It's not a matter of them being countered, it's a matter of being unable to pay the costs. You can pay the cost once, which would return the creature to your hand, then it's no longer in play and you can't play the ability. There's nothing to respond to, as the return-to-hand would be a cost, and it's a mana ability to boot.
There's no instance of the card overriding the rules (just think of Evermind; you don't get to play it any time you could play an instant, just because it says Instant on that type line).
Unlike all the other Portal combat tricks which were changed to instants, Champion's Victory and Heavy Fog have two timing restrictions that normally have no overlap: the type line's "play this only during your main phase and only when the stack is empty" and the rules text's "play this only during the declare attackers step..." To legally play the card you would have to comply with both restrictions, which you can't do outside of cards like Vedalken Orrery. There's a perfectly legal option that you can (and must) take if you have the card in your hand: don't play it. It's similar to Familiar Ground + Goblin War Drums having no overlap, leaving your opponent with no choice except not blocking your creatures at all.
Corrosion doesn't play well with any Ornithopters, artifact lands, or other 0-cost artifacts you might play alongside it now. That seems like a rather big change.
Two changes I noticed didn't get made: Champion's Victory and Heavy Fog are still sorceries, meaning they can't normally be played at all.
My two ideas (they don't go well together, except to form really bad cards):
1. The mana cost on these will be the same as that on Evermind: blank. That way their drawback will be "get this card any time outside of your opening hand and it's completely useless". This doesn't address keeping in color, but Ravnica block isn't much about keeping in color.
2. The ability will be phrased "Whenever you would mulligan, you may put ~this~ from your hand into play instead." That way putting one of them into play replaces your ability to mulligan, conveniently stopping both that and any attempt to bomb a multi-enchantment start.
Sakashima the Impostor
2UU
Legendary Creature — Human Rogue
P/T: 3/1
Rules Text (Oracle): As Sakashima the Impostor comes into play, you may choose a creature in play. If you do, Sakashima comes into play as a copy of that creature, except its name is still Sakashima the Impostor, it’s still legendary, and it gains “: Return Sakashima the Impostor to its owner’s hand at end of turn.” Circu, Dimir Lobotomist - 2UB
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Whenever you play a blue spell, remove the top card of target player's library from the game.
Whenever you play a black spell, remove the top card of target player's library from the game.
Your opponents can't play nonland cards with the same name as a card removed from the game with Circu, Dimir Lobotomist.
2/3
So when you play Sakashima and choose Circu, you get:
Sakashima the Impostor
Legendary Creature - Human Wizard
Whenever you play a blue spell, remove the top card of target player's library from the game.
Whenever you play a black spell, remove the top card of target player's library from the game.
Your opponents can't play nonland cards with the same name as a card removed from the game with ~this~
2UU: Return Sakashima the Impostor to its owner’s hand at end of turn.
Don't you?
Yes, you do. References to a card's own name not preceded by "a card/creature/permanent named" refers to the given object no matter what its name is, and not any other object (CR 202.2b). Of note is that while it comes into play as a blue-black creature, it's still only a blue spell on the stack, so the original Circu will only remove one card from playing Sakashima, not two.
Phytohydra is a neat concept, at any rate... can't die to damage. I wonder what happens if he blocks Excruciator... is doing something instead of damage the same as preventing it? I dunno. At any rate, I could see playing this in Limited.
You'd have an 8/8 Phytohydra and a disappointed Excruciator controller. To "prevent" damage is strictly to turn that damage into "do nothing;" if you're turning the damage into +1/+1 counters without using the word "prevent," it gets around Excruciator.
And count me in for using Phytohydra with Pygmy Giant. Or, failing that, Hail of Arrows becomes a combat trick during your own combat phase. They let Phytohydra go unblocked, as they inevitably will, and you punch them in the face for X more by playing it before damage is stacked.
Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, and Necromancy have been global enchantments with that weird "When ~this~ comes into play, if it's in play..." clause long before 9th. All that changed in 9th was the standard "enchant creature" to "Aura with enchant creature".
Aura for a card in a graveyard wouldn't work because the card would be brought into play and at that point it would be enchanting an illegal permanent for its description.
Really Big Guy
(cost goes here)
Creature - Really-Big-Guy (20/20)
(blank text box)
How much would this card have to cost to be considered playable in T1? Is 5 mana too expensive...or even 4? Would 2CC be any different than 3C in deciding whether it's playable or not?
(Note: Color hasn't been taken into consideration yet, but I deliberately made it a nonartifact creature so that Welder and Tinker don't enter the picture and make cost irrelevant.)
In a set full of Japanese names, the clunkiness of something like "Tomorrow" is just...odd. But it's a necessary step.
The direct translation of "tomorrow" in Japanese is "ashita". Between the two As, imagine how much of an uproar would go down over "LOLOLZ THEY PUT THE WORD 'SHIT' ON A MAGIC CARD OMFGZ!!"
Worse yet, if the name remained "ashita", it would be impossible to even discuss the card on many Web forums, where the name would be shot down by language filters (Wizards' own board, and this one, included).
