Here's my take on one of the most famous pshycographic profiles in Magic. Follow the same pattern of the rest of the cycle, and of course, by the nature of being an un-card, must have a little wacky rules text. In this case I choose as a cost to make read the flavour texts of four cards you play (not "spells you cast" as I want to include the lands as well), because the Vorthos player, and especially this vorthos art cares about the text of the cards, so rewarding you to actually spell the flavor texts seems a brilliant way to make yourself act as the vorthos player. Now the effect is the most typical red and iconic effect as you get, and making everybody draws seems to perfectly reflect the will of Vorthos about his seek of knowledge and to teach everybody about the lore and history of magic.
Obviously is red, because red is the color of emotion and vorthos is very passionate and emotional with his interest in the magic lore.
Now this is a card that need a dedicated deck to truly shine and seems also to fun as a build-around general for some crazy un-mander games.
The set symbol is a Jester Cap, which is fitting for an Un-Set.
Maybe not in black border rules...but in silver border, as long as is clear what the card do, anything goes, right? Neither Super-Duper Death Ray works as intended in black-border, but that doesn't mean that for players is not clear what it wants to do right?
In this case, the intended sense is that you can activate the card in the moment you finished to say the flavor text of the 4th card with flavor text you played, either is a land or spell. I don't think casual players should have troubles to figure this out themselves.
"Whenever you play a card, you may say its flavor text. When you say flavor text for the fourth time in a turn this way..."
"You may say the flavor texts of cards as you play them. When you say flavor text for the fourth time in a turn this way..."
I can't accept this template. It must be an activated ability or it breaks the pattern of the rest of the cycle. It must be also possible to activate this multiple times in a single turn, exactly as the other 3.
Also the exact cost of this card is to play 4 cards with flavor texts in a row. With your wording I could play spells without flavor texts between them, and that is not what the card is allowing you to do in order to pay the cost.
Maybe not in black border rules...but in silver border, as long as is clear what the card do, anything goes, right? Neither Super-Duper Death Ray works as intended in black-border, but that doesn't mean that for players is not clear what it wants to do right?
In this case, the intended sense is that you can activate the card in the moment you finished to say the flavor text of the 4th card with flavor text you played, either is a land or spell. I don't think casual players should have troubles to figure this out themselves.
"Whenever you play a card, you may say its flavor text. When you say flavor text for the fourth time in a turn this way..."
"You may say the flavor texts of cards as you play them. When you say flavor text for the fourth time in a turn this way..."
I can't accept this template. It must be an activated ability or it breaks the pattern of the rest of the cycle. It must be also possible to activate this multiple times in a single turn, exactly as the other 3.
Also the exact cost of this card is to play 4 cards with flavor texts in a row. With your wording I could play spells without flavor texts between them, and that is not what the card is allowing you to do in order to pay the cost.
General rule of thumb is that silver-bordered cards work like black-bordered ones unless they explicitly say otherwise, and even then silver-border cards try to stay in a black-border-esque frame of reference when they can to be as easy to understand as possible. It's still Magic, not Calvinball. The way that you believe this card's ability works deviates wildly from how you wrote the ability, which is reason enough to reconfigure it, silver border or not.
If you are going to complain about "breaking the pattern of the rest of the cycle", then this needs to have an activation cost of 4 or equivalent; and have an effect that ties into what they are. Johnny Tutors up their combo, Timmy throws out huge creatures, and Spike gets only the "best"/banned cards.
Vorthos cares about the lore. The easiest way of showing something like that is dealing with legendary cards. Other options include caring about art and flavor text.
Vorthos, Lore Enthusiast 2RR
Legendary Creature - Human Gamer 4: Recite the flavor text of a card. Search your library for a card with that flavor text and play that card without pay its mana cost. If you cast a permanent spell this way, it gains haste, exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
This card can fetch and cast any card with flavor text, but demands that you know the flavor text. If you happen to say it wrong then their is no card that matches what you said so you fail to find a match. Because Vorthos is red any card it gets has to be used and then its gone.
How would this card work when a card doesn't have a flavor text? Would that count as reciting the flavor text (because there is none) or not?
I would have expected some art interaction akin to "art menace".
