Who said that was the point of the card? Say all you want about the powerlevel, no one ever said we didn't want this to be a top teir land, or that its use was only for fixing. I'm sure the "Sprit" of Deceiver Exarch isn't to make infinite combos of itself, but it was no doubt considered during its conception, as was the ritual effect with this card. Just because it's not being used for its "intended" purpose doesn't make it a failed design.
On Deceiver Exarch you can get the point of "problematic cards" pretty good.
The Deceiver is "NOT" the problem, its cards like Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin; as they produce a highly abuseable effect at no manacost.
Normally they should use a manacost to avoid this problematic combos ; but without any combos at all, magic would be kind of boring.
But thats something you simply have to keep in mind designing cards, "how problematic is your effect".
*Look at the "untap symbol" cards, all of them must have a manacost, otherwise they get insane abuseable too easy.
The idea of "Level up" lands is cool, nobody should dislike that.
Could easily be fixed if the level up would require a manacost, that would make most problems totally ok and puts more focus on the cards actual ability, rather than the "level up cost".
@ TheOnlyOne652089: The argument I was trying to make was that this is not a "failed design" simply because it doesn't fit some arbitrary "spirit" of the card. Of course the combos with Deceiver were considered, as were the combos with this card. I'm not saying that these combos don't matter and shouldn't be thought of during design, what I'm saying is that the fact these combos exist don't take away from the quality of the design, they make it deeper.
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It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Oculus, that is correct if you somehow gained control of this land, but you cannot include it in your deck unless your commander is all five colors. Same rule that prevents you from including, say, a red/white hybrid card in a mono-white deck.
This card is probably way too good. You do not miss land drops when playing this, because you can play it as you have no more lands in hand. At which point it actually acceleratesQuirion Ranger style, as others have mentioned. The level up cost is therefore an advantage, not a drawback.
And yeah, the level 5 ability is just stupid. This card would make control decks wet their pants.
The people who think this card is "broken" are the same people who think Surgical Extraction is "broken". They see power levels in casual play/magical-Christmas-land and not in the way tournaments are actually played. These are the same players who swore up and down how mono-black-control would be the new deck to beat after NPH launched. A lot of people also don't seem to understand that level up is a sorcery speed ability (if it was instant speed, the card could actually be broken in a few ways).
Anyway, the power in this card is when combine with things like Cataclysm or even simply Gemstone Mine. Still, it's a novelty card and building a deck around it would be silly.
A possibility to avoid the free mana could be a side-effect of the level-up.
Something like "Empty your mana pool" as an effect after returning the land. This would avoid the free-mana and then you could keep the fast level-up if need be.
I really like this idea and despite thinking it is powerful and potentially abusable and sort-of easily countered, I think it is a great card with risk and thus having it's pros and cons.
I do think it needs some work to avoid some of the more simple abuses but in reality the setup to make it abusable is kinda big.
Btw I see a bunch of people complaining about the power when combined with Fastbond.
I saw another counter-act that complaint with Caged Sun. Fastbond is banned in legacy and restricted in vintage. If you're so concerned then take another banned like Tinker. It's as or even more broken than Fastbond + Primal Wellspring. You can combine it with Caged Sun for über mana-burst (even better than Primal Wellspring) or just take a win-card like Blightsteel Colossus. There's many ways to abuse cards and this card is no exception but it's only real broken when combined with mostly banned cards.
The suggestion I made would utterly counter the free-mana and your so concerned 10 mana in turn 6...
IMO get over yourself...
Another add:
Yes it enables landfall very well. So does Ruin Ghost... There's more counters to creatures indeed but it's no argument saying it would make landfall stronger (than any other card)
Again get this suggestion of mine on it and it would stop the whining, I hope. You can still use the 5 mana and then sweep and get 1 of each color for another conv 5 spell. But now you potentially gets 2 conv 5 spells in turn 6 and only 1 land remaining.
