Lap of Luxury: Card drawing for Timmy

[Ephraim]

Lap of Luxury
  - Instant
Look at the top five cards of your library. Put one of those cards with the highest converted mana cost into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library.
When you're rich, you can afford to be frivolous.

It's a fun sort of card that I've had in mind for quite a while, now. It has the advantage over Brainstorm and Impulse, since it allows you to dig deeper, but has the disadvantage of severely restricting which of the cards you can pull to your hand. In a low mana curve deck, it could prove itself very useful. Plus, it's a fun card for Timmy, allowing him to look for his Plated Slagwurm in the top 5 cards of his deck.

[Ephraim]

Current Wording


Lap of Luxury

Instant
Reveal the top six cards of your library. Put one of them with the highest converted mana cost into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library.
When you're rich, you can afford to be frivolous.

[Jacob Orlove]

The only way you can put a condition on the card they get is to have them reveal all the cards. Otherwise, cheating would just be too easy. If you make them reveal, though, you could probably raise it to look at the top 6 or 7 cards. Then it would almost work as a tutor in real decks.

[Ephraim]

Okay. Revealing the cards doesn't seem so bad. And you think it should go 7 deep? Do you think that revealing them and the restriction of what can be retrieved are enough to keep the casting cost at , or do you suppose it would be appropriate to up it to in that case? Would that totaly defeat the card's usability in real decks?

[Jacob Orlove]

Since you don't get a choice, and your opponent still gets to see the cards, I'd say 1U is still fair.

[leviat]

Good Idea! I like it, too bad you have to reveal the cards though . I think you should probably be able to dig down 6 cards for .

[Ephraim]

Current Wording updated. You get to dig six cards deep and it costs . Are people generally happy with the name and the flavour text? Are there any Mercadian nobles of note to whom I could attribute the flavour text?

[TheFram]

What does this do if they are all lands and/or 0cc artifacts?

I assume you just get to choose one of them in that case.

[Ephraim]

@TheFram:
Correct. It's the same sort of card as Topple. If there is more than one legal target, it allows you to choose which one of those legal targets to pick.

[stijndon]

And I'm not even sure whether it's really good...It will grab an Abyss or Moat or Humility or whatever's costed four mana. Or a Morefling, depending on the deck. But in limited, it's generally quite nice a card.

Or am I missing some obvious tech, here?

As I see things now, this is an interesting card.

[Josti]

I think the wording should state that (X) in the manacost is zero.

Josti

[Jacob Orlove]

I think the wording should state that (X) in the manacost is zero.

Josti

That's in the rules; it doesn't need to be on the card, unless we want to give this (unnecessary) reminder text.

[Upinthe]

I'm worried about the thought of giving blue another cheap instant that can be abused with Isochron Scepter.

[Ephraim]

Yeah, I was thinking about that a little bit, too, Upinthe (after I'd posted the card). Isochron Scepter has really begun to get on my nerves - it means that cards that were competetively and appropriately costed before are no longer so (rather, they are under costed), just by merit of being able to be put on a stick. I wasn't going to mention it if nobody else did, but since you brougt it up, I'm all for fixing it.

What say you folks, make it cost or make it a sorcery? Since it brings the card directly to your hand, rather than putting it on top of your library, losing the instant speed benefit probably wouldn't destroy it's functionality? In either case, I would make it dig 7 cards deep.

[Jacob Orlove]

It's hardly better than an Impulse on a stick, so I wouldn't worry too much. Remember, this'll give you almost anything instead of an Ancestral, and even in T2, it won't always get you the wrath or whatever that you want. It basically just says "draw a nonland card".

[Ephraim]

I think that the concern is relevant. Perhaps it wouldn't strictly affect Type I, but I think there are sufficient 2-casting-cost spells that nearly an entire deck could be built on the principle of putting this on an Isochron Scepter to run through the deck at lightning speed. With Counterspell, Mana Leak, Boomerang, Cloud of Fairies...even Metathran Soldier all costing exactly 2, there isn't strictly a need for higher casting cost spells.

Isochron scepter provides incentive for a player to lower the mana curve of their deck, to make the greatest use of the Scepter. With a card like this, especially with Scepter already established, it provides even greater incentive to do so. Decks that already run Scepter would probably tighten the curve and hapily run this as a way of digging basically any card they want out of the top six cards of their library.

[Ephraim]

I'm bumping this because I'd like a little more commentary on the last raised issue before I start the 24 hour clock. If there's consensus that the card appears to be fine the way it is, I'll start the clock tonight, when I get home from work.

[Matt]

I think it's fine, but if you're concerned, make it cost 2U so it'll likely just get another Lap.

[Ephraim]

Ugh. That's a grim thought. I certainly don't want it doing nothing but digging up more copies of itself. I'll leave it as it is. Even if it results in a powerful cycling engine, it'll be only that. A solid deck will still have to be built around it.

24 Hour Clock.

[Jacob Orlove]

closed, added.