Gentleman's War

[Ephraim]

Gentleman's War
{W}
Enchantment

Attacking creatures don't untap during their controllers' next untap step.

***

The goal here is to slow down the game so that things can proceed at a more leisurely pace -- the way that civilized people fight wars. (I do, by the way, like this name, so I'm tempted to push for it even though it's kind of silly.) I'm pretty sure that this ability belongs in white. Although green gets a very similar ability, it's tied to damage or damage prevention and does not come packaged in a symmetrical enchantment.

If this seems a little bit weak, that's good. I am trying to experiment with rules-making cards that don't belong in the rare slot. Ghostly Prison is a good example, but there are precious few others. I guess it just seems that when a card goes and rewrites the rules of the game, it's usually a strong or weird enough effect that it needs to be rare. My goal, right now, is to try to expand upon the rules-making theme in the common and uncommon positions.

[Ephraim]

Current Wording:

Gentleman's War
{2}{W}
Enchantment

Whenever a creature attacks, put a protocol counter on it. If a creature with a protocol counter on it would untap, remove all protocol counters from that creature instead.
When Gentleman's War leaves play, remove all protocol counters from all creatures.

The wizard who devised this spell had lived through two civil wars, but wouldn't tolerate a barbarous one.

[Godder]

The only problem I see is that Tangle caused severe memory issues, which is why it hasn't been reprinted since Invasion block. This has the same memory issues, but every turn, so I'd highly recommend counters being placed on attacking creatures instead. Also, White does creatures with Vigilance, so this is decidedly to White's favour (as it should be )...

How about:

Gentleman's War
2W
Enchantment

Whenever a creature attacks, put a civilization counter on it.
Creatures with civilization counters don't untap during their controllers' untap phase.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, remove all civilization counters from all permanents that player controls.

[Ephraim]

I'm not sure that this suffers any greater memory issues than the new venom ability on the Kamigawa block snakes or the effect of [card]Blinding Beam[/card]. I can't really say that Tangle did or did not have memory issues, but it doesn't seem to have stopped them from printing other cards that would have the same problems.

[MrZuccinniHead]

I'm not sure that this suffers any greater memory issues than the new venom ability on the Kamigawa block snakes or the effect of [card]Blinding Beam[/card]. I can't really say that Tangle did or did not have memory issues, but it doesn't seem to have stopped them from printing other cards that would have the same problems.

yeah i was about to talk about the snakes being the same way.

[Godder]

Fair enough . I remember someone (Forsythe, I think) complaining about memory issues from Tangle, but the Snakes make things just as bad. Blinding Beam refers to all creatures, so it doesn't involve memory issues in the sense that I mean (it's no worse than Blinding Angel, for example).

[Ephraim]

24 Hour Clock

[Jacob Orlove]

This is a lot more confusing than those other cards because on any given turn, you'll have several tapped creatures, some of which will untap, some of which won't. Using counters is pretty much necessary, sadly.

[Ephraim]

I changed the wording to use counters. The card works a little bit differently now than it did before (because untap effects besides the untap step will still just remove a fatigue counter.) I figured going into describing exactly how the fatigue counters would only affect the untap step would be even more wordy and cumbersome.

[MrZuccinniHead]

I like the new wording better because it handles memory issues and it also handles the fact the when this leaves play, it's effect should die as well.

Started ugly but this turned into a nice card.  This and ghostly prison would be a great 1-2 punch to stop an aggro army.

[TheWellknownBrownie]

I like it. It's quite decent as is. Have you thought about flavor text? Something like, A new type of 'civil' war.


Although calling them Fatigue counters kind of kills the flavor a bit. Etiqutte counters, maybe?

[Godder]

This is a lot more confusing than those other cards because on any given turn, you'll have several tapped creatures, some of which will untap, some of which won't. Using counters is pretty much necessary, sadly.

See, told you so! Anyways, the current wording looks reasonable, but is it intentional that it doesn't affect creatures with Vigilance?

[Ephraim]

Yes, it's intentional, but I now see a flaw in the way the current wording works. A creature with vigilance will simply build up counters as the game progresses. Then, tapping it once could result in it being tapped down for a long, long time. I don't think I want it to work that way, so I'll come up with a new wording.

[Jacob Orlove]

Just replace "remove a fatigue counter" with "remove all fatigue counters" if you're really worried.

[Ephraim]

I updated to Jacob's wording and I changed the name of the counters to "protocol counters."

I think that should cover all of the objections that were raised, so I'm restarting the 24 Hour Clock.

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]