Also, "Tap three untapped creatures named Santa's Elf you control: ..." if you want to keep the restriction. Personally, I think it should just be any elf.
Does Santa have power and toughness? What are his types?
I love specter's touch. Could be simplified though; "You may pay rather than pay ~'s mana cost if a black creature you control dealt combat damage to an opponent this turn."
Cruel Mercy is a lot like Blackmail. I like it, but think it could be a bit better.
Somewhat surprised that Trinket Snatch doesn't exist already.
"Miles better than Thoughtseize" is very much a bad thing. This should cost more, or cause you to lose life. Giving an opponent a few life rarely matters.
Pretty cool. I'd like to see the rest of the cycle. Do they all convoke, or is this a keyword god cycle?
I'm not sold on the Indestructible here; It's interesting on the Theros gods since you can remove their devotees and shut them down, here it's just big hard to remove fat. It's not bad, it's just not interesting and doesn't add to the card.
Activated abilities of nonlegendary creatures can't be activated.
Triggered abilities of nonlegendary creatures don't trigger.
Stick with the Eldrazi clause on the shuffle; the extra complexity isn't necessary on this card, and it's already pushing it with that much text.
Keywords that modify how you cast something (mostly flash, delve and convoke) come before other keywords.
Ritual should be consistent across each card. I'd suggest "Ritual - Whenever you sacrifices a creature"/"If you sacrificed a creature this turn." That's how mechanics work in NWO. If it triggers off your opponents stuff, it doesn't make sense flavorfully; Why is an opponent making sacrifices for your ritual? If it triggers off any player sacing a creature, you get a bad play experience in block/standard because your sac outlets turn on your opponent's rituals.
Diviner of Anim's ability is waaaaay too good.
Cantor's Alternate cost is interesting with this mechanic; but probably too cheap for what it is and too available to other colors - 5 creatures and BB could be good.
The chroma aspect seems unnecessary, cmc should be enough. However, this is fiddly and doesn't really seem anything like a riddle, so the flavor is a bit disconnected.
Seeker Sphinx's trigger doesn't work; It triggers at the same time as Riddlefinder, so you can just stack it under riddlefinder and it doesn't do anything. It's also not possible to prevent a specific ability from triggering in the current rules.
You could try: "Whenever ~ attacks, flip a coin. If you lose the flip, prevent all combat damage that would be dealt by ~ this turn." Which would allow you to push this a bit more.
The notion that you should use redundant counters to alleviate memory issues is quite common, but doing this is pointless. Nothing keeps players from just using dies or other objects to mark effects on cards even if the card doesn't explicitly tells them to do it. The only thing adding a redundant counter to the effect does is confuse some players as to what the counter is actually supposed to do. For this mechanic, the memory issues are even less of an issue, because most players keep creatures and enchantments spatially seperated. So, if it's with your creatures, then it's still a creature.
That's a terrible piece of advice. There's several reasons that wizards continues to use counters with no intrinsic rules values to represent effects like this. Sure, players can use counters to represent anything they want. That doesn't mean they do, or will. I've seen games where no counters were ever placed on cards, even when granted by cards. You can easily overlap cards that are soulbound to show the relationship, but that doesn't stop people from simply stating that the two creatures on opposite ends of the table are paired. Counting on players dividing their cards of different types is even worse; there are players that play lands front; creatures front; lands side; lands stacked... It doesn't help that this creature is changing types either. I place my enchantments to the right of my creatures - but when the battlefield gets crowded, they tend to come together. Furthermore, it may be difficult to remember what creatures have died, especially with multiple copies of a card in play, multiple creatures, or a complicated board state. Counters help you to tell at a glance that a card is different in some way. And on top of all that, counters can allow interaction - some people find exploiting these things fun, regardless of their practicality.
tldr; Make the default explicit, let the players decide if they need to use them or not.
Manifest (When this creature dies, if it doesn't have a manifestation counter on it, return it to the battlefield with a manifestation counter on it. It's not a creature as long as it has a manifestation counter on it.)
Rootgrasp3GG
Sorcery (U)
Destroy target noncreature permanent. Search your library for a Forest card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library. The forest will grow
Is this really that unreasonable? It's not core set material, but it's not too far out there either. I realize that the op version can hit creatures (which it shouldn't) but how is a temporary version of this too good?
Faerie Fog
Rare+
Mana cost is probably fine, but it shouldn't be every creature or it should have some other limiting factor. Remember that changing control removes from combat too, so there's no trade this for that then that for this interactions here.
The legend is rather undercosted if its not going to be "under your control." It is interesting, however.
You're exactly right when you say that Yawgmoth's Bargain's raised mana cost is an attempt to balance Necropotence; But Sheoldred's Bargain is only slightly worse than bargain - and it builds the way to sneak it into play right into the card.
Paying 6 life and 3 is not a steep initial investment for a deck that can abuse this.
2 life is not a steep price for a card. Greed is B and 2 life for a card.
Legendary doesn't even look like a drawback here; you don't want to play multiples, and your opponents can't legend rule it away anymore.
