So this thread got me thinking about how Dark Ritual could be reconcepted to fit into other colours. These are meant to be printable at today's power levels. What do you think?
Unleash the TroopsW
Instant
You may put up to three creature cards with converted mana cost 1 from your hand onto the battlefield.
BoostU
Instant
You may cast an instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your hand without paying its mana cost.
Bubbling RitualB
Instant
Add B to your mana pool for each Swamp you control. If you control four or more Swamps, add BBB instead.
RefreshG
Instant
Untap three target lands. Empty your mana pool.
Infernal Plunge does a good enough job that I didn't bother with red. Strait mana production is red's domain these days, so it feels dishonest to make it conditional, which means you need an added downside, like sacrificing a creature or a land, discarding a card at random, something like that. Didn't make for anything too interesting, so I left it off.
But, yeah, I'd assume Unleash the Troops would have to be printed alongside a set that included a decent Pyroclasm effect at least! It's fast, but the overextension is huge. First turn you're down to two cards in hand and any remaining Unleash the Troops are dead cards.
Wow, those are surprisingly good! I do have qualms with the black one--we all love Dark Ritual, but it's a red card and there's no getting around that. A few specific comments:
White: Solid, I love White's theme of one-drops, but maybe restrict it to white creatures? Can you imagine turn one-ing three mana elves in Modern or Legacy? Yikes.
Blue: A really solid riff on Force of Will--if gives you a nigh-free counter for the cost of two cards. Of course it has a little more utility than that, but that's where my mind went. With Divination, you basically have U to discard a card then draw too. A bit good, but not busted.
Black: Really does just need to be red. Other than that, very solid.
Green: Realistically, it's no different than the black (red) one. It only works on turn three, makes three mana for the cost of one (ignoring utility lands), and is basically just a ritual. I'd be much more interested to see this as untapping three creatures.
Black: Blackmail, if only it didn't suck. This is a tougher one.
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Unleash the TroopsW
Instant
You may put up to three creature cards with converted mana cost 1 from your hand onto the battlefield.
Of all the cards, this is the most dangerous I think. Dropping three Boros Recruits or something similar on turn one is pretty solid. And that's if you limit it to white cards - if you keep it at any one drop it can become ridiculous.
BoostU
Instant
You may cast an instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your hand without paying its mana cost.
I really like this. Yes, it's very powerful, but it's also fairly balanced I think.
Bubbling RitualB
Instant
Add B to your mana pool for each Swamp you control. If you control four or more Swamps, add BBB instead.
This is ok I guess. Nothing real exciting for me.
RefreshG
Instant
Untap three target lands. Empty your mana pool.
This seems really weak to me. The other cards all have the benefit of being playable in some form on turn 1. This one is useless on turn 1.
Infernal Plunge is good enough that you don't bother making a new one, but none of these require you to pay any resource beyond the one mana, and these are all instants. So if Plunge is good enough, wouldn't that make these just too good?
I think that the white one into two or three Vexing Devils or such is really good in that deck with Boros Charm.
Eh, 12 damage on turn one at the cost of 4 cards is awesome, but inconsistent. Not to mention any further white rituals are now dead cards. I picture this as the kind of card that gets hyped up for a while, then dies down once people actually play with it. Not unlike Vexing Devil, actually.
I'm more concerned with Heritage Druid + two Nettle Sentinel, but even then we're just speeding the deck up by one turn. Is an inconsistent turn 1 win worth running an otherwise unnecessary card? I'm not sure.
Infernal Plunge is good enough that you don't bother making a new one, but none of these require you to pay any resource beyond the one mana, and these are all instants. So if Plunge is good enough, wouldn't that make these just too good?
No, I don't think so. Like Plunge, none of these are anywhere close to as good as Dark Ritual, but for different reasons. Boost should maybe be limited to blue instants and sorceries only, because you could use that to string mana into an awesome storm count (Seething Song), but otherwise these cards just don't have anywhere near the versatility of Dark Ritual. Mana strait up is way better than these effects.
Otherwise, yeah, Refresh is kinda weak, but I pictured it sort of like Burning-Tree Emissary, but worse. Turn three, play a two drop, Refresh, then a three drop. Not great, but still useful. It is weak, but I couldn't think of any way to interact with lands that was more fair. It's a Dark Ritual that's limited to aggro uses, which suits green just fine.
