Splendid Preservation

[Ephraim]

Splendid Preservation
{W}
Instant

Choose a color. Prevent all damage that would dealt to and dealt by creatures of the chosen color this turn.

***

White is a difficult colour to design for. Damage prevention and life gain in particular are ridiculously shallow mechanics and yet they seem to be the most definitive abilities of the colour. One thing I have noticed is that selective fog effects can be really interesting and one sided (I have a soldier deck, so I am especially fond of Frontline Strategist.) I reckon this is a basic, common, white combat trick. Sometimes it will just be Holy Day; sometimes it will waste an opponent's combat tricks; sometimes it will save your creatures from direct damage. On the other hand, sometimes it won't even be as good as Holy Day, since an opponent may have more than one colour of creature.

***

Current Wording:

Splendid Preservation
{W}
Instant

Choose one -- Prevent all damage that would be dealt this turn to all creatures target player controls; or prevent all damage that would be dealt this turn by all creatures target player controls.

[Sanity_XIV]

Radiance- ? I wouldn't be surprised if this card comes up in Rav at some point.

[Ephraim]

Now that I think about it, I may well have been subconciously inspired by the Radiance mechanic. In that case, I am going to change this to hit creatures with a converted mana cost of your choosing and drop the cost to , since that's considerably less powerful.

[Jacob Orlove]

Why does this have to be dealt to AND dealt by? It would be much cooler as "or", although then your almost overloading on choices for such a bad card.

[Ephraim]

Why does this have to be dealt to AND dealt by? It would be much cooler as "or", although then your almost overloading on choices for such a bad card.

That actually gives me an idea. The OR options does make this a little bit more powerful. How about I also give it Entwine to make it a little bit more interesting and versatile as well? The only question is what the card should look at: converted mana cost, colour, creature type? If I really want to make it better, I could just have it be "Choose one -- Prevent all damage that would be dealt this turn to all creatures target player controls; or prevent all damage that would be dealt this turn by all creatures target player controls." (without entwine option). Would that be adequately more powerful? It operates both as a fog and as a combat trick.

[Matt]

That's actually interesting, because NOT paying the entwine is stronger than paying it!

[Godder]

Either option is absolutely monstrous in Limited (and hilarious in multiplayer). This is a potential one-sided Wrath of God here, at the bargain basement price of 1W. Entwine is also amazing, since you can choose different targets for each option. Maybe at 1WW (compare to Sivvi's Ruse) or 2WW, but I doubt 1W is possible for an effect this good.

[Ephraim]

We passed a previous card I created -- Superior Tactics, at a cost of {W}{W}. It read "Prevent all damage that would be dealt this turn by any number of target creatures." This is not as good as that (although that could be undercosted too, I suppose.) My reasoning there was that if it was going to be a one-sided wrath, you still needed an adequate combat situation and it was more powerful than Splendid Preservation in limited. Note that I have not given the current version of this card Entwine. If I were, it would probably be fairly costly -- {W} or so. Knowing about Superior Tactics, would you find it adequate, Godder, if I were to increase this card's cost to {W}? Would that still be adequate if I gave it Entwine {W}?

[Anusien]

The way it's worded now, it seems like there are two targets; each mode targets.  You'd have to clean that up if you added Entwine.  I don't even know if you need to target, you could just choose a player.

I would not add entwine to the card.  The most common use is going to be in some combat situation, either to Fog or turn a series of disadvantageous blocks into a really good situation.  You're never going to want to turn a one-sided fog into a two-sided fog.  Adding entwine might also increase the cost of the card, and I think this is solid where it is.

[Godder]

1WW would be fine. For entwine, if you went there, Divine Light costs W, and almost mirrors the first choice of the two, so a cost of 1 would be allowable, one suspects. Superior Tactics is very good (Limited bomb, one suspects), but this prevents damage from burn, for example, so Sup. Tacs isn't strictly better, although it is probably generally better.

[Ephraim]

I think that I'll compromise and change this card's mana cost to {W}. "Usually worse than" a card that costs {W}{W} suggests that this should nominally cost less.

[Ephraim]

24 Hour Clock

[Bram]

Closed and added.