If you are not playing cards with flavor texts you are not paying the cost, simply. The cost is playing 4 cards in a row with flavor texts (and quoting the flavor texts), then you declare that you are activating the Vorthos ability (then the ability of discarding and draw goes to the stack waiting to resolve). If you only play, for example, 3 cards with flavor text and one with no flavor text, you are not paying the Vorthos ability at all, in a similar fashion, that if a card got an activated ability that cost RRR, and you are paying only RR in your mana pool, or RR and B, you are still adding the mana, but you can't use it to activate the ability because you didn't pay RRR, perhaps because you can't or you don't want to do so.
I would have expected some art interaction akin to "art menace".[
That was a possibility also, but the fact that Vorthos care about the "Lore" of Magic and this art actually depict Vorthos reading, it's much more fitting focusing in the flavor texts that make you imagine the fantasy setting, than simply the art itself wich could be simply an aesthetic contemplation.
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The way that you believe this card's ability works deviates wildly from how you wrote the ability, which is reason enough to reconfigure it, silver border or not.
I'm pretty much open to reconfigure the card if the text sounds somehow too ambiguous, but it must be an activated ability, having something repeated 4 times and, hopefully, being something related about flavor texts. The first 2 points are pretty much mandatory, since this card is basically obeying an ongoing mega-cycle of cards (Timmy, Johnny and Spike).
By the way, if you think that text is just how "I think" it does the ability, but doesn't work as intended, can you please me explain what should be exactly written to work as intended? (and when I mean "to work" obviously I do not mean black border rules-wise, but that players knows exactly what's going on in order to follow the instructions of the card).
General rule of thumb is that silver-bordered cards work like black-bordered ones unless they explicitly say otherwise, and even then silver-border cards try to stay in a black-border-esque frame of reference when they can to be as easy to understand as possible.
It's actually the other way around. Silver border cards are made exactly because a mechanic would be literally impossible to make it work in black-border rules, and that's true for most of the silver bordered cards and sets.
For example let's take Curse of the Fire Penguin. It says it "consume and confuse" the enchanted creature. What that is supposed to mean? Are two different effects and what's the difference game play wise? It doesn't even say anywhere that the card must flip, is trasformed or lose his previous abilities. That doesn't mean literally nothing in black border magic, but silver border can, because "screw the rules, only thing matter is that is intuitive, not that is plausible as black border effect".
If you are going to complain about "breaking the pattern of the rest of the cycle", then this needs to have an activation cost of 4 or equivalent; and have an effect that ties into what they are. Johnny Tutors up their combo, Timmy throws out huge creatures, and Spike gets only the "best"/banned cards.
Vorthos cares about the lore. The easiest way of showing something like that is dealing with legendary cards. Other options include caring about art and flavor text.
Playing 4 cards with flavor texts it is an equivalent of 4, just like Spike got already a non-conventional activated cost that can be payed only by 8 lifes.
Vorthos cares about the lore. The easiest way of showing something like that is dealing with legendary cards. Other options include caring about art and flavor text.
Yeah, exactly. Vorthos cares about the lore, but the lore is not just a single card, all Magic cards are part of the lore, that's why he make draw cards to everybody, so everybody has more knowledge about the magic lore (also, Wheel of Fortune is a typical and iconical red effect)
You could balance it by giving Vorthos, Lore Enthusiast no flavor text so he would exile himself.
That's interesting but I'm afraid the effect is both broken and out of the color pie of red. For istance, this effect exile all the basic lands and most of the lands in general, and while of course you will play lands with flavor texts in order to maximize the power of the effect, that means an overpowered armageddon + semi- Planar Cleansing stapled on a body with a repeatable and laughable mana cost of just 4. Oh, and it's out of color pie because it can easily get rid of most enchantments too. Finally, a repeatable and one-sided "exile almost all permanents your opponents got, including most or all their lands" seems incredibly unfun and oppressive to play against, which is against the spirit of what should be an un-card in the first place.
Oh and "exile all card" is not a wording WotC support anymore (also because is confusing with tokens interaction). In nowadays magic anything in the battlefield are just permanents, including the tokens. "card" is now a term used only when the card is in any zone except the battlefield or the stack.
With 8 mana to trigger the effect I thought it was even appropriately costed.
Also you are right the effect must of cause be "Exile all permanents without flavor text." you could even go for Worldfire and get rid of the graveyard card and hand cards without flavor text as well. "Lorefire" so to speak.
