A lot of the flavor of Cipher was supposed to be the delivering of messages and secrets and I felt that it wasn't conveyed too well. That mixed with the overall low power level of the cards left some people wanting more.
LootingU
Sorcery [C]
Draw a card, then discard a card.
Cipher
Perfect Information1U
Sorcery [U]
Look at the top card of each player’s library. You may put any number of those cards into its owner's graveyard.
Cipher
Preempt1UU
Instant [U]
Choose one — Counter target spell; or counter the next spell cast this turn.
Cipher
Repeat Message1UU
Instant [R]
When you cast your next instant or sorcery spell this turn, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Cipher
Contract Disease2BB
Sorcery [U]
Creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn.
Cipher
Hexing Words1BB
Sorcery [U]
Remove all counters from target permanent.
Cipher
Notice of Termination1B
Sorcery [C]
Each player sacrifices a creature.
Cipher Don't kill the messenger.
ExtractionUB
Sorcery [U]
Search target player’s library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Cipher
Insider Trading2UB
Sorcery [R]
Search target player’s library for a card, then that player shuffles his or her library and puts that card on top.
Cipher
Cost of Success3UUBB
Sorcery [M]
As an additional cost to cast Cost of Success, sacrifice a creature.
Take an extra turn after this one.
Cipher
Private Mod Note
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Oh, what's that you say, Karn? You remove poison counters? You should tell that to Mr. Rosewater.
Oh man... All these are looking borderline broken... I like
The ones that involve sacrificing seem okay, you'd have to avoid spamming it as you'll end up having to sac the cipher target himself. Still, the Looting one doesn't seem in flavor for U/B and most of these cards seem extremely powerful. Hexing Words and Perfect Information seem like the best. Cipher to me is all about small incremental advantages that kill your opponent out of nowhere, rather than a big flashy effect you can keep doing and doing.
As far as dragons are concerned, doesn't Niv Mizzet semi-regularly make idiotic clone dragons so the people of Ravnica can see how amazing he is in comparison?
Perfect Information1U
Sorcery [U]
Look at the top card of each player’s library. You may put any number of those cards into its owner's graveyard.
Cipher
When looking into Dimir style mechanics myself I played around with sort of idea but it proved troublesome. Early repeatable fate sealing can be annoying. Imagine an opponent just missed their third land drop. You could use this to restrict him or her drawing lands for the rest of the game making their lives miserable.
Preempt1UU
Instant [U]
Choose one — Counter target spell; or counter the next spell cast this turn.
Cipher
Shouldn't be strictly better than cancel. Look again at Mental Vapors and Last thoughts for costing. The post cipher effect is still really strong as it can prevent your opponent countering spells you cast during your second main phase.
Repeat Message1UU
Instant [R]
When you cast your next instant or sorcery spell this turn, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Cipher
Again underpriced and Ciphers shouldn't be instants.
ExtractionUB
Sorcery [U]
Search target player’s library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Cipher
Slowly lobotomising someone feels annoying and quite time consuming considering I have to search and shuffle each time to remove a single card. In limited this effect would probably be OP (you're essentially removing most bombs with only a few hits).
Insider Trading2UB
Sorcery [R]
Search target player’s library for a card, then that player shuffles his or her library and puts that card on top.
Cipher
Again a bit too time consuming to be doing this turn after turn and could be too strong at it's current cost.
LootingU
Sorcery [C]
Draw a card, then discard a card.
Cipher
An adequate base line. I think this is what many people expected to see as the spell with cipher at converted mana cost 1. It should be noted that cipher is cost in such a way that it seems the effect is expected to happen about two-three times; this would be once for casting and one-two times more by attacking.
By that standard this is a little over the curve.
Perfect Information1U
Sorcery [U]
Look at the top card of each player’s library. You may put any number of those cards into its owner's graveyard.
Cipher
This is deceptively powerful.
Preempt1UU
Instant [U]
Choose one — Counter target spell; or counter the next spell cast this turn.
Cipher
I always like countering my own spells! Just avoid this one.
I also am quite certain this one would be misplayed a lot.
Repeat Message1UU
Instant [R]
When you cast your next instant or sorcery spell this turn, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Cipher
This one is a little cheap, but otherwise nice. Actually if it had the exact text of Twincast it still would be a nice twist with other cipher spells and fit the cost potentially better - I'd like it more than Trait Doctoring.
Contract Disease2BB
Sorcery [U]
Creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn.
Cipher
This one sells itself through its pun.
Hexing Words1BB
Sorcery [U]
Remove all counters from target permanent.
Cipher
In the block not too useless. Wouldn't we get "nonland" these days?
Notice of Termination1B
Sorcery [C]
Each player sacrifices a creature.
Cipher Don't kill the messenger.
Cheap black cipher spells were missing from the block. This is far weaker than comparable spells of the past since you cannot combine it well with an empty board.
