I'm still a firm believer in a lot of positive space for decreasing feel bad games, when you get stuck with low mana, or stuck drawing them in the late game. Scry was supposed to help with that, but I don't see it appearing in too many common cards (I do love the common 2/2 for 2 that lets each player scry 1 in kaladesh.)
So I propose a new evergreen mechanic -
Emerald Spider3G
Creature - Spider (C)
Reach
Siphon (You may reveal this card from your hand and play it face down and tapped as a land with "T: Add C to your mana pool.")
2/2
Quick notes -
- Obviously playing a card as a land needs to use your "play a land" action for the turn. By the way, it's been established that an ability can override the 'face down cards are 2/2 creatures' rule.
- I think this ability avoids a lot of the morph baggage. First, the land is vanilla, and since it stays with the rest of a player's land (in the "mana zone") it adds zero battlefield complexity. Second, since you reveal the card when you play it, there's no need to reveal it when the game ends. (It's a given that siphon would take a break out of any set with morph.)
- The typical two color deck would be happy cutting two lands and 1 spell for 3 siphon cards, but they would be much tougher additions to decks with higher color requirements.
- When WOTC tried spell lands (EtB abilities that costed mana on lands) they found that players would feel bad wasting their cards if they didn't have the mana for the effect, going as far as holding on while screwed just so they could get both effects later. These may present the same problem, but I think it's lessened by the fact that while a spell-land was A or A+B, a siphon spell is either A or B, which makes just B much more attractive. Since the spell with siphon won't ever become better than the inefficient spell in your hand, I think players would be much happier transforming it into a land when screwed.
- Siphon would be completely color neutral.
- Siphon would increase the density of filler creatures in decks, which may result in more board stalemates. The best siphon cards would be inefficient situational cards or stalemate breakers:
Spire Agent4U
Creature - Human Rogue
Spire Agent can't be blocked.
Siphon (You may reveal this card from your hand and play it face down and tapped as a land with "T: Add C to your mana pool.")
2/2
Denounce3W
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
Siphon (You may reveal this card from your hand and play it face down and tapped as a land with "T: Add C to your mana pool.")
I'll be the first to mention that this does work in the rules:
707.2. Face-down spells and face-down permanents have no characteristics other than those listed by the ability or rules that allowed the spell or permanent to be face down. Any listed characteristics are the copiable values of that object’s characteristics.
As for whether this could be evergreen, I don't think it can really be made as one unless morph, megamorph, and manifest are just treated as though they don't exist. (This is different than just having the environments in which morph-esque mechanics and siphon be mutually exclusive, since combinations of cards from different environments can still legally be put in a single deck.) As you state, though, having these be featured in the "mana portion" of the battlefield is a start to distinguish such permanents.
Part of me thinks that rather than have the mechanic put these onto the battlefield as face-down lands, it could instead exile the card, use up a land play, and add C to the mana pool just for the turn, but I'm not sure if that's too strong for what you intend. As in:
"Siphon (You may exile this card from your hand during your turn to add C to your mana pool. If you do, you can't play lands this turn. Siphon only if you haven't played any lands or siphoned yet this turn.)"
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How to use card tags (please use them for everybody's sanity)
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format Minimum deck size: 60 Maximum number of identical cards: 4 Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
Could also be a DFC with no way to flip between the two after casting. Something like, "if this card is flipped, exile it instead."
For example, side A is the creature with your casting ability as noted. side B is the land.
It would readily remove confusion as to what the flipped card indicates.
I would not do Siphon as the word of choice. I was thinking it was something else entirely and it seems a little weird with the ability. Not a lot word choices though. I might have to hit the ol' thesaurus for ideas.
As an aside. Years ago, Duelist (or Inquest?) published a letter from a couple wanting to play MtG while waiting at a football game (?). Guy makes a run to an LGS (or maybe at was a sports shop at the stadium?) but they were out of Starter packs. Not to be deterred, he grabs a handful of packs and races back to his girl. While cracking the packs, they create a house rule on the spot. Essentially a, "any card can be cast as the spell or as a land. If it's cast as a land, it stays as a land." I don't remember if my memory is correct but I think they also treated spells cast as a land are lands of that color. Gold cards play as multi-colored lands similar to classic Duals.
I remember being impressed that a girl played Magic at the time. Nontheless, a bunch of buddies and I tried the concept out on a whim. Bought a handful of Ice Age and 4th Ed packs, enough for 40 card decks, cracked them open, a couple of trades, and went to town. The couple of lands we got, we played as lands, but all the spells were playable as lands as well. Spells played as lands were cast rotated 180° and stayed in the land area.
It was astronomically fun and the mana curve flat out disappeared. Cards with cumulative upkeep became fun and real threat. A new strategy of casting cards to cast as lands, especially golds, created some really wild plays. Do you cast your Counterspell as a land now to feed Polar Kraken for one more turn or do you sit on it to stop a Jokulhaups later?
I think your card idea is completely doable with colored mana as well based on my personal experience, but I imagine the mechanic would require careful testing with the much larger available card pool compared to that from twenty years ago.
I appreciate your intention: to reduce games that are non-games because of mana-screw. If you think about it, isn't it kind of stupid that you can watch a Pro Tour and 1 or even 2 games in a match at the professional level can be decided by whether or not one player drew enough lands? It's not fun for the players and certainly not fun to watch. How many games in tournaments and in casual play are affected and even decided by mana issues every day? Thousands, probably. Adding Scry to the mulligan rules is a start, but I think WotC (or us) need to seriously address this problem. It may require a rules fix that goes beyond what is printed on cards.
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So I propose a new evergreen mechanic -
Emerald Spider 3G
Creature - Spider (C)
Reach
Siphon (You may reveal this card from your hand and play it face down and tapped as a land with "T: Add C to your mana pool.")
2/2
Quick notes -
- Obviously playing a card as a land needs to use your "play a land" action for the turn. By the way, it's been established that an ability can override the 'face down cards are 2/2 creatures' rule.
- I think this ability avoids a lot of the morph baggage. First, the land is vanilla, and since it stays with the rest of a player's land (in the "mana zone") it adds zero battlefield complexity. Second, since you reveal the card when you play it, there's no need to reveal it when the game ends. (It's a given that siphon would take a break out of any set with morph.)
- The typical two color deck would be happy cutting two lands and 1 spell for 3 siphon cards, but they would be much tougher additions to decks with higher color requirements.
- When WOTC tried spell lands (EtB abilities that costed mana on lands) they found that players would feel bad wasting their cards if they didn't have the mana for the effect, going as far as holding on while screwed just so they could get both effects later. These may present the same problem, but I think it's lessened by the fact that while a spell-land was A or A+B, a siphon spell is either A or B, which makes just B much more attractive. Since the spell with siphon won't ever become better than the inefficient spell in your hand, I think players would be much happier transforming it into a land when screwed.
- Siphon would be completely color neutral.
- Siphon would increase the density of filler creatures in decks, which may result in more board stalemates. The best siphon cards would be inefficient situational cards or stalemate breakers:
Spire Agent 4U
Creature - Human Rogue
Spire Agent can't be blocked.
Siphon (You may reveal this card from your hand and play it face down and tapped as a land with "T: Add C to your mana pool.")
2/2
Denounce 3W
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
Siphon (You may reveal this card from your hand and play it face down and tapped as a land with "T: Add C to your mana pool.")
As for whether this could be evergreen, I don't think it can really be made as one unless morph, megamorph, and manifest are just treated as though they don't exist. (This is different than just having the environments in which morph-esque mechanics and siphon be mutually exclusive, since combinations of cards from different environments can still legally be put in a single deck.) As you state, though, having these be featured in the "mana portion" of the battlefield is a start to distinguish such permanents.
Part of me thinks that rather than have the mechanic put these onto the battlefield as face-down lands, it could instead exile the card, use up a land play, and add C to the mana pool just for the turn, but I'm not sure if that's too strong for what you intend. As in:
"Siphon (You may exile this card from your hand during your turn to add C to your mana pool. If you do, you can't play lands this turn. Siphon only if you haven't played any lands or siphoned yet this turn.)"
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format
Minimum deck size: 60
Maximum number of identical cards: 4
Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
For example, side A is the creature with your casting ability as noted. side B is the land.
It would readily remove confusion as to what the flipped card indicates.
I would not do Siphon as the word of choice. I was thinking it was something else entirely and it seems a little weird with the ability. Not a lot word choices though. I might have to hit the ol' thesaurus for ideas.
As an aside. Years ago, Duelist (or Inquest?) published a letter from a couple wanting to play MtG while waiting at a football game (?). Guy makes a run to an LGS (or maybe at was a sports shop at the stadium?) but they were out of Starter packs. Not to be deterred, he grabs a handful of packs and races back to his girl. While cracking the packs, they create a house rule on the spot. Essentially a, "any card can be cast as the spell or as a land. If it's cast as a land, it stays as a land." I don't remember if my memory is correct but I think they also treated spells cast as a land are lands of that color. Gold cards play as multi-colored lands similar to classic Duals.
I remember being impressed that a girl played Magic at the time. Nontheless, a bunch of buddies and I tried the concept out on a whim. Bought a handful of Ice Age and 4th Ed packs, enough for 40 card decks, cracked them open, a couple of trades, and went to town. The couple of lands we got, we played as lands, but all the spells were playable as lands as well. Spells played as lands were cast rotated 180° and stayed in the land area.
It was astronomically fun and the mana curve flat out disappeared. Cards with cumulative upkeep became fun and real threat. A new strategy of casting cards to cast as lands, especially golds, created some really wild plays. Do you cast your Counterspell as a land now to feed Polar Kraken for one more turn or do you sit on it to stop a Jokulhaups later?
I think your card idea is completely doable with colored mana as well based on my personal experience, but I imagine the mechanic would require careful testing with the much larger available card pool compared to that from twenty years ago.