UH in Type 4

[Nibble]

I'm surprised a thread like this hasn't popped up yet, so I figure I might as well give it a go. Unhinged has some awesome cards for Type 4, and I figured I'll share my opinion and hopefully get some discussion going.

First a little point I'd like to make, the reason for which will become clear later. My friends and I have decided to interpret the Type 4 rules a little differently. Basically this:

- There is no Arcane Lab effect.
- One spell you cast each turn has its mana cost paid in full.
- You have unlimited mana with which to use abilities. Or abilities cost nothing to use. The latter is probably more logical, so let's go with it.

The reasons?

- The first reason this came about was Force of Will, and to a lesser extent Misdirection. We figured you should be able to pitch a card to get around the one spell/turn limit, and eventually this rules structure came about instead of just saying 'hey, it works'.
- Stuff like Reversal of Fortune and Temporal Aperture might be worth playing now. Aperture in particular I think would be cool, because it's essentially 'once per untap, you can play an extra, random spell'. Not broken, but interesting enough.
- I also just realized, if you go by 'one spell costs zero' and 'abilities cost zero', this means that you don't actually have free mana just floating around all the time. Which means Mana Leak and friends are actually usable. Not sure if the format needs many more counterspells, but it's worth thinking about.
- It makes the card I'm going to mention first quite interesting.

Mox Lotus
Yeah, under the Arcane Lab rules this does nothing. Under the rule set we're using? Well, if you let it use its ability as if it were any other ability, it's completely broken by letting you play as many spells as you want all the time. However, house-errata it so that only Mox Lotus' ability still costs mana to use (or under the 'infinite mana for abilities' theory, only Mox Lotus mana can be used for its own ability). Then what do you have? One turn per untap, you're not restricted in the number of spells you can play. Of course, it'll take some testing to figure out if this is as balanced and fun as I think it'll be, or if it's actually ludicrously broken... but won't know until we try, eh?

Now that that's out of the way, the rest of Unhinged...

Creatures

Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil
I think he's an auto-in. Strong body, neat ability, awesome in flavor and coolness factor. Plus, his dad's already in, and you wouldn't want to keep them apart, now would you?

Old Fogey
7/7 is pretty big, but his abilites are such a hindrance. He's fun, but probably not good enough.

Avatar of Me
Once again, fun but maybe not functional enough. Somewhere in the range of 5/10-6/14, he makes a pretty good defender, but is otherwise unspectacular.

B-I-N-G-O
I'd say that in Type 4, there's probably a good chance he'll hit his bonus at least once. However, in Type 4, he also probably won't last long enough to make it worth it.

Collector Protector
Very strong ability, if you bring a stack of commons with you. Possible inclusion. Just hope someone doesn't Heat Ray him for a few million...

Greater Morphling
I know he's been talked about a bit already. 9/1 haste, shadow, double strike is mean, but 5/5 haste, bushido 1 x800, trample, provoke is even meaner. Probably too strong to include, unless you already play with firebreathers.

Johnny, Combo Player
Way too strong, I think. Unlimited instant-speed Demonics is ludicrous.

Little Girl
We're currently using Bear Cub as a joke/dud creature, whose only use is an insulting kill condition or Survival fodder. We may have a new winner here.

Richard Garfield, Ph.D.
If you don't agonize to the nth degree about every last decision you can make with him, he can be wonderfully fun, and not terribly broken. I just got done playing a game where I had him, and he's soooo great. I had dropped a Memnarch and was able to steal all but a Multani and a Plated Slagwurm. At the end of someone's turn, I played Plaguebearer as Diabolic Edict to off Multani. On my turn, I flashed it back as a Chainer's Edict to kill the Slagwurm. Later my Memnarch got killed, so I replayed him via a Platinum Angel. And even later, one of my opponents had a frightening board of creatures, but I took solace in the fact that my Survival could be a Respite, or my Wing Shards a Reverse Damage against a fat Mortivore. SO FUN.

