"Lose" cycle

[Moonkeeper]

I like the Final Fortune concept, so I attempted to make one of each color. Here it goes:

Life for Knowledge
U
Instant
Draw 3 cards
At the end of any turn you lose the game

Life Elemental
G
Trample, Haste
Cannot be the target of spells or abilities
If this comes into play, at the end of any turn you lose the game
5/5

Life for Luck
R
Instant
Until end of turn, all coin flips land on heads
At the end of any turn, you lose the game

Life for Power
Instant
B
Pay 10 life:
Add BBB to your mana pool
Draw 4 cards
At the end of any turn, you lose the game

Life for Glory
W
Instant
Remove all of your opponent's noncreature permanents from the game
Until end of turn, opponent's mana pool does not empty
At the end of any turn, you lose the game

Urza, Master of All or Nothing
BURGW
Cannot be the target of spells or abilities
R: Do 2 damage to target creature or player
B: Search your library for a card and put it into your hand, you lose 2 life
W: Gain 5 life
U: Draw a card
G: Put a 3/3 Wurm Elemental token with trample and haste into play
If Urza comes into play, at the end of any turn you lose the game
4/4

Comments? Templating issues?

[asmoranomardicodais]

I have a couple of comments:

1. These are insanely unbalanced from each other. The Blue one is strictly worse than the black one, and the red one is strictly worse than the others.

2. Why does the white one not empty the opponents mana pool?

3. I realy don't like your Urza. First, since he's a planeswalker, he can't be printed, and second, just a legend like that that auto-loses you the game, and who's Power/Toughness don't really matter, just isn't a good idea. Five colored cards should do something really unique, and all Urza does is finish the game.

4. All of these couldn't be printed in the same set as a cycle. One set would get pretty stupid if five rares in the set were combo enablers or junk rares, depending on your preference.

5. These are all combo enablers. Instead of doing anything interesting,  these are impossible to make fair, because their either gonna be too good, in which case every combo deck will run them and the losing at the end of turn won't be an issue, or they'll be really bad and unplayable.

6. I think out of all of them, the best are the green one and the white one, but even then, the green ones out of flavor, as its gonna act like a big ball lighnting, which is very red in flavor. The white one is hard to judge, but  now that I think about it, just seems to be a really cheesy way to win, as all you do is count up the damage on your side, and if its greater than the opponents life, use this and swing. It's really stupid for limited, and I'm not sure about constructed.

Anyways, I think all that needs to be addressed before I'll like these cards.

[jcb193]

First of all, I like the concept of these cards, even though they are combo-enablers.  Maybe something a little less dramatic, with a little less function.  I like this concept for a cycle.

Other than the problems previously addressed, I think that Urza should be a little more "fun."  If you lose the game at the end of the turn, all of his utility is meaningless.  I'd rather have him sacrifice lands each turn, or something.

1. The Blue one is strictly worse than the black one, and the red one is strictly worse than the others.

I think that this is a comment WAY TOO common on these threads.  The blue one is by no means "strictly worse," than the black one.  Saying a care is worse and strictly worse are two completely different things. 

Sticky:  Strictly worse means that the of the two cards being compared, the "strictly worse card" is a lesser card in ALL CIRCUMSTANCES and ALL SCENARIOS.  The strictly worse card will always be less desireable.  [example: Shock is strictly worse than lightning bolt]

If you are at 5 life, the black card is not strictly better.  Not to mention a handful of other scenarios (recursion, etc).

[Anusien]

Okay, how about this: the black one is an auto-include, and is strictly better than Ancestral Recall.  Yes there are scenarios where you're at less than 10 life.  You know what causes that?  Yawgmoth's Bargain and Channel.  If you resolve either of those two cards, you win the game.
The green one is solid but not spectacular; the effect isn't good enough for the drawback.
The blue one is fine, but uninspiring.
The red one is pretty poor, especially since it's competing with a lot of effects at the same level.  Also, it should be "You win all flips."
The black one: Yeah, right.
The white one is especially random, why does it not empty their mana pool?  And not blocking effects are very red, not white.
Urza: Never ever.  Especially since you had to tack on a lot of useless effects (life gain, making wurms) in order to get all 5 colors.

The mechanic is fairly uninspiring, it can only be degenerate or worthless, and that sort of effects go against the flavor of UGW.

[Moonkeeper]

Okay, how about this: the black one is an auto-include, and is strictly better than Ancestral Recall. Yes there are scenarios where you're at less than 10 life. You know what causes that? Yawgmoth's Bargain and Channel. If you resolve either of those two cards, you win the game.
The green one is solid but not spectacular; the effect isn't good enough for the drawback.
The blue one is fine, but uninspiring.
The red one is pretty poor, especially since it's competing with a lot of effects at the same level. Also, it should be "You win all flips."
The black one: Yeah, right.
The white one is especially random, why does it not empty their mana pool? And not blocking effects are very red, not white.
Urza: Never ever. Especially since you had to tack on a lot of useless effects (life gain, making wurms) in order to get all 5 colors.

The mechanic is fairly uninspiring, it can only be degenerate or worthless, and that sort of effects go against the flavor of UGW.

Concerning the black one, would an additional cost of "Discard your hand, then remove your graveyard from the game:" be better? This way a combo deck would have a far tougher time abusing Will.

The green one. Would it be better as a 7/7, 8/8?

I know the red one is poorer in power level then the rest, however this hasn't stopped cycles from being printed before (the Kamigawa dragons as an example....or for that matter the Exodus Oaths).

The white one I had trouble with, which is why its rather random. The reason the mana pool didn't empty was because I was trying to make it so that an opponent would have to use the element of suprise (i.e. with a card in hand) in order to stop the opponent's attack. The flavor of the white one was supposed to be somewhat of a large-scale well-planned thought out attack in which soldiers invade using the attacking army uses all its resources to take out the opponent's resources. Put another way it should resemble the magic equivalent of D-day.

Urza: The critiques on this one are pretty good. I'll drop this one.

[netherspirit]

The reason the mana pool didn't empty was because I was trying to make it so that an opponent would have to use the element of suprise (i.e. with a card in hand) in order to stop the opponent's attack.

Then why not just leave their lands alone?

[ELD]

The blue one would make high tide in legacy absolutely nuts.