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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 16:51:33)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 16:51:33)
I think, to me, it's easier to parse as one ability, so I'd rather write it the way I expect it to work and add reminder text if necessary.
There are permanents that say things like "Exile target creature, return it to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step" without clarification.
Or, you could sidestep the templating problem by having this sacrifice.
Personally, I would think you'd have to include "(This ability continues to trigger even if Apocalypse Chime is no longer on the battlefield)".
I mean, we know that connecting the two sentences together makes it part of the same ability, and the ability is ongoing independent of what's on the battlefield. But I would assume most players up to 5 years of experience wouldn't make that connection (and even some veteran players wouldn't immediately notice the distinction.)"
For what it's worth, I did make the activation high so that there would be a solid period of recovery. Theoretically, you could ramp back up to 9, but then you'd just end up exiling your ramp anyway.
Hmm. Maybe I'll just mock up both designs and show them to people off the server and ask them which they prefer. We'll probably get a better reaction from side by side comparisons of uninvested people then by arguing (reasonable) semantics here.
I really don't like an indestructible, repeatable Armageddon. I don't see how connecting the two abilities would be confusing or busy; in fact, I think it's cleaner. "Exile all permanents. At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player may return a land they own exiled this way to the battlefield under their control."
That's pretty cool.
Was thinking that something like this would do:
It wipes the board, but sticks around after. It also blasts the lands, but they can recover over time.
I tossed around making it indestructible, then decided against it. But the non-indestructible version of this card doesn't do what you'd want it to do if any player cast Smelt after it was activated. I had the 'return a land' be part of the ability and be independent of whether the Chime is in play, but that's confusing (and, at the very least, busy since it requires reminder text.) In the end, I decided it was better to leave indestructible on and let players deal with that.
First thing I thought of was an updated Nevinyrral's Disk, but Perilous Vault is good too. Exile might be better.
Sounds to me like a Perilous Vault functional reprint...
Apocalypse Chime is a card from Homelands. It looks like this:
![[[Apocalypse Chime]]](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/named?format=image&version=normal&exact=apocalypse+chime)
In Homelands Restored, my goal is to do the least to update the cards to feel like they're modern. Most times that means that if a Modern card can do something, and it doesn't interfere with the needs of the set, then the only thing I do is alter the casting cost to be appropriate to modern standards.
Not knowing quite what to do with the chime, I just increased the cost and the activation by one and called it a day. But this still bugs me. For what I assume would be obvious reasons to a modern player, Wizards doesn't print cards like this anymore.
So I need to update the Apocalypse Chime. But I'm not sure how. It turns out the Chime appeared in the 1996 comic book. Details to follow:
So, we have a chime that when you ring it destroys everything, rips all mana from the land, removes the planeswalker's spark, but the walker and the chime sticks around. Just talking this through, I'm starting to get an idea of how to shape this card. But it would be very silly of me to ask for help, only to design the card and say "You know what. Forget it." Besides, I wouldn't mind seeing how other people would approach this Mythic Legendary Artifact.
Evidently, Jennifer is the 6th most common female name in the U.S.. Jean comes in at 58:
http://names.mongabay.com/female_names.htm
Number one is Mary. Makes sense. Bit surprised to see that Patricia is number two, however.
The bottom of that list makes for strange oddities, too. Evidently, there are over 12,000 women in the U.S. named 'Robert'.
I think I only know one person named Jenny.
Well, I suppose it was inevitable. Though, he could have used 'Jeannie' instead. It may be the feminized version of 'Jon', but it isn't as ubiquitous as Jen. I swear, half the women I know are named Jen...
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/113098836228/the-player-psychographics
Several years ago I started using Timmy/Tammy and Jenny/Johnny, not just the male versions. I didn't remember seeing them before that, but I may have subconsciously taken the names from somewhere else.
But I've been seeing them more widely and I only just noticed a few months ago, Mark Rosewater endorsed exactly the same conclusion, with exactly the same names.
@Alex/JM and in furry circles were herm characters are common, you'll see "shi" and "hir" a lot. Still in the broader populace, I agree these aren't picking up.
I'm firmly in the "they" camp. Although I generally defer to Wizard's awkward templating, I cannot abide their insistence on wasting invaluable card space using "he or she".
You say "never stuck". There are several people in my Livejournal extended circles who use things like "ze" regularly. But it always looks unnatural to me. I think "they" is perfectly sufficient. (The one nonbinary person I know f2f prefers "they", fortunately.)
For what it's worth: the only time 'they' is an inappropriate pronoun is when the gender of the pronoun is known. So...
"I don't know who drank my Crystal Pepsi I've been saving since 1991, but I hope they enjoyed it."
...is grammatically correct, but...
"Sarah ran her penny-farthing off a cliff and broke her cervix. I hope they have medical insurance."
...is not. But we wouldn't use 'he or she has' in this scenario either, so the choice to use 'he or she' over 'they' is moot.
Double down on 'They'. It may sound awkward to our ears but 95% of the time it's grammatically correct and avoids the he/she awkwardness.
As an aside, when I did my Scrabble's Two Letter Words article on He & Hi I happened upon the words 'ze' and 'hir'. The two words were intended to be gender neutral pronouns put forward by the queer community back in the 80s. They never stuck. Mostly, I suppose, because nobody wants to have their gender mis-labeled, whether you're gay, straight, trans or gender fluid.
