Sacred Mirror - 0
Legendary Artifact (M) 6: Target player draws a card.
The 6 is negotiable. What do you think?
Pestule - 1
Artifact (U) 1: Put a charge counter on Pestule.
Remove 6 charge counters from Pestule: Pestule deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
The 6 is HIGHLY negotiable.
Baloth Gonads - 1
Artifact (R) T, Sacrifice Baloth Gonads: Each player draws up to 2 cards.
Sacred Mirror: I'm gonna have to agree with OhDaisy!. This one seems pretty awesome and is well costed. Is there any reason for making it a 0 cost artifact (ie for a artifact heavy set?)
Pestule: Didn't like this card at first, but then I imagined actually playing with it. And you know what? I actually like it. You could probably lower the required counters to 4 and put an activation cost of 2 on it, to keep it in check in limited (somewhat stems you amassing massive amounts of counters during stalls and unleashing it all at once. Up to you thought
Baloth Gonads: Don't really have any opinion on this one. Looks like another version of Temple Bell, but more explosive for you earlier.
So should Baloth Gonads cost more? Or should I slap a onto the activation cost?
The reason it taps is partly nostalgia and partly to allow interaction with cards like Root Maze.
I think the rule-of-thumb for cards like these is that spells and abilities should carry a 50% surcharge for off-colors (e.g. Wayfarer's Bauble = Rampant Growth for nongreen decks).
Thus:
Sacred Mirror's activation is costed about right, as blue normally has to plop down four for continuous drawing. I'd change that name though. Sacred sounds too white. Go for something more color-neutral.
On the other hand, six is probably too much for one point of damage. You could probably get with four mana per point.
Pestule: Rod of Ruin was T for artifact ping. Since this is repeatable and it allows you to spend excess mana at end of turn, splitting the cost over multiple turns, I think 5 counters is the sweet spot, or 4 counters with a 1 added to the second ability to minimize the impact of counter-manipulating shenanigans.
Sacred mirror goes infinite draw with infinite mana, this may or may not be considered ok.
Pestule is limited playable, but not sure it would ever see constructed use.
Baloth Gonads has a name that doesn't fit the card, and the draw should not be optional since the card would only see use owling mine or mill strategies. Maybe it should be 1 to drop with a cost of 1 to activate, no reason it should be strictly better than vision skeins.
Pestule is constructed usable in place of Fireball and such in infinite mana combo decks. The moment you have your infinite mana, you win. You can lay it down earlier in the game, you can tutor for it with Trinket Mage, etc. Mono-blue infinite mana has a win condition. Whether or not that's a bad thing I'll leave for someone else to decide. I have a standard legit deck that can generate unlimited mana incidentally, but as I don't have an instant win in mono-blue that would feed off of that unlimited mana I don't tend to use it.
Trinket is parlance for "an artifact with converted mana cost 1 or less." So yes, the activation ability of "the pair" should be the room for playing.
For the Mirror: Would you hate to have it say, "Any player may activate this ability?
If the mirror let any play use it, I think the mana cost would have to come down.
And for what its worth, the mirror is also a trinket mage-able wincon for infinite mana. I would argue a better one since you can use it to dig for combo pieces in a pinch.
It still stands that outside of limited and combo, pestule will not see play, but that isn't a bad thing.
Sacred mirror goes infinite draw with infinite mana, this may or may not be considered ok.
Yeah, I'm okay with it. There are many cards now that are instant wins with infinite mana. Wizards has shown that infinite mana plus one particular card from your deck = win. And since infinite mana takes at least two other cards to generate, I'm definitely in agreement with that.
Pestule is constructed usable in place of Fireball and such in infinite mana combo decks. Mono-blue infinite mana has a win condition.
Blue already has infinite mana win conditions like Stroke of Genius which also have the slight benefit of not being permanents. I don't know of one in Standard, so I guess Pestule could possibly fill a role there.
Sacred Mirror -- Mythic is sort of a strange rarity for this. Normal rare seems like it would be enough. It would probably be used mostly as a 1-of in decks with Trinket Mage though, so mythic is not that big a problem. ... Also a little odd as legendary since it does not scale in multiples, but flavor is a good enough reason for that.
