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Magic: the GAFering |OT2|

ultron87

Member
Thank goodness that vampire is mythic. I hate double color protection stuff. It just ruins limited games.

And it just feels like bleh design in general. Losing to protection from your color should be a risk of playing mono color and not just randomly crop up. It is the least worst with those colors since black and white have plenty of tools to get around protection.
 
Losing to protection from your color should be a risk of playing mono color and not just randomly crop up. It is the least worst with those colors since black and white have plenty of tools to get around protection.

I've been testing/tweaking variations of black-based Infect decks in Modern. The amount of decks that just can't answer a Phyrexian Crusader is shocking.
 

OneEightZero

aka ThreeOneFour
4-16-2013_Nivix_Cyclops.jpg
I don't get it. Why don't they say "loses Defender until end of turn" or something?

It's weird wording.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
So cards that check for cards with defender still work on them.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
All the champions are their own brands of awful though.

Except the Boros one, perhaps.
 

Crocodile

Member
Ugh, a lot of questionable mythics so far =(

A few are mediocre (BR demon for example) but most look like they will have a demonstrable impact in at least one format as opposed to being total whiffs.

All the champions are their own brands of awful though.

Except the Boros one, perhaps.

Yeah what happened here? The Rakdos, Gruul and Golgari ones are pretty good. The Azorious one is ok. The rest are embarrassing.

Man that is some scaling down of power there.

That WB mythic is downright atrocious.

Really? What else kills it aside from Mortars and Wrath effects? How many creatures can interact with it in combat profitably? Thundermaw, Thragtusk and......? The second clause is worded awkwardly as all fuck but otherwise the card seems fine to me.
 

JulianImp

Member

Absolutely love this card. It's a Kiln Fiend that forces you to cast a spell pre-combat to attack, but it has the potential to deal lots of damage if coupled with some removal spells. It's even a common in this small set, so you're likely to see it often in drafts.

The golgari mythic looks fun, if a bit overcosted. I'll gladly try to get some copies for my pre-rotation BUG self-milling deck, though. Stuff like Deathrite Shaman could help remove unneeded cards while getting an use out of them.

I don't care about most orzhov cards other than Obzedat (I love how it blinks itself), but I can see the dual protections and lifelink could make it quite an annoyance for black or white-based decks, and even Gruul needs to 2-for-1 itself to kill it (block + burn, two burn spells or sacrificing a Reckoner). Personally, I'd rather have quirky cards (even if they aren't that powerful) than powerful but straightforward ones like these.

I also came up with two new concepts for YMTC, which are tangentially similar to Exquisite Corpse (and a lot simpler):

Flesh Processor BB
Enchtantment
XBB, exile a creature card with converted mana cost X from your graveyard: Put a 2/2 black Zombie token onto the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it.

It could also work with any graveyard, but then I guess the ability would have to cost more to activate.

Life After Undeath 1BB
Enchantment
XBB: Return target creature card with converted mana cost X from your graveyard to the battlefield. It becomes a Zombie in addition to its other types.
Whenever a Zombie would be put into your graveyard from the battlefield, exile it instead.

This one reuses creatures directly, sort of like Chainer, Dementia Summoner, only it asks you to pay the creature's CMC to make it harder to break.
 
Mythic vamp seems good, and he's going to be crazy high. Mythic rares with tons of casual appeal and a potential in constructed always shoot for the top.

The Deadbridge Chant seems AMAZING in EDH. I already want two!
 
Absolutely love this card. It's a Kiln Fiend that forces you to cast a spell pre-combat to attack, but it has the potential to deal lots of damage if coupled with some removal spells. It's even a common in this small set, so you're likely to see it often in drafts.

There will be a "target creature gets double strike" spell and a "target creature is unblockable (with flashback)" spell in standard together with this guy.

Don't let yourselves get caught off guard with this one at FNM.
 

JulianImp

Member
There will be a "target creature gets double strike" spell and a "target creature is unblockable (with flashback)" spell in standard together with this guy.

Don't let yourselves get caught off guard with this one at FNM.

Yup, I'll probably be trying that out, since it's probably going to be a really cheap deck (unless you want to try more expensive stuff like Ral Zarek).

By the way, this card combos wonderfully with Spell Rupture, since its pump ability triggers and resolves before the counterspell checks for your creature's power. How about that?
 
How about a card that starts with counters and when its controller removes the counters, they get some kind of benefit (gain a card, make target opponent drop a card at random), but the opponent can also remove counters for some kind of cost (say 2 life). Then when the counters are gone, the enchantment is exiled and the opponent gets some kind of benefit (a creature or something)?

