@Jadefire Nope, if you take a look at Hateflayer, it can use that untap symbol too. I think it's secondary red because to tap creature, you would have to attack first before you could activate the ability. Red don't have an ability to tap it without properly enchantment, pay cost, etc. It's very rare for red to be able abuse untap as they prefer to cause chaos and rush enemies in their path. For that, they will have to get a support from blue. On other hand, it is almost exactly same as Autumn Cursmonger. The only difference is Hateflayer is rare and damage is based on its power.
@cadstar369 Red, green, and black can use wither, so I don't see why Autumn Cursemonger had to be also black when partially black effect isn't present. You can get away with all only red, but with uncommon, you can have it to be 1/3 rather than 1/2. 2/2 also works, or you may just decrease its rarity down to common. If you take a look at Rustrazor Butcher, you will see where I am getting this from.
If you want to keep black to have it as split color, I would recommend;
"{b/r}, untap: Autumn Cursmonger deals 1 damage to any target. If creature was targeted this way, it also gets -1/-1 until end of turn."
"{b/r}, untap: Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn, Autumn Cursmonger deals 1 damage to that creature."
"{b/r}, untap: Until end of turn, whenever Autumn Cursmonger deals damage to a creature, put that many -1/-1 counters onto it."
@FireOfGolden Not really sure what you're saying nope to. No one is claiming that Azorious is the only colour combination that has access to abilities with an untap cost. Looking at the cards with untap costs that can be cast and activated with a single colour of mana, every colour has at least one of these. However, white has seven cards and blue has eight, while red has three and green and black have one. So the numbers objectively support the statement that the untap symbol is more associated with blue and white.
I don't believe the distribution of untap costed abilities across the different colours has anything to do with how easy it is for each colour to tap its own permanents. Blue and white have the most number of effects that can untap nonland permanents. Therefore, it makes the most sense for these two colours to have the greatest number of permanents that can utilize untapping as a cost for its abilities.
@FireOfGolden questionable content aside (you may be calling it soda, but that's definitely not what it seems like you're portraying with this series of cards), this card is really weak. Two +1/+1 counters with upside at sorcery speed normally costs 2~3 mana (e.g. Earthen Arms, Courage in Crisis, Stealth Mission), and the hefty alternate cost wouldn't impact that (sacrificing three artifacts for such a mediocre effect is incredibly expensive). Indestructible is also not much of an upside at sorcery speed. If you want to keep this at sorcery speed, I'd suggest dropping the cost to {2}{g} and alternate cost to two Soda tokens.
Regarding Autumn Cursemonger, there seems to be a misunderstanding as to what hybrid mana represents. Hybrid mana doesn't mean the card is partially one color and partially another (that's what a cost including both colors separately represents), but rather indicates that the card would make sense as either just one color, just the other, or both. As wither is primary in black and red, it's perfectly reasonable to make a card with wither hybrid black-red so long as the rest of the card makes sense in both colors.
As for your suggestions, all of them are way stronger than Autumn Cursemonger's current form. Note that most creatures that can inflict damage with an activated ability are significantly weaker than normal to compensate (the generic case is a 3-mana 1/1 that taps to deal 1 damage). Autumn Cursemonger is already far stronger than most such creatures because it's a 2-mana 1/2 with wither, so there needs to be some costs to compensate for these three aspects. (Regarding your use of Rustrazor Butcher to contest the cost/stats/rarity, you're not properly accounting for the relative strength of each card's abilities. While both are effectively 2/3's in most combat circumstances, Autumn Cursemonger can be activated before first strike damage, deals more total damage, and can even affect multiple permanents in a turn.) In this case, the untap symbol functions to this effect as it generally forces you to be more aggressive than normal. However, it's easy to grant a creature a tap ability, thus I tacked on a mana cost as well (see Jadefire's previous commentary for why having the untap ability cost only one mana is problematic). In contrast, you're effectively suggesting I not only have Autumn Cursemonger deal 2 damage in a form that is significantly stronger than normal, but also increase its stats, which is ludicrous.
Considering the current power creep the serpent should maybe only cost 2BB.
Btw. one Question, does "Afflict" count for every blocker ? So, if it gets blocked by 2 creatures, will the defending player lose 10 life ? If thats the case, maybe afflict 5 is a bit too much.
I'd like feedback on this card. Its a double sided card, that can transform, but you can choose which side you cast.
@LvB once again, please give something at least resembling meaningful feedback when you post here. (It baffles me how you've managed to deteriorate from last time.)