I think the most dangerous thing you can do with Unleash the Troops is 3 Champion of the Parish, which if i'm not mistaken makes them all 3/3s. Not only is this pyroclasm-proof, but can be mixed in with Boros Recruits for amazing efficiency.
I mean, just think about end of turn Unleash the Troops 3 Champions of the parish, followed by turn 2 Gather the Townsfolk. That's 15 damage on turn 2 that essentially can't be interacted with.
OK, let's downgrade this hand a bit. What if we got Champ, Boros Recruit, and Avacyn's Pilgrim. With Gather the Townsfolk we're still hitting for 9, but what if we played a Mayor of Avabruck instead? Now we're hitting for 11. That's still pretty damn strong for turn 2.
I can see how this card could seem a lot stronger than it would actually turn out to be, but it's the kind of card I'd be "better safe than sorry" with. I really just wouldn't print this. If I can find a way to basically turn 2 half-health someone in standard I can only imagine what would happen in other formats.
(unless I've had a critical misunderstanding of how triggers happen when creatures simultaneously enter the battlefield)
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Yeah, I think you've got that right with the Champion. That's pretty scary. Might be too good to be printed right now, but once Innistrad rotates the 1 drops should have a little less synergy. Either way, you may be right that this is just too dangerous.
Refresh the troops is exactly as much card disadvantage as dark ritual, and the only drawback it has is that it wants you to cast 1 drop creatures with its mana.
Really, these all need to be sorceries if they want any chance of being printed. Maybe blue can stay an instant. Maybe.
I think the fact that it cheats colors and gets the creatures at instant speed is relevant, especially since it's in a color that actually has decent one-drops.
I'm not saying it's going to break legacy or anything, but I don't think that "not breaking eternal formats" is enough to justify existing.
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It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Unleash the Troops - As a red player, this is unplayably too good. Being able to drop three 1-drops turn 1 is better than getting an extra turn off Temporal Mastery on turn 2. Ranger of Eos does this effect fairly, although I do have this card sitting in my design file for Cube:
Master and CommanderWW
Creature - Human Soldier (M)
When CARD enters the battlefield, search your library for a white creature with converted mana cost 1 and put it onto the battlefield.
2/1
Boost - Again this is bonkers. "Oh let my Tinker turn one for Blightsteel. Oh what was that, you concede? Sweet!"
Bubbling Ritual - This is just a worse Dark Ritual, and completly uniteresting in its worseness.
Refresh - If this cost 2 it would be right on curve. Wizards has basically stated that Dark Ritual quality cards are too good for the current game, on which point I agree.
Granted, Boost may be broken for combo decks. Limiting it to Instants might be a workable alternative.
I don't think you're right about Refresh or Unleash though.
For Unleash: both your counterexamples result in card advantage, and Temporal Mastery is a completely different effect. All three are good at all stages of the game. This is strait-up card disadvantage and results in further disadvantage since you can't play any additional copies later.
For Refresh: Did you miss the "Empty your mana pool" line? That's a pretty imporant part of making this card fair. This isn't Dark Ritual. Burning-Tree Emissary is better than this card in almost every way.
I don't see how the "empty the mana pool" is relevant to Refresh's playability. You still have three mana turn 1 without expending any significant resources. Okay you can't chain a bunch togethor, so? Also how is Burning-Tree in any way better than this?
Limiting Boost to instants doesn't solve how broken it is.
On Unleash, this is an Aggro card. Aggro decks primary opponent is time. Therefore anything that increases their tempo (ie decreases how many turns it takes to empty their hand and deal damage) is good. Being able to take an extra turn allows you to play more 1- and 2-drops, the attack is really only relevant in red cause of haste. Unleash effectively gives you an extra turn beforeTemporal Mastery by allowing you to play your creatures faster.
I don't see how the "empty the mana pool" is relevant to Refresh's playability. You still have three mana turn 1 without expending any significant resources. Okay you can't chain a bunch togethor, so?