Pestule -- Should the first ability maybe have a restriction like "Activate this ability only during your turn" so that it is not as abusable in control decks? Either way, I like the idea of adjusting the cost of the second ability to "1, Remove five/four charge counters". This would require you to keep enough mana open to activate it multiple times.
Baloth Gonads -- I agree that it should be 1 to cast and 1 to activate so that it can't be used turn 1 and you can't use it freely during your opponent's end step. With that change it could be uncommon.
Alright, after the comments, these are the versions I'm playing around with:
Sacred Mirror - 0
Legendary Artifact (M) 6: Target player draws a card.
OR
Sacred Mirror - 0
Legendary Artifact (M) 5: Target player draws a card. Any player may play this ability.
Pestule - 1
Artifact (U) 1: Put a charge counter on Pestule. 1, Remove 5 charge counters from Pestule: Pestule deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Baloth Gonads - 1
Artifact (U) 1, T, Sacrifice Baloth Gonads: Each player draws up to 2 cards.
I'm happy with BG now, with the extra cost added to the ability, and uncommon. Pestule kinda bothers me (for the reason people mentioned: so good in mono-blue). But I'm happier now with the 1 added to the second ability. Which SM version is best? I kinda like the second because it has very "mirrorry" flavour, and also because you can build your deck to abuse it more than your opponent can.
Gonads needs to be a mandatory draw, not the option "up to two". The card will never see play outside of owling mine type strategies, and the its written makes it very bad for such decks.
The way it is now, its just causes card disadvantage, unless you have some way to negate or punish the opposing player for drawing, in which case they can just opt out so its not even worth running.
Doesn't need to be, but I think it can be, considering I dropped the card's power level by adding to the activation cost.
And I'll go with the mutual mirror version.
Sacred Mirror - 0
Legendary Artifact (M) 5: Target player draws a card. Any player may play this ability.
would make it a lot more relevant, but I wouldn't do that without a lot of testing first..
Baloth Gonads - 1
Artifact (U) 1, T, Sacrifice Baloth Gonads: Each player draws 2 cards.
As for Pestule, I agree it could just target creatures. Unfortunate to do that, but I guess I must. Unless things like Magma Mine are considered (one of dozens of instant win cards when you have infinite mana).
Pestule - 1
Artifact (U) 1: Put a charge counter on Pestule. 1, Remove 4 charge counters from Pestule: Pestule deals 1 damage to target creature.
Sacred Mirror: The ability should cost any player can activate.
Pestule: Casting cost should be and activation of second ability could be :symtap:, Remove 4 counters: 1dmg to any target. Might make a nice common that way.
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Legendary Artifact (M)
6: Target player draws a card.
The 6 is negotiable. What do you think?
Pestule - 1
Artifact (U)
1: Put a charge counter on Pestule.
Remove 6 charge counters from Pestule: Pestule deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
The 6 is HIGHLY negotiable.
Baloth Gonads - 1
Artifact (R)
T, Sacrifice Baloth Gonads: Each player draws up to 2 cards.
Everybody gets a pair (of cards).
Thanks for your comments!
.
Pestule: I think I'd be more inclined to this one if it also cost to activate, for some reason. 5 charge counters is ringing better for me, too.
Baloth Gonads: Obviously it should cost :2mana:, but otherwise I like it a lot. Any reason for the :symtap:?
Pestule: Didn't like this card at first, but then I imagined actually playing with it. And you know what? I actually like it. You could probably lower the required counters to 4 and put an activation cost of 2 on it, to keep it in check in limited (somewhat stems you amassing massive amounts of counters during stalls and unleashing it all at once. Up to you thought
Baloth Gonads: Don't really have any opinion on this one. Looks like another version of Temple Bell, but more explosive for you earlier.
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The reason it taps is partly nostalgia and partly to allow interaction with cards like Root Maze.
.
Thus:
Sacred Mirror's activation is costed about right, as blue normally has to plop down four for continuous drawing. I'd change that name though. Sacred sounds too white. Go for something more color-neutral.
