That's a neat idea although party based games lend themselves to have each character be a different "color". Long time ago though I did have an idea where you can summon monsters and they'd be in your party for the duration of the battle. (Assuming it's possible, but there are scripts available that let you do things along those lines) For that to work there couldn't be any other party members, and you'd be all the colors.
Anyway I've figured out on a lot of things since making the thread. Ravnica 2 will be my battle theme. Protagonist weapon gains 1 HP 1MP each attack, he will have dark ritual, and card drawing will be an X spell. (Lose x life and Mana, draw X cards) There won't be free Mana every turn, but one of the characters might have this because I can't think of any way for him to gain MP, and he's a magical being so thematically it makes sense anyway.
I'm making good progress. We'll see how it goes.
P.s. This thread was posted in magic general, but got moved within about 2 minutes. It made me feel as though I needn't have bothered posting it. No one will see it here, it's arguably not even the right section. But the important thing is I managed to figure those things out.
I'm trying to make up my mind on how the player gains MP. The original idea was have to have regular attacks gain MP equal to attack damage. Other ideas was to have everyone gain 1 MP a turn or to have it so no can only be gained via spells. Combining two of those ideas sounds like the right idea or maybe even all three.
1 MP a turn = like lands sort of
Spells = similar to ramp
Attacking = this is the most unlike MtG, but I like the idea of the protagonist having a Jitte-like ability in which drawing blood from the enemy gains power. So maybe I'll give this ability to him and have it only gain miniscule amounts.
I also need to decide how to draw cards. Originally I planned for the protagonist to have Sign in Blood built in, but the idea of drawing two cards and losing two life seems arbitrary. (Does it have to be two cards instead of three? why not four? Etc) Another idea I had was to replace it with an "X spell", activating it simply gives up all his MP and in exchange you get that many cards and he loses that much life. But this seems overpowered. I'm considering raising the life cost to "half your life rounded up" or even to KO yourself completely in exchange for 7 cards. But this presents balance issues, because what if you don't draw a Resurrection in those 7 cards. Though, I like the idea. Right now it's looking like the best idea.
The other thing I'm trying to decide on is battle theme. I'm using music from the Magic Duels games 2013, 2014, and 2015. The boss theme is Shandalar 4 from 2015. Thus, I was going to use Shandalar 3 for standard battles but I've decided to change it to either the 2014 Kaldheim theme (which is an odd choice for a battle theme) or one of the 2014 Ravnica themes. Problem is there are five Ravnica themes and I can barely tell them apart despite listening to them so many times. I'm leaning toward 3 or 4 but I'm curious what other people would go with.
1) priority flat rate box. Costs more to ship but doable.
2) ship the cards along with a box of candy like they sell at the movies. I checked the supermarket and they have boxes of Mike & Ike, problem is it's 5 oz which would add to shipping cost. It also rattles very loudly, but I'm considering doing it anyway. So it depends on whether 5 oz is a big deal. I'm going to look up how much a magic card weighs. I just shipped about 24 cards and it cost under $4 to ship plus envelope, under $6 total.
It's something that just occurred to me. I know there are those plastic card protectors, but that's bad for the environment. I fail to see why the person receiving the cards wouldn't just throw them away afterwards, and if you're building a deck out of all the singles you're buying, the waste really adds up.
So I'm at a loss for ideas. The cardboard boxes that precon decks used to come in seem to be excellent for this, because they are quite small, and even if you're sending a single card, you can fill the rest if the box with folded paper. But I don't know where I can buy these boxes empty.
I never understood casual until I heard about Commander. I would think the person who brought the better deck would win, which is the whole point of a competitive format restricting you on what cards are/aren't "fair game".
Granted commander still has this problem but the Singleton rule acts as a dampener.
Does 4-of even belong in casual? The whole point of running multiple copies is to trounce your opponent. You're basically saying "I will cast card X so help me God, and I don't care what it is you plan to get out of this game"
Since it's casual why not run 9 copies.
EDIT: disregard this post, I feel like a jerk after making it.
But yea I never understood how anyone played casual before commander. But I guess it can kinda suck nowadays for those that did.
