Issac the Bitter WRG
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor
2/4
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player may pay 2. If they don’t, they reveal their hand. If three or more cards of the same card type are revealed this way, that player discards one of those cards unless they sacrifice a permanent of that type.
”Survival requires both truth and lies.”
———————
Flavor/Lore
Issac is a middleman between nobles and peasants, sometimes a messenger, sometimes a collector. He did his job begrudgingly and inevitably led to suffering of many, including his own family (whom he frequently paid the nobles to spare). Occasionally, he’d hide vital information from his noble superiors so they don’t know what to steal from the commoners.
W: Taxing R: Compassionate and going under the law G: Family oriented WR: Universal punishment WG: Dealing with the mass against the elites RG: Helping the lower castes WRG: Champion for the weak through roguish acts
Mechanics
Issac follows the popular WG trend of suppression, with R added showing his “in-between man” ability.
The wording of Issac follows that of Invasion block Domain cards. If an opponent reveals 3+ cards of one permanent type, he either discard it or sacrifice one that shares its type. If it’s instant/sorcery that got revealed, then they have no choice but to discard one of those cards.
Gameplay
Not an easy card to build around, but ultimately benefit from WG’s ability to retrieve permanent cards, as well as R’s ability to cycle cards in hand. His activation ability is a useful political tool.
That's neat but despite how you dress it up that is definitely a black ability. More specifically it appears to reasonably be mono-black or at least demand black to get access to discard. It's also very weak, I guess it is meant to hurt control as it ties up their mana or eats their resources but it's such a high threshold to function that it's not very appealing.
Nice try, but this is a color pie break, through and through. Red just doesn't get that kind of discard, plain and simple. It's too discriminating, compared to the random looting and wheeling that are the extent of red disruptive discard. I don't see at all how those color pie philosophies you laid out tie into the mechanics you chose for this card.
What's particularly galling for me is your invocation of "suppression" as if this card were some kind of hatebear. I mean, that's the only thing that comes to mind when you throw such a vague term around. I mean, what other kind of "suppression" does GW get? Certainly not this. It's not even a hatebear, which tend to target at least one specific category of cards or actions.
I don't mind the ability, although it's a little overly-complicated for what you're essentially trying to do (tax them for two mana or have them discard a card/sacrifice a permanent).
There is a technical issue in the fact that they might reveal all non-permanent cards, and then they can bypass the punishing effect because there are no permanents of those types.
I would just like to weigh in by saying that this being multicolor doesn't break any colors at all. It should be well achievable with this kind of wide-array spectrum (trans-versing three different colors). Anyone who would think to limit the creativity of three color creation is simply being unimaginative.
Eh, I'm going to second the "this is a black effect" crowd. Would suggest something like giving you/their opponents a treasure and/or making them loot a card of your choice. Can see this as a reddish effect of misinformation (the loot effect) or a white effect of distributing wealth to the "poor" (aka you)
That's neat but despite how you dress it up that is definitely a black ability. More specifically it appears to reasonably be mono-black or at least demand black to get access to discard.
Nice try, but this is a color pie break, through and through. Red just doesn't get that kind of discard, plain and simple. It's too discriminating, compared to the random looting and wheeling that are the extent of red disruptive discard. I don't see at all how those color pie philosophies you laid out tie into the mechanics you chose for this card.
I disagree. It's easy to categorize card effect into specific colors, such as all land fetch must be green or all discard must be black, but it's possible to have similar effect in nontraditional colors by having a twist. For example, black traditionally don't have artifact/enchantment removal but it could be done with effect such as Gate to Phyrexia, Phyrexian Tribute, Mire in Misery, and Pharika's Libation. Similarly, red could draw cards via effect like Risk Factor and Browbeat.
Not to mention, this card is a multicolor card that could incorporate different facets into one.
It may seem odd at first, but in reality Issac isn't doing anything outside of Naya pie, he merely combining what's already there. In fact, he could be complete Boros and it'd still make sense, with enough cards from the past to back it up.
The only ability that I'm not completely satisfied with is his activation ability. It is a little off to have a mana dump via discard. I will remove that one.
I disagree. It's easy to categorize card effect into specific colors, such as all land fetch must be green or all discard must be black, but it's possible to have similar effect in nontraditional colors by having a twist. For example, black traditionally don't have artifact/enchantment removal but it could be done with effect such as Gate to Phyrexia, Phyrexian Tribute, Mire in Misery, and Pharika's Libation. Similarly, red could draw cards via effect like Risk Factor and Browbeat.
Not to mention, this card is a multicolor card that could incorporate different facets into one.
It may seem odd at first, but in reality Issac isn't doing anything outside of Naya pie, he merely combining what's already there. In fact, he could be complete Boros and it'd still make sense, with enough cards from the past to back it up.
The only ability that I'm not completely satisfied with is his activation ability. It is a little off to have a mana dump via discard. I will remove that one.
For record, throwing out a lot of cards that predate the modern color pie is a horrible way to respond to accusations of a pie break. Sirocco is not, never was, and never will be a justification to give red a Duress variant.
You're still making a lot of generalized statements without directly factoring in this design. I'm not asking you to justify every pie break and outdated design space (and, I assure you, Balance is not something white gets any more), I want to know how you invoking a bunch of early attempts to represent equality translates to "Hmm, I see you have three lands in hand, I guess you have to discard or sacrifice one!"
