Prismatic Arc (mana pool card #1)

[Harlequin]

Prismatic Arc
Sorcery

Deal 5 damage to target player.  Prevent 1 damage for each different color mana in that player's mana pool.
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Why this card is interesting:  It doesn't actually spend their mana.  This weakens the card because your opponent doesn't loose the mana to prevent the damage.  This strengths the card because if the player doesn't have available mana sinks or instant spells, then they will take mana burn (resulting in 5 damage anyway). 

The challenge:  Costing a 5 direct damage card, and balancing flavor versus the color pie.

Red -- 5 direct damage, that must be a red card.  I totally agree that direct damage should be contained in Red and could potentially spill into black.  However Red doesn't have any justification for the "sunburst" style finesse this card has. 

Ok, so Black? -- lets say we change "deal damage" to "pay life" and make it black.  we again run into the question of, why does black suddenly care about sunburst?  We also run into the templating problem of changing Damage|Prevent damage into Pay Life | Reduce the life paid.

Green?  -- Green has very very few direct damage sorcery/instants, and no cards to my knowledge that target only players for damage.  However, Green often sports Prismatic or Sunburst style effects.  So we're not totally out in left field.

Blue? -- yeah keep dreaming.  There is no justification for either effect in blue.

Well then the answer must be multi color!  White/Red,  White/Green, Red/Green... White/Black.  I think this hurts the flavor even more... why would a "Prismatic" attack be comprised of some colors but not others?

So why White --  Lets start with the Sunburst effect.  White has a history of punishing mono-color decks (search the database for "choose a color").  I think the damage prevention has the best flavor in white.  Also, white light is built by combining all visible lights, which was the original concept behind the flavor of the card. 

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I think this is a difficult card to put into the pie.  Also how do we cost a card that when played correctly will likely deal 4-5 direct damage.

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The easy way out: 

Prismatic Coils (or )
Artifact

Prismatic Coils comes into play tapped.
Sacrifice: Deal 5 damage to target player.  Prevent 1 damage for each different color mana in that player's mana pool.

Or even more interesting...

Prismatic Coils
Artifact

Sunburst
Prismatic Coils comes into play tapped.
, Sacrifice Prismatic Coils: Deal 1 damage to target player for each charge counter on Prismatic Coils.  Prevent 1 damage for each different color mana in that player's mana pool.


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Do we want to try and add direct damage to white? or stick with the clunkier "Coils" version of the card.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Why not red? Red had domain cards, and all this is is a backwards Tribal Flames.

[parallax]

How about at instant? I don't think there are any five color instants yet/

[Anusien]

You want "This deals 5 - X damage to target player, where X is the number of different colors of mana in that player's mana pool."

It's very cute, but a sort of weak effect.  Most of the time it's just going to be 5 mana for 4.  I'm not sure it's a useful or relevant card, but you can probably just make it .

[Harlequin]

I think I would rather scrap it than put it in red.  If we do put it in red, its just a "strictly worse than .." type card.  Making it white gives it not only a more clear flavor, but a unique niche (which is the optimistic way of saying, totally screws with the color pie).  I think this card is basically the opposite of a normal red card.  There is a history of red cards that offer damage as an alternative to something bad... think brow beat or book burning.  This does the opposite, it starts with damage then rewards your opponent for playing a balanced deck with mana outlets.  I dunno it just doesn't seem red.

As for the wording, I think I like the damage prevention.  It means it can interact with cards that don't alow damage prevention.  Also I'm not sure, but I think "X" would be locked into the spell as soon as it hit the stack.  With the damage prevention wording the opponent has plenty of time to add mana to thier pool to avoid some damage.

So what do we think? Thumbs down on white dirrect damage?

[parallax]

I think I would rather scrap it than put it in red.  If we do put it in red, its just a "strictly worse than .." type card.  Making it white gives it not only a more clear flavor, but a unique niche (which is the optimistic way of saying, totally screws with the color pie).  I think this card is basically the opposite of a normal red card.  There is a history of red cards that offer damage as an alternative to something bad... think brow beat or book burning.  This does the opposite, it starts with damage then rewards your opponent for playing a balanced deck with mana outlets.  I dunno it just doesn't seem red.

As for the wording, I think I like the damage prevention.  It means it can interact with cards that don't alow damage prevention.  Also I'm not sure, but I think "X" would be locked into the spell as soon as it hit the stack.  With the damage prevention wording the opponent has plenty of time to add mana to thier pool to avoid some damage.

So what do we think? Thumbs down on white dirrect damage?

Thumbs way down as you aren't even trying to justify why it should be white.