Artifact - Pandora's Soul

[jshields]

I have been thinking of somehow giving a boost to decks that would be creatureless by converting their spells into creatures.  Although this would likely be a broken artifact, I think it would be interesting to see something like this created

~~~~Updated Text~~~~

3

Legendary Artifact Creature - Spirit

Imprint -- As Pandora's Soul comes into play, you may reveal an instant or sorcery card in your hand and pay that card's mana cost. If you do, remove that card from the game. (That card is imprinted on Pandora's Soul.)


Sacrifice Pandora's Soul: You may copy the imprinted instant or sorcery card. If you do, you may play the copy without paying its mana cost.

Pandora's Soul has power, toughness, and colors equal to the imprinted card's casting cost.

* / *

[Jacob Orlove]

Buh?

[jshields]

I realize that there may have been a previous artifact with this name (I did not really check) and that this may be a tad hard to understand, but I always thought it would be cool to turn an Instant or Sorcery into a creature that could be sacrificed to return to being an instant or sorcery on the stack.  I also added in paying the casting cost and the life cost of this to make sure something like this would not be too broken.  However, if anything this could use some cool flavor text (not too familiar with the legend of Pandora's box other than "The box was the greatest gift bestowed upon her that the giftbringer, Pandora, would receive.  For within this box, all chaos lay and a sinle shinig light known as the ray of hope would remain if ever opened"

[stolen]

The added ability is unnecessary and complicated, but countering a spell and leaving the caster with a creature is interesting.

[jshields]

Maybe you are right about this.  It would be kinda funny to swing at someone with a Force of Will or to turn an Ancestral Recall into a 1/1 Piddly creature.  I think that the casting cost seems reasonable and that the


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Pandora's Box

Legendary Artifact

X, Tap, Sacrifice Pandora's Box: Counter target Instant or Sorcery Spell with a converted casting cost of X.  This spell becomes a creature with power and toughness equal to its casting cost.



"The box was the greatest gift bestowed upon her that the giftbringer, Pandora, would receive.  For within this box, all chaos lay and a sinle shinig light known as the ray of hope would remain if ever opened"

[MrZuccinniHead]

The added ability is unnecessary and complicated, but countering a spell and leaving the caster with a creature is interesting.

I agree, but yes, this name was used in the Magic Computer game of one of the bonus cards they added, so I don't think you can use it.

How about that spell's controller puts a creature token into play with power and toughness each equal to that spell's converted mana cost.

[jshields]

Never played the magic computer game except for 1 time at a Circuit City 11 years ago, but I do not see why not on changing the name.  How about "Hope, Pandora's Final Gift"  Otherwise, this sounds reasonable - maybe also make the token have the same colors as the spell. 

[Bastian]

I remember Pandora's Box because it came out on the first Magic the Gathering computer game there was!

It had only fourth edition cards, several cards from the restricted list: Library, Moxen, Lotus, Sol Ring, Time Vault (it was restricted back then). It had also a few cards that allowed for random effects to be played.

Pandora's Box was a 5cc artifact that allowed you to put a random creature from your library into play if I'm not mistaken... I still remember the art. It was a slightly open purple box with lots of eyes peeking from inside. I believe it was Amy Weber's!

Nice memory, huh? 

[Nefarias]

I know this would change the flavor significantly, but this version might actually, you know, work.

Pandora's Dude
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Legendary Artifact Creature -- Shapeshifter
Imprint -- As Pandora's Dude comes into play, you may remove target instant or sorcery card in your hand from the game. If you do, pay that spell's mana cost(That card is Imprinted on Pandora's Dude.)
Pandora's Dude's power an toughness are each equal to the converted mana cost of the Imprinted spell.
Sacrifice Pandora's Dude: You may copy the Imprinted spell.

I know it could use a little cleaning up, but it makes a bit more sense than the original, while maintaining all the original functionality (except the life payment.) I'm guessing you don;t want this to be able to counter opponent's spells, based on your openning description, so I left out that possibility as well.

If you wanted to go w/ your second version, this would be a lot cleaner:

Pandora's Cardboard Box
3
Legendary Artifact
X, T, Sacrifice Pandora's Cardboard Box: Discard an instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost X and put a colorless Pandora creature token into play with a power and toughness each equal to X.

For the record, the second version is downright awful.

Also, I remember my opponent's Pandroa's Box biting him in the ass, so I think it put any creature in the game into play at random, and controlled by a person at random. Faerie Dragon was the best, though. (T: Generate a random effect.) There was also Gemstone Bazaar and Aswan Jaguar. Memorowned.

[Nibble]

I really like Pandora's Dude. It can probably cost less than 3, since you still need to pay the full mana cost of the spell. I might be wrong on this, though, so I'd like to hear what others think.

Having the card rfg before paying the cost, and not specifying what happens if you then fail to pay the cost, seems a little abiguous. I'd prefer:


Imprint -- As Pandora's Dude comes into play, you may reveal an instant or sorcery card in your hand and pay that card's mana cost. If you do, remove that card from the game. (That card is imprinted on Pandora's Dude.)


Also, it's not necessary, but I think it'd be neat if he also obtained the colors of the spell.

