"Hello! I've come to serenade you. I can't play guitar. I can't play this accordion either, but I thought it'd be less obvious."
Dylan Moran, Black Books
Um, here's a question: The criteria for the round indicated that the card had to be built around the quote...but it doesn't mention if the quote has to be on the final card...so quoteless cards or cards with flavor text other than the quote are acceptable?
"I'd like you to select a real-world quote and build a card around it."
Just so people know, I will be disqualifying any non-real world quotes.
by real world you mean something that has been said in the real world then, and not something from a book written by a real world author or anything like that? I thought this was stemmed off the Emily Dickinson quote which is from her literature.
EDIT: To further this, is there a card with a "quote" on it that isn't from literature, even the poe stuff they have is from his poems and not a speech or anything.
This is important at this stage in the game to know what you mean by that because their isn't much time left.
I think you could say which card meets the criteria or not. Isn't that like, the whole point? I'd really like to know too, as my card is based around an Emily Dickinson poem.
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that it's my card?
I quoted fr0m a video game. That's no less "real" than something from Shakespeare...both were written by someone. Maybe mine isn't as elegant, but still...
And yes, no incantatrix for you. Or anyone. That class makes puppies cry. Mostly because they are the former Big Bads who have been Baleful Polymorphed into said puppies. By you. Because you're an incantatrix.
Quote from Yukora »
This is Deraxas we're talking about.
Remember, the girl that just killed an aspect of herself before literally consuming her?
Yeah, I don't see her handling a pissing match in any way other than a duel.
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Yes mistress...
Quote from About epic-level D&D »
There are only so many epic, psuedonatural barbarian/blackguard half-dragon akutenshai vampire balor paragons they can throw at you, right?
Quote from Concerning breeding habits of humans in fantasy games »
I suppose it's true. Though the logistics implied in a human/Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon pairing makes me shudder.
...Something tells me that even should all arcane casters in the world unite, that the Grease spell would NOT be sufficient.
It is very hard to know that we are creating something good and that fits the challenge if we do not know completely what the challange entails. Do I need to find a quote from a speech that was delivered in the real world, or will a novel written by an author in the real world suffice? If that novel takes place in a world that is not our own is that quote no longer valid? 45 minutes before the cutoff is probably to late to change anything but these questions were kind of important... I suppose they should have been asked earlier
In my view "real world" quotes are those quotes from sources here in this reality, regardless of the source. As opposed to quotes from non-existent sources from fiction (The 10,000 Questions, Love Song of Night and Day, The History of Kamigawa, et al).
And yes, no incantatrix for you. Or anyone. That class makes puppies cry. Mostly because they are the former Big Bads who have been Baleful Polymorphed into said puppies. By you. Because you're an incantatrix.
Quote from Yukora »
This is Deraxas we're talking about.
Remember, the girl that just killed an aspect of herself before literally consuming her?
Yeah, I don't see her handling a pissing match in any way other than a duel.
Quote from RedDwarfian »
Yes mistress...
Quote from About epic-level D&D »
There are only so many epic, psuedonatural barbarian/blackguard half-dragon akutenshai vampire balor paragons they can throw at you, right?
Quote from Concerning breeding habits of humans in fantasy games »
I suppose it's true. Though the logistics implied in a human/Great Wyrm Prismatic Dragon pairing makes me shudder.
...Something tells me that even should all arcane casters in the world unite, that the Grease spell would NOT be sufficient.
Due to overall lack of clarification, I should hope that ALL judges will be lenient on this one.
I read "real-world" quote to mean any actual quote from an actual source. "To be or not to be" is a real-world quote from Shakespeare. "Fringlies con schnebbit!" from Bob the Janitor is not.
The art (while visually not all that exciting) could not possibly be better suited for the flavor and mechanic.
Heh, that art was really an amazing find. Believe it or not, the art was done for the cover a book of Poe stories/poems and is actually supposed to be representative of the Iron Bells portion of "The Bells".
When I said "real-world" quote, I meant it was supposed to be a real quote from a real person. I apologize if this caused so much confusion, but I thought everyone would understand what I meant. After all, there are so many examples like Cowardice and Inspirit
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
When I said "real-world" quote, I meant it was supposed to be a real quote from a real person. I apologize if this caused so much confusion, but I thought everyone would understand what I meant. After all, there are so many examples like Cowardice and Inspirit
I would like to point out that the quote on Cowardice is a quote from a fictional work. The character speaking is based on a real person (Julius Caesar), but the character is fictional. That is precisely the confusion that was caused. Given that one of the choices for the Air Elemental text was a poem excerpt (Emily Dickinson's work), referencing that in the original post prompted people to assume that quotes from real life works of literature, fictional or otherwise, were acceptable. I myself used an excerpt from a poem. The Cowardice text you cited as an example is one such as well. Are you saying those were acceptable and intended? Because the real confusion came in when Belgareth made his post. Many people began second guessing themselves because they were unsure if Belgareth's warning about what was a real quote and what wasn't meant that quotes from real world literature and such counted.
