Comments on: Crash Test Magic – Apocalypse Ink

By: sven.t.sexgore

sven.t.sexgore — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:47:39 +0000

If i were to design a similar card I think I would move more towards selective destruction instead of a field wipe.

Something like:

Saxrifice a creature: put a tattoo counter on target creature.
Remove Apocalypse Ink from the game: remove all creatures with tattoo counters from the game.

By: the_boy

the_boy — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:16:30 +0000

With the altar you get 2 colorless for a sac, and with fecundity you get a card for a sac, so even using 1 card and 1 colorless to replace the creature, you have 1 colorless + whatever’s left in your hand to turn into ink sacs (lol). But yeah, I left that unclear.

Also fun: combining this with Night Soil (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=184700) in the late game, once the graveyards are already stocked with creatures.

By: robbit

robbit — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:05:24 +0000

This looks a lot like Grave Pact to me, just more complicated and delayed. Well, sort of. It has that same “eye for an eye” feel, but only kicks in rarely. They can play more creatures to get around it, or just sacrifice existing ones. And a creature with shroud stops it from popping forever, which would be very frustrating to the controller of the Ink.

Actually, rereading it, what happens if the only creature on the battlefield is indestructible and has a tattoo counter on it? It is a state trigger, so it would keep triggering over and over, and if neither player had a way to stop it, would draw the game. I am not sure this is what you want. (Yeah, I am a templating fiend.)

A good fix for all of this would be changing it to put counters on the Ink instead of the creatures. Something like:
Sacrifice a creature: Put an ink counter on Apocalypse Ink.
When the number of ink counters on Apocalypse Ink is greater or equal to the number of creatures on the battlefield, remove all ink counters from Apocalypse Ink and destroy all creatures.

Still not perfect, as it leads to degenerate and repeated game states, but a little more interesting and less frustrating to play.

By: ggodo

ggodo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:31:41 +0000

They hurt oh so much. Black, Red, heck, even Spawning Pit got the short end of that straw. I’m fine with losing mana burn, if only because I can finally use the Cathodians that came in my first pre-con, but I don’t like the change of combat rules. Not one bit.

By: Ed Grabianowski

Ed Grabianowski — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:20:24 +0000

As far as I can tell, and I could be wrong, but you can still sac a blocker after blocking has been declared. The attacking creature ends up blocked, but doesn’t take damage from the now absent blocking creature.

Of course it was much cooler when you could sac the blocker after damage went on the stack. For this reason alone, the new combat rules hurt black more than any color.

By: ggodo

ggodo — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:11:52 +0000

The_Boy had the same trick I thought of, but my only thing to add is that you could find something that moves counters around. I can’t think of the name off the top of my head, but it was something about moving counters and didn’t specify a type of counter. I see this as being crazy awesome early game as a sort of recurring Innocent Blood. Using it late game means you need to have equal or greater amount of creatures than your opponent to go nuclear, and in that situation it’s often your opponent who wants to blow up the world. I’m fuzzy on Friday’s rules, but would you still be able to sacrifice a blocker after it’s declared and not take damage? That would be a great way to neutralize an alpha strike.

By: Ed Grabianowski

Ed Grabianowski — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:04:22 +0000

Nice. Although you can’t sac to both the Altar and Apocalypse Ink with the same creature, so you’d need a lot of creatures out to make that work. Still, just adding Fecundity is a great idea. Anything else is just icing.

By: the_boy

the_boy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:53:39 +0000

It would combine obscenely well with Fecundity, Ashnod’s Altar, and Saproling Burst. Of course, that combo itself is good enough to fuel a deck on it’s own, but this would add a bit of mass destruction, making the saproling onslaught even stronger.

Fecundity has you drawing a card each time a creature of yours dies. Saproling burst lets you pay 1 colorless and discard a card to create a creature. Ashnod’s Altar lets you sac a creature for 2 colorless. Combining this all with Apocalypse Ink would let you sac all your creatures for mana, cards, and tattoo counters on your opponents creatures. Then it’d wipe the board of the opposition, and let you turn your mana and cards back into a creature attack. So broken, but it’s a 4 card combo.