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CardName: Logic Knot Cost: XUU Type: Instant Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Delve (You may exile any number of cards from your graveyard as you cast this spell. It costs {1} less to cast for each card exiled this way.) Counter target spell unless its controller pays {X}. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: The Oncoming Storm Common |
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less to cast for each card exiled this way.)
In The Oncoming Storm, one of the themes is exile. It's used to represent time travel, in that only some special spells can travel through/interact with the time vortex. Delve is a possible reprint mechanic that also interacts with exile flavorfully enough to be worth including (the others are suspend, flashback, and rebound). If I use delve, Logic Knot is the only card I could reprint.
The other three mechanic have much more obvious flavor connections to time (at least, much easier to rationalize). Delve has less of a connection, but has good mechanical leads. I suggest that delve represents the time traveller's reach through the time vortex to find new sources for spells, both ancient and uncreated. One delves through time. Reasonable?
Reasonable, though it may difficult to resonate the flavor without beating people over the head with it (what with the graveyard representing the dead and the past). I suggest beating people over the head with it.
My problem with Delve has more to do with "How many Delve cards can reasonably be printed?". This comes with a secondary problem "How do I get a lot of cards into my graveyard?". In Innistrad, the normal casual player reaction to dumping cards in that players graveyard ('ick!') was mitigated with making cards that were good in your graveyard ('cool!'). But if you have cards that are good in your graveyard in TOS, then you won't want to delve those cards ('double ick!'), and it might be a tough sell to put cards in your graveyard just to make a spell cheaper ("Why wouldn't I just pay full price?" asks Casual Timmy).
Tough. Not impossible to overcome, but tough. I'm not sure what the answer to this all is, but I'm pretty sure that cards similar to Make a Wish are an excellent place to start.
Be wary of cards that manipulate exile. Mark Rosewater considers Misthollow Griffin a mistake and Pull from Eternity and Mirror of Fate more so.
Delve and Logic Knot are interesting in a graveyard block. But they're more dubious if you're using them as "exile enablers".
The general rule of thumb inside Wizards at the moment is something like "putting things in exile is fine, counting things in exile is probably fine, bringing things back from exile (that you didn't put there) is a no-no".
Of course, you're free to disagree with this guideline :)