I don't think the legendary status affects the card much since if the game has gone long enough to use multiple of these then you're doing something awfully wrong. I also think making it legendary allows cards like Sissay to fetch it very easily.
That said, it does feel like it should be a legend.
And on a final note, while I disagree with people calling the card "broken" as is, I do think that the card would require some tweaking to actually see print.
Fixes could include:
-Level up once per turn
-Level up: "Sacrifice a land"
-Remove Level Up ability, Add Upkeep Trigger: "If Primal Wellspring has less than 5 counters, return a land to your hand", Add Draw Phase Trigger: "Add a level counter to Primal Wellspring."
-Level up:"Return an untapped land"
-Remove Level Up ability, Add End of Turn Trigger: "If you did not play a land this turn, add a level counter to Primal Wellspring."
These are just a few ideas that show how the 'idea' of the card could be maintained, the card could still remain useful and powerful (in casual/etc style formats) while severely limiting any possible 'breakable' scenario now and in the future.
I don't think the legendary status affects the card much since if the game has gone long enough to use multiple of these then you're doing something awfully wrong. I also think making it legendary allows cards like Sissay to fetch it very easily.
Agree. But Sisay's not commonly run in 5c decks that I'm aware of - and the land's including WUBRG in its text precludes it from a Sisay EDH deck.
That said, it does feel like it should be a legend.
Definitely!
And on a final note, while I disagree with people calling the card "broken" as is, I do think that the card would require some tweaking to actually see print.
Fixes could include:
-Level up once per turn
-Level up: "Sacrifice a land"
-Remove Level Up ability, Add Upkeep Trigger: "If Primal Wellspring has less than 5 counters, return a land to your hand", Add Draw Phase Trigger: "Add a level counter to Primal Wellspring."
The above is probably your best solution, since it occurs during upkeep and is hard to prevent.
TBH I don't think the card is remotely that broken. In modern formats it loses horribly to Hexmage, Hex Parasite, and I get the feeling more such effects will be printed soon. Any land destruction hoses all your hard work too (here, have a 3/3 Beast).
In eternal formats, there are just better mana producers available. Bloom Tender is a lot faster to get online and more reliable in a 5c deck. And of course, eternal formats have a LOT more high-quality landkill available (hi Wasteland). So the problem of profiting from your investment in this card is greatly magnified - can you even get one tap out of it before it gets wasted? if you do, is one tap enough to make up for the tempo you sacrifice getting it online? how about two taps? would you need to include extra cards in your deck to protect it & get it online?
This seems like an EDH toy, nothing more. It will do fine in some five-color EDH deck and be irrelevant everywhere else. So as far as that goes I don't think it's broken in the slightest! Though it does get pretty hilarious when you combine it with Mana Reflection.
-Remove Level Up ability, Add End of Turn Trigger: "If you did not play a land this turn, add a level counter to Primal Wellspring."
This is a great idea, and I'd like to see this mechanic put to use on other cards or in real WotC products. Sort of a reverse landfall. I'll call it "landmiss". But surely WotC won't print it because they think all new mechanics should be for Timmy and none for Spike or Johnny... everything should be about "doing something you already want to do anyway". >_<
You play it as your 6th land, tap all your lands for mana bounce them, for a sweet 4 mana boost which puts you at 10 mana. Then you use that 10 mana to cast Cataclysm, or Time Stretch, or Tooth and Nail. In EDH that is a problem because you this could be happening on turn 4 or so.
In standard it's a different game, because you can hold back the land till someone is tapped out, the play it and blow them out. Almost all control mirrors would resolve around this play.
Trust me, it's good, too good. Wizards would never EVER print this card.
If someone does what you say, and their spell gets countered, good luck coming back from that. Someone else is likely to blow up that players Primal Wellspring and then they'd be back at square 1.
Im not saying that this land isn't powerful, Im saying that it wouldn't be any more broken than things that already exist in any format it could be legal in.
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Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
Quote from oranges2 »
This guy, would either eat up several turns worth of mana to get a slow permanent that relies on your already have some board presence (after wasting said mana), or dies without generating any advantage.
