Monday, March 9, 2020

CCDD 030920 - Stare Down

Here's a conditional counterspell that's kind of the opposite of Mana Leak and company: potentially oppressive in the late game but much less reliable early on.



I don't consider this an unconditional counter, because the discard option makes the effect strictly worse than Counterspell. That's why it can cost 2 mana and only one blue. But it's unconditional if you have more cards in hand and care enough about the target not resolving. Also, you trade cards one-for-one whether or not the target resolves, which seems pretty strong (except in multiplayer).

Anyone recognize the game and card that inspired this?

6 comments:

  1. I love the card text. Nice wording, too.
    Is this Red, though?

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    Replies
    1. I assumed it could be red b/c "discard a card" as a cost is red, plus things like Chain Lightning. But I hadn't really thought about it. You and Doug make good points that it might belong in some other color identity.

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    2. If it was discard to copy the spell it can be blue red.

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    3. Is chain lightning still NWO?
      It feels more like a UB c1rd with a discard a card multikicker to make the opponent discard a card for each card diqcarded.

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    4. I think copying spells is still blue red. Chain lightning is not super intuitive for NWO.

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  2. I believe this is blue black or even blue white for balance.

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