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Recent updates to Multiverse Design Challenge: (Generated at 2025-07-15 03:54:05)
It's good as part of the challenge of the puzzle too; since this leaps out as "Oh crap, this is the problem card" but... well, it's not the only problem. Avoiding spoilers, but this card after all needs something to trigger it; and the deck has at least two other axis of attack too. Still, this card names the deck (misleadingly... well done) and turns "I control board state" into "And you will never recover" which is pretty clearly something that needs dealing with.
Just right; I loved this.
There's some good stuff here. On one hand, I'm a bit sorry I made this challenge so tough, since Boney Control has players coming and going. On the other hand, responses like this, where designers really have to work to get a good answer, feel better than "Well, here's you're simple answer. Just do X." When we're done, I'll need to ask people if this was too much, or just right.
By the way, you trigger the 'guess the card I'm thinking of', except it wasn't Evil Twin (as good an answer that seems. It's true, it would probably make Boney even better). I made boney, sat back, and realized that Cylian Sunsinger seemed custom built to attack boney, even running the exact three opposite colors. Having realized that, I almost wanted to cut back on the "changing creature names" theme and make them all variants of the Woozle ability, but it was a little too late. I certainly don't think it's 'the answer', but, if I was a designer in Magic2017, I'd drop the Sunsinger right in the file. It's good for a core set, and doesn't even look like an answer card to Boney... it just happens to disrupt the Woozle, potentially causing 13 damage on round 3 (Singer, 2 Elves, Removal after activation).
For more on why I didn't just reprint Warped Devotion, see Creaky Bones. The more I think of it, the more I should have gone with
. But, you know, I was making a deck of abusive cards from scratch without outside opinion. It's tough to figure out what's fair and what's unfair when the point is to be a little unfair.
I'm pretty sure Wizards wouldn't do this. For the sake of believablity, I should have just had Creaky Bones cost
, like Liliana's Caress is to Megrim. But, for the purpose of this challenge, I wanted the threat of Creaky Bones to be prescient. Had I thought that Creaky bones was dangerous at 
, and people disagreed with me, there could have been a lot of confusion in this challenge. This way, Creaky Bones is a monster. It may not be 'the thing' that breaks this deck, but it's certainly a problem.
It's true, this card is more "Too powerful for its casting cost" than one of the broken pieces of this deck. When making Boney Control, I was looking for holes to fill, and one of them was "No real staying power for the long game". Boney Control actually has problems against a real control deck, ala "The Deck" which only wants to draw cards and counter creatures. That deck would counter All the World as well, but, if it failed to, or if you were playing against a Wrath of God type deck, this thing would cut them to ribbons.
That's a really good response. Cards like this would make players think twice about playing 'the bounce deck'. Unfortunately, it might also be setting up a new deck for all the bounce decks to become. Boney Control could ditch the black and start playing red, if enough cards like this existed. This seems easy to solve if the card was turned into a
creature, though (assuming that gold cards were allowed in core sets. Rumor has it that 2013 is going to do it anyways.)
Nice find on Dodecapod. I was already thinking of that and Wilt-Leaf Liege, although the Liege isn't exactly Core Set-friendly. Obstinate Baloth would be, though. Perhaps Quagnoth too?
Good idea to couple it with the Tajuru Preserver / Sigarda, Host of Herons ability though. It is somewhat blatantly a hoser, but that's fine given the circumstances. It is of course counterable, but Boney Control doesn't actually have very much countermagic in it; just the four Counter Ball and the ways to recur it.
Tormod's Crypt is the most splashable graveyard recursion, but Relic of Progenitus is probably a bit better, and just as Core Set-table (although probably bumped up to uncommon).
For Challenge # 037 Warning, rambling SoC ahead. Mostly written offline before reading other people's posts.
If I'm understanding correctly; the problem here is primarily "Return it to its owners hands" and "Hey, those cards you returned? Discard them" finally setting up for a "And now I have extra turns and beat you to death with my tiny creatures" And a chunk of returning your own stuff so that you don't run out. Oh, and just for added fun, it's got an artifact that gives a counterspell now and a counterspell later. Joy.
