Sydzis comes across as an odd cross of overpowered and underpowered, without being "flashy" enough to grab people's attention and make them ignore that.
I'm having a little bit of trouble with the wording of my card today "Power of Positivity". I'm not sure how it would work with cards like Godhead of Awe or Turn to Frog with the way I have it worded. I'm fine if it shuts them off, although my original thought was to shut off -/- effects. Ultimately, I'm just not sure how it would interact with the afore mentioned cards with the way I have it worded. "Creatures you control can't have their power and/or toughness reduced".
Power/toughness are not like life, where setting your life is treated as life increase/decrease.
Power/toughness reduction and increase is a later layer than power/toughness setting, which is what Godhead and Turn to Frog are. Your card does not affect them.
Technically his card creates a dependent effect under CR613.7 which looks at both sublayers 7b and 7c to determine what it does. Ideally it'd have a CR entry of its own to make things clearer, or at least would modify clause (a) of 613.7a to cover the fact that a dependent effect may depend on things in multiple layers/sublayers at the same time.
EDIT: that having been said, you run into odd effects with cards like Auger Spree where the increase in power will might get nullified as well because +4/-4 from a single effect isn't technically equivalent to +4/+0 from one effect and -0/-4 from another.
As a result, the "correct" way to do this (in the sense of "it's less ambiguous") is a pair of replacement effects (which are still dependent effects) of the form "If an effect would reduce a creature's power, instead it doesn't." (and likewise for toughness).
It wasn't a fully thought out or complete statement. Sorry, I'm camping with my family this weekend and haven't had as much time to digest the cards. My thought process was, the ability seems rare, get it out of bolt range. That's about it. To complete the thought.... yes, I would also drop the first strike if it were to become a 3/4. Its fine how you have it though, but again, the ability seems rare. I agree more with it costing 4 as a 3/2 first strike, though. Dying to a bolt is big thing where I come from.
Edit: Shoot! I read the card incorrectly. I'm a idiot! I read it as "Whenever you lose life, each other player loses that much life". That's a completely different card, disregard everything I've said about the card. As I said before, I'm a little distracted this weekend.
Edit2: Come to think of it, the card I thought I was voting for is way too powerful (the reason I thought it should cost more and be rare). I'm gonna go ahead and go with the distracted thing again.
Heh, it's okay. I'd actually worded it as the "each other player loses that much life" version at one point in coming up with the card, and then decided against it just because I was aiming for a good uncommon rather than a low-end rare. (If I'd gone with the "that much life" version, it probably would have been a 5/4 for 4BB or so at rare, though. I think that's pretty close to balanced at that point, though it might still be undercosted slightly.)
As far as keeping things out of bolt range... sometimes leaving stuff in bolt range lets you get away with stuff that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. (And sometimes "bolt range" requires three or more mana to reach. Depends on the format.)
Flatline: out of curiosity, why are you suggesting that my card from yesterday end up as a 3/4 with (among other things) first strike? (First strike + toughness greater than power bothers me for reasons, which is why I'm asking.)
Ogonomany: Your card for today doesn't work (it falls off as soon as it transfers control of the creature because it's no longer enchanting a creature you control). Simple fix: "Enchant creature you own" instead. Works slightly differently in multiplayer (and you can also point it at a creature that's already been stolen in 1v1) but doesn't have that pesky issue.
Today's submission is an exploration of pretty much every piece of dead-end design space that exists, aside from N (because I couldn't think of a good way to include it).
"Add one mana of any color in the color identity of a land in your graveyard to your mana pool." is an acceptable solution (in that it fits into the current rules), though it means certain lands that could normally only produce colorless mana will give colored mana through this ability.
The alternative is editing CR 106.7 so that it isn't limited to permanents, which is left as an exercise for the reader.
That's fine. I couldn't come up with a better name for it at the time, or later that night, and it is a decent "let's be a dick to the minorities (of creature types)" card.
Black Megatog: The card you posted today has a minor glitch that leads to draw-by-infinite-loop.
