Breakthrough Mechanic

[Marco]

I have some card ideas that I want to post, but I don't want to just post them, I want to discuss them in the original post and I don't have a lot of free time to do that these days.

I've been thinking about this one for a long time. I think that Breakthrough is an interesting design that hasn't been expanded upon. What would Breakthrough look like in other colors?

Card Name
XB
Sorcery
Target player discards four cards, then choose X cards in your hand and discard the rest.

This simply replaces "Draw four cards" with "Target player discards four cards". This is obviously a strong card bordering on broken (if it's not already there). If this and a Swamp are in your opening hand you can make your opponent discard four cards on turn one. Of course, you would lose your hand in the process. This card reminds me of Mind Twist (which was Banned and is currently Restricted for a reason). On the other hand, it can be a Sorcery-speed One with Nothing. And if you think of it that way, how good can it be???

Other potential abuses of this card are turn one Swamp, Dark Ritual, Dark Confidant, and this card. Things get crazier in Vintage with Moxen. However, is this play that much better than turn one Swamp, Dark Ritual, Duress, Hymn to Tourach?

There are of course benefits to discarding your hand, including Hellbent, Madness, Threshold, and Flashback...

The question is, how many cards would make this balanced? Three? Two?

How does:

Card Name
XB
Sorcery
Target player discards two cards, then choose X cards in your hand and discard the rest.

Compare with:

Chain of Smog
Deception
Delirium Skeins
Last Rites

Keep in mind that this can be Misdirected and that the player targeted chooses which cards he or she discards.

Thoughts?

[Marco]

Current Wording:

Card Name
XB
Sorcery
Target player discards two cards, then choose X cards in your hand and discard the rest.

[Marco]

No one has any thoughts?

[President Skroob]

I think it's strong. Probably really strong.

I would play this in my Ichorid build all day long and my opponents would rue the day that this card was printed.

Basically, I think it's easily breakable. Ichorid would be one of the decks where they can sacrifice their hand with few regrets for a powerful effect, and there are other decks that can take advantage of the self-imposed discard to utilize Madness or Flashback spells. When you create a method to facilitate those spells and ALSO hit your opponent in the face with a 4 card loss baseball bat, things are looking pretty cruel.

What you compare it to, Swamp Ritual Duress Hymn, is a four card really strong opener. Swamp Ritual This would achieve what is most likely a better effect with three cards. This is also a better late game play by far than Duress and Hymn, as when hand sizes are shrinking and manabases are growing, you can save all of your cards and utterly annihilate your opponent's hand.

It's a very swingy effect.

[Marco]

I was going to post this in its own thread, but since this thread hasn't generated much discussion, I didn't see the point. My red Breakthough card would look like this:

Card Name
XR
Instant
~this~ deals 4 damage to target creature or player and 4-X damage to you.

It's not quite the same as Breakthrough, but you get the idea. Again, I think this is probably too strong because it is variable. Variable spells always cost more than their non-variable counterparts: Lightning Bolt costs R to deal 3 damage to a target, Fireball costs 3R to deal 3 damage to a target, but Fireball can deal less than 3 damage or more than 3 damage...

As it is now, this deals:
- 4 damage to target creature or player and 4 damage to you for R (in most cases better than Flame Rift)
- 4 damage to target creature or player and 3 damage to you for 1R
- 4 damage to target creature or player and 2 damage to you for 2R (Those decks that play 4 Char and 4 Psionic Blast would love this...)
- 4 damage to target creature or player and 1 damage to you for 3R
- 4 damage to target creature or player and no damage to you for 4R (Costs more than Lightning Blast...)

Maybe making it a sorcery would make it more fair...

[parallax]

Four damage for one mana is way too broken.  The reason breakthrough works is because low values for X counteract its effect.

[OfficeShredder]

I like to think mind twist IS the breakthrough counterpart to be honest.

[Demonic Attorney]

Even in its discard form, this card could be pretty crazy.  In an aggro deck that dumps its hand quickly, this could function as "B: Target player discards four cards."  That's pretty damn powerful.  Fugue causes a player to discard three cards for 3BB.  Granted it's not symmetrical, but symmetry is not a fair exchange for four less mana in a cost.  And of course there will also be Ichorid style decks that want to put cards in their graveyard, making the drawback an advantage.  In short, paying 1 mana to generate a 4-card discard effect is way too strong; I can't think of many cards, if any, that generate effects at a 1:4 ratio.

[Marco]

Okay, change made. (I can't say I disagree.) Still broken?

[Marco]

Alright, I'm this close to scrapping these ideas...