Attendant Spirit

[Bram]

OK, so I wanted to make a card that would allow you to (legally) stack most if your lib. Obviously, it needs some massive drawbacks.


Attendant Spirit
3UU
Creature - Spirit
1/1
When Attendant Spirit comes into play you may look at the top 10 cards of your library and put them back in any order.
If you would draw a card outside your draw step, skip that draw instead.
When Attendant Spirit leaves play, shuffle your library.


The drawback I gave it (no draws outside your DS) makes it an interesting choice for blue. It's blue because:
- we need blue cards
- blue has a similar effect in Ancestral Knowledge
- I like the way this shuts down card draw for blue, forcing it to adopt a different strategy than control if it wants to play this card.

I made it double blue since I want this to have a heavy commitment towards a color to make it less abusable by combo decks

It's a creature because:
- we need interesting blue creatures
- it fits the flavor. The attendant spirit summoned by a wizards, much like a fmailiar or pet of some sort, makes him feel calm and relaxed (no quick, greedy draws) and oganizes his thoughts (stacking the lib).

It could conceivably also be an enchantment but I like it better as a creature.

Current wording:

Attendant Spirit
3UU
Creature - Spirit
1/1
When Attendant Spirit comes into play, if you played it from your hand, you may look at the cards in your library and put them back in any order.
When Attendant Spirit leaves play, shuffle your library.

[Laurie Cheers]

What number did you want X to be?

I would suggest:

When Attendant Spirit comes into play, look at your library and remove it from the game face down in any order.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top card you removed from the game this way into your hand.
Skip your draw step.
[And maybe: When Attendant Spirit leaves play, shuffle the removed cards into your library.]

This gives you the 'can't draw' disability for free; if you tried to draw a card, you would lose! You also can't scry or tutor.

I think the name should be Dimensional Organizer.
An assistant who takes all your books and memorizes them for you? Very blue.

[Ephraim]

Creatures with abilities like this never sit well with me. It's an ability that really belongs on an enchantment, but which is being given to a creature, for its own sake. (In fact, the substance of the ability is very similar to Ancestral Knowledge, which you mentioned)

As for the ability itself, I think you could make this more powerful by just making it an enchantment.

(maybe even ; Ancestral Knowledge had cumulative upkeep, but it allowed you to thin the top ten cards and also allowed you to draw more than one card a turn)
<name>
Enchantment

When ~this~ comes into play, look at the top ten cards of your library, then put them back in any order.

If you would draw a card except the first one you draw in your draw step, skip that draw instead. (Alternately: If you would draw a card except in your draw step, skip that draw instead. <- this allows for card-drawing spells to be cast during the draw step)

When ~this~ leaves play, shuffle your library.

[Bram]

What number did you want X to be?

I would suggest:

When Attendant Spirit comes into play, look at your library and remove it from the game face down in any order.

Heh. Yeah, I caught that before you posted. I changed it rather randomly to 10, but also mentioned that I initially wanted it to look at the entire lib.

remove it from the game face down in any order.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top card you removed from the game this way into your hand.

I don't think RFG cards have an order. Additionally, this way everyone can see your draws.

It's an ability that really belongs on an enchantment, but which is being given to a creature, for its own sake.

I know. But it would be the umpteenth enchantment. Also, if it's a creature, you can more or less bounce this at will, shuffling your library and negating the drawback if the situation calls for it. It's more logical as an enchantment, I agree, but more fun as a creature. Also, it'll be the only 3UU 1/1 creature in the game (if you forget about the 1999 Duelist Invitational's 'Teacher', which is an interesting coincidence since I wanted to name this one 'Teacher's Pet' before I ever even knew there was a card called Teacher).

How do you guys feel about stacking the whole library? Combine with Temporal Adept in a Battle of Wits deck for savage stalling tech :-)

[dandan]

I think it isn't a problem in an aggro deck (duh!) , it isn't a problem in a control deck and combo has to put this into play, reanimate it or cast it. Putting it into play (Show and Tell, Lure of Prey, Sneak Attack, etc) doesn't look too dangerous, I think we can all think of better things to reanimate and if I can cast something for 3UU I could Memory Jar, Future Sight or stretch a little further and just YawBargain/Mind's Desire and just win.

Good combo needs 2 pieces (those that don't need just 1 anyway) and tend to run multiples. By the time you cast this you should have 1 part of the combo in hand or in play so this will just act as a win-more Vampiric Tutor.

I don't have a problem with this card on power level. (Hell, we could show a Mage who may or may not look like Mike Long with a card in his lap!). The only problem is that it would need to be a rare and it would be a rare few would like to open.

[Jacob Orlove]

Cards shouldn't take too much time to resolve. This would probably take at least several minutes if you were working quickly, and could take much longer if you wanted it to. All you'd have to do is search for the first card you want, then search for the second, then the third, etc., etc.

Basically, I think this card is too time-intensive.

[Bram]

I guess I agree with that. However, there IS a time limit for doing stuff. Not a 'hard' limit, but if you take too much time doing your 'thang' in competitive play, your opponent has every right to point that out and call a judge if necessary. In casual / multi play you'll just find yourself getting kicked out of the group.

Also: you'll rarely stack your whole lib, methinks. Just take the 10 or so cards you need and put them on top. If you're playing this in a combo deck, you'll know what you need. If you're not, then games are too unpredictable for it to be useful to stack the whole thing anyway. Additionally, since you can't take notes of it, you won't remember the order of your complete lib anyway so it's no use stacking all the cards in it.

