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CardName: Nightmare Lurker Cost: 1U Type: Creature - Horror Pow/Tgh: 2/1 Rules Text: Nightmare (When Nightmare Lurker attacks, if defending player has 4 or more cards in their graveyard, Nightmare Lurker can't be blocked. They may exile up to 4 cards from their graveyard.) Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Cards With No Home None

Nightmare Lurker
{1}{u}
 
Creature – Horror
Nightmare (When Nightmare Lurker attacks, if defending player has 4 or more cards in their graveyard, Nightmare Lurker can't be blocked. They may exile up to 4 cards from their graveyard.)
2/1
Updated on 01 Jun 2016 by Jack V

History: [-]

2016-05-31 22:55:36: Jack V created and commented on the card Nightmare Lurker

On Goblin Artisans, there was a challenge to design a mechanic which could be a U/B evergreen mechanic a la skulk.

My first thought was "when a card is put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere", as showing up on U/B cards, and working well with mill, discard and creature kill. But it was fiddly (and I hadn't decided, does it give evasion? give +1/+1? give +1/+1 but only once?)

Then Jay's suggestion made me think of the maybe-simpler just "enemy threshold". But then I thought, a one-off threshold isn't very interesting, so I considered exiling the cards. But I didn't want it to always be an answer to graveyard decks, so it gives your opponent the option to exile. But now, it's overcomplicated again.

I've pondered {g/u} and {u/r} evergreen keywords, and I like my solutions well enough — Active, as seen on Algae Creeper, and of course faze, from Liquid Doubt. But I've not thought about a {u/b} keyword. Il have to start pondering.

I do like your mechanic, but I worry about the fact that it's an evasion mechanic. When pondering a {u/r} mechanic, I had several criteria that the mechanic had to fill:

• It couldn't play with power and toughness, since existing evergreen mechanics didn't do that.
• It couldn't be an evasion ability, because blue already has plenty of those.
• It had to be a mechanic that affected combat. Unless I'm having a lapse of memory, the only evergreen mechanic with no role in combat is hexproof. I wanted a mechanic that altered the rules of combat, like first strike and trample.
• The keyword had to be meaningful without any outside influence; it couldn't rely on casting spells or having certain types of permanents.
• I wanted it to be a mechanic that had a place on spells and noncreatures, since blue and red are the spell colors.

Faze fills all of these rolls, which is why I'm happy with it (though I'm not happy that it's not as simple as I think/thought). Is there a {u/b} mechanic that fits all (or most) of these criteria? I don't know yet. But now I'm thinking about it.

(As an aside, the fact that prowess _ doesn't _ fit these criteria is why I don't like it or accept it as an evergreen mechanic.)

I agree with your criteria, but I think the long absence, and prowess, indicate that basically no-one at wizards or outside was able to think of a good mechanic that fulfilled all of them. So it's a game of, which restriction is it best to drop?

I like the idea of faze, but I think people are going to be confused by it. Maybe that can be fixed with the right reminder text, I'm not sure.

Jay on GA suggested "Whenever ~ deals damage to a creature, return that creature to it's owner's hand at EOT" in response to one of my suggestions. Maybe that would be better as a U/R ability?

It would be a stretch to add it to red's slice of the color pie, and I also think it would confuse players into thinking it was a drawback ability that turned your creature into a quasi-[Gravedigger for your opponents.

People have often suggested bounce in red, as a tempo mechanic. I can't remember the pros and cons, but I thought it possible a variant might squeak in even if "bounce" as a whole didn't.

That's a drawback of the current wording, but there's lots of minor variants that have broadly equivalent functionality, isn't it likely that one of them is clear enough?

It's fairly clear. I doubt many but the newest or least rules savvy players would misplay it.

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