To answer your question about afflict, if a creature is either blocked or unblocked, why does it matter how many creatures are blocking it? (It doesn't.)
Regarding Shiara // Arisha, I can barely tell what's going on here with that wording, but they appear to be cracked in half (or perhaps I should say fourths).
Quick note: Half is not a valid creature type; half-elf = Human Elf in MtG, just as it generally does in D&D. (example)
What deck wants to play both sides of this card? There's virtually no interplay between Wizards and Shamans (especially not where activated abilities are concerned), and even if there were, the condition for Shiara // Arisha to flip is incredibly unnatural. (You likely won't be looking to flip them when that equates to sacrificing half your board, and in what world does your opponent flip them for you?)
When is "afterwards" supposed to be? Assuming it means "after the activated ability in question resolves", this provides easy access to countless infinites (and even makes many existing ones easier to execute).
Even without the prior assumption, Shiara // Arisha still creates plenty of infinites, and the amount of mana you can cheat for the paltry cost of losing all abilities until your next turn is absurd, as that is hardly a cost at all. Even more powerful than cheating on mana though is the ability to ignore sacrifice/exile/etc. costs.
In short, Shiara // Arisha is nuts in conjunction with virtually any Wizard/Shaman activated ability that's so much as reasonably powerful, and the ceiling is…well, I certainly don't see one.
@cadstar369 I feel like increasing the mana cost to between 6 to 7. Here's why;
It normally would be acceptable that opponent must block this snake to lose 5 life, if they wants to keep a certain creature. However, the ability is triggered once at least a snake dealt combat damage to player. Meaning, player will have to block all of snakes. Otherwise, they will have to sacifice a creature, if one snake wasn't blocked this turn. To make it worsen, they also have afflict 2. It would be greatly beneficial to snake deck which user can use this card to keep the battlefield clean way for them to keeping attack. Did you know that the ability can be triggered more than just one? Usually game contains 4 players, perhaps more. Caster with reasonable amount of snakes can send many snakes toward player with many creatures while single snake to abother player without creatures. If player with many creatures allows these snakes to deal damage to them, that player sacifices at least two. I repeat, two.
However, this out of balance is fixed when snake that dealt combat damage to player must be sacificed to trigger the ability. It is still powerful otherwise.
It would work great with a commander named Hapatra. With properly cards, snakes becomes feared by all. Did I mention they also have deathtouch? It's like "Sacifice your creature just to block snake or I get to choose which your creature's soul shall be sold to snake demon."
You may disagree with me on this, this is merely my opinion. After all, you are a great cardsmith and I always learning from you.
@FireOfGolden thanks for the feedback. Let me clarify one big misunderstanding: When one or more snakes hit someone and trigger Blacksand Serpent's ability, you choose one of that player's creatures to be sacrificed. You can't attack multiple players but target multiple creatures controlled by the same player, you have to pick one creature for each player that got hit. (For example, in a 4 player game, if you attack all three opponents and make contact with all three, you can sacrifice one snake each to make all three sacrifice a creature of your choice, but you can't make one of them sacrifice three creatures.)
That said, what you've touched on is pretty much what I was going for with Blacksand Serpent. It's meant to impose a dilemma between choosing which creature(s) die yourself at the cost of some life loss, or letting some snakes through for less damage, but letting the player with Blacksand Serpent decide if they want to trade a snake for one of your best creatures. In all honesty, I wasn't sure if afflict 2 was too low, since snakes tend to only have 1 power, so Blacksand Serpent doesn't seem particularly scary when you're attacking one player with a bunch of little snakes (and there's also the issue of making sure one of the snakes that gets through is one you're willing to sacrifice, since you can only sacrifice a snake that made contact with the opponent), but perhaps I should leave it where it is. ?
@cadstar369 I must admit that I misread that ability. I missed "player control" and thought can choose any creature you want.
Like I say, with properly cards such as; Hapatra (A new snake with deathtouch is created when a or more -1/-1 counters are put onto a creature.) Seshrio (Snakes gets +2/+2) Sosuke's summon Seed the Land (Landfall for a snake) Parallel Lives (Twice created tokens; supporting Hapatra, Sosuke's summon, and Seed the Land) Hagra Constricter (Gives menace to all creatures with a +1/+1 counter) More research required.
While Blacksand Seprent seems not scary, its controller can find way to make it scarier than it should be. Menace, token Snakes gets +2/+2, Parallel Lives increase the strength the Snakes, forcing opponents find it harder to block while they must sacrifice a creature once harmed by snake.
