Third attempt on making this weird card just right, from both a rules perspective and a power level perspective.
Court of Great Justice
Land - Court
Court of Great Justice enters the battlefield tapped if you control more lands than each opponent.
T: Add W.
At the beginning of your end step, if you didn’t play a land this turn, you may name this card. If you do, search your library for this card, reveal it, then shuffle your library and put this card on top of it. If you don’t reveal this card, you lose the game.
Two rules clarifications for this card:
1. This card makes use of Magic’s Golden Rule: "101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these (Magic Comprehensive) rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation." So if you reveal this card from your library while searching for it, you haven’t violated the game’s rules because this card’s text supersedes the comprehensive rules, in a wacky, retroactive way. I admit that I'm not entirely sure which rule this card contradicts, but I think that just reading the card should make it clear what I intend this card to do. And since the rules prohibit misrepresenting cards, it should be obvious that you lose the game if you don't find this card when you search for it.
2. Also note the "Court of Great Justice enters the battlefield tapped if you control more lands than each opponent." This effect checks as Court of Great Justice enters the battlefield. So if both players have an equal number of lands and then a player plays a Court, then the court enters the battlefield tapped.
My intention in creating this card was to create a card that would help prevent spoiled games due to mana-screw, but to avoid creating a card that's so good at preventing mana-screw that players could exploit it to run an extremely low land count. Prior feedback on my previous two attempts made me think that my prior attempts were first overpowered, then underpowered. I think this time I got it about right. With the current wording, if you rely too much on Courts for your land drops, you will often find yourself falling behind your opponent on mana development.
Ideally, this is a card that you will want to include 1-2 of in your deck, especially in games where you aren't playing first. This card is obviously better in games in which you don’t play first. This is deliberate and intentional, because the general consensus is that electing to play first is almost always advantageous, and I also wanted to create a card that helps the player without the advantage of playing first. Since these cards are better on the draw, it might even be smart to keep 1-2 of them in your sideboard.
I would also create Courts for the other colors, which would be exactly the same except for card name and color of mana produced.
Blue: Court of Grand Larceny
Black: Court of Premeditated Murder
Red: Court of Aggravated Assault
Green: Court of Indecent Exposure
The search ability doesn't work. The game has no rules mechanism in place that allows abilities to be activated or triggered from hidden zones that nobody can see. Actually, the card's non-presence would be even more problematic than its presence if you just declare the trigger out of nowhere, pick up your deck, and only to not find the card because your opponent took your last copy with Gonti, Lord of Luxury. At which point, there actually wasn't anything that let you do that, which means you just broke the rules. This works in digital card games that have functions in place to handle hidden information, but it's a Schrodinger's Cat in a physical card game that doesn't let players start rifling through their decks for no reason. Panglacial Wurm, on the other hand, hijacks another card's search while a player is looking at their deck, which is why that ability works.
Oh, and the card is broken in terms of power level as well, though I guess that hasn't stopped you from trying to singlehandedly reconstitute the game's resource system. Anything that lets a player run zero or close to zero lands in deck is a huge problem, but you just keep trying to enable that anyways.
Adding the following to the comprehensive rules would be necessary if this card existed:
104.3l: A player loses the game if they fail to completely perform an action that they claim a card in a hidden zone would allow them to perform, of if they search their library for apparently no reason.
Your criticism has also led me to further reflect on this card's power, and on further reflection, I suppose the prior version of card is a little too good. Ironically, I speculate this card was even BETTER in Standard than Legacy. In Standard, foregoing playing first with a weenie deck is probably worth never having to worry about mana flood, since most games of Standard last more than 6 turns. But in Legacy foregoing playing first is probably not worth it because games are often decided very quickly. And also in Legacy, a player could Wasteland themselves, leaving the Court-dependent player without lands for the rest of the game.
I have altered the opening post with an edit to the card text. Most importantly, now you can't fetch this card unless you are behind by two lands. I feel certain that the card is now by no means overpowered. But I do acknowledge that the card mechanic warps the resource system, which many people will regard as taboo, irrespective of how powerful the card is. Naturally, with "You Create The Card" I endeavor to create weird, game-warping cards, even though I often end up with duds. If you think the card is still broken, please demonstrate what sort of deck could exploit it.