This is a great idea, and I'd like to see this mechanic put to use on other cards or in real WotC products. Sort of a reverse landfall. I'll call it "landmiss". But surely WotC won't print it because they think all new mechanics should be for Timmy and none for Spike or Johnny... everything should be about "doing something you already want to do anyway". >_<
I love the idea of things that reward you for situations you might otherwise be in trouble from.
They could even have something as simple as:
Land
Comes into play tapped.
Tap for *a* color.
Landmiss- Add a level counter.
Level X - Taps for multiple of *a* color.
The idea of lands that help smooth out getting manascrewed would be delightful. Imagine if at level 3 it tapped for 2 and level 6 it tapped for 3. At the point in a game where you've missed 3-6 land drops, I imagine getting a couple extra mana isn't even going to make the difference (assuming this is one of your first lands). But the potential is there to help smooth out the ugliness that comes from bad land draws. (I've played 27 land decks, started with a 2 land hand, and lost the game 20 cards deep into my deck and still on 2 lands. It's rare, but it ruins games/matches when this kind of thing happens.)
I really like the design on this card. Using level up in such a different way(both in terms of being on a land and having a non mana based cost).
I'm not sure why some people seem to consider this broken, yes it is strong but why should fantasy cards be only aimed at the low power balanced card level instead of at a high power balanced card level.
In standard at the moment the most abusive this card could potentially be is something like -
1st turn land,
2nd turn land, Explore playing Wellspring,
3rd turn land, tap a land for mana then bounce to level wellspring to 1, play Oracle of Mul Daya, replay land.
4th turn land, tap 4 lands for mana then bounce to level wellspring to 5, replay a land, tap wellspring for WUBRG plus the replayed land for a total of 10 mana.
Yes that is very strong and then following turn if the Oracle survives(and you didn't ramp more with a Primeval Titan or a Genesis Wave for 7) you'll be able to have 8 mana. However this can easily be disrupted by any removal aimed at the Oracle or by commonly played cards like Tectonic Edge, Acidic Slime, Vampire Hexmage, Hex Parasite or Beast Within, not to mention allowing your opponent complete freedom to do as they wish over the 1st 3 turns(in which boros or red could easily win and other decks can get Fauna Shaman, Lotus Cobra or Stoneforge Mystic active).
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This is in desparate need of a drawback. Not legendary? Who cares about leveling it up? Its a painless City of Brass. Wizards hasn't jumped the shark THAT much.
This is in desparate need of a drawback. Not legendary? Who cares about leveling it up? Its a painless City of Brass. Wizards hasn't jumped the shark THAT much.
How is it a painless City of Brass? Returning a land to your hand isn't free, you know. The Lairs aren't without drawback either.
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On Deceiver Exarch you can get the point of "problematic cards" pretty good.
The Deceiver is "NOT" the problem, its cards like Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin; as they produce a highly abuseable effect at no manacost.
Normally they should use a manacost to avoid this problematic combos ; but without any combos at all, magic would be kind of boring.
But thats something you simply have to keep in mind designing cards, "how problematic is your effect".
*Look at the "untap symbol" cards, all of them must have a manacost, otherwise they get insane abuseable too easy.
The idea of "Level up" lands is cool, nobody should dislike that.
Could easily be fixed if the level up would require a manacost, that would make most problems totally ok and puts more focus on the cards actual ability, rather than the "level up cost".
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
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Not so. You'll see it only in the 5c EDH decks. You can play this in anything other than a 5c general deck because of the mana symbols.
Iwamori says "Just Bring It!"
Edric's Spiesssssssss (Snake Tribal) GU
Sliver Overlord (Slivers Galore!!) WUBRG
Ruhan of the Fomori RWU
Seton, Krosan ProtectorG
Intet, The Dreamer (Hive Mind + Scrambleverse anyone?) URG
Karona, False God the Goddess of Tribal - Samurai, P3K Horsemen, 5c MyrsWUBRG
Garza's Family UBR
Sygg, River Guide and his merry merrowmen UB
Sharuum, the Hedgemon Sphinx Tribal
I'm not so sure about this one - if you play this in a Jund EDH deck and tap for WUBRG, won't you end up getting 2BRG?
