Ragebringer :4mana::symr::symr:
Creature--Elemental Shapeshifter
At the beginning of your upkeep, a random target creature becomes 10/10 and all 10/10 creatures become 1/1.
10/10 What use is power when you can't keep it?
Yes, you can pump (or shrink) stuff to keep the 10/10-ness. Timestamp fun ensues.
1) Voluntary omnicience: that is, the ability to know and/or understand anything I want to instantaneously (including other people's thoughts, and the future), but not have everything in the universe in my mind at once
2) Extaordinary foresight, intelligence and wisdom, so that I can take full advantage of my first wish
3) To be able to control the state of my body at will; includes age, disease, harm, etc. (basically all the immortality/invincibility wishes in one)
All this assuming wishing to be able to grant your own wishes isn't allowed; otherwise, just that and then I'm good.
"He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!" Life of Brian
"How do you shoot the Devil in the back? What if you miss?" Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects
"It would not be difficult, Mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could...I'm sorry, Mr. President." Dr. Strangelove
Mason: "Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and **** the prom queen."
Goodspeed: "Carla was the prom queen."
The Rock
And three from Lord of the Rings, including what I consider the best pump-up speech ever:
Frodo: "I wish the ring had never come to me...I wish none of this had happened."
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it...and that is an encouraging thought."
The Fellowship of the Ring
"Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered . . . a sword day, a red day; ere the sun rises!" Theoden, Return of the King
"Hold your ground - hold your ground! Sons of Gondor - of Rohan . . . my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day may come when the courage of Men fails; when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship; but it is not this day - an hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the Age of Man comes crashing down - but it is not this day!!! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth - I bid you stand!" Aragorn, Return of the King
I was asleep for it, but didn't have any lapses of consciousness after; I just woke up, though I think I threw up on the way to the car. Then I hung around at home, ate pudding and applesauce, and read all four Twilight books in five days. (It would have been three days, but my sister was in the middle of one and I had to wait for her to finish.) Also, the codeine I was on made me hyper, and I wasn't really at full mental capacity for most of the week. The worst part was the first few days, when the back of my mouth was a bloody pulp.
Botanically, a fruit is the seed and surrounding edible parts of a plant (apples, oranges, corn, tomatoes, eggplants); a vegetable is any other part of a plant that is edible (potatoes, radishes, lettuce).
I got confused by "letter that corresponds to the number," I thought it meant the letter that the number starts with, and I ended up with an elephant eating a tomato in France.
Why is :1mana::symu: for a 2/2 overpowered? What would make it overpowered is if you make a lot a cheaper blue creatures that can be put into a curve, but a single 2/2 would probably be fine. However, it wouldn't at all fit into the color pie. There's a difference between that and being overpowered.
SSC XII: I don't know. I always mean to write a story, and then hardly start. I'd volunteer to judge again, but I don't think I'll have the time.
And Alacar, the wording of Duel as of now (and Provoke) says "if able," so if the creature is tapped it can't block. Same how if the creature with provoke has flying and provokes a non-flyer, it doesn't get blocked by that creature.
I think the best wording is thus:
Duel (When this attacks, you may have target creature defending player controls untap and block it if able. If it does, this can only be blocked by one creature.)
That means that the creature doesn't always have "can only be blocked by one creature," only in a Duel.
It was said earlier, and it needs to be said again: If Hamas laid down its weapons, there would be peace. If Israel laid down its weapons, it would be wiped out.
So what do you do if Hamas won't lay down its weapons? Well, you can try talking, negotioating, etc. Israel has tried that again and again. Most recently it had a six-month cease-fire with Hamas. Everyone's talking about how after it ended, Hamas starting firing rockets again. This is false. Hamas was firing rockets for all six months of the cease-fire. They just started firing more after it expired. So obviously, negitiation isn't going to work.
Someone suggested helping the Palestinians, building schools, hospitals, etc. Here's the problem--any Israeli worker who goes into Gaza will be lynched. And if you give the money to Gaza leadership, they'll just use the money for weapons against Israel, because, oh yeah, the leadership is Hamas. Israel is not the one who is keeping Gaza a ghetto and a war zone. Palestinian leadership is. They know that if the conflict ever ends, they lose their power, so it is in their best interest to continue the conflict, and they do everything they can to ensure such an outcome.
So what do you do? Live with rockets falling in towns, accept that a few innocent people will be blown up for no reason every year? Or do you attack the source, and try to wipe out the organization that's performing these acts?