This never struck me as a particularly weird template...
"When you sacrifice ~" is more likely a measure against naturalize-ing the enchantment for it's effect (as well as making them more friendly to your opponent when they destroy them) than any large statement about the block. The split-up trigger is also a whole lot easier to parse than "Whenever the enchanted creature attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on it. Then, if it has three or more +1/+1 counters on it, sacrifice it and it deals 3 damage to target creature or player" (it's also been mentioned that that trigger always needs a target.)
I was going to say "Maze's End" but that's randomly not. However, given the recently dramatically reduced downside of being legendary, I think it's safe to say we'll see Legendary lands come back at some point in the future.
Really, this seems like it could come down quite a bit. probably in the 5 cmc range.
Also, I think it'd be a trigger to the effect of "Whenever a -1/-1 counter is placed on a creature, you gain control of that creature as long as it has a -1/-1 counter on it and you control ~" with or without one or the other duration. It may have the appropriate etb ability as well. This wording avoids confusion when a creature enters the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it (via persist or what-have-you)
Also, "Tap three untapped creatures named Santa's Elf you control: ..." if you want to keep the restriction. Personally, I think it should just be any elf.
Does Santa have power and toughness? What are his types?
Cruel Mercy is a lot like Blackmail. I like it, but think it could be a bit better.
Somewhat surprised that Trinket Snatch doesn't exist already.
"Miles better than Thoughtseize" is very much a bad thing. This should cost more, or cause you to lose life. Giving an opponent a few life rarely matters.
I'm not sold on the Indestructible here; It's interesting on the Theros gods since you can remove their devotees and shut them down, here it's just big hard to remove fat. It's not bad, it's just not interesting and doesn't add to the card.
Activated abilities of nonlegendary creatures can't be activated.
Triggered abilities of nonlegendary creatures don't trigger.
Stick with the Eldrazi clause on the shuffle; the extra complexity isn't necessary on this card, and it's already pushing it with that much text.
Keywords that modify how you cast something (mostly flash, delve and convoke) come before other keywords.
Diviner of Anim's ability is waaaaay too good.
Cantor's Alternate cost is interesting with this mechanic; but probably too cheap for what it is and too available to other colors - 5 creatures and BB could be good.
Strictly better than Stone Rain (which has not been seen as printable for a long time now) is not a great start if you want a printable card.
The ultimate is very expensive for the opportunity to sacrifice all your lands. 5-6 is probably enough, but that would take some play to determine.
Seeker Sphinx's trigger doesn't work; It triggers at the same time as Riddlefinder, so you can just stack it under riddlefinder and it doesn't do anything. It's also not possible to prevent a specific ability from triggering in the current rules.
You could try: "Whenever ~ attacks, flip a coin. If you lose the flip, prevent all combat damage that would be dealt by ~ this turn." Which would allow you to push this a bit more.
tldr; Make the default explicit, let the players decide if they need to use them or not.
Manifest (When this creature dies, if it doesn't have a manifestation counter on it, return it to the battlefield with a manifestation counter on it. It's not a creature as long as it has a manifestation counter on it.)
Sorcery (U)
Destroy target noncreature permanent. Search your library for a Forest card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.
The forest will grow
Is this really that unreasonable? It's not core set material, but it's not too far out there either. I realize that the op version can hit creatures (which it shouldn't) but how is a temporary version of this too good?
Rare+
Mana cost is probably fine, but it shouldn't be every creature or it should have some other limiting factor. Remember that changing control removes from combat too, so there's no trade this for that then that for this interactions here.
The legend is rather undercosted if its not going to be "under your control." It is interesting, however.
In any case; the 0/0 in the power/toughness shield isn't neater than having the actual power and toughness there.
You're exactly right when you say that Yawgmoth's Bargain's raised mana cost is an attempt to balance Necropotence; But Sheoldred's Bargain is only slightly worse than bargain - and it builds the way to sneak it into play right into the card.
Paying 6 life and 3 is not a steep initial investment for a deck that can abuse this.
2 life is not a steep price for a card. Greed is B and 2 life for a card.
Legendary doesn't even look like a drawback here; you don't want to play multiples, and your opponents can't legend rule it away anymore.
"When you sacrifice ~" is more likely a measure against naturalize-ing the enchantment for it's effect (as well as making them more friendly to your opponent when they destroy them) than any large statement about the block. The split-up trigger is also a whole lot easier to parse than "Whenever the enchanted creature attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on it. Then, if it has three or more +1/+1 counters on it, sacrifice it and it deals 3 damage to target creature or player" (it's also been mentioned that that trigger always needs a target.)
The counterspell should be uncommon.
Also, I think it'd be a trigger to the effect of "Whenever a -1/-1 counter is placed on a creature, you gain control of that creature as long as it has a -1/-1 counter on it and you control ~" with or without one or the other duration. It may have the appropriate etb ability as well. This wording avoids confusion when a creature enters the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter on it (via persist or what-have-you)