I can dream that they're taking out Divination so they can put in Impulse, right? Please?
And can we get off the cost of Baneslayers? There seem to be plenty of viable decks that don't need 'em, it's not the most expensive card in standard right now, and the increased supply should push the price down to more reasonable levels. Ok, fingers crossed on the last one, but it's a reasonable expectation.
The problem with ramping to the Wurm is you lose all your mana dorks on your first attack. If he gets answered during his attack, you're starting over too, and probably quite a bit behind on card advantage. So keep your Vines of Vastwood and other such things at the ready.
Also, the size makes Stone Idol Trap rather hilarious, as it can block, but not kill the Wurm.
Ally seems ok. The problem with Allies before now wasn't so much that they weren't efficient, as some of the white and green ones were fairly well costed for what you got, but that you had to play too many colors. With each color having 4-6 allies, and at least a few interesting playables, a 2 color ally deck has a chance to form. Probably not tier 1 potential, but could be fun at an FNM.
Jitte is already the attendance promo for Grand Prix for 2010, but I suppose it's still a possibility. I kinda doubt that they'd do two of them so close together. (Well, at least for something that's not a planeswalkerand all)
That art has 12 points on the circle... could it be Armageddon Clock? I mean, sure Disk would be awesome, and could still be in the set somewhere, but that looks like a clock to me.
So it costs 1 more than Force spike to do the same thing, U more than Mana Leak to do the same thing, and really, if you're paying 1UU, shouldn't you just play Cancel? This deals with Cascade and possibly Storm and similar tricks, but it's not an efficiently costed card against a single target spell. Yeah, it's flexible, and it's among the best of the "unless target player pays X" counters we've had recently, but's not the Counterspell, Mana Leak or Rune Snag blue players have been searching for.
Shieldmate: It's a nice little blocker, essentially a White Horned Turtle Can't attack, but why would you want to? Could there be a control ally build out there with the blue draw cards Ally, and the black discard and life loss ones?
Vampire: Wow. Suicide black indeed. If you see swamps this fall, chump block to keep yourself over 10, or this guy becomes very hard to deal with.
Heartstabber: Very expensive. This thing is 7 mana kicked. I wouldn't expect to kick this in limited. Definite skill-tester. But I've played worse things than a 2/2 flyer for 4 in limited.
Tanglesap: Nice Fog variant, Giant Solifuge or Yavimaya Ants would have loved this one. I can't think of any creatures that are greatly benefited by this in standard though. In limited, it's just a fog. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.
War Paint: We've seen it before, but enchantments giving haste just seem weird to me, because you have to play the creature and this at the same time for it to matter. But it's a good cost, and doesn't prevent blocking like Maniacal Rage did. Giant Strength is now finally obselete.
On the other thread, turns out the croc is 2/1, so which of the others is the 3/1? I don't see the mosquito with 2 toughness, so that's gotta be it. I do think the idea of the landfall - drain you for 1 ability fits the mosquito.
So that'd probably make it...
3B
Flying
Landfall - ~ deals 1 damage to target player, gain 1 life
3/1
Wowsers, that's a nice common
Edit: Forget I said all of that. Mosquito's 2/1 then. This place moves fast. Still think landfall-drain fits, but as a 2/1, it could cost 2B maybe.
The scope looks fun, and is yet another in the long line of cards I'm disappointed I don't get to play with Sensei's Divining Top. Very nice that you don't have to reveal the card if you don't get land/want to, so it can also be used as a bluff... although not taking the land off the top of your deck so you can bluff seems like a horrible play.
The Gem feels like it should either cost 3, or cost 2 and come into play tapped. 4 is too much. The comparison to Gilded Lotus shows that. On the other hand, you can reuse your ETB effect lands/landfall triggers. Dunno how important that might be though. It's still double mana of any color, so it's definatly relevant for limited. I'd probably consider playing it if I either had a few 7+ spells or a lot of double/triple colored mana costs, or I have crazy amounts of landfall.
Net's a cheap way of dealing with flyers and tangles up the board. Great for slower limited decks. Considering Web cost G back in the day, free and reusable with equip 2 sounds like a deal to me.
