Unnamed Mass Bounce

[Ephraim]

Unnamed Mass Bounce

Instant

For each color of permanent in play, return target permanent of that color to its owner's hand.

***

This may be overcosted, I admit. I gave it the same cost as Temporal Fissure because I thought that it could be a fairly potent bounce spell, especially with blue's penchant for changing the colour of things. Although there's the possibility that it will force you to return at least one permanent you control to your hand, that is neither always a bad thing nor always going to be the case. Further, against some decks, this could bounce three or more permanents controlled by your opponent and none of yours. To balance out the fact that this will sometimes only get one or two things, I've made it an instant (even though bouncing five of your opponent's permanents at instant speed is really nasty.)

[Ephraim]

Current Wording:

Shattering the Prism
{4}{U}
Instant

Chose a permanent of each color, then return each permanent chosen this way to its owner's hand.

[Matt]

Shouldn't it follow Sundering Titan's wording?

[Ephraim]

Not necessarily. I actually want it to target, unless you think it would be better off not targeting.

[Laurie Cheers]

This isn't a usable wording - which is why Sundering Titan doesn't target anything. If you play this when all permanents in play are blue, and in response a red permanent comes into play, will the spell fail to resolve because its set of targets is illegal?

I suggest:

Return up to one target white permanent to its owner's hand. Return blue, black, red and green permanents in the same way.

Of course, unfortunately this is completely optional, without the disadvantage that you presumably intended. If you don't like that, I think it'll have to match Sundering Titan.

[orgcandman]

why not "Return a permanent of each color to it's owner's hand" or "For each color, return a permanent of that color to it's owner's hand"?

[Ephraim]

Hrrm...talk about inelegant prose, but how does this work:

For each color, if there is a permanent of that color in play, return target permanent of that color to its owner's hand.

If a permanent of a new colour comes into play in response to this, there's no problem, since every colour was checked at the time of casting and targets were selected at that time.

[Ephraim]

Wow. I found this card on the seventh page -- and I liked this idea, too. It occurs to me that under new rules, there's no simple way to make this target different permanents, if one permanent satisfies two colour conditions. In that case, I will just go with the Sundering Titan-esque solution...

Choose a permanent of each color, then return those permanents to their owners' hands.

OR

Chose a permanent of each color, then return each permanent chosen this way to its owner's hand.

(the second option may be preferable -- I am pretty sure that WotC scrupulously avoids the phrase " their owners' ")

[Ephraim]

I wish to thank jeek for this perfectly acceptable name and I now initiate the 24 Hour Clock.

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]