Property Land Cycle

[Bram]

A ccyle of lands based on an idea I submitted a while ago. Back to the original wording by the way (the Lair wording works, since there's no chance for abuse. You wanna tap the lands to pay for the cost? Fine The names are sort of 'difficult'. It's good to expand the vocabulary of the mtg player. You'll find all are quite flavorful, too, and more or less tied in to the 'type' of land in question.

Upscale Acreage
Land -- Property
When Upscale Acreage comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1GG
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1GG, T: Search your library for a land card, put that card into play, then shuffle your library.
"Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unreal Estate
Land -- Property
When Unreal Estate comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1UU.
T: Add U to your mana pool.
1UU, T: Draw a card.
The fabled price of knowledge is sometimes cold hard cash.

Parlous Realty
Land -- Property
When Parlous Realty comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1RR.
T: Add R to your mana pool.
1RR, T: Parlous Realty deals 1 damage to target creature or player.

Stygian Seigniory
Land -- Property
When Stygian Seigniory comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1BB.
T: Add B to your mana pool
1BB, T: Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

Consecrated Demesne
Land -- Property
When Consecrated Demesne comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1WW.
T: Add W to your mana pool.
1WW, T: Until end of turn, target player can't play instant spells.

Current wording:

Upscale Acreage
Land -- Property
When Upscale Acreage comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1GG
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1GG, T: Search your library for a land card, put that card into play, then shuffle your library.
"Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unreal Estate
Land -- Property
When Unreal Estate comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1UU.
T: Add U to your mana pool.
1UU, T: Draw a card.
The fabled price of knowledge is sometimes cold hard cash.

Parlous Realty
Land -- Property
When Parlous Realty comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1RR.
T: Add R to your mana pool.
1RR, T: Parlous Realty deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
When robbed of its champion, the estate decided to defend itself.

Stygian Seigniory
Land -- Property
When Stygian Seigniory comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1BB.
T: Add B to your mana pool
1BB, T: Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
Many men have lived on these grounds. Far more still have died there.

Consecrated Demesne
Land -- Property
When Consecrated Demesne comes into play, sacrifice it unless you pay 1WW.
T: Add W to your mana pool.
1WW, T: Until end of turn, target player can't play instant or sorcery spells.
"Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground." -- Oscar Wilde


I'll come up with some more flavor texts later. If anyone has any suggestion regarding activation costs and/or better (more flavorful) suggestions for the card's actual ability (the red one is rather boring for example), I'll gladly hear about it.

[Alfred]

I think that the white land is the weakest of the 5. The only use for it would be to stop counterspells, as other instants would simply be cast in response. If you wanted to prevent your spell from being countered, you would have to essentially spend WWW1 in addition to it's casting cost. I would change it to be more like abeyance, and make it affect sorceries, that way it can be used offensively as well. The red one IS sort of boring, maybe you should go for something like this:

XRR, T: Change the target of spell with casting cost X.

OR

1RR, T: Target creature gets +2/-2.

[Bram]

True. But if the white one said Instants and sorceries, it would be an Abeyance every turn (till you topdeck a wasteland) isn't that a little too good? The way it is now, you at least need s Scepter for that

I thought about somethign like that for Red, too. But limiting it to creature bonuses makes it really narrow, don't you think? Perhaps some more interesting effect I dodn't think of? I tried Stone Rain but decided that would likely be too good.

How about the costs on the other cards? Right now, the 'property'  cost is always equal to the activation cost. While that does not necessarily need to be so, it does simplify the mechanic somewhat.

[Dr. Sylvan]

I think these are somewhat underpowered but most could be okay. For instance the blue one is almost strictly better than [card]Treasure Trove[/card]. The worst part is the double colored costs. Most of those abilities aren't so color-specific that it's necessary to require that heavy a commitment.

[Bram]

Doctor: you're right about Treasure Trove...almost, but not strictly better. More powerful? Absolutely. We had the following conversation when I first submitted the idea several weeks ago:

Me:

Jacob: compare the second one to Treasure Trove (a 2UU enchantment that draws you a card for a 2UU activation).