And one more thing: everyone who is suggesting that Israel should use its assassins to kill Hamas leadership--do you think they're not? Israel isn't stupid, they do that all the time and once in a while they'll get someone, but these people play dirty. They always take some children in their car, they live in bunkers, etc. And there is always someone who will step up to replace the dead leader. What Israel is doing now is destroying Hamas middle-management, which will hurt the organization a lot more. It's about time, and I sincerely hope that Israel doesn't stop until the job is truly done.
EDIT: Tuss, those "really" orthodox Jews who oppose Israel are regarded by the rest of the Jews as insane. The have no basis from the Torah for what they're saying. And there are something like 200 of them inthe world, they're just very vocal.
Rennek the Plower :2mana::symb::symg:
Planeswalker--Rennek
[+1]: Sacrifice a land. Target creature you control gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
[-1]: Destroy target land. Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature that land's owner controls.
[-5]: Return all lands in all graveyards to play under your control. Draw a card and put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control for each land returned this way.
[[3]]
First of all, design space doesn't mean how many cards it fits on or interacts with; it means how many connotations of the ability can you make without getting incredibly repetitive. Fear, while a great ability, doesn't have a lot of design space--a fear-based block would get really old really quickly. Arcane has an incredible amount of design space--you can do practiacally anything with it.
Bottom line, "Agressive" would get old (IMO) if you use it on more than 10-20 cards over a block. It's just not an exciting enough ability to put too much focus on. You can make it a minitheme in a block, and that would work. Also, if you were going to do that, then I would agree that you might want to keyword it.
Now, to discuss the ability itself. First, it's dangerously close to Provoke. Provoke was a neat idea, but it didn't really work out that well. Also, you should be careful not to overuse it--you listed off a lot of ideas of cards to put Aggressive on (sorry about the grammar), but if you do all of that in one set, will it be worthwhile or will it just clog up space? Will the rest of the set accentuate the ability, or will Aggressive just be on a bunch of cards?
In my opinion, the ability isn't new or dynamic enough to warrant such attention in a set or block. However, if you really feel that it could work, and like the way the ability plays, then go for it.
And one more thing: find a better name. "Aggressive" is an adjective that descibes the creature. As a general rule of keywording, nouns work best (look at basically all the keywords ever). "Aggression" would be better, but it doesn't really fit--why would aggression make one become blocked, but only by one creature? I see how you can view it as attacking a creature, but I think there is a better word out there to describe this ability. Unfortunately I can't think of one right now, and I need to go to sleep.
Champion needs a keyword. It would lose some flavor and be a lot harder to talk about without a keyword. Also, it's an example of one of the categories of keywords. It's the big flashy ability in a set that's on a few big rares, and to ram home the point that it's a cycle, Wiards will keyword it. Another example is Offering, from the Patron cycle in Betrayers.
Deathtouch doesn't need a keyword, IMO. The ability's been around for a long time, and nobody ever complained about how it wasn't keyworded, and it's not prevalent enough in Magic to require one. Although Wizards is using it more now that it's keyworded, so it might retroactively be a good keyword. Similar to fear, actually.
The reason you shouldn't keyword everything is because of memory issues and ease of starting the game--if every tiny ability is keyworded, then half the cards require you to know something besides what's printed on the card in order to use it.
Your "Agressive" ability is incredibly limited in its design space. It won't be the centerpiece of a set; it will be on at the very most five cards. That does not require a keyword. Keywording fear adds tons of flavor, and it is an ability that was only keyworded after it was realized that it was an ability that would be recurring in every block, and was a basic ability of the game. Cycling was keyworded because it was central to its block and, as has been shown, has a ton of design space.
Bottom line, you need to use discretion and have patience. When you come up with a cool ability, first think about how much design space it has. Then think about how it interacts with other cards in your block and in the rest of Magic. Then decide if it is a good enough ability to be the centerpiece of a set or block. Then decide what color it should be in, and how it should be used. Then think about how you can develop the ability over a block, and innovative interactions with other cards. Then decide whether it should be keyworded or not, and then think about naming it. Don't come up with a cool ability, then think up a name and get so enchanted by the name that you just have to keyword it.
Actually, this is a great example of when not to keyword. Really, how many cards is this ability going to be on? It's really unneccesary to keyword it. Just give the card provoke and also have the ability "X can only be blocked by one creature."
Also, Auras and Reach do not really make things any easier or simpler--they change things. Now, maybe it's becuse I'm a bit of a rules guru, but I was never confused by the whole can/may thing or the way Enchant Xs worked. Wizards just made the game shinier and targetted to a slightly different audience, but it didn't enhance the gameplay in any way.