I don't understand people's recent fascination with trying to overhaul the whole game. If you like how other card games work, why not play those games instead?
It just makes me disheartened that any format idea I come up with (or even existing formats like Standard Pauper) games will swing drastically in favor of whoever draws fewer lands after both players have sufficient land. It makes games pointless.
Maybe there's nothing wrong with thinking of ways to overhaul the entire game, that is literally what a format is. Look at how different Commander is. That said I am not against trying other TCG's. But I see nothing wrong with trying to make an MtG version either. It's a free country.
Mind funeral suddenly makes your whole spell section disappear. Archive trap x2 and good bye lands on turn 1. Heck almost a quarter of all cards ever printed will have to be errata'd for a new shuffling.
You obviously only have to shuffle the deck that was searched.
Any of those other cards can work fine if the Abundance rule is used, which presents a lot of advantages over the land deck rule.
Here is another variation of the Abundance rule by the way.. The card begins in the command zone rather than in play. Any player can cast their copy of Abundance for 4 colorless mana. The card can be targeted and destroyed or countered like any other card. It needs to be decided however whether the Abundance can be be recast for 6 like it was your Commander *or* it cannot be recast at all. Which is a better rule? I like the idea of being able to cast the Abundance only once since it means players can't simply make decks with 56 land and 4 of the best card, because if their Abundance gets destroyed or countered that would leave them screwed.
Obviously it would not have solved my second game since I got stuck on 2 land, but at least it would have solved the first game.
And while you say "let's ban X, and Y, and..." carefree, note that banning cards is not a good thing and banning many cards is even less of a good thing as it restricts everyone's choices.
Point taken.
Here's the problem: you are bad at shuffling. Learn how to properly shuffle your deck. If you can, add cantrips or scrying cards or looting cards.
The majority of these overhauls that seem like a "solution" to a "problem" can be fixed by learning how to properly shuffle and learning how to build decks better. If you have 22 lands in a 60 card deck and you managed to draw 11 of them, then your deck is stacked and at least 2 riffle shuffles would break that stacking.
This comes off as quite arrogant considering the fact I was playing MTGO.
Makes me wonder if no matter how well I shuffle, situations like what happened will always occur. (and arguably they should happen, otherwise I am not shuffling well and possibly stacking my deck)
Last night I played a match on MTGO. Game one I drew so many land that I killed an Eldrazi Devastator using a Death Wind with one untapped land to spare. (So, 11 lands I guess) The second game I got stuck at 2 lands. I cast a Silkwrap and a Debilitating Injury so I was able to survive for quite a while. I ended up having to discard card after card, even though my hand was filled with spells that only needed 3 mana.
Mind you the deck I was running both games had 22 lands in it. Clearly there is a problem here.
So I started to consider the land deck idea and whether it would be a good rule to implement, as a variant of MtG or maybe even as a way of playtesting for competitive formats.
I think there is a TCG out there that actually did this (The Spoils) but I've never played it. There was also a TCG called Duel Masters which allowed you to play any card as a land, but I think this a bad idea since it effectively as though you're forced to discard a card every time you play a land. Invariably it results in you staring at your mana pile and thinking "I wish I hadn't played that as a land because I could really use it right now". More skill intensive is not always more fun. With MtG in most cases you can just plop the land into play without worrying about whether it was a bad decision, and ironically I think this is a key to MtG's success. A land deck adds more decisions, but fortunately it is a relatively simple, binary decision. (Land vs. spell)
Anyway, before we can use land decks in MtG, obviously the specifics of the rule need to be established. Heres my take on it: You'd take the lands out of your deck and shuffle them, and treat it as a second library. Whenever you draw a card you can choose to draw from either library.
Notes:
- Players can optionally prove to each other before that the 2nd library has only lands in it. But this may not be necessary. Sneaking a few spells in your land deck would probably only hurt you. In other words even if the rule is two have two decks and allow players to split the decks however they choose, putting all land in one deck and all spells in the other night actually be the ideal decision 99 percent of the time, in which case there is no need to enforce it.
