I like the wording of the first version of Geonigma. I disagree that it is likely to hit multiple lands that often, good players tend to have lots of land in their decks and so are able to hold a land or two in hand. Compare to Ruination, which card is more likely to destroy more than one land? And Ruination (sadly) rarely sees the light of day.

You are right about it being more powerful later in the game, although late game land destruction is not that strong (large robots aside)

I doubt this card would see any play at all in Constructed but it could be a beast in Sealed and Draft.

So much stuff about order and so little about Chaos. How about a proper Red card - volcanic activity causing either new land or destroying existing land?

Chaos Rain (working title - would like a volcanic type name)
R3
Sorcery
Target opponent may put a land of each basic land type (Mountain, Forest,) etc into play. He or she then sacrifices a land of any basic type not put into play.

Against a mono-colour opponent this is weak - destroy a Mountain for 4 mana IF they don't have a Mountain in hand. Not terribly good against a 2 colour deck either, they should have some land in hand so you might destroy one land type but they put the other one into play. It could be pretty savage against multi-colour decks although for 4 mana Red already has a card that kills all non-basics so power-wise I don't think this is strong. It does, however have flavour and some fun interactions like Ankh, Land Tax,etc. It might also be possible to make it target player as a wacky mana accelerator although I wouldn't want that to become its primary function.

Also not sure if I want a multiland to 'prevent' 2 land sacrifices or just one. I think the above version prevents 2 sacrifices.
Another option would be for them to sacrifice a land for each land not put into play (takes out non-basics)

Ridiculous City of Undiscovered Caverns of Ass

Legendary Land

T: Add one mana that is of every color that lands you control cannot produce to your mana pool.

A non-reflecting pool, a great first drop but interacts really badly with other lands especially multilands. Not sure about the interaction with Reflecting Pool though!!

Re: Crop Rotation - With just one land and the use of a card you get a land that taps for one mana, possibly not broken

Isn't my version effectively doing what was initially suggested but in a simple and non-combo-ish way (free mana from the graveyard strikes me as being a bit too useful to combo)

Forgotten Paradise

Land

TAP: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool for each card named "Forgotten Paradise" in a graveyard.

Effectively each FP in a graveyard can generate 1 mana of any colour but needs a FP in play to activate it. Could be good with Dredge but strikes me as so situational that it is not overpowered. To be any good you'd want 4 of them in your deck and then you'd need to see at least 3 of the 4 before this becomes very good. However it does have potential for Timmy.

I exclude any infinite damage (paying infinite life is OK if you have that much), firebreathing and anything that can repeatedly wipe the board (killing one creature a turn is fine). Just the one spell per turn so Cycling probably better for us than in most groups.

Is there an easy way to quickly draft? Quite often we just want to get down to business and just shuffle out some piles and everyone grabs one.

It is also a problem if we have a 2 player game (you can deal 4 cards and get first and last pick but even that is a bit slow). Also certain cards (buyback!) are waaaaaaaaaay too strong in a duel, whilst others are rather weak (Storm, although I can live with Storm not being a monster once in a while).

Any advice on quick ways to start a Type 4 game?

Exotic Orchard
Basic Land- Conflux
(T: add to your mana pool)

No problem with that, chances are Y mana is less useful than B, U, R, G or W mana unless you printed a whole lot of Y-powered cards.

Favourable Destiny gave White a type of Shroud effect waaaay back in Mirage

Enchanted creature gets +1/+2 as long as it's white.
Enchanted creature can't be the target of spells or abilities as long as its controller controls another creature.

So we could have

Cloaked Marksman
1WW
Creature - Human Monk
2/2
Cloaked Marksman can't be the target of spells or abilities as long as its controller controls another creature and comes into play with two arrow counters.
W, Remove an arrow counter: Destroy target creature that has dealt damage to a creature with power of 2 or less this turn.

'CIP tapped if you control no Swamps' would allow this to be used in all decks but make the card a lot better in Black decks. In that case you wouldn't need a B, T: activation cost, just T; would be fine. Green and White may well argue that the ability could be theirs too. In that case, rather than 'CIP tapped if you control no Swamps, Plains or Forests'I'd rather ditch the CIP clause altogether

From a flavour point of view (and for card simplicity) I'd change the ability to

Sadmer Crematorium

T:  add 1 to your mana pool.
T: Remove target creature card in a graveyard from the game. Gain 1 life.

Hell (no pun intended) you could make it Dark-esque re Eater of the Dead

Sadmer Crematorium

T:  add 1 to your mana pool.
T, Remove target creature card in a graveyard from the game: Gain 1 life.