I made mine a bit cheaper because of the reasons mentioned above (i.e. it requires a land drop). While it may seem expensive, you have to realise that it's basically an uncounterable treasure trove. If you go Island, Mox, Island you can play this on turn three and have an uncounterable, unrestricted source for extra cards that can only be stopped by Wasteland or Stifle

Jacob:

But Treasure Trove isn't good. This takes 3 mainphase mana to play, and can't come out until turn 4 anyway, which is pretty bad for a control deck. In type 1 and extended, there's just so many wastelands that spending 3 mana to play a land will almost never be worth it (ignoring the tremendous resources you have to sink into this to get cards back). In standard, you have no mana acceleration, so this will only be good if control decks are completely dominant. With the current weakening of blue, that seems less likely.

Me:

Yeah, but I think lowering either cost will make it too good. I'm still not convinced it isn't too good in its current form, even.

Treasure trove would be a LOT better if it were:

Treasure Trove - 1UU
Enchantment
Treasure Trove cannot be countered by spells or effects.
1UU: draw a card. Use this ability only once each turn.

I know it's not a perfect analogy (on the plus side, mine can't be killed with anything other than land destruction and on the down side it costs you a land drop), but that looks a lot more like my card now. And you gotta sgree, it's a whole bunch more powerful than the original.

That just about covers the Treasure Trove agrument

The abilities NEED to cost double mana in my opinion, because:
a. these lands are potentially dangerous. Uncouterable card draw, colorless damage etc. You can't just 'disenchant' them, and
b. the way they're worded rigth now (which I like) they can be tapped to pay for their own CIP cost. This means that if the CIP cost would be, say, 2U, you could play this without having a blue mana source in play and use it on the consecutive turn if you manage to find one. Right now, you'll need to have at least one in play to even be able to play it (4 if you want to use the ability immediately

[Alfred]

If you don't need the double CC for the activation, I would go with my second one, except with one less red mana:

XR, T: Change the target of target spell with casting cost X to another.

This way it's sort of like that Shunt card from darksteel. It's reuseable, but has a mana cost that makes it more prohibative.

For white, on both sides of the fence the abeyance mechanic is either too strong or too weak. Perhaps a complete overhaul? My suggestion:

1WW, T: You and your creatures cannot be the target of spells or abilities until the end of the turn. Gain 2 life.

[Bram]

I'm not sure the shunting thing is a good idea. For one thing, it breaks the symmetry of the CIP and activation costs.

The white suggestion seems to work, although the you and your creatures is messe, and then you also tack random lifegain on it. I guess being untargetable myself is decent enough. It doesn't *have* to be a good card you know

I'm also still considering just keeping it an Abeyace for just instans. It least they won't counter your shit then.

[Jacob Orlove]

Lower the CIP cost, and have them CIP tapped.

Also, since you have to tap these, they really cost one more to use their abilities than it seems (4 lands tapped = 4 mana to use the ability). So that's 4 mana for a land, or a card draw, or 1 damage, or a raise dead, or an abeyance-type effect.

[Bram]

I don't WANT them to CIP tapped. I want it to be an interesting tradeoff between using the card NOW (needing more mana for playing and activation) or playing it economically (using it to pay for it's own CIP and using it the turn after).

I said I possibly wanted to weaken the white one, not make the whole cycle crap

I know they cost more than they 'seem' . That was kind of the point.
4 mana for a land - compare to Reap and Sow
4 mana for a card every turn - compare to Jayemdae Tome
4 mana for 1 damage every turn - compare to rod of ruin (ish)
4 mana for a raise dead every turn (in the right deck basically better than a straight up card draw ebery turn) - compare to Raise Dead
4 mana for an abeyabce every turn - compare to Stick witj Abeyance

I really don't see a power level problem with any of these, especially since they cost a land drop. And I'm really not prepared to lower the costs either. These cards are just too weird to be cheap. The effect is too hard to fathom.

Unless anyone objects, these are going inder the clock.

[Matt]

Red needs some new mechanics, bad.

[Jacob Orlove]

Red needs some new mechanics, bad.

Shunt?

[Matt]

Shunt isn't exactly a mechanic you can use over and over.