I think it should be fine, as compared to Diabolic Intent. Three creatures is a heavy cost on top of the cost to cast whatever you tutor for, and isn't as synergistic as Dread Return.
That said, it needs a different name, I think. It's too close to Diabolic Tutor.
---
Now or Never - WURG Instant
Convoke
Search your graveyard, hand, or library for a card with Miracle and reveal it. If you searched your library this way, shuffle it. Then put the revealed card on top.
Wait what? So if you search your hand or graveyard, this card literally does nothing.
As a 4 multicolor miracle tutor from the library, it's meh. Typically it will cost 2 coloured mana and 2 tapped creatures, which is decent.
The design is really parasitic though, and that I don't like.
Lumiere Exemplar3W
Creature - Human Knight (R)
Whenever ~ blocks a creature, it gains double strike until end of turn.
When ~ is turned face up, exile all attacking creatures.
Morph 3WW (You may cast this face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
3/3
5cc to exile all attacking creatures before they get to deal damage to you seems rather obscene. The gain double-strike thing is sort of ok for a rare, but maybe this guy can have a 6cc morph cost at least, maybe even 7.
Next
Final Say2UUU
Instant (R)
Split Second
Counter target spell. Its controller can't cast any more spells this turn. "I said, shut up!"
So yeah, essentially a Last Word + Silence, so I wonder if this can stand as monocolor. Comments?
EDIT:
Final Say1UUU
Instant (R)
Split Second
Counter target spell. Its controller can't cast any more spells this turn. "I said, shut up!"
Final Say1WUU
Instant (R)
Split Second
Counter target spell. Its controller can't cast any more spells this turn. "I said, shut up!"
Dice rolls are usually avoided for good reason, but I like this card quite a bit. You can try to refill your hand or screw with your opponent. On average, you get 3/4 cards. But you feel so good/horrible when you get 6/1. Super swingy, but there's an audience for that kind of thing.
Into the FrayR
Sorcery (C)
Target creature gets +2/+2 and gains haste until end of turn. “Today is a good day to die, but a better day to fight and triumph.”
It's fair and definitely common-level power. Slightly out of colour for red through, red doesn't typically do toughness boosts. Should be okay though considering cards like Reckless Charge and Uncanny Speed.
Grizolda, the Eternal Tiller1BG
Legendary Creature — Zombie Shaman (M) t: Put a land from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
Sacrifice X lands: Return a creature with converted mana cost X from your graveyard to the battlefield.
2/2
I think it's a little too powerful. Repeatable ramp like this, especially in a dredge or self-mill deck, could spell trouble. I think if the first ability had "sacrifice a land" as part of the cost it'd be fine.
[Desperate Looter]R
Creature - Goblin Scout
Haste
T: Discard a card. Draw a card at the beginning of your next draw step. Activate this ability only whenever you could cast a sorcery.
Decent. If you can force it to tap multiple times with your hand empty, this can be nice.
Next
Skybloom Garden
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.) GW, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if you have gained 10 or more life this turn.
Comments?
EDIT: Oops...
Skybloom Garden
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.) T: Add G or W to your mana pool. GW, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if you have gained 10 or more life this turn.
Wound Spiral is a great design, especially in a set like Shadowmoor or Scars where -1/-1s are abundant. The only thing I might recommend is giving it rebound or flashback.
Moxling0
Artifact Creature
Imprint - When Moxling enters the battlefield, you may exile a land card from your hand.
T: Add one mana of any color that the imprinted land could produce to your mana pool.
Wound Spiral is a great design, especially in a set like Shadowmoor or Scars where -1/-1s are abundant. The only thing I might recommend is giving it rebound or flashback.
Moxling0
Artifact Creature
Imprint - When Moxling enters the battlefield, you may exile a land card from your hand.
T: Add one mana of any color that the imprinted land could produce to your mana pool.
0/1
I think it would have to cost one. Unlike the modes, this can help you by blocking if you're behind and can be affected by pump spells and such. Otherwise, neat design.
Proof I've probably been playing to much Dishonoured.