True, Cowardice's quote is from a fictional work, but it was written by a real person and was credited accordingly. That's why you see Shakespeare's name on the card. In most the Magic cards, the real-world quotes has the author's name and where it can be found.
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
True, Cowardice's quote is from a fictional work, but it was written by a real person and was credited accordingly. That's why you see Shakespeare's name on the card. In most the Magic cards, the real-world quotes has the author's name and where it can be found.
I do understand your point. And that's exactly what I used on mine. The confusion came in when Belgareth made his post, but refused to elaborate. I assumed he was referring just to the quotes that came from movies and/or games, since they would be creditted to fictional characters and not to the real world authors thereof. But some of the players might have wondered if quotes from plays, books, poetry, etc. in general were unacceptable. I thought the round was pretty straight forward. I think the confusion was started by Belgareth, not you M_E.
Heh, that art was really an amazing find. Believe it or not, the art was done for the cover a book of Poe stories/poems and is actually supposed to be representative of the Iron Bells portion of "The Bells".
Talk about striking gold, eh? That does explain why it fit so perfectly... too perfectly. (*Goes off to change Mad Tapper's score.* ...Just kidding. )
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The Golden Rule of forums: If you're going to be rude, be right. If you might be wrong, be polite.
Kraj, first off, congrats on getting judgings up so quickly; it's rare to see judgings this soon. However, in the spirit of better card creation (not score-changing, since Cubus is already moving on), I must argue this ruling:
Kraj
Cubus049:
... Balance: 5/10 Oh boy, this is a toughie. I'm gonna say off the bat that this looks undercosted. Mnemonic Nexus costs one more and hits opponent's graveyards as well (which is neither strictly better nor worse than have the effect 1-sided) and this is a 1-sided Nexus with another significant ability tacked on. Considering the big effect and the fact that you normally don't want to play it until later in the game and this could easily cost another two mana and be plyable. On top of it, this card recurs itself as well as the card it tutors for (if you draw & cast it again). This just seems too efficient of an effect for the cost. And then, you get to play the card you tutored for free. Combined with dredge or any self-milling mechanic and this card is a monster. The saving grace is you can only hit instants with it, so you can't pull out a massive permanent of game-breaking sorcery. Even still, it's nuts.
To be perfectly honest, I found this to be much more balanced than you gave it credit for. Compare to Reminisce. Same cost, but instant...and quite a boost in effect. But the added effect isn't as nice as you might initially think. Since it doesn't give you the option of how many cards in your graveyard you can shuffle, and since it isn't "an instant with cmc less than or equal to X", your timing must be pretty good.
First off, you need to either stack your deck with a high variance of instants with cmc's from each cmc available, or you need to be able to manipulate the number of cards in your graveyard if you want to be able to respond to something. Secondly, you have to know your deck and what is still in it. And if you're hoping to pull off something ridiculous with 9 cards in your graveyard and you cast this to go get something like Searing Wind, an opponent can respond by killing something of yours...giving you 10 cards in your 'yard...and you shuffle and get to search for nothing (since there is no 10-mana instant). (Note, even if you Counter the kill card, you'll still be sending an additional card to the grave, so it'll still screw you; even at lower levels of cmc, you'll have to plan on getting a card with cmc = to your 'yard...OR your 'yard +1 or +2.) And of course, late game this card simply becomes Reminisce...until WotC prints that 22-cmc instant.
Since Cubus's card doesn't shuffle itself into the graveyard, I'd say that the two things that I might suggest to "fix" it would be changing the cost to 1UU (maybe 3U) and adding "Then remove ~ from the game." so that multiples can't recur each other. Even without those two, I probably would have given this a 7, not the measly 5 that was the outcome. Just food for thought.
Cubus, I found your card to be exceptionally well thought out. What a nifty way of restricting a free tutor card...
EDIT: Bottom line, would everyone playing blue play this card? No. It takes a level of skill and finesse that would be reserved for those who know what they're doing.
To be perfectly honest, I found this to be much more balanced than you gave it credit for.
To be perfectly honest, I agree. The drawback to doing judgings immediately after the round closes is it's late, so the brain is not always running at maximum capacity. That said:
I'd say that the two things that I might suggest to "fix" it would be changing the cost to 1UU (maybe 3U) and adding "Then remove ~ from the game." so that multiples can't recur each other.