I haven't been totally following the conversation, but that's just a tweak on one of the ideas I read from you guys earlier

I like this idea, maybe something like this...

Demonic Bargain
Enchantment

~ enters the the battlefield with X credit counters.
Pay X life and remove a credit counter: Draw X cards.
When there are no credit counters on ~, sacrifice ~ and put a 5/5 flying Black demon creature token into play under each opponent's control.

Another idea

Intense Hatred
Enchantment
Pay X life: Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn. At end of turn, sacrifice that creature.

(It's channel/fireball all over again!)
 

JulianImp

Member
I like this idea, maybe something like this...

Demonic Bargain
Enchantment

~ enters the the battlefield with X credit counters.
Pay X life and remove a credit counter: Draw X cards.
When there are no credit counters on ~, sacrifice ~ and put a 5/5 flying Black demon creature token into play under each opponent's control.

Another idea

Intense Hatred
Enchantment
Pay X life: Target creature gets +X/+0 until end of turn. At end of turn, sacrifice that creature.

(It's channel/fireball all over again!)

The first one would be so, so broken. Play it for X=2, then pay as much life as you want to raw lots of cards and keep the card around with a single counter on it for the rest of the game. If it required that you removed X credit counters from it, everyone would end up playing it like "X1[base cost]: Draw X cards and lose X life.", since they'll just choose not to remove the last counter to make sure the demon doesn't come out.

That's why I suggested adding debt counters and asking for a payment for each of them per turn, since removing them as a cost means players will opt for removing counters until only one remains, and then doing nothing. Ticking counters down per upkeep works a lot better if you want to remove them rather than add them, but in that case it's either the broken or bad offspring of Phyrexian Arena and Yawgmoth's Bargain.

The problem with the second card is it makes you pay the mana cost once, and after that you get a repeatable instant-speed Hatred that only costs life, so its mana cost would probably have way too high to keep it from breaking constructed decks in half. Even if you lose the creature at end of turn, most players will just pump enough life into it to kill their opponents in one swing; very few will make the mistake of only pumping their creatures a little bit (unless the environment is full of powerful instant-speed removal or they want to sacrifice their creatures, that is).

Here's another idea:

Reprocessing Plant 1BB
Enchantment
Sacrifice a creature: Put a material counter on Reprocessing Plant.
1BB, remove a material counter from Reprocessing Plant: Choose one - Draw a card; or target player discards two cards; or target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn.

It's an engine card if there ever was one, and I'm not sure the effects are balanced with one another. I tweaked the cost and effects a bit, and I find it funny that the effects ended up being 1, 2, 3 (draw, discard and minus effect).
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Hmm, here's an idea I just had

An Offer He Can't Refuse
2BB
Enchantment
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield target player (each player?) names a card type. Cards of that type cost 2 less to play. That player can only play cards of that type.
 

Takuan

Member
What's the pack distribution going to be for DGM sealed? I know there's still going to be a guild booster, so of the 5 remaining packs which are going to be DGM, RTR, and GTC?
 

ultron87

Member
What's the pack distribution going to be for DGM sealed? I know there's still going to be a guild booster, so of the 5 remaining packs which are going to be DGM, RTR, and GTC?

For the prerelease it is your chosen guilds guild pack, an allied guild from the other set's guild pack, and then 4 Dragon's Maze boosters. I'm guessing for normal sealed it is just 2/2/2?

Hmm, here's an idea I just had

An Offer He Can't Refuse
2BB
Enchantment
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield target player (each player?) names a card type. Cards of that type cost 2 less to play. That player can only play cards of that type.

You'll need to make that not include lands or it'll be the worst thing ever.
 

JulianImp

Member
Hmm, here's an idea I just had

An Offer He Can't Refuse
2BB
Enchantment
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield target player (each player?) names a card type. Cards of that type cost 2 less to play. That player can only play cards of that type.

Sounds cool, but the name doesn't fit the effect, and locking players into a single type of card could be bad; you would be unable to play lands if you didn't choose it, and you wouldn't be able to play them to actually cast anything else if you did.

"An offer he can't refuse" sounds should be about coercing your opponents to do something out of sheer power (without even having to use it), and would probably work better as an instant or sorcery, but I guess it could fit into an enchantment if you stretch it a bit. I can't think of an effect that'd work there, though.

Here's my take on the original effect:

Tricky Bargain 2BB
Enchantment
When Tricky Bargain enters the battlefield, each player chooses a card type other than land.
Spells of each player's chosen type cost him or her 2 less to cast.
Spells of each player that aren't of chosen type cost him or her 2 more to cast.
 

ultron87

Member
Well the opponent doesn't choose the card type. I think it would be way too strong otherwise.