- Optionally you could allow players to search their land deck for any land (as this means you wouldn't have to bother shuffling them) but this would result in all decks being 5 color.
- If this became a variant format, there'd have to be a minimum deck size rule, otherwise people can just make decks with 20 spells and 40 land. Ironically, a deck size rule isnt necessary for playtesting since the decks would be built with normal MtG in mind.
- 40 spells, 20 land could be the minimum size for both decks.
- This would break some cards such as Goblin Charbelcher and Hermit Druid. So just ban them.
- There is obviously the question of how the land decks would affect deck building and whether high curve or low curve decks would benefit more. I suspect that high curve decks benefit which imo is a good thing, because as it stands the game already punishes high mana costs in almost every conceivable way.
- One extra rule I had considered was to allow players to sacrifice up to 1 land per draw step to draw an additional card. The idea was so players can play as many land as they want without having to feel punished for it later, since they can, in effect "take back" their land drops. But then I realized the problem which is that it makes ramp spells like Cultivate overpowered since it "draw 2 cards" becomes attached to the spell's effect. Maybe a better version is to let players sac a land to scry 1. But ultimately this rule may not be necessary since the land decks already provide an immense level of card selection.
But after all that, I then also came up with an alternative to land decks which is to simply pretend each player has an Abundance in play. There advantage to this is that players won't need to shuffle two separate decks. You could even keep 1-2 copies of Abundance on hand and have them in play, so both players know how it works. (I'm actually considering doing this.)
The downside to Abundance is that the opponent can see every card you draw. Games would have no tricks whatsoever, every instant speed removal or countermagic would be seen a mile away. I would introduce one change to the card that should solve this issue quite nicely. If you choose nonland, you can choose not to reveal the last card. (The card you put into your hand) This means you can hypothetically pick a land after saying nonland, but there is no harm in that. However if you pick land you MUST reveal the card to prove you didn't sneak a spell into your hand.
By the way I've been thinking about my "stamp league" idea and I've started to realize more and more flaws with it. Honestly, thinking about it made me appreciate a little more the way MtG works now. In a way the stamp idea already happened when MtG was first released, what we have today is the inevitable conclusion. The singles market simply means that MtG is popular.
That said, allow me to share some of the evolutions of the stamp idea: Preferably, rather than opening packs and stamping the contents, the store would drive needles through the pack before it is opened, probably with some kind of tool or machine but I have no idea of such a thing exists. (Thiugh you could always get the Mythbusters guys to make one) The reason for this is that it allows the person who bought the pack to open it himself, which I believe is very important. It also takes less time than stamping the contents. It also means that all commons get needled along with the rares, no need to skip commons to save time which would partially defeat the idea.
I think that the single biggest downfall of the whole idea though might be that it is unlikely that the league restriction will be enforced. If a newcomer to the store plays in an event with regular cards, the store won't have the willpower to deny that person participation.
I used to try and subvert this by choosing to draw. The logic being that I can draw 100% of games and therefore design my deck around it.
Except you can't if your opponent decides to let you start instead.
Yes, but this rarely happens. I think they only do this if they notice that you like to draw, so they choose to draw in games 2 and 3. Normally they would choose to start, so in a way they're handing you the advantage. It's reverse psychology I suppose.
If 100% players choose to start, it must mean something...
I used to try and subvert this by choosing to draw. The logic being that I can draw 100% of games and therefore design my deck around it.
Nowadays I just choose to play. I figure it doesn't really matter if it comes down to a die roll anyway and therefore I will have a 50/50 chance of playing and drawing. Playing does seem like a distinct advantage a lot of the time. But what can you do.
I just made a deck (mono blue) and it's really neat. I have a really good feeling about this format but I'm not sure what I can do really to get people to play it.
Standard Singleton is still a budget format with rares/mythics. Your deck will probably still cost sub-$100.
Which isn't budget.
I think if someone can afford the rares, they'd just play Standard. I wonder if that's why Standard Singleton failed and was cut from V4.
