Some cool abilities that I'd like to see

[KDenz81]

What sort of creature or card abilities would you come up with?

Are there any existing abilities that you would simplify such as Unnafected by summoning sickness to Haste or most recently Attacking doesn't cause this creature to tap to Vigilance.

Here are a few ideas I've been toying with.


Celerity (You may play this creature any time you could play an instant)

Force (Remove a card in your hand from the game of the same color as the spell played, and pay 1 life instead of paying the casting cost) - this could be for creatures or other spells.

Immunity or Invulnerable (this creature can't be the target of spells or abilities.)

Forestbond (when this creature comes into play you may put a Forest card from your hand into play.)

Swampheart (as long as an opponent controls a swamp, this creature gets +2/+1 and Fear.)

Forestheart (If one of your opponents controls a Forest this creature gets +1/+1 and  Regenerate.)

Islandheart (if an opponent controls an Island this creature gains Flying and [BB] : Return this creature to it's owner's hand.)

Mountainheart (if an opponent controls a Mountain, this creature gains Haste and " +1/+0 until end of turn.)

Venom, or Poison, Whenever this creature deals damage to a creature, destroy that creature at end of combat.

 Repulse, When this creature comes into play return target permanent/land/creature/artifact/etc. to its owner's hand.

Psion X for creatures that tap to deal X damage by tapping it.

Weakness (Color) (This creature can't block (Color) creatures.)

Hesitation (This creature must wait an additional turn before it can attack.)

Peek (When this creature comes into play look at the top four cards of your library and put them back in any order.)

Essence (Whenever this creature deals or receives combat damage you gain that much life.)

Recover (When this card is put into any graveyard from play, shuffle it into its owner's library.)

Autoresolve (This spell can't be countered, this spell's ability can't be countered.  This spell has no resolve period.)

Some of these abilities you can pay to activate, such as Recover, or Peek, etc...

Let me know what you think.

[Ephraim]

I like a handful of these.

Celerity is interesting, for example. When I read MaRo's article and saw that they almost named "haste" that, I really wished they had. I think that playable at instant speed is a good mechanic for the name. My one reservation is that it occurs so seldom that it may not be worth keywording.

I like the principle behind Landheart and Weakness. I don't think, however, that they should be keyworded. I like that people are thinking about how to take advantage of what land types peole control and what colours their creatures are and such, but I think there should be more flexibility in how those things apply than one set of bonuses or penalties. For examples of some cards I've designed that have similar traits, see Marsh Goshawk, Arboreal Glider, Frozen Spirit, and Torpid Spirit in the Blue Master List.

I like the idea of Venom. In fact, that very topic came up just a few days ago. The objection was raised (and it's a good objection) that there are three abilities that are very similar and which are often associated with venom: creatures die when blocking/blocked; creatures die when damaged; creatures don't untap next turn. All three exist and are actively used ([card]Serpentine Basilisk[/card], [card]Tangle Asp[/card], [card]Orochi Ranger[/card])

Hesitation seems kind of interesting. Mechanically, I'm not absolutely positive how you would word it, but anything that allows for undercosted fat is neat, in my eyes.

Essence can probably just be Spirit Link, instead, with the standard "whenever this creature deals damage" trigger. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are expecting that ability to be keyworded pretty soon anyhow.

Peek would be okay, if instead it were "Peek X" and allowed you to rearrange the top X cards of your library. Otherwise, it falls into the same rut as Threshold -- that they might want to bring Threshold back with some value besides 7 as the magic number, but would have to rework the mechanic to do so.

Recover, Autoresolve, Psion, Repulse, and Force all seem incredibly narrow. They hardly ever appear and when they do, they're better off leaving the details of the mechanic unfixed. For example, something like Sparksmith is a perfectly good direct damage creature, but it doesn't fit the Psion template. Force locks out the possibility of other alternate casting costs, which is really the one area that can be tampered with to make an ACC spell more or less powerful

[KDenz81]

Thanks for the feedback Ephram.  

I've been thinking about how to word the ability Hesitation.  I think it might look something like this.  

Hesitation (This creature is affected by summoning sickness for an additional turn.)  

I think Venom should be more or less the keyword ability for the old enchant creature card Venom out of The Dark, 4th, and 5th.

Venom (Whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, destroy that creature at end of combat.)

Poison or Sedate might be better suited for doesn't untap or creatures die when blocking / blocked.

I'm glad you like some of my ideas, and yeah, a few of them still need some work.
Denz