Mainly because of the original card's design asking for an additional cost of tapping. If I took it that direction, I would think it would need a name closer to Convoke, like Invoke or something.
Well, I personally don't like the mechanic. Its basically a fixed convoke , but convoke was never broken. Your mechanic is basically a reworked version of convoke in which the ability is made to be a drawback rather than a bonus. The only particularly important differences between the mechanics is that a convoke spell can only be cast with creatures and lands, while your spells must be at lest partially cast by lands and can be partially cast by any permanent. So I guess that I just don't like the mechanic because I don't see that it opens much of any design space not already opened by convoke.
Yeah, I knew going in it's basically Convoke+. I was even going to title the thread that. It's true, it's a little bit of design space, adding Enchantments, Planeswalkers, Artifacts, and Lands to Convoke - but if they ever decided to veer into that direction, they couldn't use Convoke anyways.
The "fizzles and is sent to the graveyard" is incompatible with being an additional cost. If you can't pay the cost, you get the card back and the game rewinds back to the point where you got priority.
Overlooking again. The original card I played around with did a check for untapped permanents as the spell was being cast and noted you couldn't cast it.
Full Stop UU
Instant
If you have four or less untapped permanents under your control, you cannot cast Full Stop.
Tap all permanents under your control, counter target spell.
It was also asking a bit more of the player. I don't want the card being countered if not castable, so I'll leave the keyword as it is.
Either that, or hack the comprules to allow a card to go to the graveyard if you can't pay costs rather than back to hand. That load leads to perdition.
I'm not that type of custom designer, I like to play within the rules - I just suck at knowing them.
I played around with this a long time ago on a custom card, and thinking about it recently, it could template better as a mechanic.
Defined:
The ability is written as Regulate X. Any spell can feature the keyword. When you play a spell featuring the Regulate keyword, as an additional cost to play the spell, you must tap a number of untapped permanents under your control equal to X.
I'll revise the old card:
Full StopUU
Instant
Regulate 2 (As an additional cost to cast ~, tap two untapped permanents you control.)
Counter target spell.
I like it, I'd go with providing a choice and keep it a sorcery:
Usain Bolt2R
Sorcery
Choose one —
• Usain Bolt deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
• Put a 2/1 red Human creature token with Haste onto the battlefield.
I think it's okay to borrow mechanics, the color pie itself does it across the board, and since Purple is every-color, I don't see how it breaks it's identity there either. Borrowing mechanics in moderation would be fine.
With Past-Life Memories, I don't like the X cost. I think you should stick with 0 across the board for the flavor and to denote "purple". I also think X is an easy way to make more broken cards as well at casting cost 0. Delve, doesn't feel 'purple'. Pulling from the graveyard to pay costs doesn't seem to fit the flavor. Dealing with the graveyard as a zone to move things into and from does.
The thing that I like about the flavor is the "clearing/moving your thoughts" aspect.
I was thinking the thing that ramps up regular mill is the fact that here it could cost nothing rather than being restricted by casting costs otherwise
One of the disadvantages of having a purple-colored 0 is that you would have to put reminder text on all cards that use that mana symbol. This is the case with the colored Phyrexian symbols to account for people who can't visually differentiate between colors.
I was thinking about the phyrexian mana when I made the suggestion - and yeah the reminder text slipped my mind.
I was more thinking the color had no win-con, and was more cards used to bolster color cards, much like Artifacts. You might can figure out a way to make Purple work for a win, but it would take a special type of deck.
When you frame it as a win-con for the color, it does make sense, but maybe more stuff along the lines of traditional mill? 0-cost Tome Scours and Mind Sculpts. Stripping cards out of players' grasp is pretty OP. If the milled cards were sent to the graveyard instead, some players could get them back. Hard to get things back from exile, and I think flavor-wise it's supposed to be mainly impossible - design wise they don't want it to be a second graveyard. Now, if you had another mechanic or "cost" for your cards, where you returned a facedown exiled card at random to an opponent's hand, it might work better along those lines. Even there, I think mill-exiling beyond three cards on a target player is too much.
Maybe to give the same effect of moving cards from the library to exile, but to weaken it a bit, add an additional step, with cards that move stuff from the graveyard to exile facedown? Or let the target player look at the three cards that are going to be milled, and choose one to exile facedown - without giving the purple player any knowledge of it - the other two go to the graveyard.
Simplicity (Play this card only if its the first you've played this turn. You can’t play other cards this turn.)
Yep. That's what I was thinking.
Also, have you looked into discarding to exile cards with color identities face down as a form of "cost"? I know you have a few cards that allow you to cast from exile, but denote that you can only cast zero-cost cards this way. Or have those colored cards discard face up since your purple mechanics don't seem to deal with face up exiled cards - and it gives more information about your deck to opponents - another "cost" for paying nothing.
Some of the mill to exile effects seem really powerful, but they also seem to be building some sort of synergy with cards that you would be playing, as you would be targeting your own exile zone. I'd recommend changing "Target player exiles X cards from the top of their library" to "Exile X cards from the top of your library", removing the targeting. Push the idea that you are discarding/emptying your own thoughts, rather than interacting with the thoughts of others.
I really like the Karma keyword.