The irritating part is the continual "Sweep your board" Attacking the recursion aspect seems least helpful, as the problem is still there, they just need to go through more of their deck to do it (though combining removing the recursion with some milling? maybe)
So it looks to me that the points of attack are...
Directly: Enchantment removal looks like it pretty much cripples the best card he's got. There's plenty of that in any core set though, no real point there. Stopping it hitting the table? Pre-emptive removal? Ditto creature removal to deal with some of the more irritating stuff.
Part of the problem is that the deck can itself recurse if it gets whomped. Stopping that might be valuable.
You could stop it flat with "Permanents you control may not be returned to your hand" Very specific hosing; though slightly harsh against blue removal in general, it could easily be made not worth running except against decks that outright rely on it like this one. ( Ok, jack went with Amblyn Cage to just "Nuke it with a hammer" So let's ignore that for now. ) If I were to go the flicker route, I think I'd go with an enchantment that turns into a creature token and back. Because this deck is weak against enchantments; apart from that damn demon.
Much of its bounce is due to bouncing cheap targets. This can be stopped with a Grip of Chaos which is fantastically silly in and of itself. Doesn't help you against the "Everything is named fred, and fred returns to your hand" mind you. Also the deck has still got the "We all do a symmetrical sacrifice. Then I recurse my stuff." option, but that's not so bad.
Feldon's cane (or is it ashnod's? I forget. Aha! Tormod's Crypt, knew it was something atiquity) to clear out their graveyward before they can recurse would be pretty nice. Hoses a few graveyard recursion strategies, doesn't really harm much else. Mind you, if this is in the set; they'd add it to this deck too...
Another direct hose? "You cannot discard cards" Doesn't hurt anything except a whole chunk of black commons... which isn't good to do. Damn. Does stop a chunk of the strategy fairly well, though the game would still drag out to a draw unless you had a non-creature way to win. Maybe that is the answer? Something he can't bounce that wins quicker than his demon? Doesn't have to normally be very efficient - heck, a Rod of Ruin would do if you can keep the demons at bay Circle of Protection: Black perhaps? Rely on enchantment removal to deal with that one critical card and add something that cares about number of cards in hand? "Ah, you made me draw my boardstate, ok, I shoot you for, um, 18" You'd still discard them later; but everyone except black gets enchantment removal; and black doesn't mind cards in graveyard so much...
Which brings up another problem - this fix, whatever it is, need to be splashable. Either an artifact, or at the very least
Depends on the flavour of the stop, I guess.
Sorely SORELY tempted to have something like: "~ gains a charge counter whenever you discard a card. Sacrifice ~: Deal X damage to target creature or player, where X is the number of charge counters on ~" Hoses black discard, powers UP madness.. seems worth a try.
Let's look at what's already been printed in this field:
Things you can discard to before you're forced to discard anyway; Flowstone Sculpture and similar are another option. That's a bad choice,being a creature, though. Lots of other options exist. Null Brooch is a pretty big "Damn you, damn you to heck" option. Posisbly too disruptive to, well, every other deck ever, though. Rites of Refusal is a saner version.
Pitchstone Wall is quite amusing; but would just be "Well, we'll return that one first"
Azorius Æthermage has another way of countering this I was thinking of; but again, he's a creature so he'd go first. The sweep mechanic doens't seem useful. Stormfront Riders maybe? Warped Devotion; no wait, that's what started this mess... (Only you reprinted it even cheaper? Why did you bother?)
I'm still thinking Grip of Chaos though. Still want something to deal with "You've all got the same name" and "Nuke everything that has the same name" though.
Hah! Dodecapod and Sand Golem do some wondferful "Oh, you made me draw it and discard it? It comes back bigger." stuff. Fairly specific hosing there; and when it comes back, Dodecapod is bigger than his demon, just for kicks. though he can still try and lock it down since it lacks haste. Still, assuming haste exists in set this should be fine. So there we go. Add those to the set; and if players are worried they can run those and some equipment just for added kicks. They're not THAT bad even if you have to cast them.
