"Whenever a creature becomes the single target of an ability or an instant or sorcery spell, copy that ability or spell for each other creature it could target, and play those copies without paying their mana costs. Each copy targets a different one of those creatures."

That should work, but the wording seems not that comprehensible to me. Radiate already had not been easy to figure out from reading the card's text, so I'm not sure, if you really want to add "abilities" here.


Edit: I see the flaw now: That new copy template actually doesn't work here.

The only trigger condition that seems to make for an acceptable wording, (At least without getting as clumsy as "Whenever an ability triggers or an ability or an instant or sorcery spell is played, that targets a single creature...) is indeed the "play"-trigger. So only activated abilities could be included rather easily. Given that constraint, I'd definitely leave the card at just forking spells. Otherwise it becomes to hard to understand.

If you limit the overall black poisoners to a very small number (maybe one or two cards), you should still have enough arguments for players to go poisonous by building BG. However, as the poison theme was traditionally tied to black as closely as it was tied to green, it is just logical to put your kind of mechanic into black. Here you can easily go poisonous on an intrigue or assassination route (as you chose). Think [card]Cabal Archon[/card] or [card]Stronghold Assassin[/card].

For green on the other hand, I would suggest any kind of mechanic that lends its flavor to 'directly coming into touch with a player (or creature).' When doing green poison critters it is important to make that creature a 'logical' part of the circle of life, mostly rendering the role of poison to one of two possible tools: a) a hunting tool, i.e. for the purpose of weakenig that creature's prey; or b) a defensive measure. Killing other beings for another purpose than defense or eating them is not natural and thus belongs into black. (q.e.d. :lol: )

A green poison mechanic for protective measures that I could imagine would be the following: "Whenever ~this~ is the target of a spell or ability, that spell or ability's controller gets a poison counter."

(I won't start threads here since I cannot promise to visit TMD regularly, and therefore wouldn't be able to guide discussions I started, but: You can use that ability, if you like to. )

Sacrificing other creatures to harm someone/somebody else seems very black and really ungreen to me. Wheras sacrificing a critter in order to help or protect some other creature or player would be fine, I would strongly advice to either change that aspect of the card or to start looking for another kind of activation cost.

In addition to the color-change, I feel this needs a cost-increase by at least 1 mana. [card]Engineered Plague[/card] and [Card]Glorious Anthem[/Card] both already cost three mana to play and are quite strong cards at what they do. Yes, yours has a symmetrical effect, but it's also much more flexible and even touches all creatures with its removal part for the remainder of the game, not just those of one chosen type. I could easily see this as a 4-of-no-brainer in T2 WB control decks, even at a cost of 2WB.

Otherwise, that card's a really fine idea.

Name suggestion: Hope / Despair

I don't like how this comes into play during mid-game and suddenly becomes a 10/12 monster all of sudden. How about making its first ability a triggered one:

"At the end of each turn (just "your turn" probably makes this grow too slowly), remove a (type/color restriction?) card in a (or just "your"?) graveyard from the game. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on ~this~."

I'd also get rid of the second ability then, since you could easily solve all power issues by modifying the parameters in brackets.

Just an idea: "Whenever Turgid Spirit becomes the target of a green spell or effect, tap it." Would be clean, and would be different. Also, you should strongly consider to give your critter Flying. It's not really a spoiler now and still wouldn't be strictly better than [Card]Wind Drake[/Card], if it did. I also believe that most blue spirits in Magic history had Flying. (Not Dreamborn Muse, but the rest.^^)

I miss the challenge to break this card as most other printed shapeshifters (exc. for Morpling) have given in the past. Your enchantment just lets you pay 1UUU and then tutor up any one monster you fed your library with for just UU. You even get to change between those shapes later for free.

Also I thought, imprint was an artifact-only-mechanic. Although till today I haven't seen a plausible reason to leave it at that, I've always pointed that original intent out. Maybe you could turn your card into an equipment.

Suggestions: You could turn the tutor part into an [Card]Intuition[/Card]-like effect: "Search your library for three creature cards and reveal them. An opponent chooses one. Remove that card from the game and shuffle the rest into your library. The removed card is imprinted on this artifact." Hm, that's a bit wordy now...

A while ago, R.Buehler mentioned in one of his friday columns that the word "stack" is too complex/abstract a concept to put upon a card, especially for beginners. Wizards therefore came up with another way to template cards like Fork, thereby completely avoiding that term. You might want to change the Shaman's wording to either "Copy target red instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.", cf:

Mischievous Quanar

Creature -- Beast
3/3
{U}: Turn Mischievous Quanar face down.
Morph {U} (You may play this face down as a 2/2 creature for . Turn it face up any time for its morph cost.)
When Mischievous Quanar is turned face up, copy target instant or sorcery spell. You may choose new targets for that copy.

or to this Mirrodin-Block variant: "Copy target red instant or sorcery spell and play the copy without paying its mana cost.", cf:

Reversal of Fortune
{R}
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals his or her hand. You may copy an instant or sorcery card in it and play the copy without paying its mana cost.


The name should certainly be written as one word, "Firespeaker" like "Fireshrieker" and the "Red" in the rules text should be de-capitalized.

Otherwise the Shaman is a very cool card. I don't think it needs a tap-symbol in its activation cost, since a four mana toughness-3 critter that only copies red spells (i.e. no card drawing) should really be balanced and fragile enough to warrant "print".

By "too complicated" I didn't mean that they are less comprehensible than without the effect, but they are definitely more work to read through. I'm just not sure if the effect is worth this additional "labour," but if your fine with them as they are, I'd think them finished.

I honestly believe that the creature type adding effect makes these cards too complicated, without contributing anything relevant to their function. If these were mine, I'd get rid of that part.