It's also kinda funny when I think of this situation.. imagine someone buys 1 mythic for their deck.. and instead of buying a 2nd copy when they can afford it, they buy a different, slightly less expensive mythic so they can play Standard Singleton, because they assumed it is a budget format.
You can't run 4 copies of commmons/uncommons either, so you'd have to spend even more money filling the deck with miscellaneous rares in your deck's colors.
Sounds awful. We're talking bad cards piled into inconsistent and unsynergistic decks.
After playing only two matches with my deck I can already say this is not true. This format potentially offers a lot of interesting interactions that nobody would use/find otherwise. Furthermore, even draft decks have synergy.
I think over the course of our lives we accumulate a lot of interests and addictions, and that it's generally a good thing to shed as many of them as soon as possible. The only problem is ascertaining whether or not you are really done for MtG for good. (or simply whether you will mind having to re-acquire those cards in the future if and when you ever decide to get back into MtG)
There's also the particularly weird realization I had at one point which is that owning Magic the Gathering cards is in effect depriving those cards from someone else. (Hence why some rares cost much more than others) So it is impossible to "own" Magic cards, all of our cards are merely borrowed (or in a way rented) from the community. If we ever stop playing, it is our moral obligation to return those cards to circulation at some point.
I feel weird about that last realization because the implications of this pressures us to predict whether we will use our possessions, and to sell all the ones we don't predict ever using again. But it is impossible to know for sure. I have an EDH deck I have not used in a year, it's an inexpensive deck, but I feel pressured to decide whether to sell it. I have an attachment to it, but I can't figure out if I'm actually going to use it again. It's been several times now I've gotten back into Magic after a long hiatus, so the same thing could happen again. However, I have previously sold many of my other MtG cards and did not regret it. My situation is similar to eracleus's, apparently. Keep that one deck, sell the rest. Which I guess is a sensible course of action.
I'm not really sure you understand the point of this. The cards are a result of having the abilities of two other cards stapled together. They aren't meant to be fair, balanced cards, they're meant to be ridiculous and broken.
Okay. I guess I should ignore the power level and judge the rest of the card. (and how well it fits the contest theme/guidelines)
I guess I should give a vote for Deranged Brood Hermit in that case.
Show and Scour From Existence4UU
Instant
Each player may put an artifact, creature, enchantment, or land card from his or her hand onto the battlefield.
Exile target permanent.
This would've been so much better if you could exile a card that came into play as a result from its effect. I almost have to wonder if that's what the card creator intended, unfortunately that's not how the card works as written. For that matter, the two clauses are in the wrong order. It should say "Exile target permanent" followed the other stuff. (another reason why I think the card creator didn't intend for the card to work as written) If the exile happened after, players would have to seriously think twice about which permanent they choose to put into play. In terms of the contest's theme, this deserves a 10/10, it's also a great idea for a card, but the card creator fumbled and as a result I'm not sure whether to vote for it. I think I will though.
Sagu Nightcaller 3UB
Creature - Human Wizard Ally
Delve
When Sagu Nightcaller enters the battlefield, return target card with delve from your graveyard to your hand.
At the beginning of your end step, put the top 2 card of your library into your graveyard.
2/3
What if you have no card with Delve in your graveyard, but the end step ability results in one? The order of the abilities should be switched!
Blistered Birthing Pod (Phyrexian Green Mana)
Artifact Creature - Eldrazi Drone
Devoid (This card has no color.)
When Blistered Birthing Pod dies, search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost equal to 2, put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library. A Blistered Birthing Pod's corpse is a great many things.
This card is broken but I kinda like it. What's funny is the submission originally failed to specify a P/T but I must assume it was either 1/1 or 0/1.
so I'll vote for:
Deranged Brood Hermit
Show and Scour from Existence
Anyway I've figured out on a lot of things since making the thread. Ravnica 2 will be my battle theme. Protagonist weapon gains 1 HP 1MP each attack, he will have dark ritual, and card drawing will be an X spell. (Lose x life and Mana, draw X cards) There won't be free Mana every turn, but one of the characters might have this because I can't think of any way for him to gain MP, and he's a magical being so thematically it makes sense anyway.