Maybe not in black border rules...but in silver border, as long as is clear what the card do, anything goes, right? Neither Super-Duper Death Ray works as intended in black-border, but that doesn't mean that for players is not clear what it wants to do right?
Except even silver-border cards need to follow the perceived flow of time of our physical reality. The activation cost requires you to recite flavor text of cards you have not yet played, so at the time of activation, how are you going to verify that the cost is actually paid? Even if you have four cards in hand and very much in mind to play, the effect of the ability literally changes what cards you have in hand, so without knowing beforehand what cards you will draw you cannot pay the cost. This is not a black-border vs. silver-border issue, but a time-traveller vs- non-time-traveller issue.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Maybe not in black border rules...but in silver border, as long as is clear what the card do, anything goes, right? Neither Super-Duper Death Ray works as intended in black-border, but that doesn't mean that for players is not clear what it wants to do right?
In this case, the intended sense is that you can activate the card in the moment you finished to say the flavor text of the 4th card with flavor text you played, either is a land or spell. I don't think casual players should have troubles to figure this out themselves.
Infiltrator is right that the problem of your cost/effect template is the timing.
Step 1: Announce ability, paying costs (reciting four flavor texts), put ability on stack.
Step 2: Ability resolves, hands are discarded and new cards are drawn.
Step 3: Cast spells that you did not know you were going to have in hand when you activated the ability.
Unless you can somehow cast four instants with flavor text between Step 1 and 2, you won't know what the next four spells you are going to cast in the turn are.
Here's a different template that might suit what you are looking for and match the other psycho graphic cards like you want:
4, Reveal any number of cards in your hand and recite their flavor text: Each player discards their hand and draws seven cards. This ability costs 1 less to activate for card in your hand with flavor text.
Alternately, you could just change the ability to be activated after the spells are cast:
Recite the flavor text of the last four spells you played this turn: Each player discards their hand and draws seven cards.
Obviously is red, because red is the color of emotion and vorthos is very passionate and emotional with his interest in the magic lore.
Now this is a card that need a dedicated deck to truly shine and seems also to fun as a build-around general for some crazy un-mander games.
The set symbol is a Jester Cap, which is fitting for an Un-Set.
"Whenever you play a card, you may say its flavor text. When you say flavor text for the fourth time in a turn this way..."
"You may say the flavor texts of cards as you play them. When you say flavor text for the fourth time in a turn this way..."
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
Maybe not in black border rules...but in silver border, as long as is clear what the card do, anything goes, right? Neither Super-Duper Death Ray works as intended in black-border, but that doesn't mean that for players is not clear what it wants to do right?
In this case, the intended sense is that you can activate the card in the moment you finished to say the flavor text of the 4th card with flavor text you played, either is a land or spell. I don't think casual players should have troubles to figure this out themselves.
I can't accept this template. It must be an activated ability or it breaks the pattern of the rest of the cycle. It must be also possible to activate this multiple times in a single turn, exactly as the other 3.
Also the exact cost of this card is to play 4 cards with flavor texts in a row. With your wording I could play spells without flavor texts between them, and that is not what the card is allowing you to do in order to pay the cost.
General rule of thumb is that silver-bordered cards work like black-bordered ones unless they explicitly say otherwise, and even then silver-border cards try to stay in a black-border-esque frame of reference when they can to be as easy to understand as possible. It's still Magic, not Calvinball. The way that you believe this card's ability works deviates wildly from how you wrote the ability, which is reason enough to reconfigure it, silver border or not.
I would have expected some art interaction akin to "art menace".
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
Vorthos cares about the lore. The easiest way of showing something like that is dealing with legendary cards. Other options include caring about art and flavor text.
This card can fetch and cast any card with flavor text, but demands that you know the flavor text. If you happen to say it wrong then their is no card that matches what you said so you fail to find a match. Because Vorthos is red any card it gets has to be used and then its gone.
If you are not playing cards with flavor texts you are not paying the cost, simply. The cost is playing 4 cards in a row with flavor texts (and quoting the flavor texts), then you declare that you are activating the Vorthos ability (then the ability of discarding and draw goes to the stack waiting to resolve). If you only play, for example, 3 cards with flavor text and one with no flavor text, you are not paying the Vorthos ability at all, in a similar fashion, that if a card got an activated ability that cost RRR, and you are paying only RR in your mana pool, or RR and B, you are still adding the mana, but you can't use it to activate the ability because you didn't pay RRR, perhaps because you can't or you don't want to do so.
