Mashup: the Gathering Workbench: Recent Activity

Good idea. 2/2 for 4 makes this work much better. Edited.

I saw someone win at FNM using Duskmantle Guildmage's ability twice followed by Jace, Memory Adept's Glimpse the Unthinkable for 20 lifeloss out of nowhere. This would be an alternative to the Guildmage there. It seems Wizards are okay with a combo of that level existing. This probably would have to cost a little more in that case though.

I suppose the Guildmage is also a 2/2 creature. Maybe this would be okay in that role if it had a body to make it more vulnerable.

Mmm. It doesn't obsolete itself through its own nonbo. 98%ish of the time, players will play with it the right way, never realizing there's a problem. It's only when discard or mill comes up that it can be played improperly... and to be honest, I'm sure a number of players would try to break the card by using those two methods, so I guess the percentage is much higher.

I don't know. It's on the workbench for a reason. But I'm thinking it should just cost more and say "card from anywhere goes to the graveyard, exile it..." I mean, it doesn't really change the card's function. Just an annoying side effect.

The first ability isn't mill; it's Reclaim (inspired by Shadow Guildmage's blue ability).

So they cards you mill from the first ability don't even trigger the second ability? I never would have realized that if you hadn't mentioned the weird templating. I think that a card that nonbos with itself is a really poor design.

Random Generator gave me Forbidden Crypt and Shadow Guildmage. I could have made this an artifact for Alpha... but I don't know. It just seemed a shade too black.

Really, Forbidden Crypt is one of those perfect cards that doesn't need to be updated. You could print it in Magic 2015 if the name didn't infer it's an artifact and not an enchantment. A name-changed functional reprint perhaps?

Anyhow, this card didn't have the same self-exile clause at first, but I couldn't help but think that that must be broken. Something about casting Wrath of God every other turn... that just don't sound right.

I'm also not sure about the 'spell or permanent' clause, instead of just any card. Mostly, I wasn't too keen on the idea of this being used as a kill card in a deck that can self-mill itself to victory. That, and it's kind of nice that mill doesn't exile, since that means mill (and looting) gives you options. I don't know how many people would know the difference between 'spell and permanent' and 'card' though. Buggy.

Mostly true. But true weenie decks are kinda-sorta locked out of contention by their very nature. I mean, any deck that only features one toughness dudes will be knocked out by a single Tremor. Or, you know, Aether Flash, which people seem to keep designing around, thinking it's fair (I'm uncertain, myself.)

But, I don't disagree. I don't think the true weenie decks have a problem, since they can probably provide a couple 2-toughness creature flying... and that's going to be a very dangerous round 5 after you play this card. Those decks have light curves, so you could probably get around playing under this card's shadow. This is really going to hunt some deck, though. Chaining Captain's Calls into eachother is just plain silly. I'm upping this to 5 mana for now. It probably needs one more... but there's a point where the card doesn't really do anything, and I don't want to go there.

­I didn't want players to tap all their land and target one creature they control.

Because the choice of creature happens on resolution? It took me ages to work that out.

That's actually really clever, I've often wanted a "do bad things to your own creatures, but you can't cheap and put them all on the same one" clause. But it really doesn't work the way I expected, reminder text may be a necessity, even on an uncommon?

And the resultant card is really interesting, although I'm not sure how well it would actually play; may it just completely lock weenie decks out of contention, if you can't play another 1/1 creature while you have some already on the table?

That is a wacky and very interesting idea.

("No escape clauses"? Hah! Lashknife Barrier, Light of Sanction, Darksteel Myr... but I know what you meant :) Interestingly, you might actually not want to use the first two, though, because the wording here means they won't gain flying. Nice.)

Random Generator gave me Manabarbs and Stone Giant. I figured this was their spiritual successor. There's some weirdness in the text, since I didn't want players to tap all their land and target one creature they control. If you have 6 lands with this out, tap them all, and control a 3/3, a 2/2 and a 1/1, all your creatures will die. No escape clause.

Granted, this ability is really red-blue, but I'm going to pull a Vorthos defense here, and say the flavor is very red, so mono-red it is. Besides, with a little spare mana on everyone's part, this is pretty close to "All creatures gain -0/-1 and lose flying."

Ah, yes, multiple problems. Fixed. I didn't intend for the card to be a Johnny riddle of "How do I exile it." It was supposed to be more like Rebound from the start. Why I didn't think to just go and steal Rebound's text is beyond me.

You bring up a good point, Vitenka. I wasn't really sure if this card was fair, even at 7 with 3 colors. The best I could rationalize was that the second casting of this card wasn't really a guarantee. I mean, if the game is even, this card should provide the lock. But, if you're behind, it just takes out the oppoent's best permanent. Then they swing for two turns and win. They don't really have to cast another spell if they would win otherwise...

Oh, it certainly makes more SENSE if it exiles itself. But if it then casts without cost, it's a complete win condition. Which is a bit harsh for a 7-cost that isn't even a permanent so most colours can't deal with it at all.

I guess this is playing in the same space as Rebound, as in Distortion Strike and Cast through Time. That offers some suggestions for the reminder text.

So I think this does exile itself (assuming you cast it from your hand, rather than from some strange place); but... it doesn't actually say "without paying its mana cost" for the double dip casting. I assume that was how it was meant though.

Um, is it intentional that this card doesn't exile itself?

Currently, it looks like if you CAN exile this; you win. Oh wait, you still need the mana; ok, not quite a complete lock then.

I'd go with the wording: Double Dip - When a permanent enters the battlefield under an opponents control, you may cast ~ from exile.

Random generator gave me Spine of Ish Sah and Double Dip... which is pretty friggin' awesome... but what does one do with that, if they don't want to go wandering through un-land.

Without un-land, the obvious choice is... fine... (Change the Spine to gain 5 life) but underwhelming. I'd be happy to have that card but it kind of misses the point of doing mashups in the first place.

So I worked to get a 'now and later' thingy that was appropriate, and eventually settled on Double Dip. I like the mechanic, though, I admit, it's a bit wonky. Not counting the reminder text, "Double Dip when a permanent..." infers that something already happened. Oddly, Double Dip is operating as both a Keyword ability (It exiles this spell after it's cast the first time), and operates as a keyword action (Double dip's second ability only works when you write it out in a sentence).

Technically, what this card needs is some sort of syntax rider. I know people have monkeyed around with things like "Protection {Blue, Green}" but I never thought it was particularly relevant. It seems relevant on this card, though... I could really use "Double Dip {When a permanent enter the battlefield...}" and make this an official keyword ability.

Oh, yes, nice. I can definitely see several black decks I know running this.

Random generator gave me Day of Judgment and Morgue Thrull. This is a bit of departure from the Thrull, but I figure the spirit of the card is in here.

I kind of like where this card sits. On one level, black sometimes gets global removal at a higher cost, and for some players, this will cost more for no particular reasons. For the player who just wants a lot of creatures in their graveyard, though...

Alex's is right. THat was in both Fever Charm and Chaos Charm to boot.