A guess of mine would be that specific cards in hand never get targeted IDK if they even can get targeted. Thoughtseize ant cards like it also never target. Most Imprint cards do target just not the ones where you exile from hand, and a few exceptions like Dermotaxi. So maybe they cant get targeted
Reminder it is a gamble to peek the top card for 1 here. You might get donowalled, and you might be able to chain a few cards also.
I would say it's on par with Sensei's Diving Top (by impressive standards) and not DOA because of it.
Rearranging the top 3 card is way more powerful that just peeking the top card, it is actually worth the 1 mana
You do know Mystic Forge decks are a thing this would slot right into them. Yes In a vacuum Top is better there are decks where this outclasses top by a lot.
I don't think anyone would scratch their head at that either. They would probably scoff and give a "fair enough".
Except 2 People already did and one pointed out how broken that could potentionally be and you yourself had to clarify what works with it and what doesn't and if at any point you need to crlarify sth it is by definition not clear. And You yourself already saw how broken it is and tried to reign it in with YOUR clarification saying it counts for this but not for that.
You would need another wording then since the game rules are very clear what you can do with cards in your hand and your clarification skews with that heavily.
How many times will they be able to do that before they run out of mana or the effect ends?
Saying run out of mana right after someone showed you 2 infinite mana combos and one of them can be achieved rather easily on turn 2 or turn one with a small bit of luck.
Blitz Elemental + Simian (two for T1 or any other way to get 2 other mana for the T1) + Either a Red Flashback Spell that Can Kill or one that can draw (of which there are 15 (16 If you count Bump in the night) or one of the many many X Spells that can kill or an emrakul or a storm spell that could kill.
That is the version before the "fix" you came up with.
And the one you would still approve is a bit harder to pull of on t1 but still very much doable and rather easy on t2 and subsequent turns
Food Chain + Blitz Elemental
Sure Foodchain Combos are a dime a dozen and simian is banned in modern but it is still not good design if you add to that furthermore as some have stated multiple times already the fewer you have to touch the comp rules to implement your ideas and make them work the better you are as a designer.
Think of it that way a good Architect will design a building with the laws of physics (And the Engineer) in mind so his building can be built, a bad architect does not which means it will never be built although it looks good (to him) on paper.
Be more of a Good Architect (Card Designer) and keep the laws of physics (comprehensive rules) in mind. If you want to change the comp rules with almost every card you design maybe you are better suited to design a whole new game rather than cards for an existing one.
Therefore, where the effect of a card isn't imminently game-ending, the difference between a mana or two doesn't really matter, and is only aesthetic. Whereas the temptation to play the design sooner is crafty, and actually creates an aspect of challenge within the design itself against its own caster.
This statement is factually false one mana difference makes or breaks cards in competitive magic. Sure the less competitive you get the less it matters but it still matters.
Yeah but even with wheels cards like narset, parter of veils or hullbreacher, or even smothering tithe are better.
True to a certain extend as this card you can use self wheels alongside Regular ones. So "sol invictus" might slot into decks with narset etc but in addition to that create new decks that abuse that half of the card and IN ADDITION to that they can store mana for the combo turn.
Not to mention in commander with someone like Arjun, the Shifting Flame at the helm this can get nasty real quick.
And as you said "The turning lands into treasure is far more of a problem" holds true in commander in nonspecialized decks a cheaper bootleggers stache that you can put in every deck will be played in many decks
one turn is huge with a card that allows you go off with the main culprit being cards that are already good for going off Echo of Eons, Wheel of Fortune, Wheel of Fate, Windfall, Jace's Archivist etc. since each card draw has its own replacing effect you draw check if you wanna play it if you do you skip draws until you have the mana )or even more depending on what you have/want and repeat that. Makes it easy to find what you need and to pay for it too.
Bootleggers' Stash is 6 mana and has just the ability that sure it is stronger since it is basically 1 land 1 treasure instead of 2 lands 1 treasure. But Since this also has the "If you would draw a card, you may add one mana of any color to your mana pool instead." effect this card at that mana cost is far to powerful.