The actual version could be templated more elegantly this way:

Pangaea
Legendary Basic Land - Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest


I think it's very neat to have all functions covered (approximately) in the type line. But of course it's true: That way it would be far too strong.

Wouldn't the rare one be much better, if it were a global enchantment that enhanced each creature you control? Though they exist, I somehow dislike rare enchant creature cards.

You forget that Terror has always been a card of some consideration in slower constructed formats (like Standard). True, yours doesn't kill a River Boa (unkickered!), but I think it's at least as powerful as Terror and in addition comes without the drawback to be complete deadweight against black/artifact decks. However, thumbs up for this very well designed card.

Shame on me, that somehow passed me by.  



Then you really should raise the casting cost. Otherwise this won't be a balanced card. White usually does not get targeted spot-removal whithout a drawback and the chain-mechanic just isn't enough of a DB here. Look at cards like [Card]Afterlife[/Card] and [Card]Reprisal[/Card] for comparison.



Guess, I'm not much of a help here.  

I would choose the first version then, with a simple "Draw a card." line.

As MoreFling already has pointed out, each one of those spells is far too powerful. Reasons:

Revanche would be a natural fit in any control deck employing white. In T1 these could be StP 5-8 with actually no drawback at all as long as you don't control a creature. Revanche therefore is a) too cheap and needs b) some kind of targeting restriction or another drawback.

Your blue chain is very similar to [Card]Chain of Vapor[/Card] from Onslaught* except for the extremely important exclusion of "nonland". This would easily hand any LD strategy a method to cut the opponent's mana development from the very beginning. Wizards has been sensitive to this problem for years and did not print any 1-cc or 2-cc bounce spells that could touch land except for Hoodwink and Boomerang.
The same problem is true for the black chain. Mana development is the most crucial element in our game. Therefore most spells that nowadays can force the discard of a land, cost three or more mana (e.g. [Card]Coercion[/Card]) or at least let their victims an out (e.g. [Card]Blackmail[/Card] forces the opponent to only reveal three cards from which to choose). Hymn to Tourach is not representative!

*There actually was an uncommon chain cycle in Onslaught consisting of [Card]Chain of Silence[/Card], [Card]Chain of Vapor[/Card], [Card]Chain of Smog[/Card], [Card]Chain of Plasma[/Card] and [Card]Chain of Acid[/Card] that might render your efforts obsolete.

Too much text indeed, but loose the cycling triggered ability and it should be all right. (Otherwise it reads as wordy as a card from Ice Age or beyond. )

I liked Matt's suggestion from the previous page alot. Although I think, just removing X charge counters (instead of X+1) would do a cleaner job, the triggered ability solves all problems just fine.

Last year I thought up a card that was very similar to this one later posted on Brainburst. The idea to do something useful with the removed card indeed offers some funky options that, to me, seem a lot more fun than leaving it at just removing them.

Then again, maybe those cards are broken...

I subscribe to that assessment. The real problem is the haste ability.

T1-Scenario:

1st t: Bazaar of Baghdad-opening.
1st opp-t: Whatever. eot, mill three huge cc<4 critters into your yard. (Flesh Reaver, Negator, Psychatog etc.)
2nd t: repeat milling, drop Swamp => Ritual => Ebullient Eve for the win.

With the usual tutors around, I could imagine that quite a consistent deck that might easily back up it's plan with FoW or Duress, if required.

Love that Idea. I'd however, change some things with this card. The text of Goblin Welder has always been a bit of a templating and rules headache and although it changed over time it didn't really make up for more conciseness and clarity. For the Willower, I therefore suggest the following text: "T, sacrifice an enchantment: Put target enchantment card from your graveyard to play."

Yes, that way it cannot exchange enchantment cards of other players any longer, but I really see no need for it to do so. After all, white usually doesn't "trick around" with other people's stuff. I'd also lower the Willow's toughness by one. That creature should be extremely vulnerable with an ability that powerful.

Wonderul design.

In my opinion, a [Card]Knight Errant[/Card] with that kind of ability is quite reasonably balanced. There's however two things to improve:

A) Name - Merely stating what to do with that card for the best utility ("Enchanted") sounds a bit awkward to me. I'd suggest to take a step backward and think of what the impact of such a creature would be and by what means it is established. You might e.g. choose "Mesmeric" instead of enchanted as a willbending attribute.

B) The template seems a bit inaccurate. There's at least missing something like "that of" between "to" and "any," I believe. Also "may not play" as far as I know is only expressed as "can't play" (cf. [Card]Meddling Mage[/Card]). Lastly, it should probably say "your opponents". (That's a common clarification in modern card templating that answers a typical beginner question which nethertheless still turns up in Rules Question boards more often than it should.)

My take on the knight would be:

Mesmeric Paladin
1W
Creature – Knight Cleric
2/2
Your opponents can't play spells with a converted mana cost equal to that of an enchantment enchanting Mesmeric Knight.

With this name you have the additional benefit to not have triple "enchant" in "enchantment enchanting Enchanted Knight", which would really sound quite outch. :p

For a mass reanimation spell that denies opponents to react with sorcery removal, this is severely undercostet. I'd add at least one mana to the cost, rather two.

Concerning the rules text template, you definitely want "whever" to be "when" and "called" to be "named." As far as the name is concerned, would "Skeleton Plague" possibly sound any good?

Nitpick: Normal templating intends "get" for p/t changes, "gain" for temporarily added keyword abilities and "have" for permanently added keyword abilities (cf. [Card]Goblin King[/Card]). So you would get:

"Black creatures get +1/+1 and have fear."

Since green is the usual color for creature/land-tutoring, I'd go for a green-white casting cost rather than the black-white one. Otherwise I think it's fine.