Cool Card Design of the Day10/25/2011 - I am unsurprised to discover this card has already been done in some form in an Un- set. Unlike Mirror Mirror, I didn't want life totals to change because I was coming less from the mindset of "let us players change seats" and more from that of "let us planeswalkers swap bodies/minds." The original ability I thought of was "You exchange your library with target player's." That flirts with the prohibition against shuffling your opponent's cards into your library without technically crossing the line.
What it doesn't accomplish, though, is keeping straight whose cards are whose everywhere else. Once I start playing cards from your library, we're going to have to remember which are yours and which are mine, particularly if our decks share any cards (like, idunno, islands) in common. Without sleeves or meticulous book-keeping, it could potentially be irreconcilable. Shared Fate has that problem. The solution? Trade all cards.
This is the kind of rare that would be mythic if mythics were allowed to be tournament-unplayable. It made me happy to change the targets from "you and I" to "him and her" because I can imagine a player using this in multiplayer just to screw with two other players. Why force a silly card to be played only in serious ways?
First, I think there are a decent amount of Mythics that are epic without having to be tournament playable.
ReplyDeleteSecond, even if that weren't the case, you don't have to worry about it. This card would 95% be tournament playable as-is; all you need to do is play a control deck with no win conditions, lots of ramp, card draw, and counters. It doesn't matter what your opponent's deck does, once you give him yours your deck will most likely be smaller so you could just get decked. The only thing stopping this deck from becoming horrible is that it probably has to run 4 copies of this card, which means you have to stop the swap-back...
An alternate Johnny deck involves lots of suspend/cards in exile :P
~hamiltonianurst
'Luckily', most of the time you'll cast this the turn before you die, and then they'll lose from now having no real board position compared to yours.
ReplyDelete~hamiltonianurst
I'm glad hamiltonianurst brought this up. This actually is a playable card, appealing to Johnny. The problem that needs to be solved, besides how playing this makes you win, is how to keep your own deck from undoing your effort. If you run 4x Transfer Consciousness, your opponent could draw another copy after you cast yours and counter your efforts. Do you make sure you exile all the other copies first? Do you run just one and tune your deck to find it? Winning with this card *should* be a challenge because that's what the target audience enjoys.
ReplyDeleteIn that case, having an odd number of copies (3) would probably be all that it would take, right?
ReplyDeleteI Transfer first, giving you the null deck.
You transfer again, trying to give it away.
I transfer again, and then you're stuck with it.
(This assumes the rest of the hypothetical deck is good at nullifying threats but not creating them.)
Reminds me of Measure of Wickedness. These style of minigames can be fun, but it's probably very good that this is costed in the 7+ mana region to keep it largely casual for logistics' sake.
Best suited for a Commander product, I think.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea. Deck ideas:
ReplyDelete1. This + Greater Gargadon. Suspend Gargadon, float mana, sac all your lands (but not more than 9), play this. You get their board position and a gargadon with one counter on, and they get a low life total and no lands :)
2. One copy of this, all the tutors, accelerants, and card filtering you can find, and nothing else :)