Hence, afflict 2 isn't too low. The mana cost is a little too low. I would like to increase it to 6.
@cadstar369 Blacksand Serpent seems like a reasonable and balanced card. Snake lords aren't really a thing outside of Blex, Vexing Pest (which isn't even a snake itself), Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro, Sosuke, Son of Seshiro, and Seshiro, the Anointed. Also, there aren't many efficient ways to flood the board with snakes aside from Patagia Viper, Snake Basket, Sosuke's Summons, and Xyris, the Writhing Storm.
As a standalone card, Blacksand Serpent reminds me of a Blind Zealot, except the Zealot's flat out evasion is replaced with disincentivization for blocking. Trying to get rid of it through blocking is fairly undesirable as it'll likely result in the loss of one to two creatures in addition to five life. However, the tribal bonuses are where things get more interesting. I appreciate how the blocked and unblocked triggers seem to have been deliberately chosen to create lose-lose situations under specific circumstances.
Given that snakes tend to have smaller bodies, running them into your opponent's creatures generally means you'll be throwing them away. Blacksand Serpent gives you the freedom to attack freely to hit your opponent's life total one way or another. With snakes that can repeatedly survive combat like Mire Boa and River Boa, this guarantees life loss every turn. Snakes that have deathtouch also present a special challenge with Blacksand Serpent. In this case, the choice is between paying two life to kill a specific attacking snake and the creature you control of your choice or potentially losing less life but having no say over which of your creatures trades with which of their unblocked snakes.
I like the quirkiness of choosing a creature for your opponent to sacrifice instead of straight killing or exiling it. I assume this is meant to interact with sacrifice triggers, since the act of choosing a creature could've been worded so as to get around untargetability, but it isn't being used this way. I can see playing this in Sultai snakes for the Patagia Viper, Ice-Fang Coatl, Sosuke's Summons, and regenerating snakes. Blue also opens up access to three mana ways to copy the Blacksand Serpent to really make combat ugly for your opponent.
Feedback on that please. See the latest Spambot post about book writing and you know where I got the inspiration. ---- @cadstar369 Blacksand Serpent seems a little too powerful. Might need to cost more or be mythic rare.
@FireOfGolden Thick-Paper Snail is too weak. It has no attack value and barely any defense value. The protection abilities make it just reach the bar for a common.
Though seeing Varchild's tokens, Kulrath Knight, the largely red Goad mechanic, colorless cards doing it and the Vow cycle, doesn't seem to be restricted to it. Thus isn't it within Red's color identity to stop certain creatures from attacking certain players - namely itself?
On theme, the counter is only placed when one of your Warriors attacks a player that has at least a creature, but doesn't block. Hence my twist on Coward/the Intimidator cards.
Now that I think about it, the Goad mechanic could work here too actually.
@Yururu it is not the case that preventing attacks fits within red's color identity (note how the idea of preventing attacks doesn't align with red's aggressive themes). To take a brief look at the cards you brought up:
Varchild is designed for multiplayer, and would be rather useless if she didn't stop the Survivors from attacking you. (Why bother attacking when you'll get hit right back for just as much damage?)
Kulrath Knight is a solid outlier born more from the block it was printed in than adherence to the color pie. Even with the color pie in a different place back then, it's a pretty strange card.
Goad does not prevent attacks, but rather forces attacks with some preference on who gets attacked. It doesn't keep you from getting attacked if there are no other players available or if other players have a cost to attack, for example.
Giving every deck access to a particular effect through a generic/colorless card does not imply each color gets access to that effect in its own cards.
Cylces across all colors like the Vow cycle, especially cycles made for multiplayer formats like commander, are not indicative of whether or not a particular color would normally get that sort of ability.
As for Karplusan Intimidator, why does it stop Cowards from attacking, when all existing effects involving Cowards prevent them from blocking? As for your comment, while it might be more in line with red's tendencies to have Karplusan Intimidator goad all Cowards, it would make more sense for it to prevent blocking like the other Intimidators.
The power level of this card is also insane. It comes down early, is virtually impossible to block, inflicts permanent cowardice, can do so to multiple creatures for no cost, and doesn't even need to attack to trigger. (More broadly, note that there is no existing 3/X first strike with pure upside like this for less than 3 mana, and approximately half of such 3-drops are legendary.)
If you want to maintain both the mana cost and the coward counters, I'd suggest both removing first strike and limiting the infliction of cowardice to a single creature for each player. Even then, Karplusan Intimidator would be very strong even with minimal support.
