Cycle of Staple Spells

[Marco]

I've been a fan of this mechanic since Primitive Justice was printed. This is not the same as the Kicker mechanic.

Diminish
2W
Instant
As an additional cost to play Diminish, you may pay 1W any number of times.
Destroy target artifact or enchantment. For each additional 1W you paid, destroy another target artifact or enchantment.

Outwit
1UU
Instant
As an additional cost to play Outwit, you may pay UU any number of times.
Return target permanent to its owner�s hand. For each additional UU you paid, return another target permanent to its owner�s hand.

Exterminate
3B
Instant
As an additional cost to play Exterminate, you may pay 2B any number of times.
Destroy target nonblack creature. It can�t be regenerated. For each additional 2B you paid, destroy another target nonblack creature. It can�t be regenerated.

Seism
1RR
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play Seism, you may pay 2R any number of times.
Destroy target land. For each additional 2R you paid, destroy another target land.

Adrenaline Rush
1G
Instant
As an additional cost to play Adrenaline Rush, you may pay G any number of times.
Target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn. For each additional G you paid, another target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.

[Marco]

Current Wording:

Diminish
2W
Instant
As an additional cost to play Diminish, you may pay 1W any number of times.
Destroy target artifact or enchantment. For each additional 1W you paid, destroy another target artifact or enchantment.

Seism
1RR
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play Seism, you may pay 2R any number of times.
Destroy target land. For each additional 2R you paid, destroy another target land.

[xrizzo]

Outwit
1UU
Instant
As an additional cost to play Outwit, you may pay UU any number of times.
Return target permanent to its owner’s hand. For each additional UU you paid, return another target permanent to its owner’s hand.

I would like the additional cost at 1U instead.  To activate even 1 additional bounce it is 2UUU (prohibitive already). 

[Ephraim]

I can see where you're coming up with the mana costs for these -- it looks as though you've taken the mana cost of various appropriate spells (Disenchant, Boomerang, Stone Rain, Dark Banishing, and Giant Growth) to constitute the additional cost of these. In some cases, I think deviation may be in order -- or simply selecting a different spell.

I agree with XRizzo. It's relevant that the blue one can bounce any permanent, but the mana cost is a lot worse than that of Undo, which I hardly think is broken. You might consider making this a card drawer/cart filter of some sort. The blue bounce ability tends to clash slightly with the red, black, and white destruction abilities. I don't think this would be unreasonable:
Outwit; 2U; Sorcery; As an additional cost to play Outwit, you may pay 1U any number of times. Draw two cards then discard a card. For each additional 1U you paid, draw two cards then discard a card.

I think that the white one is exactly what it should be. It's versatile, effective, but not so cheap as to be used to destroy many more than two artifacts and/or enchantments at a time.

I think the black one should mimic Terror instead of mimicing Dark Banishing. The big advantage of that is that you then get to cost it more moderately at 2B / 1B instead of 3B / 2B.

The red one is definitely sufficiently costly for what it does, but I don't know if it's definitely the most interesting thing you could do with it. Misguided Rage might make a better model than Stone Rain.

The green one just seems very cheap for what it does. 1GG for +6/+6 is very strong. I'd definitely be more comfortable with it if you were to use Predator's Strike as your model. 3GG for +6/+6 and some trample seems a lot more reasonable.

[Marco]

I suppose I could lower the additional cost of Outwit to 1U, or go with Ephraim's "Draw two cards, then discard a card" idea.

I've already done Terror cards, but Terror would be less costly than Dark Banishing...

I really like my Stone Rain card, but Misguided Rage is very intriguing...

Card Name
1RR
Sorcery
As an additional cost to play ~this~, you may pay 2R any number of times.
Target player sacrifices a permanent. For each additional 2R you paid, that player sacrifices another permanent.

The casting cost on the green one could be too low. Maybe +2/+2? You can't target the same creature with the additional cost(s)...

[Nefarias]

The green one: Since you can't target the same creature twice, While 1GG may be a bit cheap, 3GG is probably too expensive. The two cards that come to mind are Symbiosis and Overrun. Symbiosis gives two creatures +2/+2 each for only 1G, and Overrun gives +3/+3 (and trample) to ALL your guys. Maybe +2/+2 for G, then G to copy, or +3/+3, trample, and 1G then 1G to copy may be in order.