104.3l: A player loses the game if they fail to completely perform an action that they claim a card in a hidden zone would allow them to perform, of if they search their library for apparently no reason.
This doesn't work. It's not rigorous enough. You need to explicitly define what "fail to completely perform an action" means.
On another note, a player will already automatically lose the game if they search their library for no reason, due to how tournament rules work.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
It doesn't even seem playable anymore. Adding a colorless land to a nonmono color deck is a not insignificant cost fixing a screw but leaving you a turn behind can turn a number of non games into games but in 3 color decks you wouldn't want the colorless land. The effect on potential mulligans also raises concerns.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Court of Great Justice
Land - Court
Court of Great Justice enters the battlefield tapped if you control more lands than each opponent.
T: Add W.
At the beginning of your end step, if you didn’t play a land this turn, you may name this card. If you do, search your library for this card, reveal it, then shuffle your library and put this card on top of it. If you don’t reveal this card, you lose the game.
Two rules clarifications for this card:
1. This card makes use of Magic’s Golden Rule: "101.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these (Magic Comprehensive) rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation." So if you reveal this card from your library while searching for it, you haven’t violated the game’s rules because this card’s text supersedes the comprehensive rules, in a wacky, retroactive way. I admit that I'm not entirely sure which rule this card contradicts, but I think that just reading the card should make it clear what I intend this card to do. And since the rules prohibit misrepresenting cards, it should be obvious that you lose the game if you don't find this card when you search for it.
2. Also note the "Court of Great Justice enters the battlefield tapped if you control more lands than each opponent." This effect checks as Court of Great Justice enters the battlefield. So if both players have an equal number of lands and then a player plays a Court, then the court enters the battlefield tapped.
My intention in creating this card was to create a card that would help prevent spoiled games due to mana-screw, but to avoid creating a card that's so good at preventing mana-screw that players could exploit it to run an extremely low land count. Prior feedback on my previous two attempts made me think that my prior attempts were first overpowered, then underpowered. I think this time I got it about right. With the current wording, if you rely too much on Courts for your land drops, you will often find yourself falling behind your opponent on mana development.
Ideally, this is a card that you will want to include 1-2 of in your deck, especially in games where you aren't playing first. This card is obviously better in games in which you don’t play first. This is deliberate and intentional, because the general consensus is that electing to play first is almost always advantageous, and I also wanted to create a card that helps the player without the advantage of playing first. Since these cards are better on the draw, it might even be smart to keep 1-2 of them in your sideboard.
I would also create Courts for the other colors, which would be exactly the same except for card name and color of mana produced.
Blue: Court of Grand Larceny
Black: Court of Premeditated Murder
Red: Court of Aggravated Assault
Green: Court of Indecent Exposure
Oh, and the card is broken in terms of power level as well, though I guess that hasn't stopped you from trying to singlehandedly reconstitute the game's resource system. Anything that lets a player run zero or close to zero lands in deck is a huge problem, but you just keep trying to enable that anyways.
104.3l: A player loses the game if they fail to completely perform an action that they claim a card in a hidden zone would allow them to perform, of if they search their library for apparently no reason.
Your criticism has also led me to further reflect on this card's power, and on further reflection, I suppose the prior version of card is a little too good. Ironically, I speculate this card was even BETTER in Standard than Legacy. In Standard, foregoing playing first with a weenie deck is probably worth never having to worry about mana flood, since most games of Standard last more than 6 turns. But in Legacy foregoing playing first is probably not worth it because games are often decided very quickly. And also in Legacy, a player could Wasteland themselves, leaving the Court-dependent player without lands for the rest of the game.
I have altered the opening post with an edit to the card text. Most importantly, now you can't fetch this card unless you are behind by two lands. I feel certain that the card is now by no means overpowered. But I do acknowledge that the card mechanic warps the resource system, which many people will regard as taboo, irrespective of how powerful the card is. Naturally, with "You Create The Card" I endeavor to create weird, game-warping cards, even though I often end up with duds. If you think the card is still broken, please demonstrate what sort of deck could exploit it.
This doesn't work. It's not rigorous enough. You need to explicitly define what "fail to completely perform an action" means.
On another note, a player will already automatically lose the game if they search their library for no reason, due to how tournament rules work.
[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