@Yururu The attack prevention of Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor (like Rite of the Raging Storm), applies very narrowly to its own tokens and is a mechanic on a commander card, which, as has been pointed out, doesn't always adhere strictly to colour pie limitations. In this case, attack prevention is used to gain an advantage against an effect that otherwise benefits your opponents. So I wouldn't lean strongly on cards like these as an argument for attack prevention in red.
Actually, the best argument for attack prevention in red is Form of the Dragon, whch is basically a Moat with built-in wincon. This card is an example of top-down design where the flavour of becoming a firebreathing, flying, 5-toughness creature is given precenence over other considerations. To appreciate how much of a colour pie break Form of the Dragon is, consider that this monored card can give you free, turn-after-turn lifegain under the right conditions.
Although Kulrath Knight also presents a reasonable case for attack prevention in red, it's a one-off card that's desigend to be played in a set focused on -1/-1 counters. If the sheer rarity of effects like this in red isn't enough to communicate that this shouldn't be happening, except in the most special of cases, the fact of the complete reversal of the Coward-Warrior interaction compared to how it's done in the rest of Magic should say something as well. It's a creative take to try to flip things around and it does make sense that Cowards would want to avoid Warriors in any circumstance, but it goes against too many established rules in trying to blaze a new trail. I'll second the rest of what's been said about how overpowered Karplusan Intimidator is. Even the relatively "vanilla" Porcelain Legionnaire has the downside of costing you two life when you choose to cast it for 2 mana, as well as vulnerability to artifact removal. Karplusan Intimidator lacks those downsides and has multiple significant advantages.
@cadstar369 We need more cards like Skull Skaab to make Exploit a more playable mechanic, so I appreciated that you worded Silumgar Reaper to trigger off of any other creature's Exploit. The colour, art, rarity, creature types, and flavour of the Reaper are all on point. It's tough to balance an Exploit creature that has the potential to trigger more than once because you have to both make the effect not too strong to get in multiples but also not too weak if the creature has to exploit itself. For a rare, I think 3UB to give a creature -6/-6 until the end of turn at sorcery speed is OK, not spectacular. But the reusability of the effect and the versatility of being able to just play the Reaper as a 2/6 Deathtouch creature need to be taken into account. Giving -X/-X as the effect is very on theme for black compared to doing damage, but it would've been nice if exploiting the Reaper itself could guarantee you a kill considering what it costs and how desperate you'd need to be to not keep it around. At least it's not as useless as having Henry Wu, InGen Geneticist exploit itself. Looking at the sacrificed creature's toughness is a nice point of differentiation from other cards compared to looking at its power or mana value, which keeps token creatures as relevant sacrifice fodder.
The Silumgar Reaper by itself is good. The only problem i see is, that "exploit" is a really bad mechanic and that there are not many cards with exploit. I searched on scryfall.com for cards with exploit and theres only 22 of them and most of them are bad or really weak. So building an exploit deck with Silumgar Reaper that makes use of his ability will not be easy, or almost impossible. But maybe in the future if better cards with exploit are released that could change.
First of all, @LvB, is opponent, not enemy. Instead of using ”take” you could use exile. And those are the wording issues. I am going to bed, so I can’t say so much just now.
@LvB ; That's tricky one to correct your wording issue.
A wording would be fitting for this;
"Whenever an opponent searches his or her library for a card. Put that card into the pile then that opponent shuffles the library. He or she puts five bottom of library into pile then he or she chooses one of them at random. Shuffle rest into his or her library."
Or
"Whenever an opponent puts a card into their hand from library rather than drawing, that opponent puts that card into pile then they puts five bottom of their library into that pile. They puts one of them into their hand at random then shuffle pile into their library."
"Whenever an opponent searches their library for a single card, exile it face down in a pile with the bottom four cards of their library. Then that player puts those cards back on top of their library in a random order."
Think that's correct, but I'm not sure that I like this version of punishing searching. Even just making them put card beneath the top card would be very punishing and simpler.
"Whenever an opponent searches their library for a single card, put it just beneath the top card of that library."
-or-
"Whenever and opponent searches their library for one or more cards, put those cards just beneath the top card of that library in a random order."
@Faiths_Guide Wouldn't that card on top of library would be just shuffled into the library when a sorcery, ability, or instant resolves? It's like countering player from searching for a basic land.
Actually, now that I think about it. @cadstar369, you can objection me on this, if there are rules interacts with these. Otherwise;
@LvB While your card may have a wording issue; it's VERY powerful creature that could be banned within few seconds. The reason? It COUNTERS any action that searches for a card.
