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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-05-20 21:33:20)
"Just as likely to hit me as an opponent" - well, that's often red's thing too: Goblin Assassin, Pyrostatic Pillar, and heck, Earthquake and so on. This is indeed very funny, and not least so because it is genuinely a counterspell with type Sorcery :)
I think this does work. I think the opponent can choose to not have it work on their Signets, but I'm not sure; I asked a rules question to investigate :)
It is indeed a very clever way to make a soft counter that's worth paying more than
for.
Yeah, I think this just wants to be Spelljack or Commandeer.
If you wanted to nerf it you could make it "costing X" instead of "costing X or less", then you can't pay X=5 to counter Giant Growth.
But I'm not sure if it's necessary. On the one hand, paying
and two cards (with the caveat of only working sometimes) seems a fair cost for X flying tokens. And green getting flying is more of a flavour thing, it's apparently ok occasionally. (Although now I want a mythic rare that creates X flying green birds with 
: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool! :)) On the other hand, I tend to underestimate how good token-makers and X-spells are.
Well, if it cost
per activation it would still be a cheap hard counter, although I suppose not that cheap by counterspell standards.
Yeah, for a one-off spell I think
would be fair. I'd suggest "cast this only if you cast another spell this turn".
Mmm, true, in the right deck this is "Everything I flash into play also counters your spell, I win so hard" Pretty sure blue gets a draw a card flash creature.
Upping the cost removes the whole point though; of this being a cheap hard counter. Maybe if instead of splice it's just an instant with "Cast this only while casting another blue spell"?
Humm; as I worded it, you would get to keep the permanent I think - I wanted spells that say "You" to affect the new you, but as you say, that's a problem.
Exile the spell, then allow you to cast it probably works most sanely rules wise; though still allows keeping the permanent.
Hang on, it doesn't drain their mana pool? So this pretty much Power Sink for 5? (Only 1 cheaper, which is fine as it's fixed cost and forces them to use all their mana on something....) Ok, I like it. Probably doesn't work, as you point out, but I like it anyway.
So.. some spell, sometime in the future, triggers a stack-clear? Nicely anti storm, nicely random... Nicely red. Still very very strange, hard to see when I'd run it (unless storm really makes a comeback) since it's just as likely to hit me as an opponent and red doesn't usually do the "Set up my win conditions on permanents then sit back" thing.
I guess so. As I said; they're only fliers because of the name. They probably ought to be just 1/1 tokens. Or we could apply a mallet and put in "spell an opponent controls" though that still leads to multiplayer shenanigans.
Well, that might be true, if it weren't for the flying thing. I guess, technically, one could just play Hornet Queen. Man, I hate that card.
If, however, you gave me this card:
Instant
As an additional cost to play ~, discard a spell.
Put X 1/1 flying bird tokens onto the battlefield.
I'd run that over One Dozen Eyes. Card advantage isn't that important, when you're winning.
I think the blue cost really matters, as does the fact that you have to play this before, not keep it in hand until you need it, so it's not strictly better than Spell Blast, but I agree it probably is better.
You're right, there probably should be an activation cost.
Countering your own spell doesn't seem like a problem to me; green could just run One Dozen Eyes instead of this, and be down one less card.
Added Temporal Crash, costing
and
.
Gate to Eternity, costing
For Challenge # 038. I really wanted to see
get used because it's really impractical using the normal methods. In theory, hard counters require double blue, while soft counters - counters your opponent can somehow avoid - cost a single blue. Since Cancel costs 
, though, 
would be silly as a soft counter unless you tack another ability on there. Even "Counter target spell unless its controller chooses to lose the game" wouldn't be better than Cancel (Mindslaver not withstanding).
I worked hard to find one ability that would work. There seemed to be three camps I could follow:
Option 1 and 2 feel kind of cheap. It's a joke that works once, but hangs out on the card and becomes an old joke afterwards. Plan 3... I kind of like plan 3. I think Plan 3 may be for an un-set, though. It's the sort of card that could make people very angry when it works right. I don't know if that's a good thing, or just funny.
I eventually landed on this card, which is technically "counter with a benefit", but, hopefully, still gets the theme of soft-counter, and thus still deserves the casting cost it has. Can't win them all, I guess. Thanks for the existance of Drain Power... I shouldn't be able to make this mechanic work, but it does. Does anybody know what this does to an Azorius Signet however?
For Challenge # 038. Thankfully, this casting cost was dodged between when I first saw the challenge, and when I got a chance to throw out my idea. I figured I had a 33% chance that someone would go for "Red Counterspell" colors.
I have suspend to thank for casting things from exile. I snuck in "from your hand" though, to get rid of the "When I cast this spell, it gets exiled" paradox.
The card doesn't target so that you don't need to target a spell when you first cast it, which would be weird. Also, I made this a sorcery to stop people from thinking they could respond with this spell, when... you know... what the heck are you going to respond to? While "Counter all spells" has the flaw that you can start casting a bunch of cheap spells in an attempt to counter a good spell that passed a coin flip, I consider that a benefit. :)
Also, almost named this "The Fault in Our Stars", but figured referencing John Green would probably take away from what the card did. :P
What, like a souped up Shunt? Yeah, I guess that is fair as long as you don't get to keep a permanent after the fact. That would be Spelljack, minus the timing issues. If you just want to turn Fire from Fire // Ice into Ice however, and change the targets, then
should get you there (though, not without people flipping out about the ability being impossible).
[Edit]... Oh... wait. The caster of the spell being countered gets the birds. There probably shouldn't be a line break there... I read two different abilities going off and assumed you were getting a pile of birds and countering an opponent's spell. Obviously, we know why that is wrong.
Though, I must admit, this seems like a good way for a green deck to get a bunch of flying creatures on the table. Just cast Ornithopter and cast this, countering your own spell. -2 cards seems worth it for seven birds. If you don't mind being down a bird, you can flash those birds into play by countering your own Giant Growth.
It's probably way too good anyway. I mean, all you got to do is look at Consuming Vortex, get an understanding for why it's costed the way it is, then understand that it was in a lot of tournament decks in the number one color in block. For
, you got an ability that would normally cost 
. For 
you got to tack on an ability that would normally cost 
to a small number of spells, and that card was strong. If I was to go off that reasoning, the base card probably costs 
, and the splice ability would probably run somewhere around 
. By the way, that card would still be used... free counterspells are very strong.
This thing makes Spell Blast look like a chump... but I guess Spell Blast was already a chump. At least this requires a heavy blue mana dedication. I would be more comfortable, however, if there was an activation cost... maybe
... to not only balance the card a bit, but give a nice 'shields down' moment.
I rather like this idea. It penalizes people for playing cheap removal. "Swords to Plowshares? That's all you had? Man, if you were packing Vengeance, you would have at least got a 4/4..."
For Challenge # 038.
This seems pretty fair. (Eg. comparable to Commandeer)
For the wording, how about "Exile target spell. You may cast it from exile until end of turn."