If you wanna keep the cost you could make the mana generating ability mandatory so that you cant draw cards anymore since the ability to chose when to ritual/free spell and when to draw
Hunting Valley
Land t : Add C to your mana pool. t : Put a reach counter on target creature. t , Sacrifice Hunting Valley: Target blocking creature gets +2/+3 until end of turn.
But reach is not a net zero ability, sure it doesn't do anything when the opponent doesn't have any fliers but if he has them it grants you an ability to block them which isn't net zero.
Furthermore if it were then why put it on a card if it is net zero wouldn't that mean it actively does nothing to the game state and might as well be flavortext thus making its inclusion just a way of bloating the cards text unnnecessarily.
Otherwise it is an OK design 6/10 if you make it t: Target creature gains Reach until EOT Id bump it up to a 7/10
My Opinions on the other cards
Aetherworld Portal
Land
When Aetherworld Portal enters the battlefield, you may play a land card from your graveyard during your next turn. t: Add C. 1, t : Return Aetherworld Portal to its owner's hand.
I actually like this design a lot seems strong but not overly or even overtly so its a free but somewhat limited Land recursion and the fact that it says (only) next turn makes it less abusable.
10/10
Grand Revivalist Cathedral
Legendary Land
When Grand Revivalist Cathedral enters the battlefield, you may cast up to one white creature card from your graveyard this turn. If you do, exile Grand Revivalist Cathedral. t : Add W to your mana pool.
Still think needs to be ETB tapped IMO but if I saw this printed this way it wouldn't catch me of guard
8/10
Hostile Outlands
Land t : Add C to your mana pool. t , Sacrifice Hostile Outlands: Target creature gets +1/-1 and gains haste until end of turn.
Doesn't pop out but is a pretty good design for an uncommon land 9/10 would love to have the callback to flowstone referenced in the name but names also fine as is
Reap how many times have we been trough this already? Your ability is worded like a triggered ability yet it is not one. We've shown you the rules for that two or three times already. It is worded as a triggered ability without a trigger. Either make it like graft (see caulkwrangler's version) or make it an activated ability
Esoteric 2 (This land enters with two loyalty counters on it. And It has Remove a Loyalty counter from ~ : Add a loyalty counter to target planeswalker)
With an activated ability you can even open up more design space like hideaway, like
Aurora Halls
Aurora Halls etb tapped.
Esoteric 1 (This Land enters the battlefield with a loyalty counter) t:Add one mana of any color among planeswalkers you control.
Remove a Loyalty Counter from ~ : Add C
Remove a Loyalty Counter from ~ : Put a loyalty counter on target planeswalker you control.
(With this one Probably being a tad to strong due to possible ramp)
It is an obvious fact that losing a land drop can cost you the game.
Having your land enter the battlefield tapped can cost you the game.
Very true but this doesn't mean every land should be entering untapped the bigger the upside the better it is to have a limiter on the land.
Aurora Halls
Land
Esoteric (This land enters the battlefield with a loyalty counter on it. At anytime you could cast an instant, you may move all loyalty counters from this land to a planeswalker you control.) t : Add C to your mana pool. If you control a blue Planeswalker, you may add U to your mana pool instead.
Besides Esoteric not being a correctly worded ability I actually agree that this version doesn't need to etb tapped.
Being able to put six in your deck (not with our Mulligan rules but you know the actual mulligan rules the game currently follows) is pretty arbitrary and doesn't really fit flavorwise. As for the mechanical part non basics already overshadow basics in most formats why increase this trend even further. And since that line is format independant the number of decisions for superfriends commander decks is heavily decreased since one is already pretty high as an auto include never mind 6 of them.
Try making a card that repeats itself unnecessarily, even just once.
Archfiend of Ifnir et. al the cycling part is redundant since part of the cycling cost is to discard the card. It is done to clarify that that counts too. As redundancy is often used to make things clear you are right to not overuse redundancy but use it when necessary.
That would be a sight to behold but yeah be sure to have a judge at hand since from what i've learned so far is that reap doesn't know how the rules work and might reinterpret them.
calling it mill or traumatize is wholly subjective, there is bias for one or the other (I fully admit i am biased in favor of calling it mill I was happy after all these years of calling it that that they adopted the term) there can be arguments about which you think is better but since it's fully subjective it is not really a logical discussion since nothing is wrong logically with calling it either way it is all based on preference.
