I don't get why WotC continues not to learn from past mistakes and prints perfectly good abilities with overly-simplified templating that prohibits further expansion. I remember reading a development article a few years ago on the mothership that lamented the templating they used with Threshold, as it would have been better if they had included a number in the ability word so they could have stuff activate at numbers other than 7, yet here they go again, cementing a keyword so it can never have a variable cost or effect. Oh, and they dropped the ball in this regard with Metalcraft, too.
What happens now if, a few years down the road, they want to reuse this ability? Well, it can only appear on white or black cards, and it might be kinda odd on some of those, depending on the flavor of the set. A mono-white card with a potentially black activation in a set without the Orzhov flavor to explain it would be wonky.
My advice would be to make adding the counter eot optional. That way, the mechanic rewards better play. Also, that opens up design space for cards you might not want to charge past a certain point. For instance,
Pernicious Will XBG
Sorcery
Charge – You may pay 1 and exile this card from the game face down. At the end of turn, you may put a charge counter on this card. You may cast this spell as long as it remains exiled.
Destroy each non-land permanent with converted mana cost equal to X or the number of charge counters on it.
Also, I think some sort of rules clarification about the number of charge counters on the exiled card pertaining to the effect of the spell would be useful. Something saying those counters stay on the spell when it is put on the stack or "the spell has a charge of X, where X was the number of charge counters on it when cast" or something like that. I think that would go a long way towards cleaning up wording/rules complications.
Really, I think the biggest problem with the mechanic is it's wordiness. 3 lines of text is rough when you HAVE to have additional text, too. Also, this ability needs to be a keyword ability and not an ability word such that it'll have reminder text you can leave off when you need the space. As an ability word, it'll always take at least 3 lines.
Last point in a long post, I'd ignore the people saying "you should only allow 1 charging spell at a time so it isn't broken with Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune." The problem they fear isn't with the charge mechanic, it's with flawed, pre-existing spells that are only legal in 2 formats. Don't let former design mistakes limit your creative ability. The banned/restricted list is there to fix problems like that.
Fling, really? I understand having to put Naturalize in IND for limited purposes, but why is Fling getting a reprint after being in M12 too?
Limited purposes, I think. Seriously, this'll be an incredibly strong limited trick with Undying guys to untap a surprise blocker and, ya know, deal damage to something. Also, INN block so far seems to have an overage of big, evasionless guys that are begging for Fling
I'm hoping, for black, we see a Buried Alive effect, but I'm not holding my breath. As mentioned, it'll probably just be bad, vanilla discard.
With green, lifegain or pump seems likely. Maybe even +1/+1 counter distribution.
A red ritual effect would be interesting, but has the potential to bust some things open in Modern. If it is the red effect, though, something like that might explain the overkill that is Grafdigger's Cage
If this thread is for speculation, Week 1 has left me very curious about the doubling flashback cycle. I gather from Increasing Devotion and Increasing Confusion that they are pushing the efficiency of the featured effects. I'm hoping the black one will be a Buried Alive variant that doubles from 2 to 4 on both tutoring and CC, but I'm not holding my breath. Wouldn't be surprised by a green Overrun effect in that cycle, either.
I'm also convinced wizards'll do a Legendary werewolf that doesn't transform, and am wondering if it'll be in this set or the next one.
Also, I'm amazed at the lack of independent spoilers. I think the only one we've gotten so far this season is the UW fog guy. Where're the rumormongers at?!
They aren't doing mechanically themed blocks anymore, so an enemy color block isn't likely.
Where are you getting that from? The last full block was themed around Artifacts and Poison, both arguably mechanical themes. And the block before that? Oh yeh, lands. We even got a special ability word for it.
The way I see it, Innistrad is the first block that hasn't had a heavy mechanical theme since, um, Time Spiral, I guess.
Ravnica's return could show anything since it was a block with 10 keyword abilities...
Also, they won't change Ravnica to a legends theme since it was one of their worst blocks. MaRo said himself he won't focus so heavily on legends anymore.
I'd argue the original Ravnica block had a legend sub-theme, what with 2 for every guild. At the least, it seemed like a legend-heavy block.
Without the guildpact, I expect at least one of the guild-specific keyword abilities to make a comeback with less-skewed color distributions. Dredge would certainly demonstrate some of that interblock synergy we seem to always be hearing about, but I think Convoke and Replicate are a lot less broken and therefore probably more likely.
I'd sure like to see a wall-subtheme in Ravnica. That always bothered me the first time around. Here we were, in this city that comprised an entire plane, and there aren't any walls in the set. How do you have a city without walls?
Over the past few years, we've seen a British Isles tribal block, then a allied-wedge color block, a land-centered block, a return to Mirrordin with it's artifacts and poison(?!), and now we're headed for some psuedo-Victorian graveyard horror block. Next stop, Ravnica, again.
Seriously, though, what sort of themes, sub-themes, mechanics, and flavors are you just sure we'll see in the next several years?
I figure we're about do for some Legends lovin', though I'm betting it I'll show up more like ISD's tribal, as a sub-theme. I figure Grandeur is key-word ability that has plenty of ripe design space, and it seemed like a mechanic plant back in Future Sight.
We'll see slivers again, though probably not in the first of the almost guaranteed 2-5 multi-color blocks we'll see in the next 5 years (Wizards can't keep their hands off gold design). With allies just rotating outta standard, it's a little early for slivers again, but I hope they don't take too long, as I think a lot of EDH/Prismatic players are waiting for a Sliver Queenesque planeswalker.
