More blue draw

[Nazdakka]

[CARDNAME]
2U
Sorcery
Target opponent names a nonland card. That opponent may search your library, hand and graveyard for all cards with that name and remove them from your game.

Shuffle your library and then draw three cards


Let them extract you, in exchange you get an excellent draw spell. Not sure if this is correctly costed, as the best deck I can think of for it would be Mono-U control, which is regarded by WoTC as being evil for a while now.

What do people think?

[Nazdakka]

Current wording:

Fevered Brilliance
1BB
Sorcery

Draw three cards, then target opponent names a nonland card. That opponent may search your library, hand and graveyard for all cards with that name and remove them from the game.

Those who suffered from the fever were seen as prophets... until their minds succumbed


Edit 1: Moved to black.
Edit 2: Switched the order of the two abilities
Edit 3: Name, flavour text

[Ephraim]

I think it's too powerful. It isn't that difficult to build a deck with considerable redundancy. A second win condition or using two similar spells instead of only the optimal one makes this very powerful. Combine that with the fact that your opponent may not know enough about your deck to make a well-informed decision and the drawback becomes even smaller. In truth, I'm pretty sure the first thing I would name would actually be this card (maybe the second thing, since the second time you cast it, I'll have had an opportunity to search your deck from the first one.) In any case, I've not heard of Cranial Extraction being the awesome, game-breaking spell it was billed as, so I doubt that giving one away in exchange for three cards is all that big of a deal.

On the other hand, the card-drawing effect itself would cost {U} without the penalty. I guess what's being judged then, is whether or not a discount of is worth the free Cranial Extraction for one's opponent (or, if you look at Counsel of the Soratami instead of at Concentrate, whether the Cranial Extraction effect is a weak enough penalty to make the extra card worthwhile). I think that card-drawing is sufficiently dangerous and that the difference between a 3cc and a 4cc spell is sufficiently large that this is undercosted.

[Jacob Orlove]

Since this can hit cards in your hand, I think it's fair. You could end up getting one or zero net cards, rather than two.

[Nazdakka]

Hmm, looking again I'd say this is a little undercosted. Thirst for Knowledge in T2 is the closest analogy, and it's not all that likely that a card in your hand will get extracted. Meet halfway at 1UU?

I'm also after a name and possible flavour text for this... first possible guess:

Mind Drain

Knowledge at what price?

Is saving the present worth sacrificing the future?

[Ephraim]

I want this to cost , but that might be too cheap. would be a little bit too expensive. In any case, this definitely has a little bit of both blue and black character, so that would be perfectly appropriate. Then you could name it something like "Fevered Brilliance" or "Seizure of Revelation"

[Nazdakka]

I want this to cost , but that might be too cheap. would be a little bit too expensive. In any case, this definitely has a little bit of both blue and black character, so that would be perfectly appropriate. Then you could name it something like "Fevered Brilliance" or "Seizure of Revelation"

I'm always a little lairy of gold cards, given that we seem to make a lot more of them than R&D... here it's almost a stock card to take ability X from one colour and ability Y from another colour and nail them together to get a gold card (just in general, I'm not digging at anyone).

Now you've made me think about it though, is there anything to stop us making this a purely black card? Ambition's Cost and Night's Whisper set the trend, and this could cost {B} or and be roughly fair. I like that idea a bit better than another gold card... we could probably use 'Seizure of Revelation' for the name then too, although it's a little off the flavour I was thinking of, which was a brain implant which wipes out part of your memory but makes you cleverer.

[Nazdakka]

Is this boring, ok, or fine as it is? Any opinions on the switch to black?

[Ephraim]

Oops. Sorry. I had meant to comment on this -- I like the idea of switching this to black. I think it fits there better than it fits in blue. As far as the name/flavour goes, the problem with making this an implant is that it would somehow have to be associated with Phyrexia, which is no more. They're the only culture in Magic that really engaged in implantation, as far as I can tell. That's not necessarily a problem, mind you -- there are a handful of Phyrexian themed cards in the master list now and the first set, at any rate, is pretty eclectic.

[Nazdakka]

Ok, I've switched the order of the two abilities. That makes the card a little bit worse - there are now more cards in hand to get hit by the extraction effect, and there's a possibility of the opposition getting tells from you.

Thinking about flavour, I take your point about implants... sticking within Magic flavour is handy. I'm coming round to Fevered Brilliance, flavour text acting as an explanation:

Those who suffered from the fever were seen as prophets until their minds  succumbed

[Nazdakka]

24hr Clock, flavour text is open to suggestions though.

[SpencerForHire]

Perhaps only allow your opponent half the cards.
Example:
Draw 3 cards, then target player names two cards and searches your library graveyard and hand for a copy of each and removes them from the game.

He would obviously remove the named one from the hand first but as you see this makes it a bit worse while not completely ruining some decks.

Either way this card would be ridiculous in death long.

[Nazdakka]

Perhaps only allow your opponent half the cards.
Example:
Draw 3 cards, then target player names two cards and searches your library graveyard and hand for a copy of each and removes them from the game.

He would obviously remove the named one from the hand first but as you see this makes it a bit worse while not completely ruining some decks.

Hmm. Your wording gives more chance of having your hand wrecked, but less of a lasting impact on the deck. I'll explain my thoughts: I was designing the drawback to minimise combo potential while giving a 'build around me' type of feel, the way you get with Tainted Pact - that card produces tension between the natural desire to build a consistant deck with lots of 4-ofs and the way Pact likes lots of different cardnames. In the same way, this card clearly wants lots of cardnames and varied win conditions to be at its best, so no simple 1-2 card combos like a Trix or Tendrils kill. Your wording also gives that sort of tension, but only in the short term - you can just ignore it and hope for the best if you want, as opposed to having to design a redundant deck and hope to avoid multiples of this.

Either way this card would be ridiculous in death long.

Maybe. Naming Death Wish could prove awkward for Death Long. Anyway, T1 is a special case when it comes to this sort of thing... I figure brokenness comes as standard anyway, so why bother designing for it...

[Nazdakka]

Clock...

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]