This is counterbalanced by your aggressive cost though.
ExtractionUB
Sorcery [U]
Search target player’s library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Cipher
Damn is that card annoying to play with/against. I like the idea, but the repeatability is nothing you want with that effect.
Insider Trading2UB
Sorcery [R]
Search target player’s library for a card, then that player shuffles his or her library and puts that card on top.
Cipher
Interesting choices.
Cost of Success3UUBB
Sorcery [M]
As an additional cost to cast Cost of Success, sacrifice a creature.
Take an extra turn after this one.
Cipher
Tacking on the additional cost to make an effect that otherwise would not fit to the mechanic possible is not the crowning moment of design.
I'd skip this one - it doesn't look attractive enough to be a choice mythic rare anyway.
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I see the "message" flavor didn't make it all the way through with your cards either.
Private Mod Note
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Looting U
Sorcery [C]
Draw a card, then discard a card.
Cipher
Perfect Information 1U
Sorcery [U]
Look at the top card of each player’s library. You may put any number of those cards into its owner's graveyard.
Cipher
Preempt 1UU
Instant [U]
Choose one — Counter target spell; or counter the next spell cast this turn.
Cipher
Repeat Message 1UU
Instant [R]
When you cast your next instant or sorcery spell this turn, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy.
Cipher
Contract Disease 2BB
Sorcery [U]
Creatures get -1/-1 until end of turn.
Cipher
Hexing Words 1BB
Sorcery [U]
Remove all counters from target permanent.
Cipher
Notice of Termination 1B
Sorcery [C]
Each player sacrifices a creature.
Cipher
Don't kill the messenger.
Extraction UB
Sorcery [U]
Search target player’s library for a card and exile it. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Cipher
Insider Trading 2UB
Sorcery [R]
Search target player’s library for a card, then that player shuffles his or her library and puts that card on top.
Cipher
Cost of Success 3UUBB
Sorcery [M]
As an additional cost to cast Cost of Success, sacrifice a creature.
Take an extra turn after this one.
Cipher
The ones that involve sacrificing seem okay, you'd have to avoid spamming it as you'll end up having to sac the cipher target himself. Still, the Looting one doesn't seem in flavor for U/B and most of these cards seem extremely powerful. Hexing Words and Perfect Information seem like the best. Cipher to me is all about small incremental advantages that kill your opponent out of nowhere, rather than a big flashy effect you can keep doing and doing.
Simple idea but I reckon this should be 2 mana when compared to other Ciphers.
When looking into Dimir style mechanics myself I played around with sort of idea but it proved troublesome. Early repeatable fate sealing can be annoying. Imagine an opponent just missed their third land drop. You could use this to restrict him or her drawing lands for the rest of the game making their lives miserable.
Shouldn't be strictly better than cancel. Look again at Mental Vapors and Last thoughts for costing. The post cipher effect is still really strong as it can prevent your opponent countering spells you cast during your second main phase.
Again underpriced and Ciphers shouldn't be instants.
I can buy into this one, mainly because it can't be abused by Invisible Stalker. Terrible in the same deck as Call of the Nightwing though.
I think these work quite nicely, universal effects which don't always want to be triggered is what Cipher needed more of to keep the costs down.
Slowly lobotomising someone feels annoying and quite time consuming considering I have to search and shuffle each time to remove a single card. In limited this effect would probably be OP (you're essentially removing most bombs with only a few hits).
Again a bit too time consuming to be doing this turn after turn and could be too strong at it's current cost.
This + any repeatable token producer is just take all the turns until the end of game. Too easy to break and thus not printable.
An adequate base line. I think this is what many people expected to see as the spell with cipher at converted mana cost 1. It should be noted that cipher is cost in such a way that it seems the effect is expected to happen about two-three times; this would be once for casting and one-two times more by attacking.
By that standard this is a little over the curve.
This is deceptively powerful.
I always like countering my own spells! Just avoid this one.
I also am quite certain this one would be misplayed a lot.
This one is a little cheap, but otherwise nice. Actually if it had the exact text of Twincast it still would be a nice twist with other cipher spells and fit the cost potentially better - I'd like it more than Trait Doctoring.
This one sells itself through its pun.
In the block not too useless. Wouldn't we get "nonland" these days?
Cheap black cipher spells were missing from the block. This is far weaker than comparable spells of the past since you cannot combine it well with an empty board.
This is counterbalanced by your aggressive cost though.
Damn is that card annoying to play with/against. I like the idea, but the repeatability is nothing you want with that effect.
Interesting choices.
Tacking on the additional cost to make an effect that otherwise would not fit to the mechanic possible is not the crowning moment of design.
I'd skip this one - it doesn't look attractive enough to be a choice mythic rare anyway.
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I see the "message" flavor didn't make it all the way through with your cards either.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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