Usually spells and abilities allows player to search library for a card, put it into their hand then shuffle the library as it resolves. When that card comes along, say player searches for a basic land, once they chooses basic land, Diabolic Prankster forces that player to put that card and other four cards onto top of library in random other. Then the spell/ability resolves... That player then shuffles the library.
@Faiths_Guide So, to avoid this misfortune, the wording would go this way;
"Whenever an opponent searches for a card, they exile it and other four their bottom library in pile. That opponent puts one of them into their hand at random then shuffle rest into library."
Or
"Whenever an opponent puts a card from their library to their hand, if that opponent didn't draw this turn, that opponent exiles it and their four bottom library into pile face-down. They put that pile onto their library in random order then draw a card."
@FireOfGolden you're correct as far as I can tell. The only existing card I can find with an even remotely similar effect to Diabolic Pranksters is Opposition Agent. Considering that, cards like these, prior comments, as well as taking a stab at the card's intent (based on flavor text and such), the effect of Diabolic Pranksters could perhaps look something like this:
Whenever an opponent searches their library for a single card, they reveal it, exile that card and the bottom four cards of their library in a face-down pile, shuffle that pile, then choose a card from that pile and put the rest on top of their library. The chosen card becomes the card they searched for.
Even then, Diabolic Pranksters doesn't seem particularly useful. It's 3 colors, doesn't have flash (and thus doesn't guarantee hosing at least one search), only messes with single-card searches, and isn't even a particularly strong deterrent because your opponent still always gets something when they search (which might even be better than the initial card!) and the card they find is only at most four cards deep if they get something else.
Opposition Agent is the correct card to reference when trying to find the optimal wording for Diabolic Pranksters. If the original card, as worded, is actually how it should function (i.e., the tutored card doesn't go to hand or the battlefield, but is randomized with four other cards and put on top of its owner's library instead), I'd word it as follows:
While an opponent is searching their library, they reveal each card they find and exile it face down. Then that player shuffles, exiles the top four cards of their library face down, and puts all cards exiled this way on top of their library in a random order.
Despite not having flash, Diabolic Pranksters can be quite devastating when accelerated out on turn two because it prevents fetch lands from tutoring lands onto the battlefield. Worst case scenario, the player loses their land drop for the turn and doesn't get the land they want (or perhaps any other land, depending on RNG) for another five turns. Perhaps this effect would be more reasonable if only two other cards were included in the randomization, since you're already preventing your opponent from putting the tutored card into the zone they want.
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Nope, if you take a look at Hateflayer, it can use that untap symbol too. I think it's secondary red because to tap creature, you would have to attack first before you could activate the ability. Red don't have an ability to tap it without properly enchantment, pay cost, etc. It's very rare for red to be able abuse untap as they prefer to cause chaos and rush enemies in their path. For that, they will have to get a support from blue. On other hand, it is almost exactly same as Autumn Cursmonger. The only difference is Hateflayer is rare and damage is based on its power.
@cadstar369
Red, green, and black can use wither, so I don't see why Autumn Cursemonger had to be also black when partially black effect isn't present. You can get away with all only red, but with uncommon, you can have it to be 1/3 rather than 1/2. 2/2 also works, or you may just decrease its rarity down to common. If you take a look at Rustrazor Butcher, you will see where I am getting this from.
If you want to keep black to have it as split color, I would recommend;
"{b/r}, untap: Autumn Cursmonger deals 1 damage to any target. If creature was targeted this way, it also gets -1/-1 until end of turn."
"{b/r}, untap: Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn, Autumn Cursmonger deals 1 damage to that creature."
"{b/r}, untap: Until end of turn, whenever Autumn Cursmonger deals damage to a creature, put that many -1/-1 counters onto it."
Otherwise, great card!
I would like a feedback on this card
I don't believe the distribution of untap costed abilities across the different colours has anything to do with how easy it is for each colour to tap its own permanents. Blue and white have the most number of effects that can untap nonland permanents. Therefore, it makes the most sense for these two colours to have the greatest number of permanents that can utilize untapping as a cost for its abilities.
Regarding Autumn Cursemonger, there seems to be a misunderstanding as to what hybrid mana represents. Hybrid mana doesn't mean the card is partially one color and partially another (that's what a cost including both colors separately represents), but rather indicates that the card would make sense as either just one color, just the other, or both. As wither is primary in black and red, it's perfectly reasonable to make a card with wither hybrid black-red so long as the rest of the card makes sense in both colors.