While using the World Enchantment mechanic to represent changing seasons would be elegant (the new seasons replaces the old), I always expected World Enchantments to come back to represent planes in a block that takes place across multiple planes. Think Kamigawa, but for Planeswalkers instead of Legends.
Garruk Blightspeaker BGG
Planeswalker - Garruk
+1: Search your library for a land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand.
-X: Destroy each non-land permanent with converted mana cost X or less.
-6: Pick a basic land type. Target player gains an emblem that says "Lands you control are the chosen basic lands."
2
I've been testing out a B/R deck that abuses Immolating Souleater, Death's Shadow, and Fling for a couple weeks now, and it's pretty sick. I've killed people on turn 3 quite a few times, doing it about once every 2 matches. Here's my decklist.
The 9 B cards that let you look at their hand are really nice for clearing the path for such a win or finding out that the path is not clear and thus saving yourself the huge tempo loss. Turn 1 Hex Parasite, turn 2 pay 8 life and drop a couple Death's Shadows is also really nice and usually results in a turn 3 or 4 victory.
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What happens now if, a few years down the road, they want to reuse this ability? Well, it can only appear on white or black cards, and it might be kinda odd on some of those, depending on the flavor of the set. A mono-white card with a potentially black activation in a set without the Orzhov flavor to explain it would be wonky.
Way to paint yourself into a corner, WotC.
Pernicious Will XBG
Sorcery
Charge – You may pay 1 and exile this card from the game face down. At the end of turn, you may put a charge counter on this card. You may cast this spell as long as it remains exiled.
Destroy each non-land permanent with converted mana cost equal to X or the number of charge counters on it.
Also, I think some sort of rules clarification about the number of charge counters on the exiled card pertaining to the effect of the spell would be useful. Something saying those counters stay on the spell when it is put on the stack or "the spell has a charge of X, where X was the number of charge counters on it when cast" or something like that. I think that would go a long way towards cleaning up wording/rules complications.
Really, I think the biggest problem with the mechanic is it's wordiness. 3 lines of text is rough when you HAVE to have additional text, too. Also, this ability needs to be a keyword ability and not an ability word such that it'll have reminder text you can leave off when you need the space. As an ability word, it'll always take at least 3 lines.
Last point in a long post, I'd ignore the people saying "you should only allow 1 charging spell at a time so it isn't broken with Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune." The problem they fear isn't with the charge mechanic, it's with flawed, pre-existing spells that are only legal in 2 formats. Don't let former design mistakes limit your creative ability. The banned/restricted list is there to fix problems like that.
Limited purposes, I think. Seriously, this'll be an incredibly strong limited trick with Undying guys to untap a surprise blocker and, ya know, deal damage to something. Also, INN block so far seems to have an overage of big, evasionless guys that are begging for Fling
With green, lifegain or pump seems likely. Maybe even +1/+1 counter distribution.
A red ritual effect would be interesting, but has the potential to bust some things open in Modern. If it is the red effect, though, something like that might explain the overkill that is Grafdigger's Cage
I'm also convinced wizards'll do a Legendary werewolf that doesn't transform, and am wondering if it'll be in this set or the next one.
Also, I'm amazed at the lack of independent spoilers. I think the only one we've gotten so far this season is the UW fog guy. Where're the rumormongers at?!
Just sayin'. . . check out the line of sight.
Where are you getting that from? The last full block was themed around Artifacts and Poison, both arguably mechanical themes. And the block before that? Oh yeh, lands. We even got a special ability word for it.
The way I see it, Innistrad is the first block that hasn't had a heavy mechanical theme since, um, Time Spiral, I guess.
I'd argue the original Ravnica block had a legend sub-theme, what with 2 for every guild. At the least, it seemed like a legend-heavy block.
I'd sure like to see a wall-subtheme in Ravnica. That always bothered me the first time around. Here we were, in this city that comprised an entire plane, and there aren't any walls in the set. How do you have a city without walls?
Dang it, WotC, where's my legend-themed, Greek flavored pirate block already!?
Seriously, though, what sort of themes, sub-themes, mechanics, and flavors are you just sure we'll see in the next several years?
I figure we're about do for some Legends lovin', though I'm betting it I'll show up more like ISD's tribal, as a sub-theme. I figure Grandeur is key-word ability that has plenty of ripe design space, and it seemed like a mechanic plant back in Future Sight.
We'll see slivers again, though probably not in the first of the almost guaranteed 2-5 multi-color blocks we'll see in the next 5 years (Wizards can't keep their hands off gold design). With allies just rotating outta standard, it's a little early for slivers again, but I hope they don't take too long, as I think a lot of EDH/Prismatic players are waiting for a Sliver Queenesque planeswalker.
I'd try inserting Tezzeret's Gambit there, and I might wanna make room for 1 more. Seems like strong synergy with Lilly and Garruk.
Garruk Blightspeaker BGG
Planeswalker - Garruk
+1: Search your library for a land card, reveal it, and put it into your hand.
-X: Destroy each non-land permanent with converted mana cost X or less.
-6: Pick a basic land type. Target player gains an emblem that says "Lands you control are the chosen basic lands."
2
Keep Custom Card Creation in that subforum
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Dragonskull Summit
3 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Hex Parasite
4 Death's Shadow
4 Immolating Souleater
3 Gatekeeper of Malakir
2 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Go for the Throat
4 Fling
2 Assault Strobe
The 9 B cards that let you look at their hand are really nice for clearing the path for such a win or finding out that the path is not clear and thus saving yourself the huge tempo loss. Turn 1 Hex Parasite, turn 2 pay 8 life and drop a couple Death's Shadows is also really nice and usually results in a turn 3 or 4 victory.