Looking for existing cards Echoing Courage, Cylian Sunsinger makes giving stuff the same name; which are great since woozle is likely to be around well before the board sweeper the opponent wants to pair with it. Evil Twin just blatantly wants to go in the deck we're trying to stop (though it works as an ok defence) - I think this the the 'can you guess the card' card. Maybe Eye of Singularity or Maelstrom Pulse as yet another woozle sweeper? Yick. Ewww Sever the Bloodline in case returnin-to-hand-then-sdiscard isn't evil enough; howsabout some exile?
Heh, here we go: Winnow. Blow up the woozle, because there are many things named woozle. Also useful in normal decks for general "Oh, not another flaming dragon" moments; whilst not being particularly unbalancing removal (So.. I beat you to detah with the first one, k?) Also, presumably, we do want woozles to sometimes be fun; and this card pairs with it well on the offense too.
And I think a nice legendary with a "If you discard me, I punish you." where the 'you' is whoever made you do it. Nah, too fiddly; this is core set. Probably white or green. As white, it's a flyer, as green it's be a spider with reach instead. Could be black, too. Black gets hasty flyers, and madness is kinda black's thing (which would work well if I had some kind of +1/+1 per discard this turn, my original madness inspired idea)
If Webbed Woozle + Legendary creature works like Wrath of God, then this (along with other cheap legends) is a pretty good defence. Otherwise, I do still need something to deal with the "Everything has the same name. Boom." sweepers. Well, the artifacts being bigger than 2/2 is a good start. Echoing truth is still annoying.
Ohhhh geeze. I only just really took in the lands. We've got woozle protection, reucursion of the damned artifacts (both the tapstick and the counterpot) AND of your creatures if you need it. Oppponents graveyard recursion is more important than I realised; especially when compared with the demon of sacrificing stuff. I'm tempted to suggest the Pressed Centaur Clan for the demon. Ok, thinking inside the box: "Permanents you control cannot be sacrificed". Now he's just a 4/4 flyer; and we have a creature to hang it on. Recursion of the artifacts and creatures is a worry. If that's still too strong then it's not just THIS deck it's powering up, but everything - and I really think some kind of "Oh no you don't" hoser becomes appropriate. I pick Tormod's Crypt, but I'm tempted to suggest land destruction would be enough to take care of it. The big bang sorcery recursion? Well, it doesn't do it often; and if the demon is nerfed I don't care all that much.
Iynx 
Legendary Creature - Djinn
Flying, Haste
Permanents you control cannot be sacrificed.
If ~ would be discarded, instead it ETBs.
1/1
So there's my answer. This legend, and reprint Winnow, Dodecapod, Tormod's Crypt and Grip of Chaos (or something like them). The set also wnats non-basic land destruction, artifact destruction and enchantment removal; but don't they all?
Ok; from another approach. We just want to kill this deck. Not nerf it; beat it. Preferably in a deck that is itself beaten by other forms of deck. ... Not gone anywhere down this yet.
This doesn't actually make anything a Woozle. It just gives them the name, not the creature type.
But you're right, something like Leyline of Singularity on a two-drop would be an amusing answer to this card. Not a very good answer to the deck as a whole given it also includes Epitaph Scriber and Fen of Lies, but an amusing answer to this card.
Darn. cheap legends to remove the woozle seemed like a good plan :) Cheap legend with "Woozles are legendary"?
Not really Core Set material, I'd think... although I'd have thought that about Sundial of the Infinite too until it happened.
But no, we don't really need to hose this particular card. It's not the primary strategy of the Boney Control deck.
If we really want to hose this, though; I propose: "Whenever an opponent would take an additional turn, instead, you do."
I guess. Not sure what you do if the opponent doesn't send it to graveyard though, and just bounces.
I agree this is strong. I'd say it's comparable in power level to Strangleroot Geist. But when you're trying to hose a dominant control deck, you need the aggro cards to be strong.
It's possible this isn't tightly focused enough, and would get too irritating against other decks. But I don't think a competing aggro deck would care. "You want to tap your mana to deal me 2 without affecting the board? And then tap even more of your mana to make a little 2/1 guy? Sure. Meanwhile I'll make a bunch of tokens and make them gigantic / make a 5/5 trampler or three / drop twelve power of creatures on the table. Have fun playing with my life total while I'm smashing yours."