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And yeah, the level 5 ability is just stupid. This card would make control decks wet their pants.
Seismic Assault for teh win.
Anyway, the power in this card is when combine with things like Cataclysm or even simply Gemstone Mine. Still, it's a novelty card and building a deck around it would be silly.
No.
Something like "Empty your mana pool" as an effect after returning the land. This would avoid the free-mana and then you could keep the fast level-up if need be.
I really like this idea and despite thinking it is powerful and potentially abusable and sort-of easily countered, I think it is a great card with risk and thus having it's pros and cons.
I do think it needs some work to avoid some of the more simple abuses but in reality the setup to make it abusable is kinda big.
Btw I see a bunch of people complaining about the power when combined with Fastbond.
I saw another counter-act that complaint with Caged Sun. Fastbond is banned in legacy and restricted in vintage. If you're so concerned then take another banned like Tinker. It's as or even more broken than Fastbond + Primal Wellspring. You can combine it with Caged Sun for über mana-burst (even better than Primal Wellspring) or just take a win-card like Blightsteel Colossus. There's many ways to abuse cards and this card is no exception but it's only real broken when combined with mostly banned cards.
The suggestion I made would utterly counter the free-mana and your so concerned 10 mana in turn 6...
IMO get over yourself...
Another add:
Yes it enables landfall very well. So does Ruin Ghost... There's more counters to creatures indeed but it's no argument saying it would make landfall stronger (than any other card)
Again get this suggestion of mine on it and it would stop the whining, I hope. You can still use the 5 mana and then sweep and get 1 of each color for another conv 5 spell. But now you potentially gets 2 conv 5 spells in turn 6 and only 1 land remaining.
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
I don't think the legendary status affects the card much since if the game has gone long enough to use multiple of these then you're doing something awfully wrong. I also think making it legendary allows cards like Sissay to fetch it very easily.
That said, it does feel like it should be a legend.
And on a final note, while I disagree with people calling the card "broken" as is, I do think that the card would require some tweaking to actually see print.
Fixes could include:
-Level up once per turn
-Level up: "Sacrifice a land"
-Remove Level Up ability, Add Upkeep Trigger: "If Primal Wellspring has less than 5 counters, return a land to your hand", Add Draw Phase Trigger: "Add a level counter to Primal Wellspring."
-Level up:"Return an untapped land"
-Remove Level Up ability, Add End of Turn Trigger: "If you did not play a land this turn, add a level counter to Primal Wellspring."
These are just a few ideas that show how the 'idea' of the card could be maintained, the card could still remain useful and powerful (in casual/etc style formats) while severely limiting any possible 'breakable' scenario now and in the future.
Agree. But Sisay's not commonly run in 5c decks that I'm aware of - and the land's including WUBRG in its text precludes it from a Sisay EDH deck.
Definitely!
The above is probably your best solution, since it occurs during upkeep and is hard to prevent.
TBH I don't think the card is remotely that broken. In modern formats it loses horribly to Hexmage, Hex Parasite, and I get the feeling more such effects will be printed soon. Any land destruction hoses all your hard work too (here, have a 3/3 Beast).
In eternal formats, there are just better mana producers available. Bloom Tender is a lot faster to get online and more reliable in a 5c deck. And of course, eternal formats have a LOT more high-quality landkill available (hi Wasteland). So the problem of profiting from your investment in this card is greatly magnified - can you even get one tap out of it before it gets wasted? if you do, is one tap enough to make up for the tempo you sacrifice getting it online? how about two taps? would you need to include extra cards in your deck to protect it & get it online?
This seems like an EDH toy, nothing more. It will do fine in some five-color EDH deck and be irrelevant everywhere else. So as far as that goes I don't think it's broken in the slightest! Though it does get pretty hilarious when you combine it with Mana Reflection.
