Why does captain reference a card named Talmoch's Hord? And why is Hord spelled incorrectly (Horde)?
Captain of Despair 5 mana black mana
Creature- Spirit Warrior [C]
Lord- Each Spirit or Warrior that you control with a lower converted mana cost than Talmoch's Hord enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter.
6/5
1.) You can't sacrifice the Mortician Beetle to the Bloodthrone Vampire and get both of their damage. After the defending player chooses blockers (or not to block) there is a window for fast effects before damage is dealt. During this window, you can choose to sacrifice the Beetle to the Vampire, but then the beetle won't be there to deal combat damage. Combat damage is all dealt at the same time (unless a creature has first strike), not like yugioh, where combat is done 1 to 1.
This page helps break down the order of combat http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Combat_phase
2.) You CAN sacrifice Bloodthrone Vampire to her own ability, but that won't increase the damage it deals, as it would be dead.
Unless it read "sacrifice another creature", you can certainly sacrifice it to its own ability.
Well, I'm going to visit my brother until Saturday, so if someone can judge this obvious piece.
Also, long time viewer, first time player of magic ms paint. You guys are awesome, so let's try this out.
so... I'm just gonna set this right over here.
No, tapping the signet for mana can't be responded to. The actual order for playing a spell involves him announcing the spell he intends to cast and moving it from its zone to the stack (assuming here it's from his hand), then choosing the target(s), and finally paying for the spell's cost. After all that, then you can respond, and at that point, the mana from the signet is powering the spell.
You can find how a spell is cast in this rule summary http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Casting_spells
Aside from enchantment creatures, there are 3 enchantments out of future sight that tap; Second WindWitch's MistFlowstone Embrace.
Because enchantments are more often static permanents, Nahiri, the Harbinger doesn't need to single out exhausted enchantments.
I'm not sure how I feel about the flavor of white looting. I would feel a lot better if white got a worthwhile madness card. Since that is most likely not going to happen, at least red is a madness color. All 3 of her abilities scream red; it's almost like the white part of her is her name, and maybe the enchantment/tapped creature part of her -2.
But slow your roll on down-talking ninjas. That's simply not acceptable behavior. Ninjas were probably the best thing to come out of that block. You could make a blue/green Mutant Ninja Turtle deck only because Kamigawa existed.
Very fair thought. I was thinking, "no, you've been able to make that deck since Legions, when they gave us Mistform Ultimus." And then the slow realization that Ninja wasn't a valid creature type until Kamigawa made me happy.
I for one, loved the set. I enjoyed the mechanics, the setting, the lore. I also hope that Emrakul eats it and we never have to see it again. I would rather not deal with every other mtg player who says they hated everything about Kamigawa as they play their Umezawa's Jitte or Sensei's Divining Top.
As for tone, I find it hard to interpret tone in text. Roland's answer was curt, but I didn't read it as condescending. I think it actually adds to the rules-quoted answer by going so far as to imply that in a casual game, you might not need to own 4 Jace to play 4 Jace.
And Artscrafter, I absolutely loved your hypothetical game state of having played all 4 Jace to different ends.
Elven Blades4G
Sorcery
Put four 1/2 green Elf Warrior creature tokens onto the battlefield in a squad (a creature can't attack or block unless each other creature in its squad also attacks or blocks.)
Forced banding?
For those unfamiliar with the mechanic, Banding was a way to make armies in combat. You could select any number of creatures with Banding and up to one without and band them together as attackers of blockers in order to share their damage and choose how damage was dealt to the band. The downside was that a band of even ten creatures was chump-able by one creature.
The idea of an army being resistant to removal could be something like this, Army - if this creature would be destroyed, unless it is by lethal damage, regenerate it.
That way, unless you kill all the members of the army, you don't destroy the army. Problem here is that wrath type effects should be able to take out an army, as it destroys each creature in said army.
Ok so now that the ruling dilemma appears to have calmed down, I would like to discuss some ideas for a deck.
One Idea I had was to play a bant tempo/control-ish style of deck with a shell like this:
Not that Wizards has ever banned problematic lands and left the creatures threat(s) relevant before. cough Affinity cough. I agree with the line of thought that Eldrazi Mimic is the big problem, with Eye of Ugin a very strong argument for second, and Eldrazi Temple third(?)
Is the choose one part really necessary here? I'd think this would be better with just the one effect that you can use Pierce with. That would be simpler. If you intend to use this as a set mechanic (as in, for more than these five cards) I would definitely remove the choose one part.
I agree. I've been trying to make it elegant, but there's so much going on, especially with the |value| concept. Having a value that then halves itself is rough. And because the |value| and a half idea is difficult enough to work with, adding choices to then modify or not is Whimsy (that's an Astral joke).
That means you can split these modal ideas into 2 pierce cards each, like "deal 4; if pierced, also deal 2". Which is then pretty much Chandra's Outrage.
That puts you on a less nightmarish slope. And if it's like something already printed, you can't be doing it wrong. Unless it's Sorrow's Path.
Question, by choose once more, do you mean choose the other mode or do you mean choose either mode?