As for your suggestions, all of them are way stronger than Autumn Cursemonger's current form. Note that most creatures that can inflict damage with an activated ability are significantly weaker than normal to compensate (the generic case is a 3-mana 1/1 that taps to deal 1 damage). Autumn Cursemonger is already far stronger than most such creatures because it's a 2-mana 1/2 with wither, so there needs to be some costs to compensate for these three aspects. (Regarding your use of Rustrazor Butcher to contest the cost/stats/rarity, you're not properly accounting for the relative strength of each card's abilities. While both are effectively 2/3's in most combat circumstances, Autumn Cursemonger can be activated before first strike damage, deals more total damage, and can even affect multiple permanents in a turn.) In this case, the untap symbol functions to this effect as it generally forces you to be more aggressive than normal. However, it's easy to grant a creature a tap ability, thus I tacked on a mana cost as well (see Jadefire's previous commentary for why having the untap ability cost only one mana is problematic). In contrast, you're effectively suggesting I not only have Autumn Cursemonger deal 2 damage in a form that is significantly stronger than normal, but also increase its stats, which is ludicrous.
~~~
I'd appreciate feedback on this card:
To answer your question about afflict, if a creature is either blocked or unblocked, why does it matter how many creatures are blocking it? (It doesn't.)
Regarding Shiara // Arisha, I can barely tell what's going on here with that wording, but they appear to be cracked in half (or perhaps I should say fourths).
- Quick note: Half is not a valid creature type; half-elf = Human Elf in MtG, just as it generally does in D&D. (example)
- What deck wants to play both sides of this card? There's virtually no interplay between Wizards and Shamans (especially not where activated abilities are concerned), and even if there were, the condition for Shiara // Arisha to flip is incredibly unnatural. (You likely won't be looking to flip them when that equates to sacrificing half your board, and in what world does your opponent flip them for you?)
- When is "afterwards" supposed to be? Assuming it means "after the activated ability in question resolves", this provides easy access to countless infinites (and even makes many existing ones easier to execute).
- Even without the prior assumption, Shiara // Arisha still creates plenty of infinites, and the amount of mana you can cheat for the paltry cost of losing all abilities until your next turn is absurd, as that is hardly a cost at all. Even more powerful than cheating on mana though is the ability to ignore sacrifice/exile/etc. costs.
In short, Shiara // Arisha is nuts in conjunction with virtually any Wizard/Shaman activated ability that's so much as reasonably powerful, and the ceiling is…well, I certainly don't see one.~~~
I'd appreciate feedback on this card:
I feel like increasing the mana cost to between 6 to 7. Here's why;
It normally would be acceptable that opponent must block this snake to lose 5 life, if they wants to keep a certain creature. However, the ability is triggered once at least a snake dealt combat damage to player. Meaning, player will have to block all of snakes. Otherwise, they will have to sacifice a creature, if one snake wasn't blocked this turn. To make it worsen, they also have afflict 2. It would be greatly beneficial to snake deck which user can use this card to keep the battlefield clean way for them to keeping attack. Did you know that the ability can be triggered more than just one? Usually game contains 4 players, perhaps more. Caster with reasonable amount of snakes can send many snakes toward player with many creatures while single snake to abother player without creatures. If player with many creatures allows these snakes to deal damage to them, that player sacifices at least two. I repeat, two.
However, this out of balance is fixed when snake that dealt combat damage to player must be sacificed to trigger the ability. It is still powerful otherwise.
It would work great with a commander named Hapatra. With properly cards, snakes becomes feared by all. Did I mention they also have deathtouch? It's like "Sacifice your creature just to block snake or I get to choose which your creature's soul shall be sold to snake demon."
You may disagree with me on this, this is merely my opinion. After all, you are a great cardsmith and I always learning from you.
@LvB
Hail to figure snails.
That said, what you've touched on is pretty much what I was going for with Blacksand Serpent. It's meant to impose a dilemma between choosing which creature(s) die yourself at the cost of some life loss, or letting some snakes through for less damage, but letting the player with Blacksand Serpent decide if they want to trade a snake for one of your best creatures. In all honesty, I wasn't sure if afflict 2 was too low, since snakes tend to only have 1 power, so Blacksand Serpent doesn't seem particularly scary when you're attacking one player with a bunch of little snakes (and there's also the issue of making sure one of the snakes that gets through is one you're willing to sacrifice, since you can only sacrifice a snake that made contact with the opponent), but perhaps I should leave it where it is. ?
I must admit that I misread that ability. I missed "player control" and thought can choose any creature you want.
Like I say, with properly cards such as;
Hapatra (A new snake with deathtouch is created when a or more -1/-1 counters are put onto a creature.)
