I'm not very confident in my ability to properly cost "weird" blue spells. I suppose that's tough for most anyone, including wotc. Anyway, here are some cards that I need some input for their mana costs. And maybe wording too!
Eagle Eye :symu::symu:
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent plays a spell, you may search your library for a card with the same name as that spell, reveal it, and put it into your hand. If you do, shuffle your library.
(lets you "learn" from your opponents spells. You see them play it, and you can get it from your own spellbook.)
Spellguise :2mana::symu::symu:
Enchantment
If a spell or ability would cause you to reveal a card from your hand, you may instead reveal the top card of your library. If you do, put that card into your hand afterward.
(I picture the art as being some sneaky mage with a bunch of different masks/faces...it's like, oh you want me to reveal something? No, I'll reveal something else instead. And draw a card out of it.)
Turn Back Time :2mana::symu::symu::symu:
Sorcery
Play only during your turn.
For each permanent that came into play since the beginning of its controller's previous turn, return that permanent to its owner's hand.
For each card a player drew since the beginning of that player's previous turn, that player puts a card from his or her hand on top of his or her library.
Remove Turn Back Time from the game.
^a little wordy/confusing, but can you get the point? It is meant to literally rewind everything that happened since your last turn. Players return what they played and put whatever they drew (or a proxy for whatever they drew) on top of their library. So this may need wording help too.
Dreamsinger :xmana::symu::symu:
Creature - Illusion
0/0
Flying
As Dreamsinger comes into play, you may search your library for a nonland card with converted mana cost X, reveal it, put it into your hand, and shuffle your library. If you do, Dreamsinger comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it.
I am pretty sure the cost on this one is fine, but I'm including it anyway to see what you think.
Comments and help would be appreciated...in addition to costing these, I'm interested in what you think of them.
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Colourless mana comes FIRST! Try actually looking at a Magic card some time. It is NOT UU3, it's 3UU. What game are you making cards for?
I can no longer tell people to check their card names, because I am made of suck and fail.
neon-chan - ah of course, haha yes "card with the same name" is correct, thanks.
nemephosis - I'm not really concerned with the memory issues. You don't have to remember what cards were drawn, it doesn't care about that. You only have to remember number of cards drawn and what cards were played. Who doesn't remember those sort of thing? It is only from one turn ago...if you literally can't remember what your opponent did last turn, this game isn't for you. Wotc may have some problems with the memory issues but I don't.
spellguise - I think limiting it like that would ruin a lot of the fun of it. I'm not sure how easily it can be abused. Even if you are revealing 1 card a turn from some reusable ability, that is just 1 extra card a turn on a 2UU enchantment. I'd rather see the cost go up than have it limited in such a way.
Spellguise :2mana::symu::symu:
Enchantment
If a spell or ability would cause you to reveal a card from your hand, you may instead reveal the top card of your library. If you do, put that card into your hand afterward.
(I picture the art as being some sneaky mage with a bunch of different masks/faces...it's like, oh you want me to reveal something? No, I'll reveal something else instead. And draw a card out of it.)
Two problems:
1) Abilities like ninjutsu or forecast reveal its card from the hand as part of paying the cost so that other players can know what the ability is. This could be partly fixed by changing it to "If the effect of spell or ability would ..."
2) What about abilities that try to continually reveal your hand? Play Wandering Eye to "reveal" your hand, but choose instead to replace the reveals any number of times until you have drawn your entire library?
Better option would be a lower cost and change it to a triggered ability. Whenever you reveal a card from your hand Index or something like that.
ooh thanks. I like your solution to the first problem, but wasn't really thinking about "whole hand" reveals.
Going with your triggered ability idea, would this work?
Spellguise :2mana::symu::symu:
Enchantment
Whenever you reveal a card from your hand, reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand.
Um, so Wandering Eye would still be a great combo, because you would basically double your hand size. But it would only happen once - the act of revealing each card when the wandering eye comes into play (or when its ability takes effect, but you know what I mean). Ninjitsu/forecast would trigger correctly. Does this create new problems or is it alright, aside from doubling your hand size with anything that reveals your hand?
Turn Back Time :2mana::symu::symu::symu:
Sorcery
Play only during your turn.