The way you have it seems simple enough, but there is a lot going on in these spells. First off, I think Pierce could be worded like kicker, that you can pay the pierce cost as an additional cost as you play the spell, then the spell gains an added effect if it was "pierced". Also, as good as the |value| concept is, it gets super complicated because the first value is kept whole, the second is halved, but both objects exist at the same time. If my interpretation is correct, this is basically what your card does:
Piercing Blast4R
Instant
Pierce R (you may pay an additional R as you cast this spell)
Choose one -
*Piercing Blast deals 4 damage to target creature or player.
*Destroy target artifact with converted mana cost 4 or less.
If Piercing Blast was pierced, Choose one -
*Piercing Blast deals 2 damage to another target creature or player.
*Destroy another target artifact with converted mana cost 2 or less.
It also seems expensive for what it does. Lightning Blast opposite Shatter or a kicked Overload? The pierce cost on the Blast seems fine, because that's both Shock and Overload.
I'm working on the wording to make this work, because the idea is really good, so bear with me. I'm also looking at making the mana costs a little bit more manageable, if that's alright, because the mechanic needs to be playable compared to straight up alternatives or entwine. If this cycle was rare, you could push the boundaries and costs.
This page helps break down the order of combat http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Combat_phase
2.) You CAN sacrifice Bloodthrone Vampire to her own ability, but that won't increase the damage it deals, as it would be dead.
Unless it read "sacrifice another creature", you can certainly sacrifice it to its own ability.
Also, long time viewer, first time player of magic ms paint. You guys are awesome, so let's try this out.
so... I'm just gonna set this right over here.
to be more precise, the liliana vs garruk version which is also the FNM promo.
You can find how a spell is cast in this rule summary http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Casting_spells
Because enchantments are more often static permanents, Nahiri, the Harbinger doesn't need to single out exhausted enchantments.
I'm not sure how I feel about the flavor of white looting. I would feel a lot better if white got a worthwhile madness card. Since that is most likely not going to happen, at least red is a madness color. All 3 of her abilities scream red; it's almost like the white part of her is her name, and maybe the enchantment/tapped creature part of her -2.
Very fair thought. I was thinking, "no, you've been able to make that deck since Legions, when they gave us Mistform Ultimus." And then the slow realization that Ninja wasn't a valid creature type until Kamigawa made me happy.
I for one, loved the set. I enjoyed the mechanics, the setting, the lore. I also hope that Emrakul eats it and we never have to see it again. I would rather not deal with every other mtg player who says they hated everything about Kamigawa as they play their Umezawa's Jitte or Sensei's Divining Top.
And Artscrafter, I absolutely loved your hypothetical game state of having played all 4 Jace to different ends.
The point of Gifts Ungiven isn't to get cards into play, so all of your 4cmc put two into the yard and two into play are really pushing their power levels.
As for blue not being for tutors, Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Merchant Scroll, Eerie Procession, Intuition, Fabricate, Long-Term Plans, Library of Lat-Nam, Mystical Teachings, Trapmaker's Snare, Trinket Mage, Treasure Mage, and half the Transmute cards beg to differ.
And also, in black, there's Buried Alive and Entomb to work around.
Forced banding?
For those unfamiliar with the mechanic, Banding was a way to make armies in combat. You could select any number of creatures with Banding and up to one without and band them together as attackers of blockers in order to share their damage and choose how damage was dealt to the band. The downside was that a band of even ten creatures was chump-able by one creature.
The idea of an army being resistant to removal could be something like this, Army - if this creature would be destroyed, unless it is by lethal damage, regenerate it.
That way, unless you kill all the members of the army, you don't destroy the army. Problem here is that wrath type effects should be able to take out an army, as it destroys each creature in said army.
Needs more Colonnade
I agree. I've been trying to make it elegant, but there's so much going on, especially with the |value| concept. Having a value that then halves itself is rough. And because the |value| and a half idea is difficult enough to work with, adding choices to then modify or not is Whimsy (that's an Astral joke).
That means you can split these modal ideas into 2 pierce cards each, like "deal 4; if pierced, also deal 2". Which is then pretty much Chandra's Outrage.
That puts you on a less nightmarish slope. And if it's like something already printed, you can't be doing it wrong. Unless it's Sorrow's Path.
The way you have it seems simple enough, but there is a lot going on in these spells. First off, I think Pierce could be worded like kicker, that you can pay the pierce cost as an additional cost as you play the spell, then the spell gains an added effect if it was "pierced". Also, as good as the |value| concept is, it gets super complicated because the first value is kept whole, the second is halved, but both objects exist at the same time. If my interpretation is correct, this is basically what your card does:
Piercing Blast 4R
Instant
Pierce R (you may pay an additional R as you cast this spell)
Choose one -
*Piercing Blast deals 4 damage to target creature or player.
*Destroy target artifact with converted mana cost 4 or less.
If Piercing Blast was pierced, Choose one -
*Piercing Blast deals 2 damage to another target creature or player.
*Destroy another target artifact with converted mana cost 2 or less.
It also seems expensive for what it does. Lightning Blast opposite Shatter or a kicked Overload? The pierce cost on the Blast seems fine, because that's both Shock and Overload.
I'm working on the wording to make this work, because the idea is really good, so bear with me. I'm also looking at making the mana costs a little bit more manageable, if that's alright, because the mechanic needs to be playable compared to straight up alternatives or entwine. If this cycle was rare, you could push the boundaries and costs.