Seshrio (Snakes gets +2/+2)
Sosuke's summon
Seed the Land (Landfall for a snake)
Parallel Lives (Twice created tokens; supporting Hapatra, Sosuke's summon, and Seed the Land)
Hagra Constricter (Gives menace to all creatures with a +1/+1 counter)
More research required.
While Blacksand Seprent seems not scary, its controller can find way to make it scarier than it should be. Menace, token Snakes gets +2/+2, Parallel Lives increase the strength the Snakes, forcing opponents find it harder to block while they must sacrifice a creature once harmed by snake.
Hence, afflict 2 isn't too low. The mana cost is a little too low. I would like to increase it to 6.
As a standalone card, Blacksand Serpent reminds me of a Blind Zealot, except the Zealot's flat out evasion is replaced with disincentivization for blocking. Trying to get rid of it through blocking is fairly undesirable as it'll likely result in the loss of one to two creatures in addition to five life. However, the tribal bonuses are where things get more interesting. I appreciate how the blocked and unblocked triggers seem to have been deliberately chosen to create lose-lose situations under specific circumstances.
Given that snakes tend to have smaller bodies, running them into your opponent's creatures generally means you'll be throwing them away. Blacksand Serpent gives you the freedom to attack freely to hit your opponent's life total one way or another. With snakes that can repeatedly survive combat like Mire Boa and River Boa, this guarantees life loss every turn. Snakes that have deathtouch also present a special challenge with Blacksand Serpent. In this case, the choice is between paying two life to kill a specific attacking snake and the creature you control of your choice or potentially losing less life but having no say over which of your creatures trades with which of their unblocked snakes.
I like the quirkiness of choosing a creature for your opponent to sacrifice instead of straight killing or exiling it. I assume this is meant to interact with sacrifice triggers, since the act of choosing a creature could've been worded so as to get around untargetability, but it isn't being used this way. I can see playing this in Sultai snakes for the Patagia Viper, Ice-Fang Coatl, Sosuke's Summons, and regenerating snakes. Blue also opens up access to three mana ways to copy the Blacksand Serpent to really make combat ugly for your opponent.
Feedback on that please.
See the latest Spambot post about book writing and you know where I got the inspiration.
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@cadstar369
Blacksand Serpent seems a little too powerful. Might need to cost more or be mythic rare.
Thick-Paper Snail is too weak. It has no attack value and barely any defense value. The protection abilities make it just reach the bar for a common.
... For just one mana? It's also an uncommon...
It's too weak for an uncommon.
- Varchild is designed for multiplayer, and would be rather useless if she didn't stop the Survivors from attacking you. (Why bother attacking when you'll get hit right back for just as much damage?)
- Kulrath Knight is a solid outlier born more from the block it was printed in than adherence to the color pie. Even with the color pie in a different place back then, it's a pretty strange card.
- Goad does not prevent attacks, but rather forces attacks with some preference on who gets attacked. It doesn't keep you from getting attacked if there are no other players available or if other players have a cost to attack, for example.
- Giving every deck access to a particular effect through a generic/colorless card does not imply each color gets access to that effect in its own cards.
- Cylces across all colors like the Vow cycle, especially cycles made for multiplayer formats like commander, are not indicative of whether or not a particular color would normally get that sort of ability.
As for Karplusan Intimidator, why does it stop Cowards from attacking, when all existing effects involving Cowards prevent them from blocking? As for your comment, while it might be more in line with red's tendencies to have Karplusan Intimidator goad all Cowards, it would make more sense for it to prevent blocking like the other Intimidators.The power level of this card is also insane. It comes down early, is virtually impossible to block, inflicts permanent cowardice, can do so to multiple creatures for no cost, and doesn't even need to attack to trigger. (More broadly, note that there is no existing 3/X first strike with pure upside like this for less than 3 mana, and approximately half of such 3-drops are legendary.)
If you want to maintain both the mana cost and the coward counters, I'd suggest both removing first strike and limiting the infliction of cowardice to a single creature for each player. Even then, Karplusan Intimidator would be very strong even with minimal support.
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I'd appreciate feedback on this card:
Actually, the best argument for attack prevention in red is Form of the Dragon, whch is basically a Moat with built-in wincon. This card is an example of top-down design where the flavour of becoming a firebreathing, flying, 5-toughness creature is given precenence over other considerations. To appreciate how much of a colour pie break Form of the Dragon is, consider that this monored card can give you free, turn-after-turn lifegain under the right conditions.