Corvo Attano, Royal Protector 1WW
Legendary Creature-Human Advisor (Mythic)
Whenever a non combat source an opponent controls cause a creature you control to be put into your graveyard, you may transform Corvo Attano, Royal Protector.
2/2
Flip Side:
Corvo, Masked Assassin (Black color indicator)
Legendary Creature-Human Assassin
Tap: Destroy target creature that dealt damage to a permanent you control. It can't be regenerated.
4/4
Countermagic is the smell before rain, the sun on the horizon and the chocolate chips in my mint chocolate chip ice cream. It's the first time I saw a woman naked and the first time I smelled perfume. It's that feeling you get when you know you're right.
But most of all; it's the feeling of playing Magic
Ah, snap, if only you had phrased it the Mindcensor way -- 'would search a library'.
* * *
As much as I deplore New Phyrexia and Mirrodin 2.0 in general:
Kenosnomik, Identity-Crafter8
Legendary Artifact Creature - Praetor
If ~ would be destroyed, regenerate it.
Permanents you control have no name.
Nonland permanents your opponents control are legendary.
6/6
Kind of fair for the cost, but I think he should be something like a 5/5, especially as he is pretty powerful outside of Commander, and even in Commander.
Pyreling :1mana::symr:
Creature - Elemental
Whenever a creature or player would be dealt damage from a red source, increase the damage dealt by one.
1/1
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Master Biomancer's flavor text should read 'My DNA - I put that ---- in everything'.
A little too good for 2 mana. This is a one-sided damage boost (unless your opponent also plays red), and this guy is essentially a 2/1. This needs to cost 4 at least; At least Furnace of Rath, while deadlier, is symmetrical.
Repeatable Wrath? ONOEZ!
Dispose Victims4BB
Sorcery (R)
Destroy all creatures. If one or fewer creature dies this way, return Dispose Victims to its owner's hand. It's easy to hide a murder when there isn't too many victims.
Dispose Victims4BB
Sorcery (R)
Destroy all creatures. If one or fewer creature dies this way, return Dispose Victims to its owner's hand. It's easy to hide a murder when there isn't too many victims.
Comments?
I like this one. It would be especially brutal in Standard Constructed right now as games are often dragged on to 10+ turns vs. non-aggro decks. It's either a mass removal spell, or an expensive repeatable kill spell.
Tilling the Land3GG
Enchantment (R)
Basic lands in your hand have "Cycling X, where X is the number of cards in your hand. (X, Discard this card: draw a card.)" Proper preparations posit proper proportions.
Did I get the wording down correctly? Too OP? I hope so.
Dispose Victims maybe should be only if 1 creature dies that way (not 1 or less). It would make it a lock thats much easier to break out of, allowing bounce/killspells/sacs on your own guys to thwart the recursion. Makes the game more fun, even if it makes the card significantly weaker.
Tilling seems rather on the cautious side doesn't it? 5 CMC, basic restriction and a cycling thats often going to be higher than 2+, which is the 'fair' point usually. You have to be down to 2 cards in hand just for tilling to begin to turn your topdeck into non-ETBT cycling lands, and be in hellbent mode for your topdeck to be above the curve cycling. For such a conservatively powered effect, it could probably be a lot, lot cheaper to play. Its never going to be freecycling after all.
Anyways:
Stern Chronoguard1UU
Creature - Human Soldier Wizard (R)
Whenever three or more spell cards owned by two or more players are on the stack, end the turn. (Exile all spells and abilities on the stack. The player whose turn it is discards down to his or her maximum hand size. Damage wears off, and "this turn" and "until end of turn" effects end.) "This nonsense was over before it began!"
2/3
Bloodsoaked Marsh
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.) T: Add B or R to your mana pool. BR, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if each player has lost 5 or more life this turn.
Each player, that means including you. Comments?
EDIT:
Bloodsoaked Marsh
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.) T: Add B or R to your mana pool. BR, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if each player has lost 3 or more life this turn.
Seems prohibitively hard to activate. I get some of the original hideaways are nigh impossible activate (Howltooth Hollow), but I believe those be design errors.