I have a topic for Kraj, as well as a lesson for Kagavin: DON'T OVER-KEYWORD. There is an underappreciated debate about when to keyword a mechanic. Kagavin, according to your list you'll have twelve new keywords in one set. That is way too many. Three keywords in a set is the limit, IMO. Also, I hate when people (that includes you, Mark Rosewater) keyword old abilities. Like Reach, or Auras, or any of the other recent ones. Also, there are new abilities that don't need to be keyworded. A keyword should only be for a major ability in a set/block, and only when keywording makes things simpler and easier to use and describe, and when there will be at least several cards interacting with the mechanic, making it much simpler to word those cards.
Anyway, that's my rant on keywording. Also, for our set, most of those abilities don't need to be keyworded--we can have most of those abilities on a few cards without a keyword. It's just as cool, and we don't need to worry about keyword overload.
And a card:
Mindflip
Instant
Reverse the order of your library, then draw a card. (The top card becomes the bottom card, the bottom card becomes the top card, etc.) Remember all those things you kept in the back of your mind?
The Dark Knight, with Wall-E a distant second. I didn't really love Iron Man; it was alright, but not as great as I expected based on what everyone was saying.
Creature--Elemental Shapeshifter
At the beginning of your upkeep, a random target creature becomes 10/10 and all 10/10 creatures become 1/1.
10/10
What use is power when you can't keep it?
Yes, you can pump (or shrink) stuff to keep the 10/10-ness. Timestamp fun ensues.
2) Extaordinary foresight, intelligence and wisdom, so that I can take full advantage of my first wish
3) To be able to control the state of my body at will; includes age, disease, harm, etc. (basically all the immortality/invincibility wishes in one)
All this assuming wishing to be able to grant your own wishes isn't allowed; otherwise, just that and then I'm good.
"He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!" Life of Brian
"How do you shoot the Devil in the back? What if you miss?" Verbal Kint, The Usual Suspects
"It would not be difficult, Mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could...I'm sorry, Mr. President." Dr. Strangelove
Mason: "Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and **** the prom queen."
Goodspeed: "Carla was the prom queen."
The Rock
And three from Lord of the Rings, including what I consider the best pump-up speech ever:
Frodo: "I wish the ring had never come to me...I wish none of this had happened."
Gandalf: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the ring. In which case, you also were meant to have it...and that is an encouraging thought."
The Fellowship of the Ring
"Arise, arise, Riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered . . . a sword day, a red day; ere the sun rises!" Theoden, Return of the King
"Hold your ground - hold your ground! Sons of Gondor - of Rohan . . . my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. The day may come when the courage of Men fails; when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship; but it is not this day - an hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the Age of Man comes crashing down - but it is not this day!!! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth - I bid you stand!" Aragorn, Return of the King
Botanically, a fruit is the seed and surrounding edible parts of a plant (apples, oranges, corn, tomatoes, eggplants); a vegetable is any other part of a plant that is edible (potatoes, radishes, lettuce).
I got confused by "letter that corresponds to the number," I thought it meant the letter that the number starts with, and I ended up with an elephant eating a tomato in France.
And Alacar, the wording of Duel as of now (and Provoke) says "if able," so if the creature is tapped it can't block. Same how if the creature with provoke has flying and provokes a non-flyer, it doesn't get blocked by that creature.
I think the best wording is thus:
Duel (When this attacks, you may have target creature defending player controls untap and block it if able. If it does, this can only be blocked by one creature.)
That means that the creature doesn't always have "can only be blocked by one creature," only in a Duel.
Also, aren't there other people in thise clan besides me and George? (And I'm not even technically a member!)
So what do you do if Hamas won't lay down its weapons? Well, you can try talking, negotioating, etc. Israel has tried that again and again. Most recently it had a six-month cease-fire with Hamas. Everyone's talking about how after it ended, Hamas starting firing rockets again. This is false. Hamas was firing rockets for all six months of the cease-fire. They just started firing more after it expired. So obviously, negitiation isn't going to work.
Someone suggested helping the Palestinians, building schools, hospitals, etc. Here's the problem--any Israeli worker who goes into Gaza will be lynched. And if you give the money to Gaza leadership, they'll just use the money for weapons against Israel, because, oh yeah, the leadership is Hamas. Israel is not the one who is keeping Gaza a ghetto and a war zone. Palestinian leadership is. They know that if the conflict ever ends, they lose their power, so it is in their best interest to continue the conflict, and they do everything they can to ensure such an outcome.