Uh, well, one of the boney's. The big demon boney is still pretty evil.
If I recall the rules on legendary creatures, I think they are removed from play when there are two legendary creatures with the same name. So (although it has thus far not been an issue in non-silver-border magic), technically a legandary and non-legendary creature with the same name don't do anything.
But this would send to the graveyard two different legendary creatures. I did wonder if that would have been printed. On the one hand, it's probably comparatively unusual it's actually a problem. On the other hand, wizards generally avoid effects that abuse the "legend rule", and I suspect it would lead to rules arguments (eg. I doubt most people would know what happens even if there's only one legendary creature).
It's possible the comprehensive rules could be altered slightly to resolve the confusion, I'm not sure.
Well, boney itself is pretty toothless if you can't bounce :)
If there are two or more legendary creatures, then all legendary creatures will die. (This + Leyline of Singularity = amusement.) If there's just one, it sits there smugly confident of its uniqueness.
Amusingly, I only found that card whilst searching for answers to this card. But yeah; that card would have fit this deck just about as well, I'd think, since you don't need it on the board until you're ready to start bouncing crap. Maybe turning this into that would be part of the "Slow down that deck" answer, I'm not sure without knowing more about the environment :)
Hang on; what happens if this hits the board when there's a legendary creature in play? Nothing special? Wrath of God?
Because you've got your "board sweeper and kept swept" combo on the board; but your opponent broke it, or you need your killer demon back to actually swing for the win...
Or you just did the "Everyone sacrifices n things" trick, and want your n back whilst they chose to lose some land since you already bounced everything else.
It's belt and braces, I'd say. I don't see it as the backbone; I agree.
I kinda want to go in this direction too - but I don't think I like this version. It's just too annoying as pure aggro. Turn 2, starts hitting you for 2 a turn, and if you kill it, it hits you for 2 more before hitting you for 2 a turn again. It's a "The damn thing just won't die" with added "And I cast earthquake, oh dear,a bunch of my creatures died, too bad, so sad, I bring them back and they hurt you more and more!" Still, they do address the issue (until the opponent wises up and stops casting his 'and you discard them' enchantment, and sticks with pure bounce, anyway...)
I sort of feel "2/2 haste creature" is already a light answer to countermagic, but I agree the recursion fits well :)
(This was created as context for Challenge # 037.)
I don't actually see what this contributes to the deck. I'm no tournament player, but I can't see why a blue-black control deck would want to do this. Aren't you hoping you'll have stuffed their graveyard with all the stuff you've countered, killed, or made them discard? I mean, sure, Time Warp is good, but I can't see why the control player would want the rest of this effect.
Two other approaches I considered:
Some kind of Retromancer ability, as recently seen on Ashenmoor Liege. Retromancer would probably be fine in a modern Core Set.
Avoid creatures entirely; a lot of Boney Control is set up to make it very hard to use creatures. So just establish the pieces for a close-to-creatureless burn deck. This is a somewhat dangerous dial to turn up too high as such a deck may well get good against a large amount of the field without trying, but it's possible there are ways to target it more precisely.
I created Flamespittle Goblin and Rekindling Flame. Discussed a couple of other approaches in the comments on Rekindling Flame as well.
1R->RR
I wanted something that would be effective against light countermagic but without saying "can't be countered" on it. There's a place for "can't be countered", and in fact emergency responses to a runaway deck are probably a good place for it. But nonetheless I wanted to see if I could create something with wider resilience, but still fair. As a bonus, this version can also shrug off being shot at with Echoing Decay.
It's still solvable by white means; a better target for Pacifism is hard to find. And Anemic Rod works rather well against this.
The upkeep restriction might not be necessary, but was an attempt to prevent this being some obscene engine on its own, or being too good in other contexts like Dredge decks.
Amusingly, this creature doesn't really mind being blocked by Webbed Woozle; it gets far more irritated by 0-power blockers like Steel Wall :)