This is a great idea, and I'd like to see this mechanic put to use on other cards or in real WotC products. Sort of a reverse landfall. I'll call it "landmiss". But surely WotC won't print it because they think all new mechanics should be for Timmy and none for Spike or Johnny... everything should be about "doing something you already want to do anyway". >_<
--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who is up in Heaven now. EDH WUBRG Child of Alara WUBRG BGW Karador, Ghost Chieftain BGW RGW Mayael the Anima RGW WUB Sharuum the Hegemon WUB RWU Zedruu the Greathearted RWU
WB Ghost Council of Orzhova WB RG Ulasht, the Hate Seed RG B Korlash, Heir to Blackblade B G Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer G *click the general's name to see my list!*
If someone does what you say, and their spell gets countered, good luck coming back from that. Someone else is likely to blow up that players Primal Wellspring and then they'd be back at square 1.
Im not saying that this land isn't powerful, Im saying that it wouldn't be any more broken than things that already exist in any format it could be legal in.
Rules Advisor as of 4/23/10
Regarding Stoneforge Mystic
I don't think you understand how Candelabra of Tawnos works.
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I love the idea of things that reward you for situations you might otherwise be in trouble from.
They could even have something as simple as:
Land
Comes into play tapped.
Tap for *a* color.
Landmiss- Add a level counter.
Level X - Taps for multiple of *a* color.
The idea of lands that help smooth out getting manascrewed would be delightful. Imagine if at level 3 it tapped for 2 and level 6 it tapped for 3. At the point in a game where you've missed 3-6 land drops, I imagine getting a couple extra mana isn't even going to make the difference (assuming this is one of your first lands). But the potential is there to help smooth out the ugliness that comes from bad land draws. (I've played 27 land decks, started with a 2 land hand, and lost the game 20 cards deep into my deck and still on 2 lands. It's rare, but it ruins games/matches when this kind of thing happens.)
I thought I'd add you can see in a video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drb2gy_2-Go&feature=feedrec_grec_index that "Landshort" a keyword associated with not playing a land was associated with Zendikar at one point, but wasn't used.
I'm not sure why some people seem to consider this broken, yes it is strong but why should fantasy cards be only aimed at the low power balanced card level instead of at a high power balanced card level.
In standard at the moment the most abusive this card could potentially be is something like -
1st turn land,
2nd turn land, Explore playing Wellspring,
3rd turn land, tap a land for mana then bounce to level wellspring to 1, play Oracle of Mul Daya, replay land.
4th turn land, tap 4 lands for mana then bounce to level wellspring to 5, replay a land, tap wellspring for WUBRG plus the replayed land for a total of 10 mana.
Yes that is very strong and then following turn if the Oracle survives(and you didn't ramp more with a Primeval Titan or a Genesis Wave for 7) you'll be able to have 8 mana. However this can easily be disrupted by any removal aimed at the Oracle or by commonly played cards like Tectonic Edge, Acidic Slime, Vampire Hexmage, Hex Parasite or Beast Within, not to mention allowing your opponent complete freedom to do as they wish over the 1st 3 turns(in which boros or red could easily win and other decks can get Fauna Shaman, Lotus Cobra or Stoneforge Mystic active).
That's good but easy enough to deal with and in older formats like vintage/legacy where it has access to more broken cards like Fastbond and Armageddon your opponents have access to all the same cards as standard as well as better ones like- Wasteland, Strip Mine, Stifle variants, Pithing Needle and super effective counters like Force of Will(and Mental Misstep for Fastbond). Vintage/Legacy also have great lands like Ancient Tomb, Gaea's Cradle, Mishra's Workshop and Tolarian Academy available to them and they manage to be strong but balanced in those formats.
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Brain Freeze is the coolest card ever printed.
How is it a painless City of Brass? Returning a land to your hand isn't free, you know. The Lairs aren't without drawback either.