I'm pretty sure you won, unless you're super far behind, or your opponent has instant speed removal. When you activate this on turn 5, (I assume you played green/blue to accelerate into this on turn 4, because, well, you should) you can stop 6 creatures. Your opponent probably won't have 6 creatures on turn 4, so instead, you'll send back the three creatures he does have and tap 3 lands, stopping him from being able to play all but his cheapest creatures. From that point on, if your opponent doesn't have instant speed removal, he lost the game.
Tidespout Tyrant's ability is good, but you have to build your deck right to take advantage of it well. I can't just power out to Tidespout, then assume I won... I need to be able to play a lot of spells after that, or have a cheap spell that keeps returning to my hand.
I dropped his p/t to that of Arcanis the Omnipotent. Take it as you will, but you can bounce creatures off of an Unsummon due to Tidespout Tyrant's ability.
Also, to bounce a permanent every turn is somewhat insane. Look at the hoop Heidar, Rimewind Master made you jump through to get that; or look at how worried I was about the activation on Arcanis, Vagrant Archmage.
Although I guess you do have the sensible "nonland" clause in there, to prevent the most evil use of this. But still, I shudder at the thought of trying to force any creature-based victory condition through this.
On a side note: I think a recent Latest Development column pointed to Merfolk Looter as being the strongest common (or maybe blue common? Well, I, at least think it's the strongest) in 2010 and 2011. There's a good chance it won't be coming back. Unless there's some serious removal in your format, it's a stellar card that, uncontested, wins limited.
This costs one more, and has a (relatively) steep cost for activation. I respect that; they aren't the same card. But we may want to be careful comparing blue card draw/filtering to Merfolk Looter. I don't think it's the gold standard anymore. It's possible that Rummaging Goblin as bad as he reads to us, may be the new standard...
I don't think looting would fit the flavor. I've upped the cost of his ability so that it'd cost the same as Counsel of the Soratami as well as its mana cost equaling that as well.
Hopefully this is still powerful, but not slaughtering.
I'm pretty sure you won, unless you're super far behind, or your opponent has instant speed removal. When you activate this on turn 5, (I assume you played green/blue to accelerate into this on turn 4, because, well, you should) you can stop 6 creatures. Your opponent probably won't have 6 creatures on turn 4, so instead, you'll send back the three creatures he does have and tap 3 lands, stopping him from being able to play all but his cheapest creatures. From that point on, if your opponent doesn't have instant speed removal, he lost the game.
Tidespout Tyrant's ability is good, but you have to build your deck right to take advantage of it well. I can't just power out to Tidespout, then assume I won... I need to be able to play a lot of spells after that, or have a cheap spell that keeps returning to my hand.
I dropped his p/t to that of Arcanis the Omnipotent. Take it as you will, but you can bounce creatures off of an Unsummon due to Tidespout Tyrant's ability.
Also,
to bounce a permanent every turn is somewhat insane. Look at the hoop Heidar, Rimewind Master made you jump through to get that; or look at how worried I was about the activation on Arcanis, Vagrant Archmage.
Although I guess you do have the sensible "nonland" clause in there, to prevent the most evil use of this. But still, I shudder at the thought of trying to force any creature-based victory condition through this.
Might be more simply templated with a cost of
.
On a side note: I think a recent Latest Development column pointed to Merfolk Looter as being the strongest common (or maybe blue common? Well, I, at least think it's the strongest) in 2010 and 2011. There's a good chance it won't be coming back. Unless there's some serious removal in your format, it's a stellar card that, uncontested, wins limited.
This costs one more, and has a (relatively) steep cost for activation. I respect that; they aren't the same card. But we may want to be careful comparing blue card draw/filtering to Merfolk Looter. I don't think it's the gold standard anymore. It's possible that Rummaging Goblin as bad as he reads to us, may be the new standard...
I don't think looting would fit the flavor. I've upped the cost of his ability so that it'd cost the same as Counsel of the Soratami as well as its mana cost equaling that as well.
I don't care too much about the commonality. Drawing cards is a big blue thing, after all.
But wowsers this is cheap for that effect.
Common?! Erm...
You might like to check out Archivist, Jushi Apprentice, or Sage of Lat-Nam, and in particular their rarity. The common version is Thought Courier/Merfolk Looter/Looter il-Kor etc, which has the important "discard a card" clause.