Uktabi Kong
Fat + Shatterstorm, what's not to love? He may be underwhelming in some situations, but I think he's worth a shot.

Artifacts

Gleemax
Also has gotten some discussion, though the argument I hear more often is whether or not it's good enough, rather than too good. I think it's worthwhile, because it stops a lot of removal (and not just spells - perma-WoGs and Masticores too), and is a bit resilient to removal itself.

World-Bottling Kit
Could be interesting removal, and RFG is a good thing.

Enchantments

Necro-Impotence
You don't have land to untap, and usually very few permanents, so the drawback is very low in the format. And half a life per card is nice. Probably worth a try.

Topsy-Turvy
Kinda neat, but the effect isn't very big. So you untap and draw at end of turn, and turn order is reversed. Not worth your turn's spell.

Yet Another Aether Vortex
I personally think it'd be a lot of fun, but opinions may vary. I want to give it a try though.

Instants and Sorceries

AWOL
Definitely. Awesome removal, plain and simple.

Blast from the Past
I think it's good. Once each turn, you can Cycle it, then Madness-Kicker-Buyback it, to get Shock, a goblin, and a draw. Pretty much strictly better than Whispers, but I don't think it'd be too troublesome.

Remodel
Maybe. There are a lot of annoying artifacts, and some annoying ways to get them back from the 'yard.

Who/What/When/Where/Why
If it weren't for Who, this would be a great card. Maybe we can just pretend it's not there...

Rare-B-Gone
With a lot of the stuff in the format, this is great. And it lets everyone see each others' hands. Whee.

Gotcha! cards

These get their own section, because they're that cool and unique. They can also be quite strong, with a slightly more convoluted but sometimes just as useful form of Buyback/Flashback.

Deal Damage
Solid effect, and fairly usable Gotcha trigger. One of the weaker ones in T4, but possible.

Kill! Destroy!
Strong effect, very usable Gotcha trigger. I think this should definitely be included.

Number Crunch
It's probably about as buyback-able as Capsize. It's pretty hard not to say numbers. Oy.

Spell Counter
A plain counterspell on its own, that has a fair chance of being reused. Watch for when someone tries to cast something, and gets a 'Didn't you already cast a spell this turn?' response.

Name Dropping
Has the potential to be really good. As I see it, probably usable three major ways: 1) accidental (Spirit of the Night.. geez), 2) someone trying to reference a card in your graveyard ('Ok, I'll cast Dance of the Dead targeting your Bosh... aw, crap'), or 3) blatant trickery ('Hey guys, what's the creature type of Mortivore again?').

Also, a word of caution when playing with any Gotcha card - be careful trying to get rid of them. We played a game where a player had a Kill! Destroy! in the graveyard, and another player wanted to get rid of it. He says, 'I'll Coffin Purge your Kill! Destroy!.' To which he got the response, 'Gotcha.'

[jpmeyer]

Richard Garfield, Ph.D.
If you don't agonize to the nth degree about every last decision you can make with him, he can be wonderfully fun, and not terribly broken. I just got done playing a game where I had him, and he's soooo great. I had dropped a Memnarch and was able to steal all but a Multani and a Plated Slagwurm. At the end of someone's turn, I played Plaguebearer as Diabolic Edict to off Multani. On my turn, I flashed it back as a Chainer's Edict to kill the Slagwurm. Later my Memnarch got killed, so I replayed him via a Platinum Angel. And even later, one of my opponents had a frightening board of creatures, but I took solace in the fact that my Survival could be a Respite, or my Wing Shards a Reverse Damage against a fat Mortivore. SO FUN.

And while you're at it, you can flash back the Respite as Moment's Peace!