The "remove from game" clause is exactly what I felt was the key piece missing. I also think the mana cost should be higher, as you point out, and would probably lean towards the higher end since paying a second blue instead of a second colorless does not seem enough to add on a tutor and free card playing. This card is definitely interesting and it's not horribly overpowered or broken, but I do think it is overpowered. It strikes me as the type of card that ends up as a cog in a degenerate deck, even if it wouldn't necessarily be so in the current Standard environment. Ultimately it's probably a lot less abusable than I thought at first, so I should have scored it a point or two higher.
I stand by my point about the costing, though. Putting it in the five mana range makes it a bit safer and loses next to no power.
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The Golden Rule of forums: If you're going to be rude, be right. If you might be wrong, be polite.
I stand by my point about the costing, though. Putting it in the five mana range makes it a bit safer and loses next to no power.
Of course, if it doesn't lose any power why would you need to raise the mana cost?
Also, I don't think the card needs to have the 'remove from game' clause. That clause is reserved for cards that could immedialy bring back more than one card. Examples: Restock and All Suns' Dawn.
Im sorry Salad, but I am going to have to disagree with your judgement on both counts.
I realize that my card looks broken at the outset, but compare what it does. Pick an average casting cost, 3UUU. That will be most of your mana for the turn, so you will not be able to take advantage of the effect. The next turn a fading counter goes away, which means that it is as powerful as Recycle. The turn after that, you are down to 1 card, so it is future sight. The turn before it goes away you have no cards revealed, so you can play nothing. During this time you have no hand (it was shuffled in) and you don't draw cards (even through card drawing spells), so on the turn it goes away you are left with nothing. At 7 mana and above it is more powerful, but at that point shouldnt you be having powerful game ending effects?
In addition, I disagree with your power level assesment on my opponents card. I think it is just as powerful as mine, which was one of the reasons that I decided to make a powerful card (AoK submitted hers earlier than mine). For the same 7 mana, you not only plague wind your opponent but you drain him for 5 at the same time. Or, even without hellbent, you can Hideous laughter the board and drain each player for 2 life, which in a black/red deck means nothing that you hit yourself. If this were printed, it would generate a tournament caliber deck instantly.
Im not saying that my card is better, I am saying that the power levels are extremely similar.
Also, I don't think the card needs to have the 'remove from game' clause. That clause is reserved for cards that could immedialy bring back more than one card. Examples: Restock and All Suns' Dawn.
It needs the clause, trust me. Restock and All Suns' Dawn retrieve cards from the graveyard; this tutors them and plays them for free. It's more like Chord of Calling in that respect, but much cheaper and potentially more dangerous. It probably wouldn't be necessary if multiples of the card didn't recur each other and whatever cards you keep tutoring for.
Moving on...
Occasionally a round captures me enough where I feel the need to point out my favorites, but I never have. Well I really loved this round so I'm gonna do it. This obviously has no bearing on the results, so hopefully I'm not out of line at all.
Spoilered to avoid judges looking at my comments about any cards that haven't been judged yet.
Best quote: Viroid. What can I say? One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite authors. I'm glad I didn't have to judge you; it would have been hard to be objective about the rest of the card.
Best combination of quote and mechanic: Alacar. The quote is cool; there's a lot going on with it. The mechanic is cool; it's potentially powerful but requires a great deal of skill to maximize the effect. The flavorful interaction between the two is brilliant.
Best overall package: Technomagus. Man, do I love this card! The quote is interesting, the mechanic fits it wonderfully. The mechanic itself is creative, splashy and potentially bomberiffic in a deck with Hunted Dragons and Trolls. The art is sweet on its own, but matches the mechanic and flavor fantastically. It's even balanced reasonably well. To top it off, Technomagus designed a card that uses hybrid mana correctly; a rare treat!
Balance: 3/10 9 and a half times out of 10, by turn 4 your opponent will be able to make this go away before it becomes relevant. And without digging into his sideboard either. Perhaps "Whenever you play a spell..."?
Hmph. And here I was desperately trying to prevent it from being overpowered.
"And who would have thought? It figures!"
- Alanis Morissette, "Ironic"
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Best overall package: Technomagus. Man, do I love this card! The quote is interesting, the mechanic fits it wonderfully. The mechanic itself is creative, splashy and potentially bomberiffic in a deck with Hunted Dragons and Trolls. The art is sweet on its own, but matches the mechanic and flavor fantastically. It's even balanced reasonably well. To top it off, Technomagus designed a card that uses hybrid mana correctly; a rare treat!