How do you have 3 lands to untap on turn 1? You also can't cast anything over the amount of mana you would normally be able to produce, you can just play multiple smaller things. With 3 lands you can play a 2 drop and a 3 drop, but you can't play a 4 or 5 drop.
Bumping this just to say that I've got a new green ritual. Now in addition to chaining into two 2-drops turn three, we've got the option to play a 5 drop turn three - limited to creatures only to avoid use in combo. At least now it might be playable.
RefreshG
Sorcery
Untap up to three target lands you control. You can't cast noncreature spells this turn.
And here's where we're at with the rest of them.
Open the GatesW
Sorcery
You may put up to three white creature cards with converted mana cost 1 from your hand onto the battlefield.
BoostU
Instant
You may cast an instant card or a card with flash with converted mana cost 3 or less from your hand without paying its mana cost.
StinkdrinkingB
Sorcery
Add B to your mana pool for each Swamp you control. If you control four or more Swamps, add BBB instead.
Open the Gates (formerly Unleash the Troops) has been limited to white creatures, which still allows it to be very powerful, but I think it is inconsistent enough that it's balanced (sorcery speed makes it much more fair as well).
Boost has been limited to instants to avoid casting things like Show and Tell or Tinker, but expanded to cards with flash as well for use with Faeries. I left it with the ability to cast nonblue instants because it's pretty boring otherwise (basically can only be used to pump out counterspells, whereas now you've got the option of jumping to a more powerful burn spell or something).
Stinkdrinking (formerly Bubbling Ritual) stayed the same. I think it's black enough just on the basis that it cares about Swamps. Bubbling Muck is still black by today's standards despite having a reddish result.
And here's a red one to complete the cycle. I feel like the randomness makes it close to balanced enough (there's nothing Storm hates more than being unable to plan), but it might still be too good. I'd considered forcing you to discard an Elemental card, but that feels like it becomes much too narrow.
Brighthearth RitualR
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Brighthearth Ritual, discard a card at random.
Add RRR to your mana pool.
If you haven't noticed yet, these are flavoured with a return to Lorwyn in mind.
AHHHHHH!
These are really cool and super powerful. In the right deck, each of these can do something ridiculous.
Turn one Champion of the Parish and two Doomed Travelers?
Turn one Dissipate? Cunning Wish? Show and Tell?
Green isn't nearly so strong early on, and black is no better than dark ritual- on purpose, I assume. (Can you make a red one?)
In short, these are a really cool concept and if you like them at this power level, then Green is a bit weak but the rest are just fine. In practice they're a little scarily powerful, though.
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"I don't have to have the perfect plan. My foe just has to have an imperfect one." -Jace Beleren, Summoner's Bane
"When your cities and trinkets crumble, only nature will remain" ~Garruk Wildspeaker, Naturalize
Ugh... cards like this force people to run sweepers (like Pyroclasm), and then things become kinda coinflippy. Not fun Magic.
There are other ways of fighting this. Let's say they realistically throw down a 3/3, a 2/1 and a 1/1. Play a 2/2 of your own and combat's looking a lot better already. You're definitely behind on tempo, but considering that they've already spent an extra card and any future Open the Gates will be dead draws, they've traded significant card advantage to gain that tempo boost. Play some blockers and live long enough and it's easy to make that work to give you the win.
The bastard offspring of Dark Ritual and Bubbling Muck? I don't feel it adds anything to existing decks, and if it's for Return to Lorwyn then I don't see why it would need the restriction.
True on both counts. I couldn't think of anything better for black at the time, but it does feel off flavour-wise and also isn't really doing anything that black cares about these days.
Now you've got me thinking though. What about this as an alternative?
Rogue's RitualB
Sorcery
If an opponent lost 3 or more life this turn, add BBB to your mana pool.
Hmm... randomly broken or terrible is rarely seen as a hallmark of good design.
True enough, but my thought here was to make it random enough that combo doesn't want it, yet not punishment enough that aggro still might. Imagine an aggro deck with lots of aggressive 3 and 4 drops. Losing one of them at random doesn't hurt that much since you have others, but getting to cast that threat two turns early might just be worth it. Better than Infernal Plunge in that respect at least.
AHHHHHH!
These are really cool and super powerful. In the right deck, each of these can do something ridiculous.