Well, admittedly, the earlier comment was from a constructed perspective. In limited this should block 80%+ of your opponent's deck, sometimes at a profit, and assists in your game winning alpha strike. Unexperienced drafters will probably let it go quite late, this could even table at a prerelease or FNM draft until people understand how good this is.
The reason I thought it needed the toughness was, in addition to blocking Baneslayer, to differentiate it from the 3/5 Sphinx. Of course, that's a rare, and this is a common, but that's no excuse for this card to be outshined that much.
It's common filler. It's certainly not the worst thing ever printed, but I'd probably rather play Wall of Air.
Edit: 2/6 would be so much nicer, as it could safely block Baneslayer all day long (barring shenanigans) while you mill someone out. I don't think that would have been too outrageous for the cost.
And while you're over there dancing around with a sword, Indiana Jones pulls out his gun and shoots you. Why did it always have to be snakes?
You're doing way too much work, and while you are able to make an amazing play early on in the game, any bit of disruption makes you wide open. It's a fun little card, but it's going to have a bullseye on it's head, and there will be so many things that can disrupt your plan, the including having to actually draw your crazy plan, and having to buy 8-12 fetchlands.
Fact of the matter is, you can get just about as good acceleration already with Birds/Heirarch. It's just another item in that plan. On average, it gets you +1.5 mana per turn if you're playing half fetches and hit all your land drops. It may as well be another BoP a lot of the time. Harrow doesn't really do much for it either, going from a -1 on the turn to a +1. So Harrow becomes a mana elf with haste basically. I'd rather have Seething Song because I know what I'm going to get when I draw it.
Free life when you play these does make a lot of sense actually. With the increased power of early drops we're seeing, lands that help a control deck survive long enough by throwing in a bit of free life would be quite interesting.
As for the "may" clause, don't be surprised to see a development story about how many times people forgot to name a type when it didn't say "may" yet. It's there to keep people from getting game losses for missing it in tournaments, because as mentioned earlier, you can always just choose an irrelevant card type (like instant or sorcery) to make sure nothing has to be sacrificed.
Edit: Moral of the story, make sure you name before you draw your card, and be ready to call judges on those who don't if you're playing for real stakes.
Well, you could go really old school and say something like chain lightning, but that wasn't really bolt either.
The thing you have to understand about kicker spells, like all other modal spells, is that you have to pay a price for flexability. Sure, lightning bolt is a "fair" card (and I twinge a little as I type that), and Lightning Helix is a fair card. But printing them both on a split card would be obviously nuts, and that's what's being proposed here.
Look at Pouncing Wurm as an example of how kicker spells should be costed. Is a 3/3 for 3G exciting? No it's not. Is a 6/6 Haste for 5GG exciting? Not really. But the fact that you can get either from the same card, means you can get something useful at the time you draw it.
My mana cost may be off on this, and I haven't checked the orb for all of this text, but how about...
3GG
+1: Discard a creature card. If you did, search your deck for a creature card and put it into your hand.
+1: During this turn, creature spells you cast cost 1G [or some other amount] less to cast.
-7: Each player's life total becomes the number of creatures they control.
Starting Loyalty: 4
The second and third abilities synergize by getting your swarm on the table, and then blowing the game away with Biorhythm. And of course, Survival of the Fittest is one of my favorite classic cards, so I had to throw it on, but it really could work as a +1 ability.
And can we get off the cost of Baneslayers? There seem to be plenty of viable decks that don't need 'em, it's not the most expensive card in standard right now, and the increased supply should push the price down to more reasonable levels. Ok, fingers crossed on the last one, but it's a reasonable expectation.
Also, the size makes Stone Idol Trap rather hilarious, as it can block, but not kill the Wurm.
Ally seems ok. The problem with Allies before now wasn't so much that they weren't efficient, as some of the white and green ones were fairly well costed for what you got, but that you had to play too many colors. With each color having 4-6 allies, and at least a few interesting playables, a 2 color ally deck has a chance to form. Probably not tier 1 potential, but could be fun at an FNM.
