Lands you control enter the battlefield tapped.
Lands you control have hideaway and "3, T: You may play the card exiled with this permanent without paying its mana cost."
3/3
Wanted a commander that gave all your lands hideaway. I wanted to let you play the hidden cards even if the commander wasn't on the battlefield but I can't think of an elegant way to do it without counters. Cost or conditions to play the hidden cards are up for debate. "Lands ETB tapped" is technically redundant to Hideaway, and could be dropped if the reminder text for hideaway was included.
Yes, you don't want to add the extra ETB tapped as it is superfluous.
I'd suggest "X,T: You may play a card exiled with this permanent without paying its mana cost if its mana value is X or less." This still gives every hidden card psuedo flash for +1 mana without breaking the cost of spells wide open. I also changed it to "a card" since things that double triggers potentially mean you can have multiple cards hidden away under the same land.
I like the idea of the cost scaling to the spell's mana value.
Revision 2:
Hideaway Elemental 2GRW
Legendary Creature - Elemental Avatar
Each land you control enters the battlefield with a cove counter. As long as that land has a cove counter, it has hideaway and "X,T: You may play a card exiled with this permanent without paying its mana cost if its mana value is X or less."
3/3
That's the cleanest way I can think of to make it so you don't need the creature to be able to cast the hidden spells. Does this ability work correctly? Specifically, with this guy out my lands will have hideaway in time to enter tapped, correct?
I'd suggest "X,T: You may play a card exiled with this permanent without paying its mana cost if its mana value is X or less." This still gives every hidden card psuedo flash for +1 mana without breaking the cost of spells wide open. I also changed it to "a card" since things that double triggers potentially mean you can have multiple cards hidden away under the same land.
The main concern I think with going with "a" card is that these then work differently than the other 6 Hideaway cards that exist. Maybe that isn't enough to say that is what should always occur but it is a difference, for the reason you stated, from the established norm so it might be worth dwelling on a little. It certainly works better with the ability and the cost definition of course, just felt it worth pointing out that it could be confusing where the others allow you to cast all the exiled cards and this one wouldn't.
I think it's important for this card to not be different than the other Hideawsy cards, but at the same time the Commander deck this wants to be the Commander of would definitely run Strionic Resonator and the like. I prefer the "cast a card" wording for now, just to prevent brokenness.
The change does contribute significantly to making it morr balanced, though!
by the way I’d suggest looking at Makeshift Mannequin’s text for ideas on templating.
One other thing I’d suggest is to consider the flavor. This card doesn’t really strike me as an elemental avatar exactly. I want to suggest something like a dude who has hidden caches everywhere. Don’t need to consider it, just wanted to throw my idea out there!
Legendary Creature - Elemental Avatar
Lands you control enter the battlefield tapped.
Lands you control have hideaway and "3, T: You may play the card exiled with this permanent without paying its mana cost."
3/3
Wanted a commander that gave all your lands hideaway. I wanted to let you play the hidden cards even if the commander wasn't on the battlefield but I can't think of an elegant way to do it without counters. Cost or conditions to play the hidden cards are up for debate. "Lands ETB tapped" is technically redundant to Hideaway, and could be dropped if the reminder text for hideaway was included.
I know, I said so in the OP that it was redundant. I figure it's part of hideaway everyone forgets about so I spelled it out.
I'd suggest "X,T: You may play a card exiled with this permanent without paying its mana cost if its mana value is X or less." This still gives every hidden card psuedo flash for +1 mana without breaking the cost of spells wide open. I also changed it to "a card" since things that double triggers potentially mean you can have multiple cards hidden away under the same land.
Revision 2:
Hideaway Elemental 2GRW
Legendary Creature - Elemental Avatar
Each land you control enters the battlefield with a cove counter. As long as that land has a cove counter, it has hideaway and "X,T: You may play a card exiled with this permanent without paying its mana cost if its mana value is X or less."
3/3
That's the cleanest way I can think of to make it so you don't need the creature to be able to cast the hidden spells. Does this ability work correctly? Specifically, with this guy out my lands will have hideaway in time to enter tapped, correct?
What about the colors? Should this be Jund?
The change does contribute significantly to making it morr balanced, though!
by the way I’d suggest looking at Makeshift Mannequin’s text for ideas on templating.
One other thing I’d suggest is to consider the flavor. This card doesn’t really strike me as an elemental avatar exactly. I want to suggest something like a dude who has hidden caches everywhere. Don’t need to consider it, just wanted to throw my idea out there!
Shards of awful never