Cool Card Design of the Day9/28/2016 - Countermagic week continues. The vast majority of counters let you pay less than your opponent to counter their spell. Spell Blast costs more. That's a good thing, but it's so much worse than other options, who would consider it (except against a deck with important 0- or 1-cc spells)?
Is this not fair?
Stapling "draw a card" onto anything that's not already incredibly weak results in a busted card.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Spell Burst saw Standard play, and still shows up occasionally in mono-blue Tron in Modern. This doesn't even require the {3} to get your card back.
ReplyDeleteThough I guess I can imagine this being less busted in Tron-free formats, I bet it's still bonkers good.
{X}{U}{U}?
DeleteYeah, that seems plausible. Hard to guess exactly how good it is.
DeleteWorse than Remand should do.
DeleteWhat about adding a conditional to the cantrip?
ReplyDelete"If a spell with cmc 5 or greater is countered this way, draw a card"
Perhaps make the text "X or less" to counter and then say "If X is 5 or more, draw a card," so that you always have the option to overpay for the cantrip.
DeleteI can dig that.
DeleteI wonder how playable a version would be that cost exactly the same amount?
ReplyDeleteSpell Blurst XU
Instant (U)
Counter target spell with converted mana cost equal or less than the total mana spent to cast Spell Blurst.
Probably a multi-format all Star for its ability to be a spell snare for 1 and 0
My original instinct was to make it cost X and say "Spend only Blue mana on X."
DeleteUpon reading the initial post I thought that it was going to be an attempt at a reverse spell burst. Here's my go at it:
ReplyDeleteMana Burst
6U
CARDNAME costs X less to cast, where X is the converted mana cost of the spell it targets.
Counter target spell.
Do we want a counter that's expensive against little things and dirt cheap against huge things?
DeleteWhat "we" are you concerned about? I don't see why not - it doesn't exist currently and all decks need to have enough cheap spells that this seems like a skill-testing, generally-bad-but-occasionally-sideboardable card.
DeleteComparing to Disdainful Stroke:
Delete-Better vs CMC 0-3, but only a little as it costs 4 to 8 mana.
-Worse vs CMC 4
-Same vs CMC 5
-1 mana less for CMC 6+
I think nothing there is scary - we could either make this an uncommon or push it to 7U but that's more of a Dev question I think?
Good comparison.
Delete