Black and red share discard, so I think a better trigger would be t,BR:You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if each player has discarded a card this turn.
Void RayWB
Instant (R)
Destroy target permanent that shares no card-types with a permanent you control.
The Flooded District
Land-Rare
Tap: Add B to your mana pool.
Tap: Put a 1/1 Human Weeper creature with Deathtouch onto the battlefield under your control.
Countermagic is the smell before rain, the sun on the horizon and the chocolate chips in my mint chocolate chip ice cream. It's the first time I saw a woman naked and the first time I smelled perfume. It's that feeling you get when you know you're right.
But most of all; it's the feeling of playing Magic
Too powerful. It's a swamp with an extra ability and without a drawback. Even producing vanilla tokens so easily is a big deal; giving these ones deathtouch is insane. The land should enter tapped and the ability should probably cost 5 mana or more.
I like the denizen cycle, but if this cycle is an "add abilities to Gates" cycle, I'm less enthused. Simply due to how parasitic the design is.
As it stands it's fair for the cost, maybe even a bit weak. But fine at common rarity.
Scavenge the Living3B
Sorcery (R)
Each player sacrifices a creature. Put an X/X black Zombie token onto the battlefield, where X is the combined power all creatures sacrificed this way.
nath edit:
Seems potentially on the too strong side, just in terms of the token strength. In aggro terms, you're basically getting a mind control in efficiency, converting X/X of your beaters and Y/Y of an opponents into a X+Y/X+Y, but without the 2-for-1 exchange in return if it gets removed. Then again, given the capacity to whiff hard like any other innocent blood effect if its just dork and dork its just a 2/2 zombo.
If it was just making X 2/2 tokens it would be a pretty boring card for 1v1 (just an innocent blood and 2 tokens), which would already be too strong, if it was 1/1 tokens probably too weak, and wouldn't make sense as zombies.
It would make a great limited cycle indeed. I love that as an uncommon, though I think its the kind of cycle where you would be better off just being pragmatic about how to fit in all five instead of sticking to any template. Maybe just a loose theme of "# of gates matters" instead of all colors giving them a tap effect.
Half of it, but the trick is that it turns any two instant spells into a conditional time stop- but symmetrically so your opponents can return the favor.
Anyway;
Underground Tunnels
Land - (R) T: Add X to your mana pool, where X is how many more lands you control than an opponent.
Interesting. Helps LD-based deck, and will thoroughly screw over people who got land-screwed, which is probably super evil. I'd probably appreciate its inverse (get more mana the more you get mana screwed) better, but then again that's just me. Sides, this also needs Rampant Growth effects to truly work, and can be screwed if your opponent does that first. Probably no issue.
Next
Manabathed Fountain3
Artifact (U) T: Add 1 to your mana pool. If you have 40 or more life, add WUBRG to your mana pool instead. Health and prosperity always go hand-in-hand.
Comments?
EDIT:
Manabathed Fountain2
Artifact (U) T: Add 1 to your mana pool. If you have 40 or more life, add WUBRG to your mana pool instead. Health and prosperity always go hand-in-hand.
First post. Not familiar with the formatting here, so I won't try.
Prismatic Monolith {X}
Artifact
Prismatic Monolith comes into play with X charge counters on it.
Tap, remove {X} counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add {X} to your mana pool. {X} cannot be 0.
Tap, remove three counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add one of any color to your mana pool.
{X}, Untap: add {X} counters to Prismatic Monolith.
I've wanted this since I first got a Basalt Monolith from a 3rd edition pack back when I started playing in late '94/early '95. Lately when I've thought about it, I figured they wouldn't make it now because anything you can tap/untap infinitely without losing mana (or any other resource) in the process would be a key to unlock way too many infinite combos, but it's no different in that respect from the orginal Basalt Monolith.
One thing I think is nifty is that unlike the Basalt Monolith, this untaps normally. That means if you drain it dry and leave it tapped, it untaps during your untap phase and you have no way (aside from using another card) to tap it again. Since you can only add counters (without using another card) when it's tapped, and when you tap it X cannot be 0, you have to leave a little bit of charge in it or it goes dead.