So what do you do? Live with rockets falling in towns, accept that a few innocent people will be blown up for no reason every year? Or do you attack the source, and try to wipe out the organization that's performing these acts?
And one more thing: everyone who is suggesting that Israel should use its assassins to kill Hamas leadership--do you think they're not? Israel isn't stupid, they do that all the time and once in a while they'll get someone, but these people play dirty. They always take some children in their car, they live in bunkers, etc. And there is always someone who will step up to replace the dead leader. What Israel is doing now is destroying Hamas middle-management, which will hurt the organization a lot more. It's about time, and I sincerely hope that Israel doesn't stop until the job is truly done.
EDIT: Tuss, those "really" orthodox Jews who oppose Israel are regarded by the rest of the Jews as insane. The have no basis from the Torah for what they're saying. And there are something like 200 of them inthe world, they're just very vocal.
Planeswalker--Rennek
[+1]: Sacrifice a land. Target creature you control gets +2/+2 until end of turn.
[-1]: Destroy target land. Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature that land's owner controls.
[-5]: Return all lands in all graveyards to play under your control. Draw a card and put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control for each land returned this way.
[[3]]
Next: Kamahl, Pit Fighter
Bottom line, "Agressive" would get old (IMO) if you use it on more than 10-20 cards over a block. It's just not an exciting enough ability to put too much focus on. You can make it a minitheme in a block, and that would work. Also, if you were going to do that, then I would agree that you might want to keyword it.
Now, to discuss the ability itself. First, it's dangerously close to Provoke. Provoke was a neat idea, but it didn't really work out that well. Also, you should be careful not to overuse it--you listed off a lot of ideas of cards to put Aggressive on (sorry about the grammar), but if you do all of that in one set, will it be worthwhile or will it just clog up space? Will the rest of the set accentuate the ability, or will Aggressive just be on a bunch of cards?
In my opinion, the ability isn't new or dynamic enough to warrant such attention in a set or block. However, if you really feel that it could work, and like the way the ability plays, then go for it.
And one more thing: find a better name. "Aggressive" is an adjective that descibes the creature. As a general rule of keywording, nouns work best (look at basically all the keywords ever). "Aggression" would be better, but it doesn't really fit--why would aggression make one become blocked, but only by one creature? I see how you can view it as attacking a creature, but I think there is a better word out there to describe this ability. Unfortunately I can't think of one right now, and I need to go to sleep.
Deathtouch doesn't need a keyword, IMO. The ability's been around for a long time, and nobody ever complained about how it wasn't keyworded, and it's not prevalent enough in Magic to require one. Although Wizards is using it more now that it's keyworded, so it might retroactively be a good keyword. Similar to fear, actually.
The reason you shouldn't keyword everything is because of memory issues and ease of starting the game--if every tiny ability is keyworded, then half the cards require you to know something besides what's printed on the card in order to use it.
Your "Agressive" ability is incredibly limited in its design space. It won't be the centerpiece of a set; it will be on at the very most five cards. That does not require a keyword. Keywording fear adds tons of flavor, and it is an ability that was only keyworded after it was realized that it was an ability that would be recurring in every block, and was a basic ability of the game. Cycling was keyworded because it was central to its block and, as has been shown, has a ton of design space.
Bottom line, you need to use discretion and have patience. When you come up with a cool ability, first think about how much design space it has. Then think about how it interacts with other cards in your block and in the rest of Magic. Then decide if it is a good enough ability to be the centerpiece of a set or block. Then decide what color it should be in, and how it should be used. Then think about how you can develop the ability over a block, and innovative interactions with other cards. Then decide whether it should be keyworded or not, and then think about naming it. Don't come up with a cool ability, then think up a name and get so enchanted by the name that you just have to keyword it.
Also, Auras and Reach do not really make things any easier or simpler--they change things. Now, maybe it's becuse I'm a bit of a rules guru, but I was never confused by the whole can/may thing or the way Enchant Xs worked. Wizards just made the game shinier and targetted to a slightly different audience, but it didn't enhance the gameplay in any way.
Anyway, that's my rant on keywording. Also, for our set, most of those abilities don't need to be keyworded--we can have most of those abilities on a few cards without a keyword. It's just as cool, and we don't need to worry about keyword overload.
And a card:
Mindflip
Instant
Reverse the order of your library, then draw a card. (The top card becomes the bottom card, the bottom card becomes the top card, etc.)
Remember all those things you kept in the back of your mind?