Holy Ground

[Marco]

A long time ago I created this card:

Holy Ground
Land
T: Add W to your mana pool. Holy Ground Deals 1 damage to you.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if Holy Ground is in your graveyard, you may put Holy Ground into play.

I still like it, but tonight I came up with this card:

Holy Ground
Land
Holy Ground comes into play tapped.
T: Add W to your mana pool.
As long as Holy ground is in your graveyard or in play, target land you control is indestructible.

What do you think?

If it's too good, I could go:

Holy Ground
Land
Holy Ground comes into play tapped.
T: Add W to your mana pool.
As long as Holy ground is in your graveyard, target land you control is indestructible.

If it's not good enough I could go:

Holy Ground
Land
Holy Ground comes into play tapped.
T: Add W to your mana pool.
As long as Holy ground is in your graveyard, lands you control are indestructible.

[Marco]

Current Wording:

Holy Ground
Legendary Land
: Add to your mana pool.
When Holy Ground comes into play, put a divinity counter on target land.
As long as Holy Ground is in play, each land with a divinity counter on it is indestructible.

[Matt]

Targetting is usually a one-time thing. I don't think it works for an effect to continuously target.

[Marco]

Hmmmm... you may be right.  I will have to check Gatherer for some examples.  To fix this card I may have to go with:

Holy Ground
Land
Holy Ground comes into play tapped.
T: Add W to your mana pool.
As long as Holy ground is in your graveyard, lands you control are indestructible.

EDIT: I did a quick search and found that certain artifacts, such as Ashnod's Battle Gear, and certain creatures, such as Flamestick Courier, seem to target for as long as they remain tapped...

[asmoranomardicodais]

You can give it haunt, and say that the land haunted by this is indestructable

[zeus-online]

You could give it a counter?

Something like

When *this* is put into a graveyard, you may put a Sacred counter on target land.
Aslong as *this* is in your graveyard, cards with sacred counters are indestructable.

Would ofcourse get shut off by graveyard hate....

/Zeus

[Matt]

EDIT: I did a quick search and found that certain artifacts, such as Ashnod's Battle Gear, and certain creatures, such as Flamestick Courier, seem to target for as long as they remain tapped...

Those effects target when you activate them, but not continuously. You would either have to go with a type of counter or something like "When Holy Ground comes into play, choose target land. As long as Holy Ground is in play, that land is indestructable."

The version that puts a counter on a land sounds annoying BUT you can make it a Divinity counter, whcih people should already remember as making things indestructible from the Myojin in Kamigawa. And since Holy Ground would naturally be Divine, it works really well, so I would go with that.

[Pave]

I prefer your original idea.  Please don't make this land come into play tapped: I'd like to use it!

[Norm4eva]

I really like the first draft of this.  Geddon FTW :D

[Pave]

Making the land Legendary might also present an interesting twist, and would also seem appropriate.

[Norm4eva]

If it's Legendary, get rid of the pain..
What's with all the Legendary lands lately?  Meh

[parallax]

As ~this~ comes into play, choose a land you control.
As long as ~this~ is in play or in the graveyard, the chosen land is indestructible.

[Marco]

I should have known better than to post two different cards in the same post. We are discussing the card in the Current Wording post. I will post the original Holy Ground in another post.

Matt, I guess you're right about the continuous targetting. I thought "As long as Holy Ground is in your graveyard or in play, target land you control is indestructible" sounded pretty good...

Now I must admit the truth: I wanted this card to work like Riftstone Portal in that you didn't have to actually play it for it to work. Also, I wanted to use this card in a deck like Friggorid/Meandeck Ichorid where it is likely that I wouldn't play it. So making it grant indestructibility to a land when it comes in to play, while it makes sense, is not what I wanted with this card.

Divinity counters are established in Magic from cards like Myojin of Cleansing Fire and That Which Was Taken.

How about something like this? There are still a lot of directions I can take the card. (While I think giving it Haunt would work, I want to avoid it.)

Holy Ground
Land
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
T, Sacrifice Holy Ground: Add W to your mana pool.
If Holy Ground would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, you may put a divinity counter on target land.
As long as Holy Ground is in your graveyard, each land with a divinity counter on it is indestructible.

[parallax]

This can be worded either:

When Holy Ground is put into a graveyard from anywhere, you may put a divinity counter on target land.
As long as Holy Ground is in your graveyard, each land with a divinity counter on it is indestructible.

or:

As Holy Ground is put into your graveyard from anywhere, choose a land.
As long as Holy Ground is in your graveyard, the chosen land is indestructible.

The two wordings have slightly different timings.

This card doesn't have to be associated with white.

[Norm4eva]

This card doesn't have to be associated with white.

Actually, this raises an interesting point.  We know which colors have LD carved out in their color pie (Red, Green, Black these days) but which color(s) are more interested in protecting their manabase - which colors have land protection?
I'd have to say the strongest evidence for this is in White - Sacred Ground, Second Sunrise (sort of) and Flagstones of Trokair all suggest this.  Other colors have examples of this but it's more by association than just outright saying "target land is indestructible/can't be the target/etc".  I suppose what I'm asking here is, if not White, then what?

[Marco]

parallax: Good catch. I used the wording on Darksteel Colossus and Serra Avatar; however, they use a replacement effect to prevent them from reaching the graveyard where they can be reanimated.

New wording:

When Holy Ground is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may put a divinity counter on target land.
As long as Holy Ground is in your graveyard, each land with a divinity counter on it is indestructible.

I like the idea of a divinity counter to prevent memory issues.

I had considered the following to make it more playable:

T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
T, Sacrifice Holy Ground: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

I agree this doesn't have to be associated with white (although the name and flavour would have to change if it wasn't). However, white is the most logical color due to Sacred Ground, Planar Birth, and Consecrate Land (reprinted in Time Spiral).

[Marco]

I changed the current wording again:

Holy Ground
Legendary Land
T: Add W to your mana pool.
When Holy Ground comes into play, put a divinity counter on target land.
As long as Holy Ground is in your graveyard or in play, each land with a divinity counter on it is indestructible.

I think this wording the cleanest and most playable. It comes into play untapped and doesn't deal damage, but it's a legendary land. And it protects the land when it's in play or in the graveyard.

[The Atog Lord]

So, at very worst, this is a Legandary Indestructible Plains?

[Marco]

Yes, is that not okay? Better than Darksteel Citadel in decks that run white, but you can only have one of them in play...

[zeus-online]

Hmmm i wonder if this is ok.....but since armageddon hasn't been printed in ages its probably alright.

/Zeus

[Marco]

Is this too much compared to Consecrate Land or can I set the clock on this?

[asi]

Isn't it nearly the same as Flagstones of Trokair?

[Anusien]

I like it.

[Marco]

24 hour clock on current wording.

[dandan]

Holy Ground
Legendary Land
 : Add  to your mana pool. Choose a target land. That land is Industructible as long as Holy Ground is tapped.

This is rather like

Equinox 
Enchant Land
    
Tap land enchanted with Equinox to counter a spell that destroys one or more of your lands. This ability is played as an interrupt.

But obviously better (Equinox sucks). Protecting a land might cause you mana burn but on the other hand, an untapped Holy Land does a good job of protecting you from LD.