Turn one Champion of the Parish and two Doomed Travelers?
Turn one Dissipate? Cunning Wish? Show and Tell?
Green isn't nearly so strong early on, and black is no better than dark ritual- on purpose, I assume. (Can you make a red one?)
In short, these are a really cool concept and if you like them at this power level, then Green is a bit weak but the rest are just fine. In practice they're a little scarily powerful, though.
Did you see my recent update? I think a few of those concerns have been addressed. And I made a red one too!
I think I'm the only person here who seems to be OK with Open the Gates.
Yeah, it's nuts if you draw it, three good, white one-drops, and a plains. But even if you build your deck around it and every creature is a one mana white creature, I think it's still fair because you're pretty much screwed if you don't draw it. And after turn one or two, it's pretty useless because you'll have played all of your one-drops by then anyway.
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Making Open the Gates a sorcery was much better- thank you. Likewise shifting Boost to only instants and flash creatures not only feels more on flavor, but much more sane. (On the flavor note, can we name it something other than Boost? it just feels so plain for Lorwyn)
Rogue's Ritual feels like more trouble than it's worth. Maybe if it gave mana based on the number of Rogues you control with a similar limitation? Maybe it needs Prowl in order to be played?
Red and Green still feel underpowered by comparison. Maybe Red needs to spawn more mana, or have some different effect? Remember the original 1-for-3 card in red was Lightning Bolt. Maybe it needs to do some other sort of building affect. Green, meanwhile, might do better to make a token instead of mana- perhaps "Put a token that is a copy of target creature with CMC 3 or less that entered the battlefield this turn" at sorcery?
(Also totally digging the concepts still)
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"I Come Looking for Demons and I find a plane full of Angels. I Hate Angels" -Liliana Vess, Killing Wave
"Walls? What Walls?" ~Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, Word of Blasting
"I don't have to have the perfect plan. My foe just has to have an imperfect one." -Jace Beleren, Summoner's Bane
"When your cities and trinkets crumble, only nature will remain" ~Garruk Wildspeaker, Naturalize
Even Pauper White Weenie already consists of 75% 1-drops (War Falcon etcetera.) Imagine what a bigger card pool (Champion of the Parish and stuff) would allow. A second Open the Gates might just mean two or three more problems on turn 2. It's not like you need more than 16 lands in a deck like that.
A deck with 75% white 1-drops won't compete in Standard without Open the Gates and even that won't push it too far over the top, I think. Going all-in with Open the Gates is something I want people to consider, but I really don't think it will be worth it. Pauper is a different beast where you can get away with stuff like that, but I'll make these all uncommon for you.
Seems hard to trigger when it matters. How about a scaling version that adds B for every life lost? Or is that too combo-tastic?
No, I like that! If you can make them lose 10 life in a turn, you deserve to use that 10 mana to power out a finisher! Problem is, it doesn't really fit here. I want to stick to the 3 theme as closely as possible to make these mirror Dark Ritual as much as possible.
You're probably right that Rogue's Ritual is bad though... Could just make it any life loss instead of needing 3. That could make for a deadly turn 2, but still feels too red nowadays...
To be fair, I don't think it would be that good even if you always got lucky. Its best case scenario is still only equivalent to Rite of Flame + Pyretic Ritual in both mana and cardboard.
Good point! Okay, so let's call that bad for combo. Is it good enough for aggro?
Rogue's Ritual feels like more trouble than it's worth. Maybe if it gave mana based on the number of Rogues you control with a similar limitation? Maybe it needs Prowl in order to be played?
I don't want to give it Prowl because I want these to be playable outside Lorwyn. See my above response to Xyx on this one.
Green, meanwhile, might do better to make a token instead of mana- perhaps "Put a token that is a copy of target creature with CMC 3 or less that entered the battlefield this turn" at sorcery?
That's a cool idea. Might be better as a Selesnya Ritual though. Can't really make that fit within a Lorwyn tribe.
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Unleash the Troops W
Instant
You may put up to three creature cards with converted mana cost 1 from your hand onto the battlefield.
Boost U
Instant
You may cast an instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost 3 or less from your hand without paying its mana cost.
