Crash Test Magic — When is a Card Not a Card?
In the middle of a Cube draft the other week, I had a weird brainstorm for a new Magic mechanic. At first I called it, “Ghost Card,” which is fine as a working title, but ultimately too close to a terrible Bill Cosby movie. The idea is to give a card an advantage by making it not exist.
This is a really tricky mechanic to pull off. For one thing, the advantages are pretty subtle. The helper text on the Lotus Garden version hints at where this might come in handy. Only holding a Zen Garden in your hand? Then your opponent’s Mind Rot won’t accomplish anything. And if you’re playing a combo deck that lets you draw a ton of cards in a turn, Zen cards would let you hold more than seven. Hand size is rarely relevant, so this advantage is slender. (By the way, what do you think of the design of Lotus Garden, not counting Zen?)
There’s a huge problem with this version of the mechanic — it relies on hidden information. As shown on the card above, it doesn’t work. You’re sitting there holding eight cards and your opponent is like, “WTF?” Instead, it might read, “Reveal this. If you do, it doesn’t count as a card in your hand.”
A more complicated, but perhaps more mechanically workable solution, would be, “You may reveal this card and exile it from your hand at any time. You may return it from exile to your hand at any time. These abilities do not use the stack.”
Then I thought of another way to create a Zen card, one that has a more tangible advantage. Here’s the second try:
It’s really a more flavorful way of saying, “When you draw this, draw another card.” There are some big differences, though, like avoiding effects that trigger whenever a card is drawn (Underworld Dreams is one example; it also makes your Lorescale Coatl less good). Competitive players would love cards like these because they shrink their deck without ever even being played (it’s the same reason Street Wraith was so popular for a while). The effect is a little confusing to less experienced players, I think. Well, it’s hard to explain Zen stuff. “It’s like, you drew a card, but you didn’t draw a card. So you get to draw another one instead.”
Finally, I tried combining the two effects into one megaZen mechanic, to make a card that truly isn’t there. At this point, there’s a choice of either having way too much explanation text, or the more bare-bones version below, which will surely leave less rules savvy players in the dark. Clapping one hand.
Any other ways a mechanic like this could be pulled off? Any way to fix the template and make the rule clearer?
November 30th, 2011 8:49 PM
I would run the MegaZen like this: If you would draw this card you may instead reveal it and exile it. You may play this card from exile. Draw a card.
I think that’s functional and text-efficient. I feel like there’s probably more complicated language necessary for the draw a card to replace the card you didn’t actually draw. Also, that ability is really powerful because of the deck thinning and hand size ignoring power. Too much virtual card advantage I think.
Lotus Garden makes Storm and One Big Turn Decks extremely powerful. One of these simultaneously doubles their potential mana and gives them access to all colors. This guy’s going right to the banned pile.
November 30th, 2011 11:26 PM
I like your version of MegaZen. The only change I see is specifying it can be played from exile only if it was exiled in this way. In other words, you can’t play your Ethereal Flames from exile if it got hit with Syncopate or because you gave it Flashback with Past in Flames or Dralnu, Lich Lord.
Good call on how broken Lotus Garden is. Storm. Stupid Storm. Even without Storm it’s ridiculous though. How to fix it? Return a land to your hand when you use it in addition to when it’s cast?
December 1st, 2011 2:28 AM
I don’t know, even 150% mana is amazing on One Big Turn. Anything that costs 0, is replayable, and gives mana is broke barring some large drawback, larger than losing lands. People will just float the mana and drop their nuke without the lands. I’d think maybe a life cost instead of the second land, so it’ll kill you if you’re living too dangerously. The problem is that by mixing forced replayability and land loss you’re making a card that is only good for combo decks. That’s not an issue in and of itself, but this is REALLY REALLY GOOD at enabling combos that shouldn’t be possible due to mana restrictions. I’d argue that this card may be better than Black Lotus for combo decks. I’m having trouble finding a way to nerf this ability without rendering it unplayable, but I’m worried the whole concept is too strong.
In regards to MegaZen, I was under the impression that card text in exile is rules irrelevant, meaning that if it gets exiled in anyway except for its ability the “You may play this card from exile” text never triggers, rendering it unplayable from exile. I dunno how true that is, though.
December 1st, 2011 12:20 PM
Hm, I can think of several ways that exiled cards still have relevant text. Imprinted cards do, like with Isochron Scepter. The Hideaway lands do it, too, like Mosswort Bridge.
Ok, so Lotus Garden is just broken beyond repair.
December 1st, 2011 1:31 PM
Both of those cards are things that are in play that refer to exiled cards. I don’t think that exiled cards themselves can do anything. Suspend works because it still hits the The Stack when you suspend it which allows the ability to trigger. Without that first step the card would just stay exiled because only Suspend lets it come back from exile. If you remove a Suspend card through other means and manage to put a time counter on it you don’t get to bring into play by removing the time counter, you can’t even remove the time counter because Suspend hasn’t been triggered. Unless they’ve significantly changed the rules concerning exile since the name change things removed from the game cannot do anything and the only reason Suspend works is because the conditions for leaving and returning are all in one ability.
December 1st, 2011 3:56 PM
I knew there was an example where an exiled card could be used and had relevant text outside the resolution of itself or another spell. Took a while, finally found it: Mind’s Desire.
December 1st, 2011 10:33 PM
That’s the same class as Suspend, though. The conditions for return are all in the original effect. The spell creates an exception for one card that lasts until the end of the turn. I may need to change the wording on MegaZen to fit that, but without that exception the card can’t get back in play under its own power. It needs the zen trigger to create the exception. I think. Likely the “In This Way” text would be added to reduce confusion anyway, but I don’t believe it is necessary. It’s only three words, though.
December 9th, 2011 11:51 AM
Zen: you may play with this card reviled in your hand. If you do it doesn’t count toward your hand limit and can’t be discarded.
An extra draw is too powerful unless you overprice the card to an extreme. Think cycling. All Zen cards should be able to return to your hand somehow.
Ethereal Flame RRR Instant Deal 1 damage to target creature or player. At the beginning of your end step return Ethereal Flame from graveyard to your hand.
Zen
In this way you can keep playing it, but the opponent has a way of getting rid of it too. It would work especially well right now with the graveyard effects from Inastrad. This version of Ethereal Flame would lock out most 1 toughness creatures from the game.
If you had the draw component, and stacked enough zen cards in your deck, you could end up drawing 2-5 cards a turn, that is way too big a swing considering it starts on turn 1.
December 10th, 2011 1:06 PM
You have a good point, Brian. On one card, the draw doesn’t seem so bad, but imagine a constructed deck filled with them. You could draw half your deck in one turn.
On the other hand, returning it to your hand for free is probably just as bad. Consider how powerful the Punishing Fire / Grove of the Burnwillows combo was in Extended. Your version of Ethereal Fire puts the whole combo into one card. Admittedly the RRR casting cost is rougher to pay, but that’s still going to end up pretty broken.