Similarly with unblockable and Mana value (CMC). However in addition to personal preference using them the old way has lead to problems of legibility and understanding so they tried to fix it (an IMO they did).
And as you youself said just because it is not broken doesn't mean we cant make it better, thats what they tried with the renaming , retemplating of those things.
And thats why I asked for your fix of exactly the problem they were faced with, and your fix has the exact same problem they run into.
Now is their fix perfect no is it better than what they had before ? That's Subjective, but according to their feedback it was necessary to improve upon it. There are a few objective improvements that came with the change namely mana value is way shorter than converted mana cost. And That tangible improvement would be lost with your suggestion.
Again You think damage gets marked on a creatures toughness normally but it doesn't never has and probably never will.
When I Bolt your 1/4 damage is assigned by the bolt and 3 damage is marked on the creature. If I then play Zilrotha in the same turn your creature will die,thats because it has 3 damage marked and now that zilrotha is in play that is enough to count as letal damage.
That is how Zilrotha works in the game If damage would be assigned to toughness the creature wouldn't have died since the assignment is already done at that point and the creture would be a 1/4 with 3 damage marked on toughness. But again since damage isn't marked on toughness thats not how it worked the creature dies.
To reiterate what 3 of us are saying over and over Zilrotha (and by extention your card) and Doran affect different rules. Not inverse rules not the opposite etc. The opposite of a Doran is normal creature combat aka Creatures assign damage based on their power. The opposite of zilrotha is normal lethal damage calculation aka if marked damage is greater or equal to a creatures toughness.
Zilrotha affects rules 120.6 and 704.5g and Doran affects Rule 510.1a they literally affect different rules.
Undeniably, they changed it to cut corners and save text space.
If I was responsible for this, I think that converted mana cost would just become mana cost. Converted mana cost could have always been reduced to mana cost from the very beginning. Specifics of color or otherwise are easily added to this to describe specifics; eg. red mana cost.
The term [active mana cost] for modular cost like X, or for other modifications to mana cost to describe it as it currently exists where necessary. Maybe the term [printed mana cost] or [base mana cost] to describe what's printed on the mana box line. Once again with specifics of color; eg. colored mana symbols in its printed mana cost; colored mana symbols in its base mana cost.
I don't really like the term base, even for power/toughness. I think it would have been better, although lengthier, to use the term original.
Same could be said here also, if not to use the term 'printed'.
Then you have the same problem they have run into with converted mana cost and mana cost, the similar name that would't solve the issue that would only dress the issue up in fancy clothes. Before we had 2 closely related but different things names similarly CMC and Mana Cost One cares only about the amount the other about the specifics. They then renamed them so its easier to distinguish between those two. You suggest a solution that doesnt even cover the problem now we still have distinct but closely related and similarly named things in Active MANA COST, printed MANA COST.
It certainly is not, because Doran, the Siege Tower wouldn't have used the term assign then.
Let me just say, for someone who had come back to the game at Lorwyn block, from last playing and leaving the game at Mirrodin; Doran's text was elegant and instantly coherent. It had professional composition and body. It felt unique and majestic. Everything about it defines the essence one seeks to capture by wording such effects, or adapting the obvious opposite effects from them.
Since Assigning damage based on strength is already the norm your card doesnt need the term like at all. Doran needs the term because assigning damage based on Toughness INSTEAD of strength. Your card doesnt change the damage assignment rules at all t just changes the fact that lethal damage is calculated with strength instead of Toughness again nothing in the damage assignment is changing at all. Doran, the siege Tower still has the same rules text nothing changed because as you yourself said
Quote from "ReapThaWhirlwind »
This is attempting to force alike credentials for two different parameters, under the blind assumption that the functionality needs to be universal, when simply, it does not.
and yet this is what you are doing attempting to force two different parameters to be universal.
So you even do the things you said we shouldnt do yourself.
Creatures assign damage with their Strength under normal circumstances. They dont assign damage to Toughness but to a creature.
