General Barntosser

[The Atog Lord]

White Weenie has the problem that opponents oftentimes can ignore the creatues it churns out and just win. In Type Two, this is often overcome by packing large portions of burn into the white weenie decks. However, this goes against white's theme of being a color that embodies synergy in its creatures -- that rewards you for having a pile of creatures. However, white is often left with all of its pretty synergy in the garbage as a single removal spell rips through its lines. This card not only translates that synergy into an actual response to synergy-crushing spells, but also rewards players on both sides for using creatures.

General Barntosser
WW
Legendary Creature -- Human Soldier
2/2
Sacrifice two other white creatures: Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller sacrifices a creature.
Sacrifice two other white creatures: Remove tareget nonland, noncreature permanent from the game unless its controller sacrifices a creature.
T00L, I have a great new deck for you to play tomorrow!


General Barntosser
WW
Legendary Creature -- Human Soldier
2/2
Sacrifice two other white creatures: Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller sacrifices a creature.
Sacrifice two other white creatures: Remove tareget nonland, noncreature permanent from the game unless its controller sacrifices a creature.
T00L, I have a great new deck for you to play tomorrow!

[asi]

Why should the sacrificed creatures be white? I think this should read:


General Barntosser

Legendary Creature -- Human Soldier
2/2
, Sacrifice two creatures: Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller sacrifices a creature.
, Sacrifice two creatures: Remove tareget nonland permanent from the game unless its controller sacrifices a creature.

Those abilities should include a mana cost, I think. Also, the second ability doesn't need "non-creature".

[Norm4eva]

White doesn't sacrifice this way, or at least not ususally.  White has a number of creatures which sacrifice themselves for an effect, but pretty rarely do you get to sacrifice creatures on your own team.
I think that tapping creatures as a cost sort of already covers what you're trying to accomplish.  It represents a team effort to execute a command from a superior (thus the 'strength in numbers' reward); it also allows you to spend your doomed creature(s) before the fatal spell resolves.  Granted, these abilities would probably cost about a creature more each if they were tap-costed as opposed to sac-costed, but as it stands this card is not very White. 

[parallax]

Actually, I have bigger problems with "Counter target noncreature spell." and "Remove target nonland permanent from the game." as white abilities.

[The Atog Lord]

Blue is the color of card drawing; yet, because black is the color of paying life, it is allowed such cards as Night's Whisper and Phyrexian Rager. More specifically, colors tend to be allowed to venture outside of their narrow portions of the color pie when doing so in a manner consistent with the general flavor of their pie slice. That is why although green is the fat color, black is allowed inexpensive fat creatures if they bear a black-themed drawback. Mindmoil allows Red card draw, because it is done in a chaotic and very red way. Sprite Noble's "pump your creatures" ability may normally be considered white, but is allowed to exist for flavor reasons in blue.

In this light, the card makes more sense. Consider first the remove-from-game ability. If it cannot hit a creature or a land, then it hits an artifact or an enchantment. Removing those sorts of cards, while perhaps more green at the moment, still falls within white's section of the color pie as well.

Now, consider sacrificing two creatures to counter a noncreature spell. Shouldn't that be blue because it is countering? Black because it is a sacrifice ability? I cotend that the ability is perfectly at home in white. The flavor is the General leading his troops to make a noble sacrifice -- the few being sacrificed in the name of the many. This is a very white ability. The sacrifice being used here is much more akin to that of Children of Korlis -- martyrdom and self-sacrifice. And, once again, most abilities are available outside of their color pie if done in a flavorful manner to make it seem as though the color pie is not being violated. I believe that this is such a case.

The above has dealt only with flavor. Now consider the actual play value of this card. First, consider that for this creature to be anything other than an overpriced bear, you must have three white creatures in play. Second, consider that very few decks, either in Type One or Type Two, are often in such a position. Finally, decks that do tend to find themselves in such a position are often unable to answer well a mass removal spell. Even if a deck focuses strongly on creatures, it is unable to answer threats from Wrath of God to Tinker without employing non-creature spells. It is my hope that this card would make creature-based decks more viable across formats, without being used in noncreature decks as such cards so often are. Finally, please note that the card is very weak against decks that are themselves creature decks. It exists only to give creature-based decks a fair chance against their spell-based counterparts.

[Anusien]

Give it green activations and change the flavor?  It's using very green effects (sacrificing creatures) to gain a white sort of ability.

[Matt]

Black only gets to do things with life payment because black is the color of personal power, of getting what it wants at any cost. White is DEFINITELY not the color of "at any cost." White has rules that bind it, rules that it would never break because white believes that rules are more important than men.

Black and red obviously disagree with this (for their own differing reasons) and so get to "bleed" a lot more.

Also, I would like to propose a moratorium on trying to justify anything color-pie-related based on Time Spiral cards, for what I hope are obvious reasons.