Tuesday, March 31, 2015

CCDD 033115—World's End

Cool Card Design of the Day
3/31/2015 - This was a top-down design based on the art, though I'm pretty fond of its potential application.

Did you know there's a real World's End? I've been there. It's nice.


15 comments:

  1. Awesome! I love the design.

    I fear this is probably crazy broken though.

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    1. Also, I totally think this is a Mythic.

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    2. Thematically, it could be mythic. Power-wise it could surely be rare and possibly mythic. Splash-wise, I don't it think it makes the cut for mythic. Rare is fair, though.

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    3. I don't know, Library of Alexandria is easily a Mythic, and this is only a stones throw away.

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    4. Lib would be a hypothetical mythic because of history.

      The divide between mythic and rare is (correctly) moving away from power being the primary determinant, and more a matter of how cool the card is. Spike's concerns matter less, Johnni and Tammi's more.

      For tournament level constructed purposes, there's no difference between rare and mythic. For limited, the chance of a given rare being opened at all in 8person, triple large set is about 40%, while mythics are 20%. Since only 1 in 5 drafts will even see a given mythic opened, and 2 in 5 for a given rare, there isn't much of a difference between the two rarities for draft purposes either for power level to be determinative of the card's rarity.

      The only way a card like this would be a mythic is if it had massive story relevance.

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    5. I think you massively underestimate how awesome this card is to the right player. It isn't just that it is good (so is Mist Raven), it is the exact right kind of good. Spike splash, if you will.

      Remember, Spike doesn't just like good cards.

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  2. While this is somewhat weaker than "T: Scry 1", it's what you do with Scry 1 a fair portion (maybe 60-70%?) of the time. Plus, a land that had "T: Scry 1" seems far from printable. I think this needs an activation cost.

    In addition, putting the land into the graveyard is open for other abuse - Terravore, Dakmor Salvage, Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds. For both that reason and flavor reasons, it seems like exiling the land is a better choice.

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    1. Sorry, I should probably be more clear with my first statement:

      This ability is "Scry 1" when you see a land, which is already 50% of the time.

      So, this is only a worse ability half of the time, and of that half, 60-70% of the time you'll keep any spell on top anyway, since tucking a spell is only correct about 30-40% of the time you have the option to do so.

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    2. It quite likely needs an activation cost.

      Whether it should discard or exile depends on whether we want it to enable eternal archetypes or not.

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    3. A 2 mana-activation cost is probably fair. See Scrying Sheets which does a similar effect.

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    4. Scrying Sheets also heavily restricted the number of nonbasics you could play and gave control decks card advantage, I think they're pretty different beasts.

      I'm not settled on how much this 'needs' to cost, but much of the fun is it bailing you out of mana flood, rather than preemptively fixing your draws. With that in mind this could easily be as high as {4}, {T}: and still do its job.

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    5. 4, T: Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a non-land card. Place that card on top of your deck and exile the rest.

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  3. I would feel more comfortable with mandatory reveal and mandatory exile. Flavorwise, the land isn't decaying or dying -- it's just not. there. anymore.

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  4. World's End (rare)
    Legendary Land
    If another land would enter the battlefield under your control, exile it instead.
    T: Add two mana in any combination of colors to your mana pool.

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    Replies
    1. Because City of Traitors wasn't broken enough??

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