Woo!
Now I am SO glad I changed the card from its original wording!
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"Hello! I've come to serenade you. I can't play guitar. I can't play this accordion either, but I thought it'd be less obvious."
Dylan Moran, Black Books
by real world you mean something that has been said in the real world then, and not something from a book written by a real world author or anything like that? I thought this was stemmed off the Emily Dickinson quote which is from her literature.
EDIT: To further this, is there a card with a "quote" on it that isn't from literature, even the poe stuff they have is from his poems and not a speech or anything.
This is important at this stage in the game to know what you mean by that because their isn't much time left.
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I quoted fr0m a video game. That's no less "real" than something from Shakespeare...both were written by someone. Maybe mine isn't as elegant, but still...
"I am in the arcane, and the arcane is in me."
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Deraxas, Dark Maiden of Shimia,, still oddly obsessed with a mindmage.
Sets completed in the "Vale" Block
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More sets to come
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I will be very lenient on this one.
"I am in the arcane, and the arcane is in me."
Official Matron Mother of Clan Planar Chaos
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Deraxas, Dark Maiden of Shimia,, still oddly obsessed with a mindmage.
I read "real-world" quote to mean any actual quote from an actual source. "To be or not to be" is a real-world quote from Shakespeare. "Fringlies con schnebbit!" from Bob the Janitor is not.
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Heh, that art was really an amazing find. Believe it or not, the art was done for the cover a book of Poe stories/poems and is actually supposed to be representative of the Iron Bells portion of "The Bells".
Record: 3-2
Simpsons Mafia (Newbie) - Vanilla Mafia - Win
The Fiasco Corporation - Town Reporter - Loss
Doomsday Mafia - Mafia Roleblocker - Win
Battle Royale Mafia - Serial Daykiller - Loss
Danger City Mafia - Vanilla Town - Win
I would like to point out that the quote on Cowardice is a quote from a fictional work. The character speaking is based on a real person (Julius Caesar), but the character is fictional. That is precisely the confusion that was caused. Given that one of the choices for the Air Elemental text was a poem excerpt (Emily Dickinson's work), referencing that in the original post prompted people to assume that quotes from real life works of literature, fictional or otherwise, were acceptable. I myself used an excerpt from a poem. The Cowardice text you cited as an example is one such as well. Are you saying those were acceptable and intended? Because the real confusion came in when Belgareth made his post. Many people began second guessing themselves because they were unsure if Belgareth's warning about what was a real quote and what wasn't meant that quotes from real world literature and such counted.
Record: 3-2
Simpsons Mafia (Newbie) - Vanilla Mafia - Win
The Fiasco Corporation - Town Reporter - Loss
Doomsday Mafia - Mafia Roleblocker - Win
Battle Royale Mafia - Serial Daykiller - Loss
Danger City Mafia - Vanilla Town - Win
I do understand your point. And that's exactly what I used on mine. The confusion came in when Belgareth made his post, but refused to elaborate. I assumed he was referring just to the quotes that came from movies and/or games, since they would be creditted to fictional characters and not to the real world authors thereof. But some of the players might have wondered if quotes from plays, books, poetry, etc. in general were unacceptable. I thought the round was pretty straight forward. I think the confusion was started by Belgareth, not you M_E.
Bad Belgareth! Bad! (jk)
Record: 3-2
Simpsons Mafia (Newbie) - Vanilla Mafia - Win
The Fiasco Corporation - Town Reporter - Loss
Doomsday Mafia - Mafia Roleblocker - Win
Battle Royale Mafia - Serial Daykiller - Loss
Danger City Mafia - Vanilla Town - Win
Talk about striking gold, eh? That does explain why it fit so perfectly... too perfectly. (*Goes off to change Mad Tapper's score.* ...Just kidding. )
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
To be perfectly honest, I found this to be much more balanced than you gave it credit for. Compare to Reminisce. Same cost, but instant...and quite a boost in effect. But the added effect isn't as nice as you might initially think. Since it doesn't give you the option of how many cards in your graveyard you can shuffle, and since it isn't "an instant with cmc less than or equal to X", your timing must be pretty good.
First off, you need to either stack your deck with a high variance of instants with cmc's from each cmc available, or you need to be able to manipulate the number of cards in your graveyard if you want to be able to respond to something. Secondly, you have to know your deck and what is still in it. And if you're hoping to pull off something ridiculous with 9 cards in your graveyard and you cast this to go get something like Searing Wind, an opponent can respond by killing something of yours...giving you 10 cards in your 'yard...and you shuffle and get to search for nothing (since there is no 10-mana instant). (Note, even if you Counter the kill card, you'll still be sending an additional card to the grave, so it'll still screw you; even at lower levels of cmc, you'll have to plan on getting a card with cmc = to your 'yard...OR your 'yard +1 or +2.) And of course, late game this card simply becomes Reminisce...until WotC prints that 22-cmc instant.