Overpowered? Not powerful enough? What do you think?
@Fountain
40 life is a rather difficult clause to fill. The only deck that can abuse it significantly is martyr, and is that a real issue? Nonwhite mana gumming it up in particular. When I first read it, I thought it was a land, and it even seemed fairly balanced then. As an artifact, its fair at 2, thats standard for a colorless rock with upside afaik, and wizards rule of thumb is that lands convert to approximately 2 artifacts, see exotic orchard
@Monolith
Welcome! You can always learn the formatting by quoting someone and seeing their post in plaintext, beats asking.
I like the idea, but it seems like it should work the opposite way in terms of tapping/untapping. As you have it now, like you say, it doesn't tap easily, but one problem is that you can unconditionally untap it. So for example if you animate it and slap a psionic gift on it, its an infinite damage combo. With something like mind over matter, infinite again. If you just take the "X cannot be 0" clause from the 2nd ability and put it on the last, untap ability, now you have to pay at least 1 to untap it. It can still go infinite with a wake thrasher, but anything else that is tapping it as a cost would require at least 1 per hit. Its still fairly iffy territory.
A problem with cards like this is that played fairly, its just an overly complicated gemstone array, while everyone and their mother will try to break it for those unintended infinite combos. Still, its worth refining the concept.
And got a tricky idea. Heres a riff on contraptions. I think, after critically examining it, it might be worth dropping the "contraption" and "assemble" syntax and use completely different keywords and leave poor Steamflogger Boss out cold, because fitting in the type lines and texts short enough is difficult with both being long words, and his ability wouldn't even make sense without extreme errata.
Assemble T(Assemble this card onto another contraption you control, which gains the combined abilities, types, mana cost, colors, power and toughness of both cards. This card is treated as though it doesn't exist until the contraption leaves the battlefield, taking with it all cards assembled onto it. Assemble only any time you could cast a sorcery.).
Powerstone Cog4
Artifact - Contraption (U) T: Add 2 to your mana pool.
Assemble T
Aeolipiledriver1R
Artifact Creature - Contraption Goblin (U)
Protection from blue T, Sacrifice Aeolipiledriver: Aeolpiledriver deals damage equal to its converted mana cost to target creature or player.
Assemble T
2/1
Rigger Retriever1
Artifact Creature - Contraption Rigger (C)
When Rigger Retriever dies, return all contraptions assembled onto it to the battlefield under their owner's control.
Assemble T
1/1
Infernal Device2
Artifact - Contraption (R)
At the end of your turn, sacrifice two permanents and you lose 2 life. T: Draw two cards.
Assemble T
Memnarch the Insane7
Legendary Artifact Creature- Rigger (M) 1UU: Target permanent becomes a contraption artifact in addition to its other types. 3U: Assemble target contraption you don't control onto a contraption you control.
5/4
Is this idea any good or is it too complicated and headachey? I might develop it into its own thread or custom set if its worthwhile, I was just throwing out a few ideas on it. Its taking a page from experiment kraj, but I can only imagine the complicated horrors of a whole set where you have 5 cards stapled to each other, an artifact creature enchantment land planeswalker with 12 subtypes and 12UURRBBB mana cost and a rules text box to match an IRS form.
There would be a certain charm to memmies spending 5UUUUU to take your opponents primeval titan and stick it into his own body. 11/10 Legendary Artifact Creature - Rigger Titan, with 11GG mana cost, 2 activated abilities, 1 triggered ability and trample!
That said, it needs a different name, I think. It's too close to Diabolic Tutor.
---
Now or Never - WURG
Instant
Convoke
Search your graveyard, hand, or library for a card with Miracle and reveal it. If you searched your library this way, shuffle it. Then put the revealed card on top.
As a 4 multicolor miracle tutor from the library, it's meh. Typically it will cost 2 coloured mana and 2 tapped creatures, which is decent.
The design is really parasitic though, and that I don't like.