Undoubtedly the naming team didn't come up with "tomorrow" as the character's name, but after discovering such issues of practicality, the name had to be changed...and instead of finding a new name that would change the story behind him/her, they just translated the word to English and said be done with it.
Double Krark's Thumb is very well handled by the rules already.
You flip a coin.
Both Thumbs try replace the event, so you choose one to take precedence then the second fails because the event it's looking for has been changed.
Now you have "flip 2 coins and ignore one". For each of these flips, the first Thumb has already replaced the event so it doesn't do anything, but the second Thumb still works.
Final effect: "Whenever you would flip a coin, instead flip 2 coins and ignore one, then flip 2 coins and ignore one, then ignore a flip." Or, more simply, "Whenever you would flip a coin, instead flip 4 coins and ignore 3.", or each 50% chance becomes 93.75%. Likewise 3 Thumbs = flip 8 and ignore 7 (99.609375% chance of winning, and four = flip 16 and ignore 15 (99.99847412109375%).
Goblin Caves/Shrine will fail to do anything on a land that's been turned into a Mountain by Blood Moon.
Unlike all the other Portal combat tricks which were changed to instants, Champion's Victory and Heavy Fog have two timing restrictions that normally have no overlap: the type line's "play this only during your main phase and only when the stack is empty" and the rules text's "play this only during the declare attackers step..." To legally play the card you would have to comply with both restrictions, which you can't do outside of cards like Vedalken Orrery. There's a perfectly legal option that you can (and must) take if you have the card in your hand: don't play it. It's similar to Familiar Ground + Goblin War Drums having no overlap, leaving your opponent with no choice except not blocking your creatures at all.
Two changes I noticed didn't get made: Champion's Victory and Heavy Fog are still sorceries, meaning they can't normally be played at all.
1. The mana cost on these will be the same as that on Evermind: blank. That way their drawback will be "get this card any time outside of your opening hand and it's completely useless". This doesn't address keeping in color, but Ravnica block isn't much about keeping in color.
2. The ability will be phrased "Whenever you would mulligan, you may put ~this~ from your hand into play instead." That way putting one of them into play replaces your ability to mulligan, conveniently stopping both that and any attempt to bomb a multi-enchantment start.
Yes, you do. References to a card's own name not preceded by "a card/creature/permanent named" refers to the given object no matter what its name is, and not any other object (CR 202.2b). Of note is that while it comes into play as a blue-black creature, it's still only a blue spell on the stack, so the original Circu will only remove one card from playing Sakashima, not two.
You'd have an 8/8 Phytohydra and a disappointed Excruciator controller. To "prevent" damage is strictly to turn that damage into "do nothing;" if you're turning the damage into +1/+1 counters without using the word "prevent," it gets around Excruciator.
And count me in for using Phytohydra with Pygmy Giant. Or, failing that, Hail of Arrows becomes a combat trick during your own combat phase. They let Phytohydra go unblocked, as they inevitably will, and you punch them in the face for X more by playing it before damage is stacked.
Aura for a card in a graveyard wouldn't work because the card would be brought into play and at that point it would be enchanting an illegal permanent for its description.
Really Big Guy
(cost goes here)
Creature - Really-Big-Guy (20/20)
(blank text box)
How much would this card have to cost to be considered playable in T1? Is 5 mana too expensive...or even 4? Would 2CC be any different than 3C in deciding whether it's playable or not?
(Note: Color hasn't been taken into consideration yet, but I deliberately made it a nonartifact creature so that Welder and Tinker don't enter the picture and make cost irrelevant.)
In a set full of Japanese names, the clunkiness of something like "Tomorrow" is just...odd. But it's a necessary step.
The direct translation of "tomorrow" in Japanese is "ashita". Between the two As, imagine how much of an uproar would go down over "LOLOLZ THEY PUT THE WORD 'SHIT' ON A MAGIC CARD OMFGZ!!"
Worse yet, if the name remained "ashita", it would be impossible to even discuss the card on many Web forums, where the name would be shot down by language filters (Wizards' own board, and this one, included).
Undoubtedly the naming team didn't come up with "tomorrow" as the character's name, but after discovering such issues of practicality, the name had to be changed...and instead of finding a new name that would change the story behind him/her, they just translated the word to English and said be done with it.
Case closed.
You flip a coin.
Both Thumbs try replace the event, so you choose one to take precedence then the second fails because the event it's looking for has been changed.
Now you have "flip 2 coins and ignore one". For each of these flips, the first Thumb has already replaced the event so it doesn't do anything, but the second Thumb still works.
Final effect: "Whenever you would flip a coin, instead flip 2 coins and ignore one, then flip 2 coins and ignore one, then ignore a flip." Or, more simply, "Whenever you would flip a coin, instead flip 4 coins and ignore 3.", or each 50% chance becomes 93.75%. Likewise 3 Thumbs = flip 8 and ignore 7 (99.609375% chance of winning, and four = flip 16 and ignore 15 (99.99847412109375%).