Bubbling Ritual B
Instant
Add B to your mana pool for each Swamp you control. If you control four or more Swamps, add BBB instead.
Refresh G
Instant
Untap three target lands. Empty your mana pool.
But, yeah, I'd assume Unleash the Troops would have to be printed alongside a set that included a decent Pyroclasm effect at least! It's fast, but the overextension is huge. First turn you're down to two cards in hand and any remaining Unleash the Troops are dead cards.
White: Solid, I love White's theme of one-drops, but maybe restrict it to white creatures? Can you imagine turn one-ing three mana elves in Modern or Legacy? Yikes.
Blue: A really solid riff on Force of Will--if gives you a nigh-free counter for the cost of two cards. Of course it has a little more utility than that, but that's where my mind went. With Divination, you basically have U to discard a card then draw too. A bit good, but not busted.
Black: Really does just need to be red. Other than that, very solid.
Green: Realistically, it's no different than the black (red) one. It only works on turn three, makes three mana for the cost of one (ignoring utility lands), and is basically just a ritual. I'd be much more interested to see this as untapping three creatures.
Black: Blackmail, if only it didn't suck. This is a tougher one.
Of all the cards, this is the most dangerous I think. Dropping three Boros Recruits or something similar on turn one is pretty solid. And that's if you limit it to white cards - if you keep it at any one drop it can become ridiculous.
I really like this. Yes, it's very powerful, but it's also fairly balanced I think.
This is ok I guess. Nothing real exciting for me.
This seems really weak to me. The other cards all have the benefit of being playable in some form on turn 1. This one is useless on turn 1.
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Eh, 12 damage on turn one at the cost of 4 cards is awesome, but inconsistent. Not to mention any further white rituals are now dead cards. I picture this as the kind of card that gets hyped up for a while, then dies down once people actually play with it. Not unlike Vexing Devil, actually.
I'm more concerned with Heritage Druid + two Nettle Sentinel, but even then we're just speeding the deck up by one turn. Is an inconsistent turn 1 win worth running an otherwise unnecessary card? I'm not sure.
No, I don't think so. Like Plunge, none of these are anywhere close to as good as Dark Ritual, but for different reasons. Boost should maybe be limited to blue instants and sorceries only, because you could use that to string mana into an awesome storm count (Seething Song), but otherwise these cards just don't have anywhere near the versatility of Dark Ritual. Mana strait up is way better than these effects.
Otherwise, yeah, Refresh is kinda weak, but I pictured it sort of like Burning-Tree Emissary, but worse. Turn three, play a two drop, Refresh, then a three drop. Not great, but still useful. It is weak, but I couldn't think of any way to interact with lands that was more fair. It's a Dark Ritual that's limited to aggro uses, which suits green just fine.
I mean, just think about end of turn Unleash the Troops 3 Champions of the parish, followed by turn 2 Gather the Townsfolk. That's 15 damage on turn 2 that essentially can't be interacted with.
OK, let's downgrade this hand a bit. What if we got Champ, Boros Recruit, and Avacyn's Pilgrim. With Gather the Townsfolk we're still hitting for 9, but what if we played a Mayor of Avabruck instead? Now we're hitting for 11. That's still pretty damn strong for turn 2.
I can see how this card could seem a lot stronger than it would actually turn out to be, but it's the kind of card I'd be "better safe than sorry" with. I really just wouldn't print this. If I can find a way to basically turn 2 half-health someone in standard I can only imagine what would happen in other formats.
(unless I've had a critical misunderstanding of how triggers happen when creatures simultaneously enter the battlefield)
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Really, these all need to be sorceries if they want any chance of being printed. Maybe blue can stay an instant. Maybe.
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch | Maga, Traitor to Mortals | Mayael the Anima | Rafiq of the Many | Rhys the Redeemed
Sasaya, Oorochi Ascendant | Sygg, River Cutthroat | Thada Adel, Acquisitor | Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Let's say we change the wording slightly so Boost can only cast blue instants or sorceries. What would you cast with it? Tinker?
In vintage? I hear things like Ancestral Recall, Time Walk and Timetwister are pretty good.
I'm not saying it's going to break legacy or anything, but I don't think that "not breaking eternal formats" is enough to justify existing.