Since Cubus's card doesn't shuffle itself into the graveyard, I'd say that the two things that I might suggest to "fix" it would be changing the cost to 1UU (maybe 3U) and adding "Then remove ~ from the game." so that multiples can't recur each other. Even without those two, I probably would have given this a 7, not the measly 5 that was the outcome. Just food for thought.
Cubus, I found your card to be exceptionally well thought out. What a nifty way of restricting a free tutor card...
EDIT: Bottom line, would everyone playing blue play this card? No. It takes a level of skill and finesse that would be reserved for those who know what they're doing.
Thanks! I do my best.
To be perfectly honest, I agree. The drawback to doing judgings immediately after the round closes is it's late, so the brain is not always running at maximum capacity. That said:
The "remove from game" clause is exactly what I felt was the key piece missing. I also think the mana cost should be higher, as you point out, and would probably lean towards the higher end since paying a second blue instead of a second colorless does not seem enough to add on a tutor and free card playing. This card is definitely interesting and it's not horribly overpowered or broken, but I do think it is overpowered. It strikes me as the type of card that ends up as a cog in a degenerate deck, even if it wouldn't necessarily be so in the current Standard environment. Ultimately it's probably a lot less abusable than I thought at first, so I should have scored it a point or two higher.
I stand by my point about the costing, though. Putting it in the five mana range makes it a bit safer and loses next to no power.
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
Of course, if it doesn't lose any power why would you need to raise the mana cost?
Also, I don't think the card needs to have the 'remove from game' clause. That clause is reserved for cards that could immedialy bring back more than one card. Examples: Restock and All Suns' Dawn.
I realize that my card looks broken at the outset, but compare what it does. Pick an average casting cost, 3UUU. That will be most of your mana for the turn, so you will not be able to take advantage of the effect. The next turn a fading counter goes away, which means that it is as powerful as Recycle. The turn after that, you are down to 1 card, so it is future sight. The turn before it goes away you have no cards revealed, so you can play nothing. During this time you have no hand (it was shuffled in) and you don't draw cards (even through card drawing spells), so on the turn it goes away you are left with nothing. At 7 mana and above it is more powerful, but at that point shouldnt you be having powerful game ending effects?
In addition, I disagree with your power level assesment on my opponents card. I think it is just as powerful as mine, which was one of the reasons that I decided to make a powerful card (AoK submitted hers earlier than mine). For the same 7 mana, you not only plague wind your opponent but you drain him for 5 at the same time. Or, even without hellbent, you can Hideous laughter the board and drain each player for 2 life, which in a black/red deck means nothing that you hit yourself. If this were printed, it would generate a tournament caliber deck instantly.
Im not saying that my card is better, I am saying that the power levels are extremely similar.
How about Sins of the Past?
It needs the clause, trust me. Restock and All Suns' Dawn retrieve cards from the graveyard; this tutors them and plays them for free. It's more like Chord of Calling in that respect, but much cheaper and potentially more dangerous. It probably wouldn't be necessary if multiples of the card didn't recur each other and whatever cards you keep tutoring for.
Moving on...
Occasionally a round captures me enough where I feel the need to point out my favorites, but I never have. Well I really loved this round so I'm gonna do it. This obviously has no bearing on the results, so hopefully I'm not out of line at all.
Spoilered to avoid judges looking at my comments about any cards that haven't been judged yet.
Best combination of quote and mechanic: Alacar. The quote is cool; there's a lot going on with it. The mechanic is cool; it's potentially powerful but requires a great deal of skill to maximize the effect. The flavorful interaction between the two is brilliant.
Best overall package: Technomagus. Man, do I love this card! The quote is interesting, the mechanic fits it wonderfully. The mechanic itself is creative, splashy and potentially bomberiffic in a deck with Hunted Dragons and Trolls. The art is sweet on its own, but matches the mechanic and flavor fantastically. It's even balanced reasonably well. To top it off, Technomagus designed a card that uses hybrid mana correctly; a rare treat!
Current New Favorite Person™: Mallory Archer
She knows why.
Hmph. And here I was desperately trying to prevent it from being overpowered.
"And who would have thought? It figures!"
- Alanis Morissette, "Ironic"
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Woo!
Now I am SO glad I changed the card from its original wording!
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