Specifically, if there are fewer than seven cards between your hand, graveyard, and library, and you would have a game loss replaced, you would lose the game as you draw the seven cards. This game loss gets replaced with the whole "shuffle stuff back into your library, draw seven cards, life total becomes 7"... and the whole thing just keeps repeating, making you shuffle those six (or fewer) cards back in, only to lose the game again and have the newest loss replaced with this.
Since that's an infinite loop composed solely of mandatory actions, the game becomes a draw. (This isn't a case of a replacement effect trying to replace itself; the game loss from drawing from an empty library isn't itself part of the effect that's replacing a loss, but happens immediately upon trying to check priority afterward.)
This isn't actually a nitpick about the card - trying to avoid this would make a much clunkier card - but just something to keep in mind about how it works in that situation.
Since the card I posted today has a new card type on it (and I'm open for suggestions for alternative names for the type), it's time for a short Rules FAQ on Sigils:
Sigil is a card type, but it's neither a permanent type nor a spell type.
At any point, each player may have up to one Sigil in the command zone. If you would put a second one into the command zone for any reason, put the existing one you own into the graveyard (if it's somehow a token, it'll cease to exist at that time). If you would put multiple ones into the command zone at the same time, choose an order for them to enter; the last one in this order will be the one that remains in the command zone (but any effects that trigger upon entering/leaving the command zone on the others will go on the stack in the order chosen, and they will get put into the graveyard in that order as well). These are state-based effects otherwise known as the "sigil rule".
A Sigil may or may not have a mana cost. If it has no mana cost, it will generally be the second face of another card (and may only be put into the command zone as a result of an ability on the other face). If it does have a mana cost, however, you may pay its mana cost and put it into the command zone as a special action whenever you could cast a sorcery. You may play any number of Sigils during your turn this way. (As a side note, this means Sigils do not use the stack.)
A sigil token ceases to exist if it would enter a zone other than the command zone.
Tokens that are copies of double-faced cards only copy the face that's up when the effect that produces the token resolves. (This is an existing rule, but it means that a token that's a copy of today's card in creature form will only have the creature face and therefore can't transform. This token will cease to exist upon being moved into the command zone because permanent tokens can't exist outside the battlefield. If the token were made of the sigil, the original sigil would move to the graveyard, but the "transform and return the the battlefield" effect won't work on the token because there's no other face to transform into. Instead, that token will simply cease to exist when it leaves the command zone.)
For what it's worth, I support pointing out things about cards before voting opens so there's a chance to correct it - especially in cases of "uh, how should I word this?"
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EDIT: that having been said, you run into odd effects with cards like Auger Spree where the increase in power
willmight get nullified as well because +4/-4 from a single effect isn't technically equivalent to +4/+0 from one effect and -0/-4 from another.As a result, the "correct" way to do this (in the sense of "it's less ambiguous") is a pair of replacement effects (which are still dependent effects) of the form "If an effect would reduce a creature's power, instead it doesn't." (and likewise for toughness).
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As far as keeping things out of bolt range... sometimes leaving stuff in bolt range lets you get away with stuff that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do. (And sometimes "bolt range" requires three or more mana to reach. Depends on the format.)
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The alternative is editing CR 106.7 so that it isn't limited to permanents, which is left as an exercise for the reader.
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:-D (The no-vote day was worth it just for that line, guys. Don't worry about explaining what's wrong with the card.)
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Specifically, if there are fewer than seven cards between your hand, graveyard, and library, and you would have a game loss replaced, you would lose the game as you draw the seven cards. This game loss gets replaced with the whole "shuffle stuff back into your library, draw seven cards, life total becomes 7"... and the whole thing just keeps repeating, making you shuffle those six (or fewer) cards back in, only to lose the game again and have the newest loss replaced with this.
Since that's an infinite loop composed solely of mandatory actions, the game becomes a draw. (This isn't a case of a replacement effect trying to replace itself; the game loss from drawing from an empty library isn't itself part of the effect that's replacing a loss, but happens immediately upon trying to check priority afterward.)
This isn't actually a nitpick about the card - trying to avoid this would make a much clunkier card - but just something to keep in mind about how it works in that situation.
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With either of the changes you mention, I'd seriously consider dropping it to 1.
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