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Unleash the Troops - As a red player, this is unplayably too good. Being able to drop three 1-drops turn 1 is better than getting an extra turn off Temporal Mastery on turn 2. Ranger of Eos does this effect fairly, although I do have this card sitting in my design file for Cube:
Master and Commander WW
Creature - Human Soldier (M)
When CARD enters the battlefield, search your library for a white creature with converted mana cost 1 and put it onto the battlefield.
2/1
Boost - Again this is bonkers. "Oh let my Tinker turn one for Blightsteel. Oh what was that, you concede? Sweet!"
Bubbling Ritual - This is just a worse Dark Ritual, and completly uniteresting in its worseness.
Refresh - If this cost 2 it would be right on curve. Wizards has basically stated that Dark Ritual quality cards are too good for the current game, on which point I agree.
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I don't think you're right about Refresh or Unleash though.
For Unleash: both your counterexamples result in card advantage, and Temporal Mastery is a completely different effect. All three are good at all stages of the game. This is strait-up card disadvantage and results in further disadvantage since you can't play any additional copies later.
For Refresh: Did you miss the "Empty your mana pool" line? That's a pretty imporant part of making this card fair. This isn't Dark Ritual. Burning-Tree Emissary is better than this card in almost every way.
Limiting Boost to instants doesn't solve how broken it is.
On Unleash, this is an Aggro card. Aggro decks primary opponent is time. Therefore anything that increases their tempo (ie decreases how many turns it takes to empty their hand and deal damage) is good. Being able to take an extra turn allows you to play more 1- and 2-drops, the attack is really only relevant in red cause of haste. Unleash effectively gives you an extra turn before Temporal Mastery by allowing you to play your creatures faster.
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How do you have 3 lands to untap on turn 1? You also can't cast anything over the amount of mana you would normally be able to produce, you can just play multiple smaller things. With 3 lands you can play a 2 drop and a 3 drop, but you can't play a 4 or 5 drop.
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Refresh G
Sorcery
Untap up to three target lands you control. You can't cast noncreature spells this turn.
And here's where we're at with the rest of them.
Open the Gates W
Sorcery
You may put up to three white creature cards with converted mana cost 1 from your hand onto the battlefield.
Boost U
Instant
You may cast an instant card or a card with flash with converted mana cost 3 or less from your hand without paying its mana cost.
Stinkdrinking B
Sorcery
Add B to your mana pool for each Swamp you control. If you control four or more Swamps, add BBB instead.
Open the Gates (formerly Unleash the Troops) has been limited to white creatures, which still allows it to be very powerful, but I think it is inconsistent enough that it's balanced (sorcery speed makes it much more fair as well).
Boost has been limited to instants to avoid casting things like Show and Tell or Tinker, but expanded to cards with flash as well for use with Faeries. I left it with the ability to cast nonblue instants because it's pretty boring otherwise (basically can only be used to pump out counterspells, whereas now you've got the option of jumping to a more powerful burn spell or something).
Stinkdrinking (formerly Bubbling Ritual) stayed the same. I think it's black enough just on the basis that it cares about Swamps. Bubbling Muck is still black by today's standards despite having a reddish result.
And here's a red one to complete the cycle. I feel like the randomness makes it close to balanced enough (there's nothing Storm hates more than being unable to plan), but it might still be too good. I'd considered forcing you to discard an Elemental card, but that feels like it becomes much too narrow.
Brighthearth Ritual R
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast Brighthearth Ritual, discard a card at random.
Add RRR to your mana pool.
If you haven't noticed yet, these are flavoured with a return to Lorwyn in mind.
These are really cool and super powerful. In the right deck, each of these can do something ridiculous.
Turn one Champion of the Parish and two Doomed Travelers?
Turn one Dissipate? Cunning Wish? Show and Tell?
Green isn't nearly so strong early on, and black is no better than dark ritual- on purpose, I assume. (Can you make a red one?)
In short, these are a really cool concept and if you like them at this power level, then Green is a bit weak but the rest are just fine. In practice they're a little scarily powerful, though.