The Thing doran changes is Strength to toughness in this sentence nothing more.
Creatures are destroyed as a state based action when they are marked with lethal damage that is defined as marked damage >= toughness or the source of the damage had deathtouch.
The thing Zilrotha changes is toughness to strength in this sentence nothing more.
Doran and zilrotha have different wordings because they affect different rules.
Zilrotha doesn't change damage assignment rules at all, and doran ONLY changes damage assignment. You Try to make apples out of oranges.
You do know Mystic Forge decks are a thing this would slot right into them. Yes In a vacuum Top is better there are decks where this outclasses top by a lot.
Except 2 People already did and one pointed out how broken that could potentionally be and you yourself had to clarify what works with it and what doesn't and if at any point you need to crlarify sth it is by definition not clear. And You yourself already saw how broken it is and tried to reign it in with YOUR clarification saying it counts for this but not for that.
You would need another wording then since the game rules are very clear what you can do with cards in your hand and your clarification skews with that heavily.
Saying run out of mana right after someone showed you 2 infinite mana combos and one of them can be achieved rather easily on turn 2 or turn one with a small bit of luck.
Blitz Elemental + Simian (two for T1 or any other way to get 2 other mana for the T1) + Either a Red Flashback Spell that Can Kill or one that can draw (of which there are 15 (16 If you count Bump in the night) or one of the many many X Spells that can kill or an emrakul or a storm spell that could kill.
That is the version before the "fix" you came up with.
And the one you would still approve is a bit harder to pull of on t1 but still very much doable and rather easy on t2 and subsequent turns
Food Chain + Blitz Elemental
Sure Foodchain Combos are a dime a dozen and simian is banned in modern but it is still not good design if you add to that furthermore as some have stated multiple times already the fewer you have to touch the comp rules to implement your ideas and make them work the better you are as a designer.
Think of it that way a good Architect will design a building with the laws of physics (And the Engineer) in mind so his building can be built, a bad architect does not which means it will never be built although it looks good (to him) on paper.
Be more of a Good Architect (Card Designer) and keep the laws of physics (comprehensive rules) in mind. If you want to change the comp rules with almost every card you design maybe you are better suited to design a whole new game rather than cards for an existing one.
This statement is factually false one mana difference makes or breaks cards in competitive magic. Sure the less competitive you get the less it matters but it still matters.
True to a certain extend as this card you can use self wheels alongside Regular ones. So "sol invictus" might slot into decks with narset etc but in addition to that create new decks that abuse that half of the card and IN ADDITION to that they can store mana for the combo turn.
Not to mention in commander with someone like Arjun, the Shifting Flame at the helm this can get nasty real quick.
And as you said "The turning lands into treasure is far more of a problem" holds true in commander in nonspecialized decks a cheaper bootleggers stache that you can put in every deck will be played in many decks
If you wanna keep the cost you could make the mana generating ability mandatory so that you cant draw cards anymore since the ability to chose when to ritual/free spell and when to draw
But reach is not a net zero ability, sure it doesn't do anything when the opponent doesn't have any fliers but if he has them it grants you an ability to block them which isn't net zero.
Furthermore if it were then why put it on a card if it is net zero wouldn't that mean it actively does nothing to the game state and might as well be flavortext thus making its inclusion just a way of bloating the cards text unnnecessarily.
Otherwise it is an OK design 6/10 if you make it t: Target creature gains Reach until EOT Id bump it up to a 7/10
My Opinions on the other cards
I actually like this design a lot seems strong but not overly or even overtly so its a free but somewhat limited Land recursion and the fact that it says (only) next turn makes it less abusable.
10/10
Still think needs to be ETB tapped IMO but if I saw this printed this way it wouldn't catch me of guard
8/10
Doesn't pop out but is a pretty good design for an uncommon land 9/10 would love to have the callback to flowstone referenced in the name but names also fine as is
Esoteric 2 (This land enters with two loyalty counters on it. And It has Remove a Loyalty counter from ~ : Add a loyalty counter to target planeswalker)
With an activated ability you can even open up more design space like hideaway, like
Aurora Halls
Aurora Halls etb tapped.
