Cool Card Design of the Day9/24/2014 - Invisible aesthetic: When a design looks a certain way because it is a simplification of something more explicitly sensible. Take a look at this card, and when you're done being upset how good/bad/average the card is, take a moment to try and guess what the invisible aesthetic was that led to this end.
Originally, you could sacrifice two lands, or exile two land cards from your graveyard, or sacrifice one land and exile one from your graveyard. You can shortcut that last deal to exiling a land you control, and you can omit the first because it's terrible.
Now whether that was a good idea to start from, or whether the end result is worth printing, I'm making no claims. Knowing how powerful graveyard strategies are in Modern, etc, the option to exile cards from your graveyard is probably far too cheap compared to the first option and the card becomes both safer and cleaner without it. Okay, I've convinced myself that's just much better design.I like the "can't ETB unless" language. It's not as unambiguous as Lotus Vale or Sheltered Valley, but it's much simpler, massively safer, and I think clear enough. Curious how much you agree or disagree.
It's certainly cleaner, but I think still unnecessarily messy for non-lands. This could just be an additional cost to cast the spell. Better yet, this could just be Mana Cylix.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with "can't ETB" is that it's no longer obvious that there's a replacement effect, which makes the timing of the effect completely mysterious. Do I sacrifice a land when the spell is announced, or as it resolves? Is it a triggered effect that uses the stack, or does it just magically happen at some point? I can easily see players getting it wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't want the Lotus Vale template, why not just make the sacrifice an additional cost to cast the spell?
Wearing my developer hat, I believe this is broken. It's a Lotus Petal that permanently fixes your mana.
Also, I think a few of my friends - newbies - would think the requirement is "if you sacrificed a land this turn", rather than sacrificing a land being the cost.
DeleteThis is better than Lotus Vale, isn't it? Fair enough.
DeleteAside from this being extremely overpowered, I'm not persuaded by the "can't ETB unless" wording. Suppose you cast Beggar's Mox with two lands in your graveyard and none on the battlefield, but your opponent cracks Tormod's Crypt in response so you can't pay the cost. What happens to the Mox? One could make a plausible case for it going to the graveyard as if countered; returning to your hand as if un-castable; or being exiled in the stack-cleanup process (cf. Sundial of the Infinite).
ReplyDeletePhrasing the exile as "an additional cost to cast CARDNAME" seems like a clearly superior option to me. That doesn't solve the Lotus Vale problem, but I'd be open to a "You can't play CARDNAME unless" template on lands, since there's not as much casting / stack weirdness in that case.
I believe the rules say it'd go to the graveyard, as if countered (but not actually countered). The rules tweak that was made to address the Worms of the Earth - Dryad Arbor - Clone extreme-corner-case I believe will handle this case as well.
DeleteThat said, making the exile an additional cost is much more sensible. (Unless development are really worried about Annul.)
My intuition (though probably wrong) is that Beggar's Mox returns to your hand if the trigger is unfulfilled. This would let you get an unbounded Storm count effectively free.
ReplyDeleteIf we ever see Phyrexian mana again, I wouldn't mind seeing "{P/G} - Instant - Untap target land you control." Which in retrospect is probably too strong too - maybe "forest" is safer.
No, I'm pretty sure if the spell is trying to resolve and you decline to exile a land, the spell goes straight to the graveyard.
DeleteIt had been my intention that it would return to whatever zone it came from—usually your hand—as it simply fails to change zones, and on a land that might be intuitive. But it's pretty easy to see how many will assume this fizzles like a spell with no targets because it's a spell. We can say, "treat it like a spell you tried to cast but didn't do so correctly" like missing a cost, or not having targets to choose, but the fact that we check when it would ETB, which happens as the spell resolves, not as it goes onto the stack, certainly confuses that.
DeleteSo yeah, this template might work for lands, but it just can't compete with the additional-cost template on spells.