Although Kulrath Knight also presents a reasonable case for attack prevention in red, it's a one-off card that's desigend to be played in a set focused on -1/-1 counters. If the sheer rarity of effects like this in red isn't enough to communicate that this shouldn't be happening, except in the most special of cases, the fact of the complete reversal of the Coward-Warrior interaction compared to how it's done in the rest of Magic should say something as well. It's a creative take to try to flip things around and it does make sense that Cowards would want to avoid Warriors in any circumstance, but it goes against too many established rules in trying to blaze a new trail. I'll second the rest of what's been said about how overpowered Karplusan Intimidator is. Even the relatively "vanilla" Porcelain Legionnaire has the downside of costing you two life when you choose to cast it for 2 mana, as well as vulnerability to artifact removal. Karplusan Intimidator lacks those downsides and has multiple significant advantages.
@cadstar369 We need more cards like Skull Skaab to make Exploit a more playable mechanic, so I appreciated that you worded Silumgar Reaper to trigger off of any other creature's Exploit. The colour, art, rarity, creature types, and flavour of the Reaper are all on point. It's tough to balance an Exploit creature that has the potential to trigger more than once because you have to both make the effect not too strong to get in multiples but also not too weak if the creature has to exploit itself. For a rare, I think 3UB to give a creature -6/-6 until the end of turn at sorcery speed is OK, not spectacular. But the reusability of the effect and the versatility of being able to just play the Reaper as a 2/6 Deathtouch creature need to be taken into account. Giving -X/-X as the effect is very on theme for black compared to doing damage, but it would've been nice if exploiting the Reaper itself could guarantee you a kill considering what it costs and how desperate you'd need to be to not keep it around. At least it's not as useless as having Henry Wu, InGen Geneticist exploit itself. Looking at the sacrificed creature's toughness is a nice point of differentiation from other cards compared to looking at its power or mana value, which keeps token creatures as relevant sacrifice fodder.
That's tricky one to correct your wording issue.
A wording would be fitting for this;
"Whenever an opponent searches his or her library for a card. Put that card into the pile then that opponent shuffles the library. He or she puts five bottom of library into pile then he or she chooses one of them at random. Shuffle rest into his or her library."
Or
"Whenever an opponent puts a card into their hand from library rather than drawing, that opponent puts that card into pile then they puts five bottom of their library into that pile. They puts one of them into their hand at random then shuffle pile into their library."
That's all best I can think of.
Think that's correct, but I'm not sure that I like this version of punishing searching. Even just making them put card beneath the top card would be very punishing and simpler.
"Whenever an opponent searches their library for a single card, put it just beneath the top card of that library."
-or-
"Whenever and opponent searches their library for one or more cards, put those cards just beneath the top card of that library in a random order."
Wouldn't that card on top of library would be just shuffled into the library when a sorcery, ability, or instant resolves? It's like countering player from searching for a basic land.
@cadstar369, you can objection me on this, if there are rules interacts with these. Otherwise;
@LvB
While your card may have a wording issue; it's VERY powerful creature that could be banned within few seconds. The reason? It COUNTERS any action that searches for a card.
Usually spells and abilities allows player to search library for a card, put it into their hand then shuffle the library as it resolves. When that card comes along, say player searches for a basic land, once they chooses basic land, Diabolic Prankster forces that player to put that card and other four cards onto top of library in random other. Then the spell/ability resolves... That player then shuffles the library.
@Faiths_Guide
So, to avoid this misfortune, the wording would go this way;
"Whenever an opponent searches for a card, they exile it and other four their bottom library in pile. That opponent puts one of them into their hand at random then shuffle rest into library."
Or
"Whenever an opponent puts a card from their library to their hand, if that opponent didn't draw this turn, that opponent exiles it and their four bottom library into pile face-down. They put that pile onto their library in random order then draw a card."
While an opponent is searching their library, they reveal each card they find and exile it face down. Then that player shuffles, exiles the top four cards of their library face down, and puts all cards exiled this way on top of their library in a random order.
Despite not having flash, Diabolic Pranksters can be quite devastating when accelerated out on turn two because it prevents fetch lands from tutoring lands onto the battlefield. Worst case scenario, the player loses their land drop for the turn and doesn't get the land they want (or perhaps any other land, depending on RNG) for another five turns. Perhaps this effect would be more reasonable if only two other cards were included in the randomization, since you're already preventing your opponent from putting the tutored card into the zone they want.
After making this card I kind of think it should be black or red (I don't have premium so I cant edit after publishing). What do you guys think?