The black one: There are slight problems with using both the Terror model and the Dark Banishing model. The Terror model uses the clunky "non-artifact" clause, and the Dark Banishing model uses the 'cannot be regenerated" clause, both of which Wizards are trying to cut down on as much as possible (though they a far from off-limits). Since killing creatures is very black, I don't see "Destroy target non-black creature" at BB and 1B (or even BB again) to copy as being problematic.

I realize that implementing them destroys the allusions to their older counterparts (even though Seism's MC isn't Stone Rain's +1), and if you don't want to ruin that, it's cool, but I believe these are better cards.

[MrZuccinniHead]

The only one i was worried about was the green one, but when i saw it must target a different creature each time, it seemed fine.

[Marco]

I know that WotC is trying to make regeneration mean something, so I could drop the "It can't be regenerated", as long as that doesn't cheapen the link to the card name, Exterminate.

[Matt]

"Outwit" sounds more like a counterspell than a bounce spell.

[Jacob Orlove]

The white one is slightly out of flavor: disenchant naturalize is green now.

[Godder]

This sounds odd, but when these cycles get created, they're great in theory, but people tend to forget that because the first activation is usually more expensive (to avoid making another card obsolete), the additional activations often cost too much for a card to be useful, because a similar or better effect is probably available in the card pool as well. For example, Stone Rain sees play, but I never saw anyone play Rain of Salt in serious tournament decks, simply because a 6 mana sorcery should do big things, and destroy two target lands wasn't big enough.

Seism would see play not only because it's almost strictly better than Stone Rain (which is considered a bad thing by RnD), but also because it's an extra 3-cost LD to go with Stone Rain. Some LD is ok, but too much cheap LD is seen as being as bad as too many cheap hard counters.

Of the rest, Adrenaline Rush is great (although I suspect it would be +2/+2 if it came out of RnD to avoid warping Limited, or 2G to start with), and the other three are only useful in Limited or in really slow formats.

What I suggest is that everything costs 1 more than whatever it's based on, and then the additional activations are cheaper:
Seism – 3R + 1R
Adrenaline Rush – 1G + G
Exterminate – 3B + B and 3 life
Diminish – 2W + W (but probably needs to change effect, as Jacob pointed out)
Outwit – 2U + 1U or 2U + U, and make it non-land permanent

[Marco]

I don't really care about this cycle anymore. I created Diminish and Seism for my set a long time ago and I really like them, but I'm not really interested in the others. The green one is okay, but I've made better cards that do what the blue and black ones do (and these are rather cost prohibitive).

The white one is slightly out of flavor: disenchant naturalize is green now.

This always comes up, doesn't it? I am not going to write a long tirade on the colour pie. I agree with the colour pie in theory, and I am happy that green has a disenchant from a deck builder's perspective, but I'm old school and in my mind Disenchant will always be white. And Diminish was created before the colour-pie shift and before Naturalize was printed. That said, white hasn't lost "Destroy target artifact or enchantment" post-Onslaught:

Altar's Light
Terashi's Grasp

I'm going to concentrate on Diminish and Seism in this thread, do you think they should be common or uncommon?

Art for Diminish
Art for Seism

[Matt]

That's kind of weird art for Diminish; nothing is being diminished at all that I can see. Also, the nipples in that picture probably make it a no-no.

[Marco]

Really? I think it looks like that small white energy ball is diminishing in size (to nothingness). That would explain the destroy target enchantment part of the spell, not the destroy target artifact part, obviously. And I didn't even notice her nipples until you drew my attention to them. I wonder if any other card art with a female in it show nipples...?

[Matt]

I didn't even see the energy ball, I thought she just had a shiny shirt. I guess it diminished a little too much!

[asmoranomardicodais]

And I didn't even notice her nipples until you drew my attention to them. I wonder if any other card art with a female in it show nipples...?

The female version of gift of the woods is the best example, though I'm sure the Female elvish ranger (the 4/1 from alliances) and shanodin dryads (from fourth) might be the same way. 

[Marco]

Alright. Art aside, do you think Diminish and Seism should be common or uncommon?

[Matt]

Diminish could be common for its power, but it's more complicated than commons typically are. Seism pretty much needs to be uncommon so as to not ruin drafts, so I would put them both at uncommon.

[Marco]

Diminish could be common for its power, but it's more complicated than commons typically are. Seism pretty much needs to be uncommon so as to not ruin drafts, so I would put them both at uncommon.

Agreed. I think I am going to ask to have this thread closed. I am not going to request that Diminish and Seism be added to the Master List (unless the mods want to). I'm not sure what happened with the link to the pictures...

[Marco]

I've sent Matt and Bram a PM to have this thread closed.