Single-minded Defense, White combat trick

[walkingdude]

Single-minded Defense, White combat trick

Single-minded Defense
1W
Instant
As an additional cost to play this reveal your hand. For each plains revealed this way you may target one attacking or blocking creature. Deal X damage to all target creatures where X was the number of white cards revealed.


Clarity of Purpose
1W
Instant
As an additional cost to play Clarity of Purpose, reveal a plains from your hand  for each target.
Reveal your hand. This deals X damage to any number of target attacking or blocking creatures where X is the number of white cards revealed this way.
The warrior with focus can defeat a thousand foes.



It’s a white combat trick. It has the potential to be very powerful in the best case doing a total of 12 damage for two mana. But it also has the potential to be a total whiff, particularly in limited where you often play 2 or even 3 colors.
There is interesting tension with this card since you want to be playing out land and deploying your resources, but as you do that this card gets weaker and weaker.

[Jacob Orlove]

Don't you have to declare targets before paying all costs?

[walkingdude]

hmm, not sure. I want this to work sort of how fireball does (although more limited but more mana efficient). With fireball the Y determines how many targets you can have.


Maybe the following wording would work better.

As an additional cost to play ~this~  reveal a plains for each creature ~this~ targets.
Reveal your hand this deal X damage to each target attacking or blocking creature where X is the number of white cards revealed this way.

That way you announce the targets before you pay costs, but if you announce more targets than you have plains then you can’t pay for the spell.
I think that would make it work, but it would have the side effect of making the spell a bit stronger since you wouldn’t have to reveal your total damage until resolution. On the other hand that might be cool since it introduces a bluffing aspect.

[walkingdude]

This has been up for a while with no comments other than a wording fix to make it work. I’m reluctant to start a clock on a card with so little discussion. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Flavor text ideas?

[Jacob Orlove]

The name doesn't really fit with the ability.

[walkingdude]

how about

Clarity of Purpose

The warrior with focus can defeat a thousand foes.
           -Zao Lot

I want the name to in some way reflect that the card wants you to play a deck with focus.

[Jacob Orlove]

That's fine. It was the "defense" part that didn't fit with how the card worked.

[Jebus]

There is no Y in Fireball any more.

The easiest way to do this is to sort of follow Fireball's current template.


As an additional cost to play ~this~, reveal a plains for each target.
Reveal your hand.  This deals X damage to any number of target attacking or blocking creatures where X is the number of white cards revealed this way.

[Ephraim]

When you indicate that you must reveal plains as an additional cost, shouldn't you mention that you need to reveal plains from your hand?

[Jebus]

When you indicate that you must reveal plains as an additional cost, shouldn't you mention that you need to reveal plains from your hand?

Yeah, you would need that clause.

[walkingdude]

Rules and name fixed, 24 hour clock

[Matt]

This is really insanely strong. Compare to [card]Rock Slide[/card], which isn't a bad card at al.

[walkingdude]

Its far more situational than rock slide. By mid game in a typical creature stand off I’ll have 6 - 7 or so mana so rock slide will let me do about 6 damage however I want. To get at least 6 damage off this I need at least

2 plains 3 white cards total 5 cards in hand
3 plains 2 white cards total 5 cards in hand

Requiring you to have cards in hand is a fairly hefty draw back. Look at scent of jasmine, a clearly underpowered card, for 3 white cards in hand and W you can gain 6 life which is about as big an effect as hero’s reunion which costs 2 mana and is a gold card. So that gives an idea of how big a boast in power the reveal draw back can enable. Furthermore, this is even more restrictive than that since you need not just white cards, but also plains.

Going back to the comparison with rock slide, rock slide will let me assign damage however I want, here how I assign damage is limited by the number of plains I have, I can’t just do 1 damage to 6 creatures and tip a whole mess of combats in my favor.

I think its possible that this is stronger than rock slide, but its not a clear thing to me. This is certainly better early game where you haven’t played out you hand or mana, but late game I think its fairly clear that rock slide is better. Midgame is debatable, and while I think this does come out on top, white is the color of combat tricks and dealing damage to attacking or blocking creatures.  
This is a fairly strong trick, don't get me wrong I won't deny that, but I don't think its insanely strong.  Maybe 1st pick quality in a weak pack, but would you take this over electrostatic bolt in draft?

[Matt]

Scent of Jasmine isn't bad because it reveals cards, it's bad because it gains life. A better comparison would have been Scent of Cinder.

[walkingdude]

The point wasn’t that scent of jasmine is bad, the point was to show how much of a discount it got for the reveal drawback.
Hero’s reunion is one of the strongest most mana efficient pure life gain spells printed. It cost GW, with 3 white cards scent is about as good for less than half the cost. With 5 cards (what you need to be equivalent to a midgame rock slide), its far better. So asking for 5 cards is worth a substantial mana discount.

My card gives a big mana discount, but the mana discount is only needed in the early game before you have played out your lands. But on turn 2 or 3 there aren’t that many creatures in play so you won’t get as big a benefit from this even if you do get a huge effect. When a full blown creature ground stall has developed and you could really benefit you probably won’t have many cards left in your hands to fuel this.

Put another way, if you have reached the midgame with a 7 card hand and with 3 other white spells (which all must be decent or you wouldn’t have put them in your deck) then you were probably winning any way and this is a win more card. If you reach the midgame with an empty hand and top deck this it does nothing. On the other hand if you top deck rock slide with an empty hand you can wipe out a bunch of attackers and turn the game around. This card gives you a lot more early game power in return for losing the possibility of a major late game swing.

[Jacob Orlove]

Keep in mind that, in your average two color draft deck, this will do something on the order of 2-4 damage early, and very little later on. I think it's fine.

[Matt]

Discount...? Scent of Jasmine was OVERcosted.

[walkingdude]

I meant it was discounted for its effect when you played it with 3+ white cards in hand.  Getting an effect cheap doesn't mean its worth having, but 1 mana is cheap for 6+ life.


J. Orlove is exactly right. The thing to look at is not maximum possible effect but the likely average effect, which is fair. At 12 damage for 1w this is drarn strong, but at 14 life for W so is scent of jasmine. The realistic level should be fine.

[Matt]

I guess. Go for it!