Esoteric 1 (This Land enters the battlefield with a loyalty counter)
t:Add one mana of any color among planeswalkers you control.
Remove a Loyalty Counter from ~ : Add C
Remove a Loyalty Counter from ~ : Put a loyalty counter on target planeswalker you control.
(With this one Probably being a tad to strong due to possible ramp)
Very true but this doesn't mean every land should be entering untapped the bigger the upside the better it is to have a limiter on the land.
Besides Esoteric not being a correctly worded ability I actually agree that this version doesn't need to etb tapped.
Being able to put six in your deck (not with our Mulligan rules but you know the actual mulligan rules the game currently follows) is pretty arbitrary and doesn't really fit flavorwise. As for the mechanical part non basics already overshadow basics in most formats why increase this trend even further. And since that line is format independant the number of decisions for superfriends commander decks is heavily decreased since one is already pretty high as an auto include never mind 6 of them.
Archfiend of Ifnir et. al the cycling part is redundant since part of the cycling cost is to discard the card. It is done to clarify that that counts too. As redundancy is often used to make things clear you are right to not overuse redundancy but use it when necessary.
Similarly with unblockable and Mana value (CMC). However in addition to personal preference using them the old way has lead to problems of legibility and understanding so they tried to fix it (an IMO they did).
And as you youself said just because it is not broken doesn't mean we cant make it better, thats what they tried with the renaming , retemplating of those things.
And thats why I asked for your fix of exactly the problem they were faced with, and your fix has the exact same problem they run into.
Now is their fix perfect no is it better than what they had before ? That's Subjective, but according to their feedback it was necessary to improve upon it. There are a few objective improvements that came with the change namely mana value is way shorter than converted mana cost. And That tangible improvement would be lost with your suggestion.
When I Bolt your 1/4 damage is assigned by the bolt and 3 damage is marked on the creature. If I then play Zilrotha in the same turn your creature will die,thats because it has 3 damage marked and now that zilrotha is in play that is enough to count as letal damage.
That is how Zilrotha works in the game If damage would be assigned to toughness the creature wouldn't have died since the assignment is already done at that point and the creture would be a 1/4 with 3 damage marked on toughness. But again since damage isn't marked on toughness thats not how it worked the creature dies.
To reiterate what 3 of us are saying over and over Zilrotha (and by extention your card) and Doran affect different rules. Not inverse rules not the opposite etc. The opposite of a Doran is normal creature combat aka Creatures assign damage based on their power. The opposite of zilrotha is normal lethal damage calculation aka if marked damage is greater or equal to a creatures toughness.
Zilrotha affects rules 120.6 and 704.5g and Doran affects Rule 510.1a they literally affect different rules.
Then you have the same problem they have run into with converted mana cost and mana cost, the similar name that would't solve the issue that would only dress the issue up in fancy clothes. Before we had 2 closely related but different things names similarly CMC and Mana Cost One cares only about the amount the other about the specifics. They then renamed them so its easier to distinguish between those two. You suggest a solution that doesnt even cover the problem now we still have distinct but closely related and similarly named things in Active MANA COST, printed MANA COST.
Since Assigning damage based on strength is already the norm your card doesnt need the term like at all. Doran needs the term because assigning damage based on Toughness INSTEAD of strength. Your card doesnt change the damage assignment rules at all t just changes the fact that lethal damage is calculated with strength instead of Toughness again nothing in the damage assignment is changing at all.
Doran, the siege Tower still has the same rules text nothing changed because as you yourself said
and yet this is what you are doing attempting to force two different parameters to be universal.
So you even do the things you said we shouldnt do yourself.
Creatures assign damage with their Strength under normal circumstances. They dont assign damage to Toughness but to a creature.
The Thing doran changes is Strength to toughness in this sentence nothing more.
Creatures are destroyed as a state based action when they are marked with lethal damage that is defined as marked damage >= toughness or the source of the damage had deathtouch.
The thing Zilrotha changes is toughness to strength in this sentence nothing more.
Doran and zilrotha have different wordings because they affect different rules.
Zilrotha doesn't change damage assignment rules at all, and doran ONLY changes damage assignment. You Try to make apples out of oranges.