering if geasses could all be auras with "Enchanted creature can't be the target of other Geass spells". (Or maybe even give up the flavour and make it "other auras" so it's less parasitic.)
I think the downside of auras is that it makes one-turn effects (and even more so, removal effects) look very odd. But the downside of instants/sorceries is that you need some way to remember "geassness". I'm not sure which is better.
Ah, that's true - I was imagining people using some of the instant speed somewhat-negative Geasses on their own creatures in response to nastier ones (e.g. Geass to Forget in response to Geass to Die), but this is nice in that it can be used on your own stuff completely without penalty (except for passing up the chance to use it on opponents' stuff). That may be enough to swing me to make it instant.
Compromise, make it an enchantment with flash. (Geass really should be enchantments, shouldn't they?)
Also really interesting, as this is a safe way to protect your own creature, untap it, haste it, +1 it... ok, 4 mana and you give up the chance to use an opponents creature; but it's a nice option to have on the table.
FWIW, I think the flavour would be really good as an instant (but I always have to fight the tendency to make everything instant).
"I don't think I mind that :)"
I don't mind that as such, but I think cards it's usually better to use "may" if possible and avoid unusual downsides, because they don't do anything to balance a card, but create feel-bad-ness. But I'm not certain if everyone feels the same, or just me.
Wonder whether this should be instant speed, to allow for use to create a surprise blocker. That's certainly in-flavour for how Lelouch uses his Geass, and I still think the set does want a higher-than-normal level of instants, so it's possible; but I probably want to make sure there are still some sorceries.