Cool Card Design of the Day9/27/2016 - Countermagic week continues. Challenge Expertise counters any spell you don't have a full playset of, or else acts like a blue Cranial Extraction to prevent further castings of the spell. Top-down from the name.
A related version:
ReplyDeleteDrain Expertise
1U
Instant - Rare
Choose target spell. Its controller may exile it. If he or she doesn't, search his or her graveyard, hand, and library for any number of cards with the same name as that spell and exile them. Then that player shuffles his or her library.
Maybe this version can even just cost U, or (U/B).
DeleteHmm. How often do you let the copy you've cast be countered just to preserve the rest? I'm guessing only when you've got 2+ in hand.
DeleteI like the idea, but won't MOST cards not be a full playset? It seems harsh. And maybe bad for the meta if people are pushed TO play more duplicates.
ReplyDeleteIs it possible to find good wording in the rules where they simply exile any other copies, or counter the spell if there are none?
For a very long time, most Constructed decks were 9 play sets plus land. That's vastly less true now, and I'm glad about that. Still, the core cards of a deck always come in fours. Now in Limited, this Counterspell; that could be an issue. Does making it rare help?
DeleteGood point about how this motivates a certain kind of deck building, probably negative.
DeleteHuh. Unsurprisingly you're quite right. I just had a google to bring up some random top 8s, and there were more 4 sets than I'd realised. But as you say, not completely so.
DeleteBut I do think it's a problem that it pushes decks to be *more* like that. Limited may be fine, the cost difference may not be as important (?) But it feels like non-top-tier decks want to face counterspell even less than top-tier decks do.
This card comes dangerously close to just being a Counterspell reprint. It's a bit conditional, but the condition is pretty rare and even when it's met, it gives your opponent a hard choice between just letting it happen and something potentially worse.
ReplyDeleteI love the concept tho. Wish it could just be...
Challenge Expertise UU
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller is running a playset. (They may search their library, graveyard, hand, the stack, and/or the battlefield to reveal copies they own. If they searched their library this way, they shuffle their library.)
Maybe
ReplyDeleteChallenge Expertise U
Instant
Counter target instant or sorcery spell if there are fewer instant and sorcery cards in its controller's graveyard than yours.
or
Challenge Expertise 2U
Instant
Counter target spell unless its controller pays {1} for each instant or sorcery card in your graveyard.