New ESG

[Fall-Titan]

I was reading the green dark ritual thread as was thinking about one shot mana in todays world. The effect has clearly gone to red and i think it is possible to make a Red version of Elvish Spirit Guide, with some clear drawbac to it though. I am not sure if the new card would still be a creature or maybe a new idea such as a seething song with an alternate casting cost. For now i will leave the card a creature as to avoid argument but feel free to give ideas on this part of the card as well as the mana producing ability.

Flame Mage

Creature- Wizard
Remove Flame mage from the game: Add to your mana pool and Flame Mage deals 2 damage to you. Play this ability only if Flame Mage is in your hand.
1/2
In this case the ability would be that the mage is creating fire from thin air which requires concentration and some self sacrifice on the mages part. Th dameage could be increased or decreased (not likely) but i believe that more than 3 damage is too much seeing as how the card is really reak and would only be used for his mana ability.

Flame Spartan

Creature- Spirit Warrior
First Strike
Remove Flame Spartan from the game: Discard a card at random from your hand and add to your mana pool. Play this ability only if Flame Spartan is in your hand.
2/1
In this case, the spartan is a semi skilled warrior and instad of creating fire from thin air, he mutilates raw material into fire. He is a little more usable in battle but his ability is allso more risky witht here being a chance that you may discard whatever spell you wish to play. The best case scenario is for you to have no cards in hand and be using an activated ability but in this case this guy is very weak mana acceleration and i dont find him threatening.

Well there are my ideas, feel free to disect them but i believe the ability of free mana is very printable today as long as there is a reasonable drawback and the ability is of course red.

[Fall-Titan]

Searing Sigil

Instant

Searing Sigil is red.
Kicker
Add to your mana pool and Searing Sigil deals 2 damage to you. If you paid the kicker cost, Searing Sigl deals 2 damage to target creature or player.

[asmoranomardicodais]

These should have the channel wording instead of the old elvish spirithguide wording.

[Fall-Titan]

I thought about that but in such a case, A) the creature would be able to be recurred or used more than once. B) With giving these a keyword such as channel, we limit them to being in kamigawa block with no new sets containing channel anwhere in the near future. Also channel and removing from game are very different even while seeming to be similar on first inspection.

[Jacob Orlove]

Why should these be creatures?

[Fall-Titan]

I stated in my opening post that they did not need to be creatures, but i first wanted to make sure that the idea of free mana was acceptable in todays world of magic. Therefore the main criticism i was looking for was the 2 different drawbacks and which one was more realistic. I was thinking that the effect could go on a defined red mechanic card such as land death, or an expensive burn card. That however i believe can be disigned after the mana producing mechanic which, for the most part, will be independant of the card (Like ESG) unless someone had a good idea that clashed with that philosophy.

[Ephraim]

One random possibility that popped into my head is as follows:

Searing Sigil

Instant

Searing Sigil is red.
Kicker {R}
Add to your mana pool and Searing Sigil deals 2 damage to you. If you paid the kicker cost, Searing Sigl deals 2 damage to target creature or player.

***

If you have {R} to start it out, it deals 2 damage and gives you back , behaving much like shock, although it requires you to have {R} to begin with, so it isn't strictly better. If you don't have {R}, then you can just pitch it for the mana. (On second thought, I looked at the original proposed card and I realized that having this deal 2 damage to you is very themely and makes this even more not-strictly-superior than Shock.)

[The Atog Lord]

Making this a spell rather than an ability which, say, deals damage to you or makes you discard avoids the strange situation of having a damage or discard which doesn't use the stack and can't be responded to. Chromatic Sphere does strange things by having a mana ability involving a draw, and I think Terrarion is Wizard's attempt to "fix" this. So, making this an instant makes a lot of sense.

The downside to making it a spell means that it isn't as good against, say, Trinisphere or Sphere of Resistence and the like.  This goes in favor of making it an ability.

Finally, I'm not so sure about having a name of this be spartan. I'd love to see a Classical expansion, but randomly making a card Spartan doesn't make much sense.

[asmoranomardicodais]

I thought about that but in such a case, A) the creature would be able to be recurred or used more than once. B) With giving these a keyword such as channel, we limit them to being in kamigawa block with no new sets containing channel anwhere in the near future. Also channel and removing from game are very different even while seeming to be similar on first inspection.

First, I don't think we have worry about them being recurred, since this ability is only useful REALLY early on, and they will almost always have better things to recur. Second, Rosewater said that 1) Channel was based directly off Elvish Spiritguide, which makes me think that if they ever did a spiritguide card again, it would be channelly, and 2) that they didn't explore channel very deeply on purpose, so that they could bring it back again with more emphasis, meaning that it should be viewed much like cycling, a block mechanic that we can expect to see frequently. All in all, I still think these should be channel, since channel is the keyword that this is. You wouldn't have a card that says: "If you pay 3 while playing this spell, you may return this spell to yoru hand after resolution" and not keyword it buyback just because buyback was only in tempest block, right? Shouldn't channel be the same way?