It can just lead to really crappy situations. I think if you made it so you can only cast it affecting you, it'd be closer to okay. Because there is something there with deciding to get the one thing you really need cheaper while giving up everything else. But forcing that choice on another doesn't feel black or fun to me.

With the way it is currently written I can cast it, target you and then you can never play another land and, in return, you'll get cheap spells of one type, chosen by you. If I was on the play and you missed a land drop that means everything not of that type is a dead card and at most you can cast 4-drops of the type you selected, assuming you can currently produce the color you need for said spell. Just not a fun situation to be in and not something I can see them printing in modern Magic.
 

CommonWriter

UncommonlyGoodListener
"An offer he can't refuse" sounds should be about coercing your opponents to do something out of sheer power (without even having to use it), and would probably work better as an instant or sorcery, but I guess it could fit into an enchantment if you stretch it a bit. I can't think of an effect that'd work there, though.

I'm imagining something where during each player's end step, they may sacrifice a creature. If they don't, the enchantment is sacrificed, and
their life total is halved.
 

JulianImp

Member
Hmm.. now that I think about it, the offer they can't refuse could be:

An Offer They Can't Refuse 2BB
Enchantment
When An Offer They Can't Refuse enters the battlefield, each player chooses a card type other than land.
Spells of your chosen type cost you 2 less to cast.
Spells of each other player's chosen type cost him or her 1 less to cast.

Fitting a restriction to the other spell types would probably make the card way too wordy, though. Perhaps you could add some spice to it with stuff such as "Whenever a player plays a spell, that player loses 1 life.", but I think even that might be too wordy.

EDIT:
I'm imagining something where during each player's end step, they may sacrifice a creature. If they don't, the enchantment is sacrificed, and
their life total is halved.

I think that'd be a bit too assertive. The phrase's power comes not from a blunt offer such as "join me or I kill you", but rather a more subtle kind of duress, sort of like the enchantment owner saying "Here's one for you, nineteen for me. Thanks for your buisness", and the guy being so powerful the other players can't even try and put down their offer.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Wait...does that interact with Brainstorm as hilariously as I think it does?

Yes.

Brainstorm was my first idea, because I had legacy on my mind recently. Then I realized no one is going to play 4 for this, especially since you leave yourself open to counters.
 

JulianImp

Member
Plagerize with a relevant body.... I like it!

That and he's a human, meaning Notion Thief could work very well alongside Cavern of Souls and Snapcaster Mage. Global card draw, such as that offered by Otherwordly Atlas, could also be broken in half by flashing this card at EOT and following it up with an Atlas activation. I like him, even if he's a bit expensive stat-wise.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Yes.

Brainstorm was my first idea, because I had legacy on my mind recently. Then I realized no one is going to play 4 for this, especially since you leave yourself open to counters.

Four mana for five card advantage and a decent body that unplayable in legacy? I guess if counters are a problem
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
No, I mean I think that the problem is that brainstorm costs 1 and this costs 4. You're not going to win a counter war if you want to play this against Brainstorm.

If the threat of this exists, people will be more careful about when to brainstorm, thus diminishing the utility of this card.

4 is a LOT of mana in Legacy, thanks to wasteland.
 

ultron87

Member
I love the reverse combo that someone on MTGS noted. If you have a Consecrated Sphinx and your opponent has this guy you can just make them draw their deck.
 

JulianImp

Member
I love the reverse combo that someone on MTGS noted. If you have a Consecrated Sphinx and your opponent has this guy you can just make them draw their deck.

While that'd work, very few people would walk into that, and they'd have a whole turn and/or counterspells to answer it. It'd be hilarious to see someone to set themselves up, only before remembering the replacement card draw is mandatory.

Would the game lock up if more than one player controlled one of these? I think they'd continously replace each others' draws forever. >_>

Now that I think about it, this card's absolutely sick in commander games. It's like a free Mind's Eye that doesn't trigger off of their draw for the turn, but otherwise costs no mana to use, and can be played on a whim due to flash.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
Would the game lock up if more than one player controlled one of these? I think they'd continously replace each others' draws forever. >_>

Now that I think about it, this card's absolutely sick in commander games. It's like a free Mind's Eye that doesn't trigger off of their draw for the turn, but otherwise costs no mana to use, and can be played on a whim due to flash.

It doesn't replace your initial draw, so both having them out wouldn't be a total deadlock, but it would certainly make control mirrors awkward.
 
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