It's kind of like Epic Struggle, how do you expect to be unable to win with 20 green creatures. But this is harder than Chance Encounter. You might be able to charge this faster with some combo. I've been meaning to work on a Guile/Hindering Touch deck. Here's the idea, someone plays a spell and you Hindering Touch it, putting the storm copy onto the original Hindering Touch. You then don't pay the mana, so Guile exiles it and you recast it. This time you can put one storm copy on the spell you don't control and repeat this process untill your opponent can't hope to pay the mana. Note that for the rest of the game you can keep reusing the same counterspell and this would let you charge up this enchantment that much faster but it seems like you've already won so why bother?
If this card were printed, and your opponent could not read it except when it had it's full counter provision, it would not change the game. By the time you counter 15 spells your opponent has scooped. To make blue a force to fear, it would need to do something besides attempt to deny their opponent's spells. There was a time when the overall game impact of one-drop creatures was relatively insiginficant and spells could be countered from turn two on. Now one drops can easily be a menace if left unchecked, more and more creatures and spells are outright uncounterable and still quite playable knowing your opponent isn't running blue, and counterspells have gone down in power. In total, relying on pure counter-wall is not the way to go.
I would suggest taking a mechanic from another color that blue needs and could justify and running that direction. That is, give blue something it hasn't ever had before that would let it be a real color again. I would then give specific answers to Bloodbraid Elf and the dominant stratagies of the day. Counterspells could be involved yes, but they should supplement a strategy rather than be the entire strategy. And as far as winning condition enchantments go, countering 15 spells is bad on around a dozen levels. Imagine getting 14 counters then Krosan Grip. There are too many mechanics around counters to forward this way. And besides, the reason why denial fails is because it's not enjoyable on either side of the table. Give blue something that is at least as much fun as green undercosted fatties and capable of doing something about sed undercosted fatties and you have just saved a color.
Double post and all, but I want to keep this separate from the previous. This is my first draft, when is the deadline BTW?
Shivan Reef Smuggler1UU
Creature - Merfolk Rogue {R}
Protection from Red
When ~ enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent you may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost.
2/3
Certainly I'm avoiding planeswalker so that pretty leaves artifact, enchantment, and creature only. I might go enchantment with Hideaway, or more likely artifact/creature with the mechanical equivilent. This assumes no double dare.
Anyway, while I want to finish this contest, I'm not going to run the next one. I'm not signing up for Design Idol or entering any new card contests. I've decided I need to spend less time on MtgSal for a while, which means I can't be relied upon to run anything or for example judge in the MCC. That said, if emkorial wants to post the signup thread for contest number 13 then we can finish this for bragging rights and be done probably before pairings go up.
or...you could try a little harder, ask other peoples opinions, grade it yourself, compare it to cards of similar marks, read articles here and on the wizards site for how the mechanics/colors should interact, and most importantly keep at it.
edit: and shorten your sig. it more than quadrouples your post length.
I agree on both counts, but I'll elaborate on the first part. I had a long run of round one eliminations in the FCC days. I did just what you said, and before long I was a regular round 3 player. For some reason I transcended round two, but I digress. One thing that helped me was that some of the time I would feel that I had the better card (as one naturally does because you see all that is good with your card and only some of what is good of your opponent's card) and in the beginning I would complain about it.
Zanny77, I suggest you bookmark Gatherer and look up similar to your current ideas. On the specific subject of your card, I agree with KoolKoal for the most part. If you did your homework, you would have pulled up Titanic Ultimatum and really all you did was make an instant version, which incidentally requires less colored mana and makes better use of high amounts of mana. Yeah sometimes it's better to have the ultimatum, but really the point here is that this card is designed to work in a way such that you can turn an entire game around on a single attack (or defense technically) and the shift from Sorcery to Instant was a bad call. I could give more advice if you want it, but listening to current judges is more likely to cause a turnaround for next month.
Instant with hideaway would be weird, not sure what the point would be. I'll make some non-land with the same effect as Hideaway without using that word. That is, when it ETB, you look at top 4 cards, exile one face down, put the rest back on bottom of your library. I just don't see how a creature can be a hideaway, or how an artifact could do it without being large enough that it ought be a land. A hideaway is a place conceptually, and enchantments stopped being places when World enchantments went out.
When did the poll end? I was on just a bit ago and it was open, and I was still going to vote. Well, it's not like my vote would have changed anything.
I didn't consider Gaea's Anthem, but that would work. The net result would be like Ant Queen so I don't think I'd be breaking anything. I was mostly considering Vigean Hydropon or Doubling Season, but so many things are made rediculous with Doubling Season that you can't design prevent that sort of thing.
I'm back, give me a few minutes to come up with a challenge.
Edit - So do I have to use the hideaway keyword, the one that only works on lands? I'm content making a card that does the same effect using imprint for instance or non-keyworded but if the challenge is specifically to use a mechanic out of it's flavor then I double dare.
Anyway, my challenge (if it matters) is to make a card with two "throwback" mechanics from different blocks, like Gustcloak Cavalier, up to Alara block. I'm aiming stuff like Threshold and Graft, so you can ignore "trivia cards" like Mystic Enforcer's reprint in the same block as Llanowar Reborn. Unused Future Sight mechanics like delve haven't been done yet thus can't be throwbacks Q.E.D. and with four sets containing cycling, (Urza's, Invasion, Time Spiral, Alara) I feel that it's no longer a block mechanic at this point. But Madness and Replicate, Threshold and Dredge, Provoke and Bushido, these would all be fine.
I am aware that Silvergill Adept has this effect, but I was more interested in 'is it fair outside of tribal based decks'.
And your way of doing this was taking an existing green creature and making it better in blue? Elvish Visionary with higher power, but blue instead of green. 2cc for a cantrip creature is good, even if it is a 1/1 and a blue Elvish Visionary as a Merfolk Wizard would be within the realm of consideration and I see WotC saying no there. What rational do you to go further?
Merfolk Visionary: UU Creature - Merfolk (C)
When Merfolk Visionary comes into play, draw a card.
2/1
This one is more of a question than a new idea. I often see green variants of Elvish Visionary that cost GG and are 2/1. I'm wondering if Blue should be able to do the same. Its creatures aren't supposed to be as good, but I would think it should cost less to cantrip a creature in Blue.
I'm not sure Rej'vorek really hurts your creatures since he doesn't require you to have any creatures to hurt, not like Spiteful Bully or Whiptail Moloch. If you know your topdeck you can just cast it then let it die to freecast something, though I'm not sure how a combo deck would make it worthwhile in that regard.
I would suggest taking a mechanic from another color that blue needs and could justify and running that direction. That is, give blue something it hasn't ever had before that would let it be a real color again. I would then give specific answers to Bloodbraid Elf and the dominant stratagies of the day. Counterspells could be involved yes, but they should supplement a strategy rather than be the entire strategy. And as far as winning condition enchantments go, countering 15 spells is bad on around a dozen levels. Imagine getting 14 counters then Krosan Grip. There are too many mechanics around counters to forward this way. And besides, the reason why denial fails is because it's not enjoyable on either side of the table. Give blue something that is at least as much fun as green undercosted fatties and capable of doing something about sed undercosted fatties and you have just saved a color.
Shivan Reef Smuggler 1UU
Creature - Merfolk Rogue {R}
Protection from Red
When ~ enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library, exile one face down, then put the rest on the bottom of your library.
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to an opponent you may play the exiled card without paying its mana cost.
2/3
Anyway, while I want to finish this contest, I'm not going to run the next one. I'm not signing up for Design Idol or entering any new card contests. I've decided I need to spend less time on MtgSal for a while, which means I can't be relied upon to run anything or for example judge in the MCC. That said, if emkorial wants to post the signup thread for contest number 13 then we can finish this for bragging rights and be done probably before pairings go up.
I agree on both counts, but I'll elaborate on the first part. I had a long run of round one eliminations in the FCC days. I did just what you said, and before long I was a regular round 3 player. For some reason I transcended round two, but I digress. One thing that helped me was that some of the time I would feel that I had the better card (as one naturally does because you see all that is good with your card and only some of what is good of your opponent's card) and in the beginning I would complain about it.
Zanny77, I suggest you bookmark Gatherer and look up similar to your current ideas. On the specific subject of your card, I agree with KoolKoal for the most part. If you did your homework, you would have pulled up Titanic Ultimatum and really all you did was make an instant version, which incidentally requires less colored mana and makes better use of high amounts of mana. Yeah sometimes it's better to have the ultimatum, but really the point here is that this card is designed to work in a way such that you can turn an entire game around on a single attack (or defense technically) and the shift from Sorcery to Instant was a bad call. I could give more advice if you want it, but listening to current judges is more likely to cause a turnaround for next month.
Edit - So do I have to use the hideaway keyword, the one that only works on lands? I'm content making a card that does the same effect using imprint for instance or non-keyworded but if the challenge is specifically to use a mechanic out of it's flavor then I double dare.
Anyway, my challenge (if it matters) is to make a card with two "throwback" mechanics from different blocks, like Gustcloak Cavalier, up to Alara block. I'm aiming stuff like Threshold and Graft, so you can ignore "trivia cards" like Mystic Enforcer's reprint in the same block as Llanowar Reborn. Unused Future Sight mechanics like delve haven't been done yet thus can't be throwbacks Q.E.D. and with four sets containing cycling, (Urza's, Invasion, Time Spiral, Alara) I feel that it's no longer a block mechanic at this point. But Madness and Replicate, Threshold and Dredge, Provoke and Bushido, these would all be fine.
And your way of doing this was taking an existing green creature and making it better in blue? Elvish Visionary with higher power, but blue instead of green. 2cc for a cantrip creature is good, even if it is a 1/1 and a blue Elvish Visionary as a Merfolk Wizard would be within the realm of consideration and I see WotC saying no there. What rational do you to go further?
Silvergill Adept
Gatherer
magiccards.info
WW way to re-unite F.A.R.T. 10 years later