[Laurie Cheers]

In that case, surely the card should say that?

When Attendant Spirit comes into play, search your library for up to three cards, then shuffle your library and put those cards on top of it in any order.

[Bram]

Well, this was originally intended as a means to stack your library.

I'm pretty sure we could figure out a way to balance it out like that, but I'm actually pretty keen on the whole 'entire lib'  thing.

If we need to balance this out for time limitation concerns, I'd like it more if this were a 'top X cards' thing that a tutor thing like you suggested.

[Ephraim]

You could make it do that officially by allowing you to search for up to X cards and put them on top of your library in any order. That way, you get the implied pseudo-stacking without the problems of allowing somebody to stack their entire deck. Seriously, you mentioned Battle of Wits.dec yourself. That's just...awful.

[Bram]

Well.....OK then. But what would X have to be? Would it have te be conditional? Like, say, your life total? Or the number of cards in your hand/yard/board or something?

[Bram]

OK, so I made it tutor for 10 cards. If that's too much, I could make it 7, which is a sensible 'game number' as well.

One problem:

If you would draw a card except the first card you draw in your draw step, skip that draw instead.

...could lead to problems with people wondering of it reads like you can only draw 1 card during any 'pair' of turns (you and your opponent's) or you can only draw 1 card during your draw step and are free to do whatever the hell you want in any other phase.

Suggestions to clarify this?

[stijndon]

Errol the Wise
3UU
Creature - Owl Legend
1/2
When Errol the Wise comes into play, look at your library and put it back in any order.
When Errol the Wise leaves play, shuffle your library.

I think you can do this. Why not? It's not because of time restraints, because when you think about it, there's already cards-a-plenty that do this. Like Goblin Recruiter, Proteus Staff and Knowledge Vault* . And you've never heard anybody complain about those, did you?

Make it an Owl Legend as a tribute to Spire Owl and Sage Owl, the latter one of which has Counterspell in the original art, which most of you probably already knew.

This might get used with Bazaar and Animate Death, because then it's good. But so is Bazaar and Dragon.

I'd love to see the legendary raven that is a tribute to Raven Familiar:

Blashyrkh, Mighty Ravendark
4UB
Creature - Bird Legend
2/3
When Blashyrkh comes into play, look at the top six cards of your library. Take two of those cards into your hand and put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.

Let me make a topic about that one....


* No, Knowledge Vault doesn't stack your library, but I had already typed the comma instead of an 'and' so I just faked it. You probably didn't know what it does anyway

[Bram]

Cool. Point taken. Since we already have Laurie's new 'top X cards' creature, mine should stand out. And I DID want this to look at the whole lib. Srew time limits....call a judge if you feel you're being screwed

[EDIT] Uh, we've still got the wording issue I talked about in my previous post. Jebus, perhaps?

[Laurie Cheers]

If you would draw a card, skip that draw.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top card of your library into your hand.

Sorry. Edited your post by mistake instead of my own. I think this is what it said, exactly. - Bram

[Bram]

Good suggestion. That way, it'd combo nicely with the new 'skip upkeep' artifact

Why not make it 'at the beginning of your draw step'? I guess that would work. There. Now it's an interesting, if somewhat crappy, rare.

24h. clock?

[Jebus]

You need "Instead" in the skip replacement effect.

[Bram]

Good call. Yeah, I had that in the original wording but somehow it got lost in the shuffle at the current one.

24 h. clock.

[Matt]

This is crazy complicated. Can't you just find the thing you want it to do and make it do that, without adding on a bunch of drawbacks and bonuses?

[Bram]

Not really, I think. There are no bonusses. Everything is a drawback that is absolutely required to prevent abuse. Stacking yoru entire lib is a strong play, dude.

It has to have the shuffle effect to prevent someone from reaping too many benefits from playing this. If you can't protect it, you don't deserve to know the order.

The draw skipping mechanic is an even more important balancing feature IMO. It prevents this from ending up as a combo enabler.

Dropping both features would make this look something like this:

Attendant Spirit
3UU
Creature -- Spirit
1/1
When Attendant Spirit comes into play, look at your library and put it back in any order.

Isn't that too strong?

[stijndon]

Well, if you reanimate a Worldgorger Dragon, you generally win, but do also need some other cards to go with the trick.

If you reanimate this, you also probably win. And you also need some cards to do the trick (albeit that it needs only be something to draw some other thing with.)

Just give it the "leaves play = shuffle" clause, and leave it at the 1/1 for 3UU.

For who's gonna cast it? I ain't. You reanimate this. This isn't broken, because Worldgorger is probably better. And so in combo's, people will playworldgorger. But in casual play, people will play this, because IT STACKS YOUR DECK! W00T! Let it be, I think.

[dandan]

In casual people who stack their deck don't have friends and don't have Pringles. Kind of like being Dutch  ;--)

[Bram]

OK then....24h. clock on current wording.

I hate Pringles.

[Matt]

Why not word it "When Attendant Spirit comes into play, if you played it from your hand, you may look at the cards in your library and put them back in any order."

[Bram]

Yeah, at least that would limit combo potential. What's your vote on the 'shuffle when gone' thing? I think it should stay as it's not too awkward.

[Bram]

Closed and added.