Still, it's a cute idea. It's a pity there isn't some sort of language judge who changes the way we speak for expedience sake. But maybe I shouldn't be so hasty. Reading Shakespeare is tough enough, and hirs verboseness comes with only organic changes to the language.
One doesn't need to be added, because English already has one. "They" is a gender-neutral pronoun that had been used in that context for hundreds of years. (Other interesting arguments for it at the link as well.) Even CMOS, which is what Wizards users, endorsed it until the 90s. The only people who criticize it are assholes (either language prescriptives, which is often racist, or anti-LGBT bigots).
Copypasted to not be tiny
In English there has been a push for a singular gender-neutral pronoun. If one is "officially" added to English how do you think it would alter the format of how cards are phrased? If a "new" pronoun, like xe is added, would the cards be "he, she, or xe discards..."? If they were to also become a singular gender-neutral pronoun would that just become the default "that they controls"? Alternatively pronouns could probably be avoided entirely with by just referencing a person as player "unless that player pays..."
fuseback seems like a sweet mechanic
I love the new Gideon. He's reminiscent of my Ara, Hope Unfound, only better.
Right, thank you, that makes sense. I'm sad we didn't find a new loophole, but I'm glad we explored it :)
Now I look, the rules explicitly call out simultaneous card draws and game loss, and say 101.4, if each player does something at the same time, the active player chooses if necessary, then each other player in turn order, then all the actions happen simultaneously. I think that matches my intuition for what SHOULD happen.
I still feel there might be some other edge case, but I can't think of one :)
Generally they all happen simultaneously. Drawing cards is unusual. At the time we're making choices what to bounce for Curfew, you can't choose the Bears.
The Comp Rules explicitly state that losing the game multiple times to a single state-based action gets combined into one lose-the-game event (for purposes of Lich's Mirror replacing a multiple-suicide case of Ambition's Cost etc).
They don't actually specify the same about replacement effects causing you to lose the game, though... hmm.
Sigh. With previous Rules Managers, I could have reported that and there'd be an outside chance the Comp Rules could get updated with a tweak. Tabak really doesn't care about anything that's not actually coming up in multiple games though.
Ah, right.
Now I'm unsure. If an effect says "each something does something", do they happen simultaneously, or (like drawing cards) sequentially in some unspecified order?
If one of us casts Curfew and I bounce Dragonlord Silumgar controlling a Runeclaw Bears, can you bounce Grizzly Bears, or do we all make choices simultaneously?
If it's simultaneous, and you lose the game twice at once, does Withengar Unbound trigger twice...?
Slow Claps
On the "multiple copies" front, I think you could have lots of Nefarious Lich tokens, and find a way to cause lots of them to all apply simultaneously. That's a little tricky because a single parcel of damage gets entirely replaced by a single Lich, so you want lots of chunks of damage - but they all need to be dealt at exactly the same time otherwise it'll make you lose before any more resolve.
But I think if you have lots of tokens each enchanted with Treacherous Link, and then cast Dry Spell, the damage will all get redirected to you but in lots of little chunks, so you can apply a different Lich's replacement effect to each point of damage, allowing you to be made to lose 100 times by 100 different Liches :)
I guess you could say, if you had something like angel's grace active, how many times does it prevent a loss during the resolution of one ability and following state-based-effects? In which case, I guess it would be six: Nefarious Lich, Laboratory Maniac and Forbidden Crypt sequentially during resolution, and then life, poison and cards during the subsequent state-based-effects.
ETA: Although I suppose you could cheat that metric too: if state-based-effects are checked and something changes (eg. creature goes to graveyard), then they're checked again, and you would not-lose another three times. So if you can trigger a long sequence of state-based-effect actions, you would not-lose each time.
I don't know if that's interesting for this puzzle, but it seems interesting for its own sake. Say you had a 100 Pack Rat in play, one which has taken 100 damage, one which has taken 99 damage... one which has taken 1 damage. First one dies. Second one is smaller, so dies. And so on, to bite 'em.
Heh. I suppose DQ does count as another way to lose the game. So doesn't forfeiture for that matter, in a sort of "you can't fire me, cause I'm quitting" sort of maneuver.
I think I can add one more legitimate way to lose the game, however. Cast Caress of Phyrexia on yourself while you have less than seven total cards in your library, in your graveyard and on the battlefield, one of which is Lich's Mirror. The mirror will save you, but then you'll lose to both poison and the inability to draw 7 cards a second time.
Granted, the mirror 'prevents' you from losing the game. But I still think it's fair to imagine yourself losing in three different way, doubling back and losing in two additional ways all as part of the same spell resolution.
Oh yes, I forgot you mentioned Caress of Phyrexia which does the whole "lose three times" thing simply in one card :)
In fact, maybe that is as good as we can ever get. I think cards, life, and poison are the only three state-based effects, and we already have those at once.
And in the resolution of an ability, I think (?) everything happens sequentially, so if you lose, you don't resolve the rest of the ability? So you can only ever lose once.
And even if we count "during the resolution of one ability" as "at once", I think only Nefarious Lich, Laboratory Maniac and Forbidden Crypt cause you to win/lose as a replacement effect, everything else is a triggered ability.
So unless you cheat in front of a judge while casting Caress... :)
I thought I had a way to get up to 4: use Nefarious Lich as well as either Platinum Angel+Words of Wind or Caress of Phyrexia. But it doesn't work, because the failure to exile a card from graveyard makes you lose during the resolution of the card draw spell, where the other three loss conditions happen during SBAs immediately after the spell.