Most Wanted

[Lockdown]

The card:

Most Wanted
1B
Enchantment
When Most Wanted comes into play, you may put one bounty counter on target creature.
Pay 1 life: Put a bounty counter on target creature.  Any player may play this ability.
At the beginning of each turn, destroy target creature with the most bounty counters on it.  If there are no bounty counters in play, sacrifice Most Wanted.

Seems to be an interesting mechanic and has some nice flavor.  Seems to be like a Drop of Honey that players can control.  I'm unsure of the wording on how to add counters onto creatures, I'd appreciate any help there.  Also searching for appropriate flavor text.  One more thing, do you think it should be "Pay 1 Life:" or should it be a certain amount of mana instead?

[Lockdown]

Current Wording

Most Wanted
2BR
Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, you and all opponents bid life. You start the bidding with a high bid of 1. In turn order, each player may top the high bid. The bidding ends when the high bid stands. The highest bidder loses life equal to the high bid and chooses a creature.  That creature is destroyed and can't be regenerated.  If there are no creatures in play, sacrifice Most Wanted.

Edits:
-Beginning of upkeep wording (Kemykal)
-Mana cost (Kemykal & Jacob Orlove)
-Tie wording (Jacob Orlove)
-Made it like Mage's Contest (Jacob Orlove)
-Casting Cost (Jacob Orlove)

[InsaneScrub]

That card should be printed, I love it's theme in itself.

[skecreatoR]

Genious, Lockdown.

I love it! The best card I seen for ages.

[kemykal]

without a way to remove counters, i think it may be a little too powerful.  you could make a very strong creatureless deck with this as it is very good spot removal.  with as many ways as there are to replenish life totals you could definitely build a strong control deck out of this.  perhaps if you adjust the cost some, perhaps to (B)(B)  to make it less splashable.  i also think it would be good of the activated ability would give people the option to remove counters instead of just putting them on.  the activation cost is good, though.  instead of saying "At the beginning of each player's turn" it should be "At the beginning of each player's upkeep."  i like the flavor and the idea.  very nice card.  thats my 2 cents.

[Jacob Orlove]

You need to specify what happens when there's a tie in the number of counters. Also, this may lead to very heavy life losses in limited, where it can also function as super removal. Two mana seems far too cheap.

[Lockdown]

24 hr clock unless someone has something new.

[Ephraim]

The effect should read:

At the beginning of each player's upkeep, destroy target creature with the most bounty counters on it. If two or more creatures are tied for the most bounty counters, you may target any one of them. If there are no bounty counters in play, sacrifice Most Wanted.

Reference the Oracle text of Topple:

Remove target creature with the greatest power from the game. If two or more creatures are tied for greatest power, you may target any one of them.

***

Also, are counters on permanents in play really considered to be "in play?" I just want to make sure that the portion of the effect that causes the card to be sacrificed has the correct wording.

[Lockdown]

Are you sure?  I used the Oracle text for Drop of Honey:

At the beginning of your upkeep, destroy target creature with the least power. It can't be regenerated. (If two or more creatures are tied for least power, target any one of them.)
When there are no creatures in play, sacrifice Drop of Honey.

Regarding the subject of counters, perhaps I should change it to the wording on Fading?

#  502.20a - Fading is a keyword that represents two abilities. The phrase "Fading [X]" means "This permanent comes into play with X fade counters on it" and "At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a fade counter from this permanent. If you can't, sacrifice the permanent." [CompRules 2003/07/01]

Also, an alternate mechanic that I was thinking about was making so that instead of paying life, you pay a certain amount of mana.  During each player's upkeep, they could destroy one creature with bounty counters on it and gain life equal to the number of bounty counters.  Would that be an idea?  I think it has better flavor (a *bounty* that you collect after taking out somebody on the wanted list).  However, the mechanic seems a bit worse on the whole compared to my original.  What does everybody else think?

[Jacob Orlove]

Obviously this card is good when your opponent is the only one with creatures. However, it's still too good even when both players have creatures out. In order to avoid having to lose two creatures a turn, your opponent will have to bid life. But then, it's worth 2 life to you to switch it back to his creatures. Then he will still be willing to pay 1 life/creature to hang on to his.

Since you pay life even when you lose the race, you force people to bid much higher than they otherwise would, because you have to be at like 3 life for it to not be worth it to add one more counter to your opponent's creature.

Also, this kills a creature on each player's turn. That's just too good anyway.

[Lockdown]

Well, seeing as how this was my own thread, I have no qualms about resurrecting it (hey, it was a good fantasy card).  I made a few modifications, and I now put it on display again.

[Jacob Orlove]

I'm not sure if this targets properly. I think you'd have to choose the target when the ability goes on the stack, which means you basically kill a creature of your choice each turn, no matter what.

You need to make it so that whoever wins the bidding sets the target.

Also, this should probably be more expensive, and the whole bidding aspect is very red.

[Lockdown]

Fixed!  And with regards to the bidding aspect, I just liked the flavor as it evokes the image of, well, a wanted list and basically bounty hunters selling their services to the highest bidder.

[Jacob Orlove]

What about costing this at 2BR? That seems more accurate (flavor-wise) to me, and it keeps this from being uncastable.

[Lockdown]

Done. 24 hour clock.

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]