"It is not your place to rule, Radiant. It may not even be mine." ~Serra, Humble
"I Come Looking for Demons and I find a plane full of Angels. I Hate Angels" -Liliana Vess, Killing Wave
"Walls? What Walls?" ~Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, Word of Blasting
"I don't have to have the perfect plan. My foe just has to have an imperfect one." -Jace Beleren, Summoner's Bane
"When your cities and trinkets crumble, only nature will remain" ~Garruk Wildspeaker, Naturalize
I did not! Maybe Everbark Ritual will work.
There are other ways of fighting this. Let's say they realistically throw down a 3/3, a 2/1 and a 1/1. Play a 2/2 of your own and combat's looking a lot better already. You're definitely behind on tempo, but considering that they've already spent an extra card and any future Open the Gates will be dead draws, they've traded significant card advantage to gain that tempo boost. Play some blockers and live long enough and it's easy to make that work to give you the win.
True on both counts. I couldn't think of anything better for black at the time, but it does feel off flavour-wise and also isn't really doing anything that black cares about these days.
Now you've got me thinking though. What about this as an alternative?
Rogue's Ritual B
Sorcery
If an opponent lost 3 or more life this turn, add BBB to your mana pool.
Inspired by the Rogue mechanic Prowl (and Sygg, River Cutthroat), but it maybe feels too red. Thoughts?
True enough, but my thought here was to make it random enough that combo doesn't want it, yet not punishment enough that aggro still might. Imagine an aggro deck with lots of aggressive 3 and 4 drops. Losing one of them at random doesn't hurt that much since you have others, but getting to cast that threat two turns early might just be worth it. Better than Infernal Plunge in that respect at least.
Do you think it's too broken in combo?
Did you see my recent update? I think a few of those concerns have been addressed. And I made a red one too!
Glad you like the concept of these, though!
Yeah, it's nuts if you draw it, three good, white one-drops, and a plains. But even if you build your deck around it and every creature is a one mana white creature, I think it's still fair because you're pretty much screwed if you don't draw it. And after turn one or two, it's pretty useless because you'll have played all of your one-drops by then anyway.
The current set I'm working on creating FallingStar.
Rogue's Ritual feels like more trouble than it's worth. Maybe if it gave mana based on the number of Rogues you control with a similar limitation? Maybe it needs Prowl in order to be played?
Red and Green still feel underpowered by comparison. Maybe Red needs to spawn more mana, or have some different effect? Remember the original 1-for-3 card in red was Lightning Bolt. Maybe it needs to do some other sort of building affect. Green, meanwhile, might do better to make a token instead of mana- perhaps "Put a token that is a copy of target creature with CMC 3 or less that entered the battlefield this turn" at sorcery?
(Also totally digging the concepts still)
"It is not your place to rule, Radiant. It may not even be mine." ~Serra, Humble
"I Come Looking for Demons and I find a plane full of Angels. I Hate Angels" -Liliana Vess, Killing Wave
"Walls? What Walls?" ~Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, Word of Blasting
"I don't have to have the perfect plan. My foe just has to have an imperfect one." -Jace Beleren, Summoner's Bane
"When your cities and trinkets crumble, only nature will remain" ~Garruk Wildspeaker, Naturalize
A deck with 75% white 1-drops won't compete in Standard without Open the Gates and even that won't push it too far over the top, I think. Going all-in with Open the Gates is something I want people to consider, but I really don't think it will be worth it. Pauper is a different beast where you can get away with stuff like that, but I'll make these all uncommon for you.
No, I like that! If you can make them lose 10 life in a turn, you deserve to use that 10 mana to power out a finisher! Problem is, it doesn't really fit here. I want to stick to the 3 theme as closely as possible to make these mirror Dark Ritual as much as possible.
You're probably right that Rogue's Ritual is bad though... Could just make it any life loss instead of needing 3. That could make for a deadly turn 2, but still feels too red nowadays...
Good point! Okay, so let's call that bad for combo. Is it good enough for aggro?
I agree. Any suggestions?
I don't want to give it Prowl because I want these to be playable outside Lorwyn. See my above response to Xyx on this one.
I don't really understand what you mean.
That's a cool idea. Might be better as a Selesnya Ritual though. Can't really make that fit within a Lorwyn tribe.