That's neat but despite how you dress it up that is definitely a black ability. More specifically it appears to reasonably be mono-black or at least demand black to get access to discard.
Nice try, but this is a color pie break, through and through. Red just doesn't get that kind of discard, plain and simple. It's too discriminating, compared to the random looting and wheeling that are the extent of red disruptive discard. I don't see at all how those color pie philosophies you laid out tie into the mechanics you chose for this card.
I disagree. It's easy to categorize card effect into specific colors, such as all land fetch must be green or all discard must be black, but it's possible to have similar effect in nontraditional colors by having a twist. For example, black traditionally don't have artifact/enchantment removal but it could be done with effect such as Gate to Phyrexia, Phyrexian Tribute, Mire in Misery, and Pharika's Libation. Similarly, red could draw cards via effect like Risk Factor and Browbeat.
Not to mention, this card is a multicolor card that could incorporate different facets into one.
It may seem odd at first, but in reality Issac isn't doing anything outside of Naya pie, he merely combining what's already there. In fact, he could be complete Boros and it'd still make sense, with enough cards from the past to back it up.
The only ability that I'm not completely satisfied with is his activation ability. It is a little off to have a mana dump via discard. I will remove that one.
It doesn't seem odd at first because it's doing something new. It looks like a pie break because it is. Using outdated cards that are themselves pie breaks doesn't support your argument it just reinforces how bad it is to ever do a pie break because everyone takes that one break as an opening of the floodgates. The taxing, the looting and even the sacrifice weren't the problem, the problem is that forced discard is the domain of black with blue as a far far secondary(red forces discard only when it makes you draw but that is fundamentally different from actual forced discard).
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WRG
Legendary Creature - Human Advisor
2/4
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player may pay 2. If they don’t, they reveal their hand. If three or more cards of the same card type are revealed this way, that player discards one of those cards unless they sacrifice a permanent of that type.
”Survival requires both truth and lies.”
———————
Flavor/Lore
Issac is a middleman between nobles and peasants, sometimes a messenger, sometimes a collector. He did his job begrudgingly and inevitably led to suffering of many, including his own family (whom he frequently paid the nobles to spare). Occasionally, he’d hide vital information from his noble superiors so they don’t know what to steal from the commoners.
W: Taxing
R: Compassionate and going under the law
G: Family oriented
WR: Universal punishment
WG: Dealing with the mass against the elites
RG: Helping the lower castes
WRG: Champion for the weak through roguish acts
Mechanics
Issac follows the popular WG trend of suppression, with R added showing his “in-between man” ability.
The wording of Issac follows that of Invasion block Domain cards. If an opponent reveals 3+ cards of one permanent type, he either discard it or sacrifice one that shares its type. If it’s instant/sorcery that got revealed, then they have no choice but to discard one of those cards.
Gameplay
Not an easy card to build around, but ultimately benefit from WG’s ability to retrieve permanent cards, as well as R’s ability to cycle cards in hand. His activation ability is a useful political tool.
EDIT 1: Removed the activation ability of Issac.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
What's particularly galling for me is your invocation of "suppression" as if this card were some kind of hatebear. I mean, that's the only thing that comes to mind when you throw such a vague term around. I mean, what other kind of "suppression" does GW get? Certainly not this. It's not even a hatebear, which tend to target at least one specific category of cards or actions.
There is a technical issue in the fact that they might reveal all non-permanent cards, and then they can bypass the punishing effect because there are no permanents of those types.
I would just like to weigh in by saying that this being multicolor doesn't break any colors at all. It should be well achievable with this kind of wide-array spectrum (trans-versing three different colors). Anyone who would think to limit the creativity of three color creation is simply being unimaginative.
I disagree. It's easy to categorize card effect into specific colors, such as all land fetch must be green or all discard must be black, but it's possible to have similar effect in nontraditional colors by having a twist. For example, black traditionally don't have artifact/enchantment removal but it could be done with effect such as Gate to Phyrexia, Phyrexian Tribute, Mire in Misery, and Pharika's Libation. Similarly, red could draw cards via effect like Risk Factor and Browbeat.
Not to mention, this card is a multicolor card that could incorporate different facets into one.
White traditionally has universal discard effect like Balance, Balancing Act, and Restore Balance, and they have effects that would "tax" people to prevent, such as Smothering Tithe/Leonin Arbiter, resource suppression base on card type via cards like Cataclysm/ Limited Resources. Red has punishment effect that make people pay, such as Skullscorch and Breaking Point, discard effect like Sirocco or discard to pay a price such as Chain of Plasma, and effect that make people sacrifice permanents such as Crack the Earth, Rite of Ruin, and Whims of the Fates .
It may seem odd at first, but in reality Issac isn't doing anything outside of Naya pie, he merely combining what's already there. In fact, he could be complete Boros and it'd still make sense, with enough cards from the past to back it up.
The only ability that I'm not completely satisfied with is his activation ability. It is a little off to have a mana dump via discard. I will remove that one.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
For record, throwing out a lot of cards that predate the modern color pie is a horrible way to respond to accusations of a pie break. Sirocco is not, never was, and never will be a justification to give red a Duress variant.
You're still making a lot of generalized statements without directly factoring in this design. I'm not asking you to justify every pie break and outdated design space (and, I assure you, Balance is not something white gets any more), I want to know how you invoking a bunch of early attempts to represent equality translates to "Hmm, I see you have three lands in hand, I guess you have to discard or sacrifice one!"