Jitte is already the attendance promo for Grand Prix for 2010, but I suppose it's still a possibility. I kinda doubt that they'd do two of them so close together. (Well, at least for something that's not a planeswalker and all)
Vampire: Wow. Suicide black indeed. If you see swamps this fall, chump block to keep yourself over 10, or this guy becomes very hard to deal with.
Heartstabber: Very expensive. This thing is 7 mana kicked. I wouldn't expect to kick this in limited. Definite skill-tester. But I've played worse things than a 2/2 flyer for 4 in limited.
Tanglesap: Nice Fog variant, Giant Solifuge or Yavimaya Ants would have loved this one. I can't think of any creatures that are greatly benefited by this in standard though. In limited, it's just a fog. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.
War Paint: We've seen it before, but enchantments giving haste just seem weird to me, because you have to play the creature and this at the same time for it to matter. But it's a good cost, and doesn't prevent blocking like Maniacal Rage did. Giant Strength is now finally obselete.
So that'd probably make it...
3B
Flying
Landfall - ~ deals 1 damage to target player, gain 1 life
3/1
Wowsers, that's a nice common
Edit: Forget I said all of that. Mosquito's 2/1 then. This place moves fast. Still think landfall-drain fits, but as a 2/1, it could cost 2B maybe.
The Gem feels like it should either cost 3, or cost 2 and come into play tapped. 4 is too much. The comparison to Gilded Lotus shows that. On the other hand, you can reuse your ETB effect lands/landfall triggers. Dunno how important that might be though. It's still double mana of any color, so it's definatly relevant for limited. I'd probably consider playing it if I either had a few 7+ spells or a lot of double/triple colored mana costs, or I have crazy amounts of landfall.
Net's a cheap way of dealing with flyers and tangles up the board. Great for slower limited decks. Considering Web cost G back in the day, free and reusable with equip 2 sounds like a deal to me.
The reason I thought it needed the toughness was, in addition to blocking Baneslayer, to differentiate it from the 3/5 Sphinx. Of course, that's a rare, and this is a common, but that's no excuse for this card to be outshined that much.
Edit: 2/6 would be so much nicer, as it could safely block Baneslayer all day long (barring shenanigans) while you mill someone out. I don't think that would have been too outrageous for the cost.
You're doing way too much work, and while you are able to make an amazing play early on in the game, any bit of disruption makes you wide open. It's a fun little card, but it's going to have a bullseye on it's head, and there will be so many things that can disrupt your plan, the including having to actually draw your crazy plan, and having to buy 8-12 fetchlands.
Fact of the matter is, you can get just about as good acceleration already with Birds/Heirarch. It's just another item in that plan. On average, it gets you +1.5 mana per turn if you're playing half fetches and hit all your land drops. It may as well be another BoP a lot of the time. Harrow doesn't really do much for it either, going from a -1 on the turn to a +1. So Harrow becomes a mana elf with haste basically. I'd rather have Seething Song because I know what I'm going to get when I draw it.
Edit: Moral of the story, make sure you name before you draw your card, and be ready to call judges on those who don't if you're playing for real stakes.
The thing you have to understand about kicker spells, like all other modal spells, is that you have to pay a price for flexability. Sure, lightning bolt is a "fair" card (and I twinge a little as I type that), and Lightning Helix is a fair card. But printing them both on a split card would be obviously nuts, and that's what's being proposed here.
Look at Pouncing Wurm as an example of how kicker spells should be costed. Is a 3/3 for 3G exciting? No it's not. Is a 6/6 Haste for 5GG exciting? Not really. But the fact that you can get either from the same card, means you can get something useful at the time you draw it.
3GG
+1: Discard a creature card. If you did, search your deck for a creature card and put it into your hand.
+1: During this turn, creature spells you cast cost 1G [or some other amount] less to cast.
-7: Each player's life total becomes the number of creatures they control.
Starting Loyalty: 4
The second and third abilities synergize by getting your swarm on the table, and then blowing the game away with Biorhythm. And of course, Survival of the Fittest is one of my favorite classic cards, so I had to throw it on, but it really could work as a +1 ability.