Also, while this was allowable in Mental Magic, I'm not sure if it is with this one: can you call a card that costs 2R Squee and return it to your hand during your upkeep? (once, anyway)

[moonkhan]

Richard Garfield, Ph.D.
If you don't agonize to the nth degree about every last decision you can make with him, he can be wonderfully fun, and not terribly broken. I just got done playing a game where I had him, and he's soooo great. I had dropped a Memnarch and was able to steal all but a Multani and a Plated Slagwurm. At the end of someone's turn, I played Plaguebearer as Diabolic Edict to off Multani. On my turn, I flashed it back as a Chainer's Edict to kill the Slagwurm. Later my Memnarch got killed, so I replayed him via a Platinum Angel. And even later, one of my opponents had a frightening board of creatures, but I took solace in the fact that my Survival could be a Respite, or my Wing Shards a Reverse Damage against a fat Mortivore. SO FUN.

Richard Garfield isn't going in my type 4 pool because some of my players are veterans at Magic and some are strictly type 4 casual players that don't have competitive knowledge of 10+ years worth of cards. I have thought about doing a house rule that you can only name cards in the type 4 stack, though. Honestly there are so many strong cards in type 4 I'm not sure he's needed anyways.

We'll be trying Johnny, Combo Player later this week. I'm skeptical but with one-spell-per-turn he could be tamed.

I wish there wasn't an X cost on Who/What/When/Where/Why!

[Jacob Orlove]

Just play W/W/W/W/W with X = 10. If we can errata quanar, we can errata that. Be sure to write it on the card, though.

[jpmeyer]

We'll be trying Johnny, Combo Player later this week. I'm skeptical but with one-spell-per-turn he could be tamed.

If people are willing to first pick Armistice and Tower of Fortunes, that would indicate to me that this is probably too strong.

[Nibble]

Also, while this was allowable in Mental Magic, I'm not sure if it is with this one: can you call a card that costs 2R Squee and return it to your hand during your upkeep? (once, anyway)

I'm not sure how Mental Magic rules were written, but by Garfield's text, I'd interpret it to be a no. He says you can play cards as other cards, but using a triggered ability isn't quite the same. I guess this means you can't make card X into a card with the same cost that has Cycling and cycle it, too. No big loss, probably.

Richard Garfield isn't going in my type 4 pool because some of my players are veterans at Magic and some are strictly type 4 casual players that don't have competitive knowledge of 10+ years worth of cards. I have thought about doing a house rule that you can only name cards in the type 4 stack, though. Honestly there are so many strong cards in type 4 I'm not sure he's needed anyways.

I'd argue the most fun you can have with him is figuring out random, completely situational cards to get you out of a certain pinch (or even just to mess with your opponents' heads), so limiting it to just the T4 stack kinda kills that. I do agree though, if he'd be a majorly unfair swing to certain players as opposed to others, it's no good to play him as-is.

If people are willing to first pick Armistice and Tower of Fortunes, that would indicate to me that this is probably too strong.

And Aladdin's Lamp, Planar Portal, and Bringer of the Black Dawn are pretty dangerous. Even Citanul Flute and Survival can be crazy. Being able to do all these cards can do, and more, unlimited times, at instant speed, is too ridiculous. Although, it also depends somewhat on the size of your stack - if you have a relatively small stack, so decks aren't packed with oodles of brokenness every time, I can see where he'd be playable.

[Alfred]

Is "Ach! Hans, run!" too good? And Meddling Kids could be fatastic if you know what is in your opponent's deck.

[Nefarias]

My group played with Unhinged Friday night and here's a quick rundown:

Johnny: too good (though out stack is uber powerful)
Ach Hans Run: Never survived to see an upkeep
Gleemax: threw a Bosh back at owner, nothing else.
Yet Another Aether Vortex: Immensely fun, though symmetrical. Too fun not to include, imo.
Greater Morphling: Swung for 18, followed by GtR.
Rare-B-Gone: Nuked entire board except Morph and Tastumasa token, approx. 3/4 of hands.
Richard: Hit play once, leading to Treasure Trove for game.
Blast from the Plast: real annoying, real fast.