That was a possibility also, but the fact that Vorthos care about the "Lore" of Magic and this art actually depict Vorthos reading, it's much more fitting focusing in the flavor texts that make you imagine the fantasy setting, than simply the art itself wich could be simply an aesthetic contemplation.
_______________________________________________
I'm pretty much open to reconfigure the card if the text sounds somehow too ambiguous, but it must be an activated ability, having something repeated 4 times and, hopefully, being something related about flavor texts. The first 2 points are pretty much mandatory, since this card is basically obeying an ongoing mega-cycle of cards (Timmy, Johnny and Spike).
By the way, if you think that text is just how "I think" it does the ability, but doesn't work as intended, can you please me explain what should be exactly written to work as intended? (and when I mean "to work" obviously I do not mean black border rules-wise, but that players knows exactly what's going on in order to follow the instructions of the card).
It's actually the other way around. Silver border cards are made exactly because a mechanic would be literally impossible to make it work in black-border rules, and that's true for most of the silver bordered cards and sets.
For example let's take Curse of the Fire Penguin. It says it "consume and confuse" the enchanted creature. What that is supposed to mean? Are two different effects and what's the difference game play wise? It doesn't even say anywhere that the card must flip, is trasformed or lose his previous abilities. That doesn't mean literally nothing in black border magic, but silver border can, because "screw the rules, only thing matter is that is intuitive, not that is plausible as black border effect".
Playing 4 cards with flavor texts it is an equivalent of 4, just like Spike got already a non-conventional activated cost that can be payed only by 8 lifes.
Yeah, exactly. Vorthos cares about the lore, but the lore is not just a single card, all Magic cards are part of the lore, that's why he make draw cards to everybody, so everybody has more knowledge about the magic lore (also, Wheel of Fortune is a typical and iconical red effect)
4: Exile all cards without flavor text.
You could balance it by giving Vorthos, Lore Enthusiast no flavor text so he would exile himself.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
That's interesting but I'm afraid the effect is both broken and out of the color pie of red. For istance, this effect exile all the basic lands and most of the lands in general, and while of course you will play lands with flavor texts in order to maximize the power of the effect, that means an overpowered armageddon + semi- Planar Cleansing stapled on a body with a repeatable and laughable mana cost of just 4. Oh, and it's out of color pie because it can easily get rid of most enchantments too. Finally, a repeatable and one-sided "exile almost all permanents your opponents got, including most or all their lands" seems incredibly unfun and oppressive to play against, which is against the spirit of what should be an un-card in the first place.
Oh and "exile all card" is not a wording WotC support anymore (also because is confusing with tokens interaction). In nowadays magic anything in the battlefield are just permanents, including the tokens. "card" is now a term used only when the card is in any zone except the battlefield or the stack.
I was thinking about card like
*Apocalypse
*Worldfire
*Bearer of the Heavens
With 8 mana to trigger the effect I thought it was even appropriately costed.
Also you are right the effect must of cause be "Exile all permanents without flavor text." you could even go for Worldfire and get rid of the graveyard card and hand cards without flavor text as well. "Lorefire" so to speak.
Hands to the sky
Give a round of applause
For the great Miss Y!
Except even silver-border cards need to follow the perceived flow of time of our physical reality. The activation cost requires you to recite flavor text of cards you have not yet played, so at the time of activation, how are you going to verify that the cost is actually paid? Even if you have four cards in hand and very much in mind to play, the effect of the ability literally changes what cards you have in hand, so without knowing beforehand what cards you will draw you cannot pay the cost. This is not a black-border vs. silver-border issue, but a time-traveller vs- non-time-traveller issue.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Infiltrator is right that the problem of your cost/effect template is the timing.
Step 1: Announce ability, paying costs (reciting four flavor texts), put ability on stack.
Step 2: Ability resolves, hands are discarded and new cards are drawn.
Step 3: Cast spells that you did not know you were going to have in hand when you activated the ability.
Unless you can somehow cast four instants with flavor text between Step 1 and 2, you won't know what the next four spells you are going to cast in the turn are.
Here's a different template that might suit what you are looking for and match the other psycho graphic cards like you want:
Alternately, you could just change the ability to be activated after the spells are cast: