A number of things that started in silver-border have managed to find their way into black-border sets over the years, including things like meld and split cards. I was thinking about this when I saw a card with the infinity mana symbol and wondered if there would be a way to use that symbol in a hypothetical standard set. I came up with a cycle of cards that I believe accomplishes this pretty well:
Artificer Guy4UU
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer
Activated abilities of artifacts you control named Artificer's Doohickey and Artificer's Whatchamacallit cost 2 less to activate. T: Draw a card.
(infinity mana), T: Draw seven cards.
2/2
This guy is the crux of a three-card combo in this hypothetical set. It references two other cards which, on their own, aren't really that great, but when used together with this guy out, make it possible to generate infinite mana. The infinite mana symbol simply serves to say "Activate this ability only if you can generate infinite mana," but with in-game terms. Activating the ability obviously doesn't deplete your infinite mana, because then you can just generate more.
Because this is a really wild effect, it pretty much has to be mythic. That said, onec you see the other cards, it makes for a pretty interesting and fun casual build, possibly even FNM playable in the right environment. I want this to be most appealing to casual players, especially in commander, where infinite mana combos are everywhere, especially in blue.
I didn't wanna give this guy an outright win effect when you manage to go infinite, so I gave him an ability to help you find your win-con instead.
Artificer's Whatchamacallit3
Artifact (C) 2, T: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool.
And here are the combo pieces. Alone, they don't do anything special. Whatchamacallit fixes mana and excellerates by one, which is on-par with a typical mana-rock these days. Doohickey is just a below-curve utility piece that would likely show up in an artifact-heavy set. Even combined, they operate at a loss.
But if you have the legendary creature, suddenly, you have access to infinite mana. This is just the kind of fun "aha" moment that makes the game fun for most players, especially casual players who don't mind jumping through the necessary hoops.
I have one more card, but it's more just to help facilitate the combo in a way that fits in the same artifact-heavy set you'd find these in:
Artificer's Tutor2U
Sorcery (R)
Choose one—
-Search your library for an artifact card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
-Search your library for a card named Artificer's Doohickey and a card named Artificer's Whatchamacallit, reveal those cards, and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Anywho, what do you guys think? Could this sort of thing appear in a standard set one day? Are there any glaring issues I may have missed? Is this too powerful for a standard like this one?
Edit: Decided to give Artificer guy an additional tap ability to draw a card, making him less useless outside of the combo. Also changed Whatchamacallit's ability from "any combination of colors" to "any one color" to reduce the mental load for a common card.
The biggest issue with this design is that there is no such thing as "infinite" in Magic. Every combo that goes "infinite" requires that a number actually be chosen and the amount of mana/life/damage is set to that number. As such, the infinity symbol will have no place in a Black Bordered set since Infinity can't be a thing in Black Bordered.
And rules changes most likely will not occur to make it a thing. There is a reason things can't go infinite and I don't see them throwing away that rule just to make something like this work. The best you would see (though it is just as slim) is an activated ability that can only be activated "if you have 1000 or more mana in your mana pool" (or something like that).
The biggest issue with this design is that there is no such thing as "infinite" in Magic. Every combo that goes "infinite" requires that a number actually be chosen and the amount of mana/life/damage is set to that number. As such, the infinity symbol will have no place in a Black Bordered set since Infinity can't be a thing in Black Bordered.
And rules changes most likely will not occur to make it a thing. There is a reason things can't go infinite and I don't see them throwing away that rule just to make something like this work. The best you would see (though it is just as slim) is an activated ability that can only be activated "if you have 1000 or more mana in your mana pool" (or something like that).
You have a point. So then what if the mana cost on the draw-seven ability was just absurdly high? Like 100 or something? Do you think that might see print one day?
There is a way to make this work. It's never going to happen because the knowledge isn't widespread enough, but it's possible to make cards like this work with only a single minor change to the rules.
Existing : 107.1. The only numbers the Magic game uses are integers.
Proposed : 107.1. The only numbers the Magic game uses are surreal integers.
All we need to do is popularize a different number system, the surreals, and switch to the use of a generalized surreal integer instead of merely an integer. Basically, the Surreal numbers include all the real numbers and also include and define all transfinite numbers. A transfinite number is basically a number that is greater than all real numbers. For most intents and purposes, transfinite numbers are infinite and have all the desired properties we need to manage infinite combos. We would of course need a new mana symbol using the lower case greek letter omega. In the surreal class of numbers, omega is the first transfinite number and is equivalent in size to aleph zero, the size of the cardinal numbers. The new symbol, omega, would represent an amount of colorless mana that can only be paid if you are capable of generating transfinite quantities of mana.
I apologize if this all sounds like gibberish to everyone. You can read more about Surreal numbers here.
EDIT: Also, even if this could be done, I don't see any particularly interesting design space in it. It's so easy to just win the game once you have infinite mana that anything less than "omega : You win the game." feels really weak
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
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Artificer Guy 4UU
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer
Activated abilities of artifacts you control named Artificer's Doohickey and Artificer's Whatchamacallit cost 2 less to activate.
T: Draw a card.
(infinity mana), T: Draw seven cards.
2/2
This guy is the crux of a three-card combo in this hypothetical set. It references two other cards which, on their own, aren't really that great, but when used together with this guy out, make it possible to generate infinite mana. The infinite mana symbol simply serves to say "Activate this ability only if you can generate infinite mana," but with in-game terms. Activating the ability obviously doesn't deplete your infinite mana, because then you can just generate more.
Because this is a really wild effect, it pretty much has to be mythic. That said, onec you see the other cards, it makes for a pretty interesting and fun casual build, possibly even FNM playable in the right environment. I want this to be most appealing to casual players, especially in commander, where infinite mana combos are everywhere, especially in blue.
I didn't wanna give this guy an outright win effect when you manage to go infinite, so I gave him an ability to help you find your win-con instead.
Artificer's Doohickey 2
Artifact (U)
4: Untap target artifact.
Artificer's Whatchamacallit 3
Artifact (C)
2, T: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool.
And here are the combo pieces. Alone, they don't do anything special. Whatchamacallit fixes mana and excellerates by one, which is on-par with a typical mana-rock these days. Doohickey is just a below-curve utility piece that would likely show up in an artifact-heavy set. Even combined, they operate at a loss.
But if you have the legendary creature, suddenly, you have access to infinite mana. This is just the kind of fun "aha" moment that makes the game fun for most players, especially casual players who don't mind jumping through the necessary hoops.
I have one more card, but it's more just to help facilitate the combo in a way that fits in the same artifact-heavy set you'd find these in:
Artificer's Tutor 2U
Sorcery (R)
Choose one—
-Search your library for an artifact card, reveal it, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
-Search your library for a card named Artificer's Doohickey and a card named Artificer's Whatchamacallit, reveal those cards, and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Anywho, what do you guys think? Could this sort of thing appear in a standard set one day? Are there any glaring issues I may have missed? Is this too powerful for a standard like this one?
Edit: Decided to give Artificer guy an additional tap ability to draw a card, making him less useless outside of the combo. Also changed Whatchamacallit's ability from "any combination of colors" to "any one color" to reduce the mental load for a common card.
And rules changes most likely will not occur to make it a thing. There is a reason things can't go infinite and I don't see them throwing away that rule just to make something like this work. The best you would see (though it is just as slim) is an activated ability that can only be activated "if you have 1000 or more mana in your mana pool" (or something like that).
Existing : 107.1. The only numbers the Magic game uses are integers.
Proposed : 107.1. The only numbers the Magic game uses are surreal integers.
All we need to do is popularize a different number system, the surreals, and switch to the use of a generalized surreal integer instead of merely an integer. Basically, the Surreal numbers include all the real numbers and also include and define all transfinite numbers. A transfinite number is basically a number that is greater than all real numbers. For most intents and purposes, transfinite numbers are infinite and have all the desired properties we need to manage infinite combos. We would of course need a new mana symbol using the lower case greek letter omega. In the surreal class of numbers, omega is the first transfinite number and is equivalent in size to aleph zero, the size of the cardinal numbers. The new symbol, omega, would represent an amount of colorless mana that can only be paid if you are capable of generating transfinite quantities of mana.
I apologize if this all sounds like gibberish to everyone. You can read more about Surreal numbers here.
EDIT: Also, even if this could be done, I don't see any particularly interesting design space in it. It's so easy to just win the game once you have infinite mana that anything less than "omega : You win the game." feels really weak
- Manite