A suggestion about how you want it to be multi-color and not-colorless. To cut down on confusion, perhaps change the casting cost 0 to have a purple background rather than grey, just to indicate a difference in the card. It would keep your "zero" flavor while making a point that it's not colorless. Like so:
I really like playing around with this design space. I think removing a lot of effects that target other players, and making it where spells are where you've emptied your own "mind" and are benefiting yourself by doing so is the best path to some form of balance.
I really like the design space here, and think it's a great way to handle things - even if there's some overpowered stuff floating around.
I made a suggestion over on reddit that to power down some of the broken-ness when running a multi-color deck, why not have Simplicity prevent any card from being played the rest of the turn - including lands?
Yeah, you would have to have independent people presiding the entire game, but even then I think it would require them a lot of brain space to keep up with it. This is something that might work as an electronic game since it could keep tabs, but it would have to be programmed from the ground up around the entire format.
Did you figure out the part where it makes it possible for everyone to keep up with everything going on?
I get what you're going at, with the different "ranks" of players with different deck power levels/counts (which is neat), but I'm pretty confused reading this post, and I can't imagine actually playing it.
Tribal Wars is a casual Magic Online format that emphasizes creature combat: A player's deck must contain a minimum of sixty cards, and one-third of every deck must be of a single creature type. No sideboards are allowed in tribal formats.
Tribal Wars is based on the Legacy format, so all cards on Magic Online, including promo cards, are legal.
The following cards are banned in Tribal Wars Legacy games:
Yeah, I knew going in it's basically Convoke+. I was even going to title the thread that. It's true, it's a little bit of design space, adding Enchantments, Planeswalkers, Artifacts, and Lands to Convoke - but if they ever decided to veer into that direction, they couldn't use Convoke anyways.
This is true. I'm a master of overlooking things. I didn't think the sample card was really that broken, as most counters these days veer into 4 CMC.
Overlooking again. The original card I played around with did a check for untapped permanents as the spell was being cast and noted you couldn't cast it.
It was also asking a bit more of the player. I don't want the card being countered if not castable, so I'll leave the keyword as it is.
I'm not that type of custom designer, I like to play within the rules - I just suck at knowing them.
I'll revise the old card:
Critique away! Tell me how you'd break it.
Might could even make it instant and go with 1RR.
With Past-Life Memories, I don't like the X cost. I think you should stick with 0 across the board for the flavor and to denote "purple". I also think X is an easy way to make more broken cards as well at casting cost 0. Delve, doesn't feel 'purple'. Pulling from the graveyard to pay costs doesn't seem to fit the flavor. Dealing with the graveyard as a zone to move things into and from does.
The thing that I like about the flavor is the "clearing/moving your thoughts" aspect.
I was thinking about the phyrexian mana when I made the suggestion - and yeah the reminder text slipped my mind.
When you frame it as a win-con for the color, it does make sense, but maybe more stuff along the lines of traditional mill? 0-cost Tome Scours and Mind Sculpts. Stripping cards out of players' grasp is pretty OP. If the milled cards were sent to the graveyard instead, some players could get them back. Hard to get things back from exile, and I think flavor-wise it's supposed to be mainly impossible - design wise they don't want it to be a second graveyard. Now, if you had another mechanic or "cost" for your cards, where you returned a facedown exiled card at random to an opponent's hand, it might work better along those lines. Even there, I think mill-exiling beyond three cards on a target player is too much.
Maybe to give the same effect of moving cards from the library to exile, but to weaken it a bit, add an additional step, with cards that move stuff from the graveyard to exile facedown? Or let the target player look at the three cards that are going to be milled, and choose one to exile facedown - without giving the purple player any knowledge of it - the other two go to the graveyard.
Yep. That's what I was thinking.
Also, have you looked into discarding to exile cards with color identities face down as a form of "cost"? I know you have a few cards that allow you to cast from exile, but denote that you can only cast zero-cost cards this way. Or have those colored cards discard face up since your purple mechanics don't seem to deal with face up exiled cards - and it gives more information about your deck to opponents - another "cost" for paying nothing.
Some of the mill to exile effects seem really powerful, but they also seem to be building some sort of synergy with cards that you would be playing, as you would be targeting your own exile zone. I'd recommend changing "Target player exiles X cards from the top of their library" to "Exile X cards from the top of your library", removing the targeting. Push the idea that you are discarding/emptying your own thoughts, rather than interacting with the thoughts of others.
I really like the Karma keyword.
A suggestion about how you want it to be multi-color and not-colorless. To cut down on confusion, perhaps change the casting cost 0 to have a purple background rather than grey, just to indicate a difference in the card. It would keep your "zero" flavor while making a point that it's not colorless. Like so:
I really like playing around with this design space. I think removing a lot of effects that target other players, and making it where spells are where you've emptied your own "mind" and are benefiting yourself by doing so is the best path to some form of balance.
I really like the design space here, and think it's a great way to handle things - even if there's some overpowered stuff floating around.
I made a suggestion over on reddit that to power down some of the broken-ness when running a multi-color deck, why not have Simplicity prevent any card from being played the rest of the turn - including lands?
I get what you're going at, with the different "ranks" of players with different deck power levels/counts (which is neat), but I'm pretty confused reading this post, and I can't imagine actually playing it.
A new type of project: The Danger Room
Wizards site is down at the moment so I pulled that info from a cache of the page.