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CardName: Cull the Surplus Population? Cost: 1W Type: Sorcery Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Each player sacrifices a creature. Conspire (As you cast this spell, you may tap two untapped creatures you control that share a color with it. When you do, copy it and you may choose a new target for the copy.) Flavour Text: "Our organs will serve the state better elsewhere." Set/Rarity: Dusk on Tsanaa Common

Cull the Surplus Population?
{1}{w}
 
 C 
Sorcery
Each player sacrifices a creature.
Conspire (As you cast this spell, you may tap two untapped creatures you control that share a color with it. When you do, copy it and you may choose a new target for the copy.)
"Our organs will serve the state better elsewhere."
Updated on 12 Feb 2016 by KeresAcheron

Code: CW14

History: [-]

2016-02-10 14:21:58: KeresAcheron created the card Cull the Surplus Population?

A minor bleed from black to white. The card main goal is to make White feel like the evil colour. And to attempt to do something interesting with Conspire.

This isn't really a minor bleed, though. Why not make it a bit closer to white by imitating an existing card: Renounce the Guilds. What if this were "Each player sacrifices a monocolored permanent?" "Each player sacrifices a tapped creature" would be more white than this as well.

I'll note that, especially with conspire, this should probably be at least uncommon, and perhaps cost more.

I think world World Queller establishes white can make everyone sacrifices a creature, as thats essentially a miniature wrath. I could change it to mono coloured thought.

-I might not sure this is busted with Conspire though. In limited its either a 1-1 or a 3-2, neither of which is overpowered. Is their a particularly reason this card needs to be uncommon? (besides synergising with token making, being win more in a white weenie deck and colour pie reasons.). I personally would like card at common to as-fan a "White is super evil and wants to kill everything" theme but am willing to bump the cost up to three or move this to uncommon.

If white wants to kill everything because it's super evil, then it's not probably not white. Ponder the motivations.

Black, where this effect belongs in the pie, gets Barter in Blood at uncommon. This is effectively better than that in most cases, it's off-color, and it's common. I note that World Queller is both rare and a very odd effect. For that matter, Renounce the Guilds is rare as well.

2016-02-11 11:15:22: KeresAcheron edited Cull the Surplus Population?

Every color is capable of being evil and white can have a omnicidal streak. See Barren Glory or the flavour behind most of whites Wrath effects.

White gets Balance and more recently Tragic Arrogance. While mutual sacrifice is primary in black, white is secondary in it. White is primary in Wrath effects and 'fair' effects that hurt both players "equally", which have been part of white since Alpha which Renounce the Guilds is a variant of. An Innocent Blood is a just a cheaper Wrath of God variant, which is a white effect. White can't have targeted unconditional creature removal but "removing both sides creatures 'equally'" is in whites slice of the colour pie. I view white has having as much right to access Barter in Blood as black has to Damnation.

-The actual problem I'm interested in "Is conspire Innocent Blood on the same level as conspire Raise Dead/Disturbing Plot". While 2-for-ones shouldn't be common, Barter in Blood is only that if you have no creatures and your opponent has two. If this card was black few black decks would pick it over Batter in Blood out of fear of getting 3-for-2ed. Bone Shards isn't a limited bomb and I don't think this that much better.

2016-02-11 12:00:22: KeresAcheron edited Cull the Surplus Population?

White cannot be evil, since evil is a white concept defined as "not-white." Your morality system (itself a white construct) and your white villain's morality system may not line up, but a white villain will never be on their evil side. What Elesh Norn does is Good. What Konda did is Good.

While the flavor of this card is fine, I don't think the mechanical execution is right. For one thing, all removal, but especially white's spot removal, is getting worse. This should be noticeably worse than a good black removal spell.

I'm all for 'evil white', but I got to agree with Link and Dude. If white is using black mechanics to be evil, then it isn't white; it's black.

I get what you're going for with the idea of Barter in Blood as a white card, and trying to tie it to Balance. But Barter in Blood is a card about genocide. There are no good intentions behind it. Balance is about evening the playing field. The results are similar, but they are not the same.

And I kind of doubt that White would ever make a call to 'Cull the Surplus Population', evil or not. Decreasing the population to increase the spoils is a selfish move, and being selfish is well within black's wheelhouse. White would be far more likely to do evil by refusing to kill its excess population, and instead enslaving everybody. More Stalin than Hitler.

2016-02-12 05:20:25: KeresAcheron edited Cull the Surplus Population?

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