As someone who has been largely inactive in Magic over the last year, I'd be very interested to hear what I've missed and hopefully generate some interesting discussion. Looking back over 2008:

1. What new cards have made an impact on Vintage (and/or Legacy)?
2. What new decks have arisen? (no need for deck lists - just state method of winning [not necessarily the kill mechanism])
3. What B&R changes were good? Bad? Missed opportunities? I couldn't believe Ponder made the B&R list!
4. Which deck from the past has made the best comeback?
5. Favourite new card for Type 4 (I generally play no ACC, no instant kill X spells but I'm not you)

I find I spend less at Tesco when I leave my wife at home (to be fair, this might not be true if they started selling Magic cards). Perhaps governments could make use of this.

My wife plays but refuses to play against Blue or Black - those colours 'cheat'. For example it is fine to Bolt or StP a creature but should the colour of death take out a creature using Terror that is cheating, ditto for counterspells (she may well have a point there) and heaven forbid any form of discard. I have built her a RG deck with Bolts, Kird Apes, Lhurgoyfs and Shivans, generally stomps on Type II decks but not up to Legacy.
However my daughter has just turned 7, is good at maths and likes monsters and faeries so I think she will develop into a Magic player. My son is just 3 and still far more into Lego than Magic.

"The more I practice, the luckier I get." Arnold Palmer I think, I could be wrong, at least statistically.

That is the only useful definition of luck - the quantity that losers claim caused them to lose.

This may be a tangent, and despite the risk of getting a reputation as one who rambles more than a 50-year-old in shorts in the mountains, but I would like the challenge the almost universal acceptance of 'the right move'. Imagine a light is red 70% of the time and green 30% of the time. Guess the colour of the light. The 'right' guess is to always guess that the light is red. However the correct answer is red only 70% of the time. If someone guesses green and the light is green, they guessed correctly, their choice was right. However much you might be tempted to whinge about good luck or bad luck, statistics, probablilities, etc nothing changes the fact that the guess was right. Likewise in Magic, a decision (be it deck construction, SB, mulligan or play) may not be the best choice given the probability of whatever but may prove to be the right choice.

Now this may be splitting hairs (and we know that you can't target furry fish in Stealth bombers) but if you accept that a decision CAN be suboptimal/not the most probable/illogical/lucky/noob and still turn out to be correct, you may or may not be a better player for it (or indeed be exactly the same as you are, for that too is possible).

By all means understand probability but don't let it rule your world. Imagine playing poker against a computer that makes only logical calculated decisions and expects the same from you. Imagine you are playing Magic against a poor opponent. Imagine you are playing against a superior opponent (some of you may have to imagine a little harder than the rest of us). Optimal play isn't the same against each of them but probabilities are (probably).

Have life? Magic? No, don't!!!!!!

Why is it that taxpayers have to bail out banks if they get into trouble over bad business practice but if industry has problems it's weeding out the inefficient and leaving leaner, well-run companies to take up more market share?

I think most people would agree that taxpayers bailing out banks is a bad idea but it looks like a choice between bad and worse, in which case the bad idea is better. In any case as well as the short-term fix I would think it is vitally important to determine what went wrong and how the same mistakes can be avoided (and of course heads should roll).

In the longer term, if this results in countries, companies and individuals thinking long and hard before saddling themselves with debt it may well be a good thing.

Back from the depths of Time in fine Time Spiral fashion, I'm starting the clock on this one.

Another resurrected card and new clock!

Now with lots of new Slivers from Wizards to play with!   

Resurrected as I never actually started the clock on this one. Note that Wizards have added more Seals since I started this thread so I think Seal of Abeyance is fine as a name.

Clock

"Obviously you have reprinted reserved cards with our newest sets"

I don't think this is true. They have reprinted a few uncommons that weren't on the reserved list and remade several old cards in much weaker form.

Note that Wizards have just reprinted Yawgmoth Will as a Judges foil and that such reprints are allowed under the Reserved Policy. Wizards could print a Vintage set in foil and sell it for a small fortune if they wished.

The Reserved List is not the problem. The problem is that you don't understand Wizards. They don't want to reprint power cards but ahead of any financial concerns (and there are financial concerns, although Wizards could get around those fairly to a certain extent as any Power cards using the new card layout would soon have a lower value than 'proper' cards), Wizards don't want to reprint these cards because they are fuck-ups. Vintage uses many cards that should never have been printed. Reprinting a Sol Ring hardly helps the cause, as the next 3cc artifact that generates 2 mana gets looked down on as overcosted rather than properly costed.