[Fall-Titan]

Finally, I'm not so sure about having a name of this be spartan. I'd love to see a Classical expansion, but randomly making a card Spartan doesn't make much sense.

Those names are not permanent and basically i just threw down the first thought that came to mind because i hate putting a card up without at least some form of a name. Also the name will obviously change once we make this an instant/sorcery

However, i really like ephraims suggestion. We now know that wizards isnt afraid to make 0 cost cards such as Evermind. But the card aas Eph has it is really nice and balanced. It adds a little versatility with the damage addition, making this decent in limited at least as nothing more than creature removal and also improves the card late game. Not that Wizards would ever prevent printing a card because of Type 1 but i also do not think this is too powerful for Belcher stlye decks, (especially since it can now be countered). The only difference i would make personally would be to change the kicker to . Unless the reason you made it {R} was because you thought this was too powerful to splash.

First, I don't think we have worry about them being recurred, since this ability is only useful REALLY early on, and they will almost always have better things to recur. Second, Rosewater said that 1) Channel was based directly off Elvish Spiritguide, which makes me think that if they ever did a spiritguide card again, it would be channelly, and 2) that they didn't explore channel very deeply on purpose, so that they could bring it back again with more emphasis, meaning that it should be viewed much like cycling, a block mechanic that we can expect to see frequently. All in all, I still think these should be channel, since channel is the keyword that this is. You wouldn't have a card that says: "If you pay 3 while playing this spell, you may return this spell to yoru hand after resolution" and not keyword it buyback just because buyback was only in tempest block, right? Shouldn't channel be the same way?

The problem with channel is that the mechanic is generally made to follow the ability on the card. Therefore we would need something like a sething song or a desperate ritual and then give it channel for . The reason i find this a problem is that it infringes apon the design space of both cards. We could make this really bad and make it cost and produce {R}{R}{R}, but in this case, no one eould ever play the card because the channel does the same thing and is uncounterable. We could try a spin on inner fire and make the card and have it produce a number of mana equal to the number of something (maybe untapped land- seems more green though). But thats up to the card creating crew.

[Anusien]

Finally, I'm not so sure about having a name of this be spartan. I'd love to see a Classical expansion, but randomly making a card Spartan doesn't make much sense.

However, i really like ephraims suggestion. We now know that wizards isnt afraid to make 0 cost cards such as Evermind.

Evermind does not have a Casting Cost, in point of fact, and can't be played.  It's actually one of the more difficult spells to put on the stack ever, and almost as difficult to get an effect from.

It seems balanced as Ephraim has it (and is adapted into the current wording), but I still have a knee-jerk reflex to 0 casting cost spells.  ESG is not restricted, but if it added to storm I'm almost certain it would.  As it is, I want to see some compelling flavor to make this work (I don't get the flavor of the card as is, right now).

[Fall-Titan]

The flavor of the card comes from the idea that the mage is sacrificing a part of himself/herself to create fire from thin air. This happens at the cost of some of the mage's life force. In ephraims example the shcok side of the spell could come from the idea that the mage is drawing power from forces of those around him therefore an equal amount of damage is dealt to himself as is another traget nearby. Self punishment is definately in the red/black side of the color pie but of course the self infliction leads to some benefits as well. I am not worried at all about the cost because it has been done before and my point about Evermind wasnt that is playable (castable) but the fact that it has a big in its upper right hand corner. If you need to look at castable costers look at the Kobolds. Old yes, but not impossible to bring back.

ESG is a great card buut so are the moxen and wizards has proven that they will print spin offs of powerful cards as long as they have a suitable drawback, whcih i feel this has.

P.S. sorry if it seems like i am posting alot and mostly in defense, but i would really like this idea brought back into magic.

[Fall-Titan]

Does anyone object to this card the way it is now? or should a few changes be made? and if so what?

[SpencerForHire]

You don't find the idea of a Shock-Mox the least bit broken?  It adds to storm count for free, and adds mana.  This is strictly better than ESG in almsot any deck and the storm it gives allows you to combo off much easier.  It would restricted before it was released.

[Fall-Titan]

Ok for one thing, your only taking into consideration vintage. Yes it would probably be restricted there and yes it adds to the storm count. But your missing all of the draw backs of this being a spell.

A) This is countered by chalice for 0, one of the most common plays in vintage
B) Trinisphere and sphere of resistance make this a useless shock for 5 mana
C) If a player picks up on the fact that the mana you get from this is essential, it can be countered by tradition counters.
D) This does deal 2 damage to you which means using 4 of these in one turn is costly. Using 1 of these in a turn gives oath all it needs to kill you in 2 turns with its men.

In standard i dont see this card as troublesome because it isnt a shock mox, its a shock mana, 1 single mana, not reusable. And it is card disadvantage just as mox diamond and chrome mox are. You are essentiall discarding a card for a mana.

In extended this would see some play in some decks but would not make any deck broken and of course the card isnt broken by itself.

So against your argument i say that for the single bonus of this adding to the stack, it has at least 4 drawbacks in vintage alone.

[Fall-Titan]

K well, if there is no more debate ill go ahead and initiate a clock....

24 HOUR CLOCK