Lumiere Exemplar 3W
Creature - Human Knight (R)
Whenever ~ blocks a creature, it gains double strike until end of turn.
When ~ is turned face up, exile all attacking creatures.
Morph 3WW (You may cast this face down as a 2/2 creature for 3. Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
3/3
Next
Final Say 2UUU
Instant (R)
Split Second
Counter target spell. Its controller can't cast any more spells this turn.
"I said, shut up!"
So yeah, essentially a Last Word + Silence, so I wonder if this can stand as monocolor. Comments?
EDIT:
Final Say 1UUU
Instant (R)
Split Second
Counter target spell. Its controller can't cast any more spells this turn.
"I said, shut up!"
Final Say 1WUU
Instant (R)
Split Second
Counter target spell. Its controller can't cast any more spells this turn.
"I said, shut up!"
Into the Fray R
Sorcery (C)
Target creature gets +2/+2 and gains haste until end of turn.
“Today is a good day to die, but a better day to fight and triumph.”
Grizolda, the Eternal Tiller 1BG
Legendary Creature — Zombie Shaman (M)
t: Put a land from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
Sacrifice X lands: Return a creature with converted mana cost X from your graveyard to the battlefield.
2/2
[Desperate Looter] R
Creature - Goblin Scout
Haste
T: Discard a card. Draw a card at the beginning of your next draw step. Activate this ability only whenever you could cast a sorcery.
1/1
Next
Skybloom Garden
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.)
GW, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if you have gained 10 or more life this turn.
Comments?
EDIT: Oops...
Skybloom Garden
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.)
T: Add G or W to your mana pool.
GW, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if you have gained 10 or more life this turn.
Moxling 0
Artifact Creature
Imprint - When Moxling enters the battlefield, you may exile a land card from your hand.
T: Add one mana of any color that the imprinted land could produce to your mana pool.
0/1
I think it would have to cost one. Unlike the modes, this can help you by blocking if you're behind and can be affected by pump spells and such. Otherwise, neat design.
Proof I've probably been playing to much Dishonoured.
Corvo Attano, Royal Protector 1WW
Legendary Creature-Human Advisor (Mythic)
Whenever a non combat source an opponent controls cause a creature you control to be put into your graveyard, you may transform Corvo Attano, Royal Protector.
2/2
Flip Side:
Corvo, Masked Assassin (Black color indicator)
Legendary Creature-Human Assassin
Tap: Destroy target creature that dealt damage to a permanent you control. It can't be regenerated.
4/4
It's alright and I guess being legendary makes it a mythic, but nothing I'd be interested in building and EDH deck around.
Encrypt 1U
Instant (U)
If an opponent would search their library this turn, that player searches the top 3 cards instead.
Draw a card.
* * *
As much as I deplore New Phyrexia and Mirrodin 2.0 in general:
Kenosnomik, Identity-Crafter 8
Legendary Artifact Creature - Praetor
If ~ would be destroyed, regenerate it.
Permanents you control have no name.
Nonland permanents your opponents control are legendary.
6/6
Pyreling :1mana::symr:
Creature - Elemental
Whenever a creature or player would be dealt damage from a red source, increase the damage dealt by one.
1/1
Repeatable Wrath? ONOEZ!
Dispose Victims 4BB
Sorcery (R)
Destroy all creatures. If one or fewer creature dies this way, return Dispose Victims to its owner's hand.
It's easy to hide a murder when there isn't too many victims.
Comments?
I like this one. It would be especially brutal in Standard Constructed right now as games are often dragged on to 10+ turns vs. non-aggro decks. It's either a mass removal spell, or an expensive repeatable kill spell.
Tilling the Land 3GG
Enchantment (R)
Basic lands in your hand have "Cycling X, where X is the number of cards in your hand. (X, Discard this card: draw a card.)"
Proper preparations posit proper proportions.
Did I get the wording down correctly? Too OP? I hope so.
Tilling seems rather on the cautious side doesn't it? 5 CMC, basic restriction and a cycling thats often going to be higher than 2+, which is the 'fair' point usually. You have to be down to 2 cards in hand just for tilling to begin to turn your topdeck into non-ETBT cycling lands, and be in hellbent mode for your topdeck to be above the curve cycling. For such a conservatively powered effect, it could probably be a lot, lot cheaper to play. Its never going to be freecycling after all.
Anyways:
Stern Chronoguard 1UU
Creature - Human Soldier Wizard (R)
Whenever three or more spell cards owned by two or more players are on the stack, end the turn. (Exile all spells and abilities on the stack. The player whose turn it is discards down to his or her maximum hand size. Damage wears off, and "this turn" and "until end of turn" effects end.)
"This nonsense was over before it began!"
2/3
Next
Bloodsoaked Marsh
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.)
T: Add B or R to your mana pool.
BR, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if each player has lost 5 or more life this turn.
Each player, that means including you. Comments?
EDIT:
Bloodsoaked Marsh
Land (R)
Hideaway (This land enters the battlefield tapped. When it does, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.)
T: Add B or R to your mana pool.
BR, T: You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if each player has lost 3 or more life this turn.
Black and red share discard, so I think a better trigger would be t,BR:You may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost if each player has discarded a card this turn.
Void Ray WB
Instant (R)
Destroy target permanent that shares no card-types with a permanent you control.
The Flooded District
Land-Rare
Tap: Add B to your mana pool.
Tap: Put a 1/1 Human Weeper creature with Deathtouch onto the battlefield under your control.
More Dishonored cards!
---
I imagine this being a full cycle, similar to the //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?sort=cn+&action=advanced&name=%20[denizen">&set=|[%22Gatecrash%22]"]denizen cycle in Gatecrash:
[Fountain Street Resident] 2(G/W)
Creature - Human Soldier
Gates you control have "T: Gain 1 life."
2/2
As it stands it's fair for the cost, maybe even a bit weak. But fine at common rarity.
Scavenge the Living 3B
Sorcery (R)
Each player sacrifices a creature. Put an X/X black Zombie token onto the battlefield, where X is the combined power all creatures sacrificed this way.
Seems potentially on the too strong side, just in terms of the token strength. In aggro terms, you're basically getting a mind control in efficiency, converting X/X of your beaters and Y/Y of an opponents into a X+Y/X+Y, but without the 2-for-1 exchange in return if it gets removed. Then again, given the capacity to whiff hard like any other innocent blood effect if its just dork and dork its just a 2/2 zombo.
If it was just making X 2/2 tokens it would be a pretty boring card for 1v1 (just an innocent blood and 2 tokens), which would already be too strong, if it was 1/1 tokens probably too weak, and wouldn't make sense as zombies.
It would make a great limited cycle indeed. I love that as an uncommon, though I think its the kind of cycle where you would be better off just being pragmatic about how to fit in all five instead of sticking to any template. Maybe just a loose theme of "# of gates matters" instead of all colors giving them a tap effect.
(in reference to this)
Half of it, but the trick is that it turns any two instant spells into a conditional time stop- but symmetrically so your opponents can return the favor.
Anyway;
Underground Tunnels
Land - (R)
T: Add X to your mana pool, where X is how many more lands you control than an opponent.
Next
Manabathed Fountain 3
Artifact (U)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool. If you have 40 or more life, add WUBRG to your mana pool instead.
Health and prosperity always go hand-in-hand.
Comments?
EDIT:
Manabathed Fountain 2
Artifact (U)
T: Add 1 to your mana pool. If you have 40 or more life, add WUBRG to your mana pool instead.
Health and prosperity always go hand-in-hand.
Prismatic Monolith {X}
Artifact
Prismatic Monolith comes into play with X charge counters on it.
Tap, remove {X} counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add {X} to your mana pool. {X} cannot be 0.
Tap, remove three counters from Prismatic Monolith: Add one of any color to your mana pool.
{X}, Untap: add {X} counters to Prismatic Monolith.
I've wanted this since I first got a Basalt Monolith from a 3rd edition pack back when I started playing in late '94/early '95. Lately when I've thought about it, I figured they wouldn't make it now because anything you can tap/untap infinitely without losing mana (or any other resource) in the process would be a key to unlock way too many infinite combos, but it's no different in that respect from the orginal Basalt Monolith.
One thing I think is nifty is that unlike the Basalt Monolith, this untaps normally. That means if you drain it dry and leave it tapped, it untaps during your untap phase and you have no way (aside from using another card) to tap it again. Since you can only add counters (without using another card) when it's tapped, and when you tap it X cannot be 0, you have to leave a little bit of charge in it or it goes dead.
Overpowered? Not powerful enough? What do you think?
40 life is a rather difficult clause to fill. The only deck that can abuse it significantly is martyr, and is that a real issue? Nonwhite mana gumming it up in particular. When I first read it, I thought it was a land, and it even seemed fairly balanced then. As an artifact, its fair at 2, thats standard for a colorless rock with upside afaik, and wizards rule of thumb is that lands convert to approximately 2 artifacts, see exotic orchard
@Monolith
Welcome! You can always learn the formatting by quoting someone and seeing their post in plaintext, beats asking.
I like the idea, but it seems like it should work the opposite way in terms of tapping/untapping. As you have it now, like you say, it doesn't tap easily, but one problem is that you can unconditionally untap it. So for example if you animate it and slap a psionic gift on it, its an infinite damage combo. With something like mind over matter, infinite again. If you just take the "X cannot be 0" clause from the 2nd ability and put it on the last, untap ability, now you have to pay at least 1 to untap it. It can still go infinite with a wake thrasher, but anything else that is tapping it as a cost would require at least 1 per hit. Its still fairly iffy territory.
A problem with cards like this is that played fairly, its just an overly complicated gemstone array, while everyone and their mother will try to break it for those unintended infinite combos. Still, its worth refining the concept.
Anyway I was reading this thread:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=496588
And got a tricky idea. Heres a riff on contraptions. I think, after critically examining it, it might be worth dropping the "contraption" and "assemble" syntax and use completely different keywords and leave poor Steamflogger Boss out cold, because fitting in the type lines and texts short enough is difficult with both being long words, and his ability wouldn't even make sense without extreme errata.
For example, on this card:
Rigger Wingpod 3
Artifact Creature - Contraption Rigger (C)
Flying
Assemble T
2/1
And here it is applied to some more example cards (herp derp not "single card"):
Artifact Creature - Contraption Rigger (U)
2: Untap Voltaic Rigger
Assemble T
1/1
Powerstone Cog 4
Artifact - Contraption (U)
T: Add 2 to your mana pool.
Assemble T
Aeolipiledriver 1R
Artifact Creature - Contraption Goblin (U)
Protection from blue
T, Sacrifice Aeolipiledriver: Aeolpiledriver deals damage equal to its converted mana cost to target creature or player.
Assemble T
2/1
Rigger Retriever 1
Artifact Creature - Contraption Rigger (C)
When Rigger Retriever dies, return all contraptions assembled onto it to the battlefield under their owner's control.
Assemble T
1/1
Infernal Device 2
Artifact - Contraption (R)
At the end of your turn, sacrifice two permanents and you lose 2 life.
T: Draw two cards.
Assemble T
Memnarch the Insane 7
Legendary Artifact Creature- Rigger (M)
1UU: Target permanent becomes a contraption artifact in addition to its other types.
3U: Assemble target contraption you don't control onto a contraption you control.
5/4
Is this idea any good or is it too complicated and headachey? I might develop it into its own thread or custom set if its worthwhile, I was just throwing out a few ideas on it. Its taking a page from experiment kraj, but I can only imagine the complicated horrors of a whole set where you have 5 cards stapled to each other, an artifact creature enchantment land planeswalker with 12 subtypes and 12UURRBBB mana cost and a rules text box to match an IRS form.
There would be a certain charm to memmies spending 5UUUUU to take your opponents primeval titan and stick it into his own body. 11/10 Legendary Artifact Creature - Rigger Titan, with 11GG mana cost, 2 activated abilities, 1 triggered ability and trample!
Also, aeopiledriver trolololo