As for the last ability, it should conform to [card]Isochron Scepter[/card] and [card]Panoptic Mirror[/card]:


Sacrifice Pandora's Dude: You may copy the imprinted instant or sorcery card. If you do, you may play the copy without paying its mana cost.

[Nefarias]

...If you do, you may play the copy without paying its mana cost.

The reason I didn't add that clause is because his original version (which is now erased) made you pay the casting cost again if you wanted to copy the spell. Hence, the "without paying the mana cost" line was a lie (though it is added now). I also only costed it at 3 because that's what the original cost. I think it could probably cost 1, or even 0. At 1, this would make a creature that costs one more than it's P/T, like Gray Ogre and Hill Giant. I don't think that's great at any cost. Zero's probably pushing it, making it fine as a 1/1 or 2/2, but pushing it at 3/3 and 4/4. Overall, I think that 1 is pretty safe, but then again, making this a "pseudo-Seal" on wheels could throw that way off.

Pandora's Soul has power, toughness, and colors equal to the imprinted card's casting cost.

A) Small nitpick, but it's "mana cost" now (it's fine to call it casting cost in discussion, but it needs to be mana cost in card text) and B) Even though the color of a card DOES come from the mana cost, I don't think that's worded correctly. I think it would have to be:

Pandora's Soul's color is the color of the Imprinted card and it's power and toughness are each equal to the converted mana cost of the Imprinted card.

Finally, you should never erase[/u] the original version of the card, because that way it is impossible to see the progress the card has made. Please read and follow the rules of this forum sticked at the top of the list of threads. This goes for the templating, too, but that is more forgivable.

[jshields]

Nefarias, was that flame really necesary?  I did not understand that you have to reply each time you update the card as opposed to typing in the edits over the original post.  The original card read:

Casting Cost: 3

Pandora's Box

Legendary Artifact

X, Tap, Sacrifice Pandora's Box: Counter target instant or sorcery with a converted casting cost of X.  If that spell is countered this way, it becomes a creature with power and toughness equal to the spell's casting cost and color(s) the same as the spell's color(s). 

In addition, the creature gains the ability "pay the original spell's casting cost, sacrifice this creature: this becomes a normal copy of the spell originally countered by Pandora's Box"

[Ephraim]

Nefarias, was that flame really necesary?  I did not understand that you have to reply each time you update the card as opposed to typing in the edits over the original post.

From the Card Creation Forum Rules
3. After comments, please edit the original post to include a current wording of the card in bold so us mods know which ones to add. Leave the original cards wording intact so we can see its evolution.

I don't think that Nefarias was particularly caustic in pointing this out to you. You may argue that he isn't a moderator, so it isn't any of his business, but I disagree. Every forum member should be permitted and encouraged to direct errant posters to the forum rules, if they aren't being obeyed.

***

That said, at first glance, this looks extremely similar, but better than a card I fought to get into the master list -- Isochron Spellbomb. On second look, however, you require the mana cost of the spell to be played in order to imprint it, which will strongly limit abuse of this card. From a flavour standpoint, I think it would be interesting to call this "Isochron Golem."

I have a question for the rules gurus -- is there going to be any conflict or ambiguity with this creature's ability. The sacrifice/copy ability is playable at instant speed. In my opinion, that is going to generate confusion regarding when an imprinted sorcery spell may be played with this. Reminder text may be in order. It may also be appropriate to just say something like, "Play this ability only any time you could play the imprinted card." I believe that's the solution we used for Isochron Spellbomb.

A small technical note: Cards with imprint ask that the card be imprinted "When ~this~ comes into play," rather than "As ~this~ comes into play." It may sound like semantics, but it has rules significance.

[Nefarias]

I did not understand...

Dude, that wasn't a flame, and apparanetly yes, it was necessary. There's a way we do things here, an everything just works better if everyone follows it. I didn't mean to sound harsh, and if you thought I did, then I am sorry, but I was merely trying to inform you that what you did was incorrect. I realize that you're new here, it's no big deal, but I felt it was necessary to point out that there are rules that you should follow, which you apparantly still haven't read. Here they are, and happy posting:

http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=9079.0

Whiel I was typing -- A) Ephraim beat me to most of that and B) It needs to be "As" because otherwise, it'll die immediately as a result of having 0 toughness. See also Vesuvan Doppleganger.

[Nibble]

B) It needs to be "As" because otherwise, it'll die immediately as a result of having 0 toughness. See also Vesuvan Doppleganger.

We can fix this similarly to Duplicant, by giving it a base p/t. I'd like to see this costed at 2 - it's true that you do have to pay X (including colored) for an X/X, but being able to reuse the spell as well is pretty strong. If it does cost 2, it can be 1/1 or 1/2 and have a triggered Imprint. At 3, it could be a 2/2.

Ephraim - are you suggesting the 'only any time the imprinted spell could be played' because of rules, or this is how we want this card specifically to work? I thought for a moment that it would be reminder text because you still couldn't play sorceries at instant speed with the ability, but then I realized Panoptic Mirror, with the same wording, lets you play sorceries on your upkeep. I do agree, though, that this creature shouldn't let you play sorceries as instants.

The first thing that came to mind for a name was something like Spellshifter, but I like Isochron Golem.