I don't know about you, but I'm sick of Spells Matters being more or less solely Izzet turf. I think Dimir would actually be a good color pairing for it too.
So I had some thoughts on how to marry Spellslinging to UB. These are only rough ideas, but maybe they have value.
Night Fog 1UB
Instant
Target creature gets -X/-0 until end of turn, where X is the number of instants and sorceries you have in your graveyard.
Propitiate 2UUB
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast this spell, discard a card.
Choose an instant or sorcery spell in your graveyard. You may cast that spell for free this turn (sorry, not sure how this effect is normally templated). If a spell from your graveyard would be cast this way, exile it.
Undead Secretkeeper 2UB
Creature - Zombie Wizard
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery that targets a spell an opponent controls, you may draw a card, then discard a card.
1/3
Oh, and I want to complete the cycle of captains from Innistrad block, so I thought I'd make this:
Sigardan Captain 1GW
Creature - Human Soldier
Vigilance
Other Humans you control get +1/+1
Whenever two or more creatures you control attack or block, you may gain 1 life.
2/2
Izzet is the spellslinging guild because it is the combination of the two spellslinging colors. As a point, Undead Secretkeeper is the kind of card that makes you go, "Wait, why is this black and not Red? Black can't target spells." If your deadset on expanding the spellslingner archetype then any nongreen guild except Orzhov makes sense so Dimir isn't a bad choice.
Night Fog, this is unreasonably bad and expensive. When you take an effect that can be either single color but make it multicolor you usually decrease the cost or make it better. You have to get 5 other instants or sorceryes in your graveyard before this is on par with a 1 mana spellHydrosurge. If you want to keep it as a psuedo fog effect then it needs to effect all creatures and only cost UB.
Propitiate, the proper template is "Cast without paying its mana cost". This card is a lot harder to judge. Normally such effects steal opponents spells. So one that is meant to cast your own is tricky. As an instant at the same cost is probably fine.
Undead Secretkeeper, as I said missing out on red makes this guy fairly sad. To play into Blue/Blacks strengths more what about. "whenever an opponent discards a card or a card returns to their hand...."
Undead Secretkeeper should be "whenever you cast a spell that targets an opponent or a spell an opponent controls". That way it also triggers off of discard spells.
I just realized Propitiate wouldn't work with a discard effect tacked on as you could target a high cost card you just pitched as part of the casting cost. Maybe exile a spell from hand instead? Or sac a creature?
Night Fog might be improved if it gave a creature -X/-X, though I think that might be too strong an effect.
Dimir is a set of control colors, and to an extent, so is Izzet, although spellslinging tends to be a more midrange strategy. It's not like Black is short on Instants or Sorceries, and it would also be a good space to explore that hasn't been before. There were a couple cards that prompted this line of thought:Kess, Dissident MageTalrand, Sky SummonerMurmuring Mystic among others. I like the idea of stripping cards out of your opponent's hand or mowing them down with destruction and then pecking their life total away with flying tokens.
I just realized Propitiate wouldn't work with a discard effect tacked on as you could target a high cost card you just pitched as part of the casting cost. Maybe exile a spell from hand instead? Or sac a creature?
I assumed this was the intent. Either you pitch a bad card you no longer need to get the card in graveyard or just pitch the card you want from hand. You even avoided targeting so you could actually cast the card discarded. If that wasn't the intent its too costly maybe only 1 less and make it target.
Night Fog might be improved if it gave a creature -X/-X, though I think that might be too strong an effect.
It would still be far too weak at 3CMC. At 4 instants and sorceries in graveyard it would be as good as a 2CMC spell. 3 is such a significant cost for this effect because the scaling isn't good. I think maybe "Up to X target ccreatures get -x/-x until end of turn where X is the number of instants and sorcery in your graveyard." would be reasonable at 3 but its starting to push into too good.
I think "pay five, pitch a game ending spell and then cast it for free" would be VERY broken, so I think exiling a card from your hand is actually the right way to go about it. You give up something in order to receive something better, that kind of thing. Perhaps making it so that you can cast a spell from any graveyard would be better.
I tried to have a rethink about Night Fog, and I can't see it working as a combat trick. It would be okay as a draw spell but there would have to be something else tacked on to it. Do you think UEOT target creature can't be blocked + draw a card would be too broken?
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So I had some thoughts on how to marry Spellslinging to UB. These are only rough ideas, but maybe they have value.
Night Fog
1UB
Instant
Target creature gets -X/-0 until end of turn, where X is the number of instants and sorceries you have in your graveyard.
Propitiate
2UUB
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast this spell, discard a card.
Choose an instant or sorcery spell in your graveyard. You may cast that spell for free this turn (sorry, not sure how this effect is normally templated). If a spell from your graveyard would be cast this way, exile it.
Undead Secretkeeper
2UB
Creature - Zombie Wizard
Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery that targets a spell an opponent controls, you may draw a card, then discard a card.
1/3
Oh, and I want to complete the cycle of captains from Innistrad block, so I thought I'd make this:
Sigardan Captain
1GW
Creature - Human Soldier
Vigilance
Other Humans you control get +1/+1
Whenever two or more creatures you control attack or block, you may gain 1 life.
2/2
Night Fog, this is unreasonably bad and expensive. When you take an effect that can be either single color but make it multicolor you usually decrease the cost or make it better. You have to get 5 other instants or sorceryes in your graveyard before this is on par with a 1 mana spellHydrosurge. If you want to keep it as a psuedo fog effect then it needs to effect all creatures and only cost UB.
Propitiate, the proper template is "Cast without paying its mana cost". This card is a lot harder to judge. Normally such effects steal opponents spells. So one that is meant to cast your own is tricky. As an instant at the same cost is probably fine.
Undead Secretkeeper, as I said missing out on red makes this guy fairly sad. To play into Blue/Blacks strengths more what about. "whenever an opponent discards a card or a card returns to their hand...."
Night Fog might be improved if it gave a creature -X/-X, though I think that might be too strong an effect.
Dimir is a set of control colors, and to an extent, so is Izzet, although spellslinging tends to be a more midrange strategy. It's not like Black is short on Instants or Sorceries, and it would also be a good space to explore that hasn't been before. There were a couple cards that prompted this line of thought:Kess, Dissident Mage Talrand, Sky Summoner Murmuring Mystic among others. I like the idea of stripping cards out of your opponent's hand or mowing them down with destruction and then pecking their life total away with flying tokens.
It would still be far too weak at 3CMC. At 4 instants and sorceries in graveyard it would be as good as a 2CMC spell. 3 is such a significant cost for this effect because the scaling isn't good. I think maybe "Up to X target ccreatures get -x/-x until end of turn where X is the number of instants and sorcery in your graveyard." would be reasonable at 3 but its starting to push into too good.
I tried to have a rethink about Night Fog, and I can't see it working as a combat trick. It would be okay as a draw spell but there would have to be something else tacked on to it. Do you think UEOT target creature can't be blocked + draw a card would be too broken?