For each permanent that came into play since the beginning of its controller's previous turn, return that permanent to its owner's hand.
For each card a player drew since the beginning of that player's previous turn, that player puts a card from his or her hand on top of his or her library.
Remove Turn Back Time from the game.
Turn Back Time :2mana::symu::symu::symu:
Sorcery
Play Turn Back Time only during your turn.
Each player returns all permanents he or she controls that came into play since your last turn ended to their owners' hands. Then each player puts a card from his or her hand on top of his or her library for each card he or she drew since your last turn ended.
Remove Turn Back Time from the game.
Probably undercosted. Has more potential than Evacuate, although it's harder to use.
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Ah, I like your wording better. Easier to anchor it to the end of the caster's last turn.
Gatherer/search isn't working right now and I forget what evacuate does, but isn't Exodus the name of the card that returns all creatures to owner's hands for 3UU? Or is that Evacuate? To me I guess this feels like a weaker evacuate with the potential to be used in cooler ways. Or maybe it is just an all-purpose "annoy the opponent by setting them back a turn" card.
Spellguise 1:symu::symu:
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability controlled by an opponent causes you to reveal a card from your hand, reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand.
Neon-chan makes a good point. I didn't want to make the card so narrow, but I probably have to go with spiderboy's suggestion. I think it could easily cost just 1U considering the ability is now a "silver bullet" and not a combo piece.
horeshoe hermit: just figured it out, Evacuation (not evacuate) is the name of the card we were thinking of. (Good to know that evacuate and exodus are unused card names!) Do you still think Turn Back Time compares too favorably to it?
I just wanted to chime in and say that Eagle Eye is a neat card, and one I hope they print; they'd probably up it to 3 or 4CMC and rare, though, but I'm fine with that. Think of the possible *insert Highlander format here* shenanigans with it, not to mention the control mirrors.
Dreamsinger isn't blue in any way, really. X +1/+1 counters is only in green, as far as I know, and searching for anything is more black than blue.
What about:
Dreamsinger XUU
Creature
Flying
When ~ comes into play, look at the top X cards of your library, choose one, and put it into your hand.
~ comes into play with two +1/+1 counters if X was 3 or more.
2/2
dreamsinger: I beg to differ here. Although black has historically had tutors, so has blue. I have always felt that tutoring should be blue. Black just got demonic tutor and has been grandfathered in ever since. I'm not out to rewrite the color pie, but if I could I would give Diabolic Tutor a new name and shift it to blue.
At the very least, blue does get "weird" tutoring (Intuition) and tutoring for specific things, like cards with a certain cost (trinket mage) or word in them (that card that gets instants or things with flash).
So, in a few words, yes, tutoring is blue. Or at least it is going to be in this set. (Which isn't to say that black can't have it too.) I could definitely see it as being a black card, considering black's tutoring abilities, but I'm emphasizing tutoring as a blue thing in this set.
Don't think of the +1/+1 counters as giving a creature a p/t boost. What it is actually doing is setting the size of the creature to the card you tutor for. Why can't that be blue? A 4/4 flyer that let you tutor up a card sounds like a perfect blue control fatty. A little blue dude that gets you something small is Trinket Mage. That's blue!
Oh! I know what I'll do for my Dreamsinger. You will only get the +1/+1 counters if you also tutored up a card. That even more explicitly ties the creature's size into its tutoring ability.
Personal Penguin, I like your suggested card (except I wouldn't give blue a 2/2 flyer for UU). But it seems just as "non-blue" as my original card insofar as getting +1/+1 counters. Also, it is kind of nuts for a blue creature. at 1UU it is a 2/2 flying cantrip. At 3UU it just makes air elemental cry.
Eagle Eye: Do you really want to make a card that automatically wins any blue mirror match for 2 mana? This is really problematic, in my opinion. I'd cost it at something like 4U, or else make it an optional sacrifice to search for a card with the same name as target spell an opponent controls. Alternately, how about this?
Eagle EyeU
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Search your library for a nonland card with the same name as a card in that opponent's hand, reveal it and put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
That card that triggers on having your hand revealed is a problem too, I think. If you restrict it to when the opponent makes you reveal, it feels pointless, but if you can trigger it yourself, it's a potentially broken combo piece that lets you draw infinite cards. I don't know what to do to fix it...maybe add a mana cost? something like ":2mana:: The next time you would reveal your hand or reveal a card from your hand this turn, draw a card instead." Alternately, if you just wanted to hose discard spells, you could make "You can't reveal cards from your hand. (You can't pay costs that include revealing cards from your hand.)" or something like that, but that might have some rules issues...not sure.
The other two cards are fine. Blue tutoring is perfectly reasonable. Remember Transmute?
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Eagle Eye: Do you really want to make a card that automatically wins any blue mirror match for 2 mana?
hmmm...I'm honestly not too concerned about what happens in a control-on-control mirror match, but I don't want games to be decided by "whoever draws their [something] first wins." On the other hand, that's sort of how a lot of mirror matches (or heavily sideboarded matches) turn out. I would raise the price, but only to 1UU, not to 5. That's just too high for a card that is so situational.
I do really like your sorcery-tutor version of eagle eye, though. That's an interesting thought, and maybe I'll scrap mine completely and go with something like that.
I'm kind of over spellguise, it just seems to have too many problems, as you've pointed out. But something that bans you from revealing cards is sort of interesting.
Spellguise 1:symu::symu:
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability controlled by an opponent causes you to reveal a card from your hand, reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand.
you could even lower the cost to UU or 1U perhaps
That would be good for 1U. I think the best fix though might be to change the effect, not the trigger. For example:
Thought Process U
Enchantment (U)
Whenever you reveal a card from your hand, you may scry 1.
Eagle EyeU
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Search your library for a nonland card with the same name as a card in that opponent's hand, reveal it and put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
I like this, but I think it could have something like cycling 2U.
Dreamsinger :xmana::symu::symu:
Creature - Illusion
0/0
Flying
As Dreamsinger comes into play, you may search your library for a nonland card with converted mana cost X, reveal it, put it into your hand, and shuffle your library. If you do, Dreamsinger comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it..
First, this is not the kind of ability that can be a replacement effect as it comes into play. It should be a triggered ability when it comes into play.
Now blue does get tutoring, but it should not be as unrestricted like this. Limitaions to artifacts, instants, and cards with flash are good for blue.
Restless Dreamer XU
Creature -- Illusion
CARDNAME comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it.
When CARDNAME comes into play, you may search your library for an instant card with converted mana cost X or less, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
Whenever you play a spell, remove a +1/+1 counter from CARDNAME.
0/0
I'm all for blue getting tutoring as unrestricted as possible. Aside from direct damage in red, there are few abilities that just feel so perfectly in-color as tutoring in blue. (Even more than card draw, as I think there is a distinct growth element that makes it feel green.) Tutoring, in my mind, is just the epitome of a blue mage - getting the right thing at the right time. I'm all for giving blue "weird" tutoring too, but I see nothing wrong with just shifting Diabolic Tutor to blue and calling it a day. If any color should have restrictions on its tutoring, it should be black (like costs you have to pay to get what you want).
I rarely pay attention to things like "replacement effects" and "triggered abilities" when wording my cards, I just give them the wording that I think fits best. Changing "as it comes into play, it comes into play with" to "comes into play with" is fine by me, but otherwise I don't prefer your changes to the card. ("restless dreamer" is a great name though.)
Giving the situational "eagle eye" sorcery cycling is a great idea!
I really like Eagle Eye as an enchantment. U sorcery means its a VERY situational tutor, and only in mirrors.
At the guy that complained about this card ruining mono-blue mirror matches... maybe that's the point? I mean, if you don't counter it you can rely on bounce, but maybe you have to add green for Naturalize or something. It's not like wizards have never printed cards good for the mirror (like Telemin Performance in TEPS).
Spellguise is tricky. Too good to trigger off your own effects, too narrow not to. Hard to make perfect.
I love Turn Back Time. Excellent card! "Can only be played during your turn" on a sorcery is pretty clunky, though...
Eagle Eye :symu::symu:
Enchantment
Whenever an opponent plays a spell, you may search your library for a card with the same name as that spell, reveal it, and put it into your hand. If you do, shuffle your library.
(lets you "learn" from your opponents spells. You see them play it, and you can get it from your own spellbook.)
Spellguise :2mana::symu::symu:
Enchantment
If a spell or ability would cause you to reveal a card from your hand, you may instead reveal the top card of your library. If you do, put that card into your hand afterward.
(I picture the art as being some sneaky mage with a bunch of different masks/faces...it's like, oh you want me to reveal something? No, I'll reveal something else instead. And draw a card out of it.)
Turn Back Time :2mana::symu::symu::symu:
Sorcery
Play only during your turn.
For each permanent that came into play since the beginning of its controller's previous turn, return that permanent to its owner's hand.
For each card a player drew since the beginning of that player's previous turn, that player puts a card from his or her hand on top of his or her library.
Remove Turn Back Time from the game.
^a little wordy/confusing, but can you get the point? It is meant to literally rewind everything that happened since your last turn. Players return what they played and put whatever they drew (or a proxy for whatever they drew) on top of their library. So this may need wording help too.
Dreamsinger :xmana::symu::symu:
Creature - Illusion
0/0
Flying
As Dreamsinger comes into play, you may search your library for a nonland card with converted mana cost X, reveal it, put it into your hand, and shuffle your library. If you do, Dreamsinger comes into play with X +1/+1 counters on it.
I am pretty sure the cost on this one is fine, but I'm including it anyway to see what you think.
Comments and help would be appreciated...in addition to costing these, I'm interested in what you think of them.
Colourless mana comes FIRST! Try actually looking at a Magic card some time. It is NOT UU3, it's 3UU. What game are you making cards for?
I can no longer tell people to check their card names, because I am made of suck and fail.
nemephosis - I'm not really concerned with the memory issues. You don't have to remember what cards were drawn, it doesn't care about that. You only have to remember number of cards drawn and what cards were played. Who doesn't remember those sort of thing? It is only from one turn ago...if you literally can't remember what your opponent did last turn, this game isn't for you. Wotc may have some problems with the memory issues but I don't.
spellguise - I think limiting it like that would ruin a lot of the fun of it. I'm not sure how easily it can be abused. Even if you are revealing 1 card a turn from some reusable ability, that is just 1 extra card a turn on a 2UU enchantment. I'd rather see the cost go up than have it limited in such a way.
What about the costs of these cards? About right?
Two problems:
1) Abilities like ninjutsu or forecast reveal its card from the hand as part of paying the cost so that other players can know what the ability is. This could be partly fixed by changing it to "If the effect of spell or ability would ..."
2) What about abilities that try to continually reveal your hand? Play Wandering Eye to "reveal" your hand, but choose instead to replace the reveals any number of times until you have drawn your entire library?
Better option would be a lower cost and change it to a triggered ability. Whenever you reveal a card from your hand Index or something like that.
Going with your triggered ability idea, would this work?
Spellguise :2mana::symu::symu:
Enchantment
Whenever you reveal a card from your hand, reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand.
Um, so Wandering Eye would still be a great combo, because you would basically double your hand size. But it would only happen once - the act of revealing each card when the wandering eye comes into play (or when its ability takes effect, but you know what I mean). Ninjitsu/forecast would trigger correctly. Does this create new problems or is it alright, aside from doubling your hand size with anything that reveals your hand?
Or did I just make things worse?
Turn Back Time :2mana::symu::symu::symu:
Sorcery
Play Turn Back Time only during your turn.
Each player returns all permanents he or she controls that came into play since your last turn ended to their owners' hands. Then each player puts a card from his or her hand on top of his or her library for each card he or she drew since your last turn ended.
Remove Turn Back Time from the game.
Probably undercosted. Has more potential than Evacuate, although it's harder to use.
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Gatherer/search isn't working right now and I forget what evacuate does, but isn't Exodus the name of the card that returns all creatures to owner's hands for 3UU? Or is that Evacuate? To me I guess this feels like a weaker evacuate with the potential to be used in cooler ways. Or maybe it is just an all-purpose "annoy the opponent by setting them back a turn" card.
Spellguise 1:symu::symu:
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability controlled by an opponent causes you to reveal a card from your hand, reveal the top card of your library and put it into your hand.
you could even lower the cost to UU or 1U perhaps
horeshoe hermit: just figured it out, Evacuation (not evacuate) is the name of the card we were thinking of. (Good to know that evacuate and exodus are unused card names!) Do you still think Turn Back Time compares too favorably to it?
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What about:
Dreamsinger XUU
Creature
Flying
When ~ comes into play, look at the top X cards of your library, choose one, and put it into your hand.
~ comes into play with two +1/+1 counters if X was 3 or more.
2/2
I hope I was helpful.
Personal Penguin
At the very least, blue does get "weird" tutoring (Intuition) and tutoring for specific things, like cards with a certain cost (trinket mage) or word in them (that card that gets instants or things with flash).
So, in a few words, yes, tutoring is blue. Or at least it is going to be in this set. (Which isn't to say that black can't have it too.) I could definitely see it as being a black card, considering black's tutoring abilities, but I'm emphasizing tutoring as a blue thing in this set.
Don't think of the +1/+1 counters as giving a creature a p/t boost. What it is actually doing is setting the size of the creature to the card you tutor for. Why can't that be blue? A 4/4 flyer that let you tutor up a card sounds like a perfect blue control fatty. A little blue dude that gets you something small is Trinket Mage. That's blue!
Oh! I know what I'll do for my Dreamsinger. You will only get the +1/+1 counters if you also tutored up a card. That even more explicitly ties the creature's size into its tutoring ability.
Personal Penguin, I like your suggested card (except I wouldn't give blue a 2/2 flyer for UU). But it seems just as "non-blue" as my original card insofar as getting +1/+1 counters. Also, it is kind of nuts for a blue creature. at 1UU it is a 2/2 flying cantrip. At 3UU it just makes air elemental cry.
Eagle Eye U
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Search your library for a nonland card with the same name as a card in that opponent's hand, reveal it and put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.
That card that triggers on having your hand revealed is a problem too, I think. If you restrict it to when the opponent makes you reveal, it feels pointless, but if you can trigger it yourself, it's a potentially broken combo piece that lets you draw infinite cards. I don't know what to do to fix it...maybe add a mana cost? something like ":2mana:: The next time you would reveal your hand or reveal a card from your hand this turn, draw a card instead." Alternately, if you just wanted to hose discard spells, you could make "You can't reveal cards from your hand. (You can't pay costs that include revealing cards from your hand.)" or something like that, but that might have some rules issues...not sure.
The other two cards are fine. Blue tutoring is perfectly reasonable. Remember Transmute?
About Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx:
hmmm...I'm honestly not too concerned about what happens in a control-on-control mirror match, but I don't want games to be decided by "whoever draws their [something] first wins." On the other hand, that's sort of how a lot of mirror matches (or heavily sideboarded matches) turn out. I would raise the price, but only to 1UU, not to 5. That's just too high for a card that is so situational.
I do really like your sorcery-tutor version of eagle eye, though. That's an interesting thought, and maybe I'll scrap mine completely and go with something like that.
I'm kind of over spellguise, it just seems to have too many problems, as you've pointed out. But something that bans you from revealing cards is sort of interesting.
Thanks for the comments!
I like this, but I think it could have something like cycling 2U.
First, this is not the kind of ability that can be a replacement effect as it comes into play. It should be a triggered ability when it comes into play.
Now blue does get tutoring, but it should not be as unrestricted like this. Limitaions to artifacts, instants, and cards with flash are good for blue.
I rarely pay attention to things like "replacement effects" and "triggered abilities" when wording my cards, I just give them the wording that I think fits best. Changing "as it comes into play, it comes into play with" to "comes into play with" is fine by me, but otherwise I don't prefer your changes to the card. ("restless dreamer" is a great name though.)
Giving the situational "eagle eye" sorcery cycling is a great idea!
I like Thought Process, too.
At the guy that complained about this card ruining mono-blue mirror matches... maybe that's the point? I mean, if you don't counter it you can rely on bounce, but maybe you have to add green for Naturalize or something. It's not like wizards have never printed cards good for the mirror (like Telemin Performance in TEPS).
Spellguise is tricky. Too good to trigger off your own effects, too narrow not to. Hard to make perfect.
I love Turn Back Time. Excellent card! "Can only be played during your turn" on a sorcery is pretty clunky, though...
EDIT: Spelling Error on Telemin Performance
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=504072