On the other hand, six is probably too much for one point of damage. You could probably get with four mana per point.
Pestule is limited playable, but not sure it would ever see constructed use.
Baloth Gonads has a name that doesn't fit the card, and the draw should not be optional since the card would only see use owling mine or mill strategies. Maybe it should be 1 to drop with a cost of 1 to activate, no reason it should be strictly better than vision skeins.
RGStandard Gruul AggroRG
Trinket is parlance for "an artifact with converted mana cost 1 or less." So yes, the activation ability of "the pair" should be the room for playing.
For the Mirror: Would you hate to have it say, "Any player may activate this ability?
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And for what its worth, the mirror is also a trinket mage-able wincon for infinite mana. I would argue a better one since you can use it to dig for combo pieces in a pinch.
It still stands that outside of limited and combo, pestule will not see play, but that isn't a bad thing.
RGStandard Gruul AggroRG
Yeah, I'm okay with it. There are many cards now that are instant wins with infinite mana. Wizards has shown that infinite mana plus one particular card from your deck = win. And since infinite mana takes at least two other cards to generate, I'm definitely in agreement with that.
Skeins is an instant, whereas you can only play artifacts when you could play a sorcery, so it isn't strictly better at all. Skeins also kinda sucks.
But yeah I'd add a to the activation cost if people think it's too good?
Blue already has infinite mana win conditions like Stroke of Genius which also have the slight benefit of not being permanents. I don't know of one in Standard, so I guess Pestule could possibly fill a role there.
No, I wouldn't mind. I think the cost would be in that case. Anyone else prefer it that way?
.
Pestule -- Should the first ability maybe have a restriction like "Activate this ability only during your turn" so that it is not as abusable in control decks? Either way, I like the idea of adjusting the cost of the second ability to "1, Remove five/four charge counters". This would require you to keep enough mana open to activate it multiple times.
Baloth Gonads -- I agree that it should be 1 to cast and 1 to activate so that it can't be used turn 1 and you can't use it freely during your opponent's end step. With that change it could be uncommon.
Sacred Mirror - 0
Legendary Artifact (M)
6: Target player draws a card.
OR
Sacred Mirror - 0
Legendary Artifact (M)
5: Target player draws a card. Any player may play this ability.
Pestule - 1
Artifact (U)
1: Put a charge counter on Pestule.
1, Remove 5 charge counters from Pestule: Pestule deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Baloth Gonads - 1
Artifact (U)
1, T, Sacrifice Baloth Gonads: Each player draws up to 2 cards.
I'm happy with BG now, with the extra cost added to the ability, and uncommon. Pestule kinda bothers me (for the reason people mentioned: so good in mono-blue). But I'm happier now with the 1 added to the second ability. Which SM version is best? I kinda like the second because it has very "mirrorry" flavour, and also because you can build your deck to abuse it more than your opponent can.
.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
The way it is now, its just causes card disadvantage, unless you have some way to negate or punish the opposing player for drawing, in which case they can just opt out so its not even worth running.
RGStandard Gruul AggroRG
You could change the costs around a little and have it only ping creatures.
Doesn't need to be, but I think it can be, considering I dropped the card's power level by adding to the activation cost.
And I'll go with the mutual mirror version.
Sacred Mirror - 0
Legendary Artifact (M)
5: Target player draws a card. Any player may play this ability.
would make it a lot more relevant, but I wouldn't do that without a lot of testing first..
Baloth Gonads - 1
Artifact (U)
1, T, Sacrifice Baloth Gonads: Each player draws 2 cards.
As for Pestule, I agree it could just target creatures. Unfortunate to do that, but I guess I must. Unless things like Magma Mine are considered (one of dozens of instant win cards when you have infinite mana).
Pestule - 1
Artifact (U)
1: Put a charge counter on Pestule.
1, Remove 4 charge counters from Pestule: Pestule deals 1 damage to target creature.
.
Pestule: Casting cost should be and activation of second ability could be :symtap:, Remove 4 counters: 1dmg to any target. Might make a nice common that way.