I think it is far more likely that Wizards will print (more) blank cards, as an 'unofficial' sanctioning of proxies than reprint power cards in sufficient quantities to make a difference. (A foil tournament legal Black Lotus would be a pretty good prize if Wizards want to attract players to the Vintage World Championships though)

Consume Spirit is usually better than Drain Life. (you can get X> toughness/life total of target)

Does turn 1 Trinisphere count as a 'win' given that you can attack for 16 damage before your opponent can play a spell (barring silly lands)?

If I remember rightly, those creatures that turn themselves into Auras are meant to be a bit of a problem with Animate Enchantment effects. In any case, for this card flavour considerations mean this is Somebody Else's Problem.

Unlife

Enchantment
When Unlife Dead comes into play, if it's in play, it becomes an Aura with enchant permanent. Put target Artifact or Creature card from a graveyard into play under your control and attach Unlife to it. If the enchanted permanent is an artifact it is also a creature with power and toughness each equal to its converted mana cost.
When Unlife leaves play, destroy enchanted permanent. It can't be regenerated.
I care not if it ever lived, enough that it is dead
or
Life is wasted on the living

I got this idea from the new Memory Jar on legs and a few deck ideas that aim to animate the dude to get multiple Jar effects. What if you could animate dead artifacts? White might dig up Artifacts but Black prefers the unliving to dig themselves up. Artifacts would have 'summoning sickness' so any dangerous combo is unlikely.

Yes this is cheaper than Animate Artifact but you need a dead Artifact to cast this on (and Animate Artifact sucks). The Phyrexian viewpoint of no distinction between creature and machine is reflected in the ability to animate creatures or atifacts. The idea of animating Enchantments was discarded because it is out of flavour and a rules nightmare.

People are saying that putting 1/1 Goblins into play with a 4cc sorcery is very very good. Wizards just printed that. That's what Storm does to a card. Hell, people are using Dragonstorm, clearly almost any cost is cheap once you look at the card as generally having Storm 3 and often more in those decks that would use the card.

As this is going to be Blue, I think there is no way this can cost 4 mana and as has been pointed out, at 6 mana Mind's Desire is better although I wouldn't worry about making a card worse than Desire I don't think we need to make it cost a lot more than Desire so we have a Sorcery that costs 5-6 mana or an Instant that costs 6-7 mana.

A triple casting cost would ease my worries about this card, four seems a little off although, once again Wizards just did that to new Black punisher spell so we can't say there is no precedent.

3 Sorcery gets my vote, for what it's worth.

Holy Ground
Legendary Land
 : Add  to your mana pool. Choose a target land. That land is Industructible as long as Holy Ground is tapped.

This is rather like

Equinox 
Enchant Land
    
Tap land enchanted with Equinox to counter a spell that destroys one or more of your lands. This ability is played as an interrupt.

But obviously better (Equinox sucks). Protecting a land might cause you mana burn but on the other hand, an untapped Holy Land does a good job of protecting you from LD.

I like this idea as it is stronger in the later stages of a game and therefore not likely to be broken early. The mechanic itself is interesting with effects like Wrath as an opponent may not want to tap out to cast more creatures but not tapping out means the Wrath can be cast earlier. Casting creatures to delay a Wrath is an interesting strategic decision. However, it does suggest that this mechanic does not belong to all colours, specifically, it feels Red as a punisher effect for nasty mages who leave lands untapped (cough Islands).

Is there any way that an opponent can merely float mana before you tap their lands? Pygmy Hippo empies mana pools as well, presumably someone at Wizards though this is a good reason to do this and I can't remember the multicoloured river horse causing any rules issues so it might be worthwhile following his lead.

Seconded. As it stands, you can remove an opposing grunt from combat in order to cycle this card for 2 mana. Isn't there an old cantrip that makes target creature deal no damage for 3 mana? For one less mana you have added a lot of combat trickery. For a 2 mana cantrip, removing one of your creatures from combat seems fine.

Doesn't Farrel's Mantle say you 'may' target a creature? Sorry but that combo looks dubious.

Holy necro! Dandan, you big fish, we love you but rules apply to respected community members, too.
- Bram

Shouldn't Vader have used a Dark sabre rather than a Light sabre?

And quit the Barney bashing. No Jedi ever got my daughter to eat. Dump on BJ if you must (sooooooooo annoying) but Barney is cool. Anyone who doubts this should have to sit through a few Teletubbies videos then you'd appreciate Barney more.

Nobody ever though a Jedi was awesome 65 friggin million years after it died.