I'm making good progress. We'll see how it goes.
P.s. This thread was posted in magic general, but got moved within about 2 minutes. It made me feel as though I needn't have bothered posting it. No one will see it here, it's arguably not even the right section. But the important thing is I managed to figure those things out.
1 MP a turn = like lands sort of
Spells = similar to ramp
Attacking = this is the most unlike MtG, but I like the idea of the protagonist having a Jitte-like ability in which drawing blood from the enemy gains power. So maybe I'll give this ability to him and have it only gain miniscule amounts.
I also need to decide how to draw cards. Originally I planned for the protagonist to have Sign in Blood built in, but the idea of drawing two cards and losing two life seems arbitrary. (Does it have to be two cards instead of three? why not four? Etc) Another idea I had was to replace it with an "X spell", activating it simply gives up all his MP and in exchange you get that many cards and he loses that much life. But this seems overpowered. I'm considering raising the life cost to "half your life rounded up" or even to KO yourself completely in exchange for 7 cards. But this presents balance issues, because what if you don't draw a Resurrection in those 7 cards. Though, I like the idea. Right now it's looking like the best idea.
The other thing I'm trying to decide on is battle theme. I'm using music from the Magic Duels games 2013, 2014, and 2015. The boss theme is Shandalar 4 from 2015. Thus, I was going to use Shandalar 3 for standard battles but I've decided to change it to either the 2014 Kaldheim theme (which is an odd choice for a battle theme) or one of the 2014 Ravnica themes. Problem is there are five Ravnica themes and I can barely tell them apart despite listening to them so many times. I'm leaning toward 3 or 4 but I'm curious what other people would go with.
1) priority flat rate box. Costs more to ship but doable.
2) ship the cards along with a box of candy like they sell at the movies. I checked the supermarket and they have boxes of Mike & Ike, problem is it's 5 oz which would add to shipping cost. It also rattles very loudly, but I'm considering doing it anyway. So it depends on whether 5 oz is a big deal. I'm going to look up how much a magic card weighs. I just shipped about 24 cards and it cost under $4 to ship plus envelope, under $6 total.
So I'm at a loss for ideas. The cardboard boxes that precon decks used to come in seem to be excellent for this, because they are quite small, and even if you're sending a single card, you can fill the rest if the box with folded paper. But I don't know where I can buy these boxes empty.
Granted commander still has this problem but the Singleton rule acts as a dampener.
Does 4-of even belong in casual? The whole point of running multiple copies is to trounce your opponent. You're basically saying "I will cast card X so help me God, and I don't care what it is you plan to get out of this game"
Since it's casual why not run 9 copies.
EDIT: disregard this post, I feel like a jerk after making it.
But yea I never understood how anyone played casual before commander. But I guess it can kinda suck nowadays for those that did.
It just makes me disheartened that any format idea I come up with (or even existing formats like Standard Pauper) games will swing drastically in favor of whoever draws fewer lands after both players have sufficient land. It makes games pointless.
Maybe there's nothing wrong with thinking of ways to overhaul the entire game, that is literally what a format is. Look at how different Commander is. That said I am not against trying other TCG's. But I see nothing wrong with trying to make an MtG version either. It's a free country.
You obviously only have to shuffle the deck that was searched.
Any of those other cards can work fine if the Abundance rule is used, which presents a lot of advantages over the land deck rule.
Here is another variation of the Abundance rule by the way.. The card begins in the command zone rather than in play. Any player can cast their copy of Abundance for 4 colorless mana. The card can be targeted and destroyed or countered like any other card. It needs to be decided however whether the Abundance can be be recast for 6 like it was your Commander *or* it cannot be recast at all. Which is a better rule? I like the idea of being able to cast the Abundance only once since it means players can't simply make decks with 56 land and 4 of the best card, because if their Abundance gets destroyed or countered that would leave them screwed.
Obviously it would not have solved my second game since I got stuck on 2 land, but at least it would have solved the first game.
Point taken.
This comes off as quite arrogant considering the fact I was playing MTGO.
Makes me wonder if no matter how well I shuffle, situations like what happened will always occur. (and arguably they should happen, otherwise I am not shuffling well and possibly stacking my deck)
Mind you the deck I was running both games had 22 lands in it. Clearly there is a problem here.
So I started to consider the land deck idea and whether it would be a good rule to implement, as a variant of MtG or maybe even as a way of playtesting for competitive formats.
I think there is a TCG out there that actually did this (The Spoils) but I've never played it. There was also a TCG called Duel Masters which allowed you to play any card as a land, but I think this a bad idea since it effectively as though you're forced to discard a card every time you play a land. Invariably it results in you staring at your mana pile and thinking "I wish I hadn't played that as a land because I could really use it right now". More skill intensive is not always more fun. With MtG in most cases you can just plop the land into play without worrying about whether it was a bad decision, and ironically I think this is a key to MtG's success. A land deck adds more decisions, but fortunately it is a relatively simple, binary decision. (Land vs. spell)
Anyway, before we can use land decks in MtG, obviously the specifics of the rule need to be established. Heres my take on it: You'd take the lands out of your deck and shuffle them, and treat it as a second library. Whenever you draw a card you can choose to draw from either library.
Notes:
- Players can optionally prove to each other before that the 2nd library has only lands in it. But this may not be necessary. Sneaking a few spells in your land deck would probably only hurt you. In other words even if the rule is two have two decks and allow players to split the decks however they choose, putting all land in one deck and all spells in the other night actually be the ideal decision 99 percent of the time, in which case there is no need to enforce it.
- Optionally you could allow players to search their land deck for any land (as this means you wouldn't have to bother shuffling them) but this would result in all decks being 5 color.
- If this became a variant format, there'd have to be a minimum deck size rule, otherwise people can just make decks with 20 spells and 40 land. Ironically, a deck size rule isnt necessary for playtesting since the decks would be built with normal MtG in mind.
- 40 spells, 20 land could be the minimum size for both decks.
- This would break some cards such as Goblin Charbelcher and Hermit Druid. So just ban them.
- There is obviously the question of how the land decks would affect deck building and whether high curve or low curve decks would benefit more. I suspect that high curve decks benefit which imo is a good thing, because as it stands the game already punishes high mana costs in almost every conceivable way.
- One extra rule I had considered was to allow players to sacrifice up to 1 land per draw step to draw an additional card. The idea was so players can play as many land as they want without having to feel punished for it later, since they can, in effect "take back" their land drops. But then I realized the problem which is that it makes ramp spells like Cultivate overpowered since it "draw 2 cards" becomes attached to the spell's effect. Maybe a better version is to let players sac a land to scry 1. But ultimately this rule may not be necessary since the land decks already provide an immense level of card selection.
But after all that, I then also came up with an alternative to land decks which is to simply pretend each player has an Abundance in play. There advantage to this is that players won't need to shuffle two separate decks. You could even keep 1-2 copies of Abundance on hand and have them in play, so both players know how it works. (I'm actually considering doing this.)
The downside to Abundance is that the opponent can see every card you draw. Games would have no tricks whatsoever, every instant speed removal or countermagic would be seen a mile away. I would introduce one change to the card that should solve this issue quite nicely. If you choose nonland, you can choose not to reveal the last card. (The card you put into your hand) This means you can hypothetically pick a land after saying nonland, but there is no harm in that. However if you pick land you MUST reveal the card to prove you didn't sneak a spell into your hand.
Thoughts?
That said, allow me to share some of the evolutions of the stamp idea: Preferably, rather than opening packs and stamping the contents, the store would drive needles through the pack before it is opened, probably with some kind of tool or machine but I have no idea of such a thing exists. (Thiugh you could always get the Mythbusters guys to make one) The reason for this is that it allows the person who bought the pack to open it himself, which I believe is very important. It also takes less time than stamping the contents. It also means that all commons get needled along with the rares, no need to skip commons to save time which would partially defeat the idea.
I think that the single biggest downfall of the whole idea though might be that it is unlikely that the league restriction will be enforced. If a newcomer to the store plays in an event with regular cards, the store won't have the willpower to deny that person participation.
Yes, but this rarely happens. I think they only do this if they notice that you like to draw, so they choose to draw in games 2 and 3. Normally they would choose to start, so in a way they're handing you the advantage. It's reverse psychology I suppose.
I used to try and subvert this by choosing to draw. The logic being that I can draw 100% of games and therefore design my deck around it.
Nowadays I just choose to play. I figure it doesn't really matter if it comes down to a die roll anyway and therefore I will have a 50/50 chance of playing and drawing. Playing does seem like a distinct advantage a lot of the time. But what can you do.
Which isn't budget.
I think if someone can afford the rares, they'd just play Standard. I wonder if that's why Standard Singleton failed and was cut from V4.
It's also kinda funny when I think of this situation.. imagine someone buys 1 mythic for their deck.. and instead of buying a 2nd copy when they can afford it, they buy a different, slightly less expensive mythic so they can play Standard Singleton, because they assumed it is a budget format.
You can't run 4 copies of commmons/uncommons either, so you'd have to spend even more money filling the deck with miscellaneous rares in your deck's colors.
After playing only two matches with my deck I can already say this is not true. This format potentially offers a lot of interesting interactions that nobody would use/find otherwise. Furthermore, even draft decks have synergy.
There's also the particularly weird realization I had at one point which is that owning Magic the Gathering cards is in effect depriving those cards from someone else. (Hence why some rares cost much more than others) So it is impossible to "own" Magic cards, all of our cards are merely borrowed (or in a way rented) from the community. If we ever stop playing, it is our moral obligation to return those cards to circulation at some point.
I feel weird about that last realization because the implications of this pressures us to predict whether we will use our possessions, and to sell all the ones we don't predict ever using again. But it is impossible to know for sure. I have an EDH deck I have not used in a year, it's an inexpensive deck, but I feel pressured to decide whether to sell it. I have an attachment to it, but I can't figure out if I'm actually going to use it again. It's been several times now I've gotten back into Magic after a long hiatus, so the same thing could happen again. However, I have previously sold many of my other MtG cards and did not regret it. My situation is similar to eracleus's, apparently. Keep that one deck, sell the rest. Which I guess is a sensible course of action.
Okay. I guess I should ignore the power level and judge the rest of the card. (and how well it fits the contest theme/guidelines)
I guess I should give a vote for Deranged Brood Hermit in that case.
Show and Scour From Existence 4UU
Instant
Each player may put an artifact, creature, enchantment, or land card from his or her hand onto the battlefield.
Exile target permanent.
This would've been so much better if you could exile a card that came into play as a result from its effect. I almost have to wonder if that's what the card creator intended, unfortunately that's not how the card works as written. For that matter, the two clauses are in the wrong order. It should say "Exile target permanent" followed the other stuff. (another reason why I think the card creator didn't intend for the card to work as written) If the exile happened after, players would have to seriously think twice about which permanent they choose to put into play. In terms of the contest's theme, this deserves a 10/10, it's also a great idea for a card, but the card creator fumbled and as a result I'm not sure whether to vote for it. I think I will though.
Sagu Nightcaller 3UB
Creature - Human Wizard Ally
Delve
When Sagu Nightcaller enters the battlefield, return target card with delve from your graveyard to your hand.
At the beginning of your end step, put the top 2 card of your library into your graveyard.
2/3
What if you have no card with Delve in your graveyard, but the end step ability results in one? The order of the abilities should be switched!
Blistered Birthing Pod (Phyrexian Green Mana)
Artifact Creature - Eldrazi Drone
Devoid (This card has no color.)
When Blistered Birthing Pod dies, search your library for a creature card with converted mana cost equal to 2, put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle your library.
A Blistered Birthing Pod's corpse is a great many things.
This card is broken but I kinda like it. What's funny is the submission originally failed to specify a P/T but I must assume it was either 1/1 or 0/1.
so I'll vote for:
Deranged Brood Hermit
Show and Scour from Existence
Love the site, use it all the time, but if I want to look up BFZ cards then for the time being I just use mtgsalvation.