Leng's Preservation

[Marco]

Leng's Preservation
U
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card from your hand, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard.
Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep.

[Marco]

Current Wording:

Leng's Preservation
W
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card from your hand, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard.
Draw a card.

[Upinthe]

Why is this blue?

[Marco]

Um... because blue hates to have its hand ripped apart by discard (Duress) more than any other colour? Because blue is the colour with the most broken cards? Because of this card's similarity to Brainstorm?

What do you think of the card? Playable?

[Matt]

Why should blue be hating on it's ally color's flagship ability? It's like saying Dawn Elemental should have been black because red beats up on black the most.

[Marco]

Blue has hated on black, its ally, in the past. But I guess not with the new colour wheel shifts. How about if I make it a white card?

[Matt]

White would most definitely work.

[Marco]

Or one of my favourite cards from Mirage

Change made.

[Marco]

Any other comments?

[Matt]

Why do you have to wait a turn to draw a card?

[twinky]

I think the ", discard it," part doesn't need to be in the text. I like it other than that.

[Marco]

Matt, my original idea was:

Leng's Preservation
1U
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card from your hand, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard. Draw two cards.

The idea was to mimic Teferi's Response. However, drawing two cards (or even one card) right away does not work. For example, I cast Leng's Preservation in response to my opponent's Hymn to Tourach. If I drew two cards right away (on the resolution of Leng's Preservation), there would be two more cards in my hand for my opponent to discard, and if I put the two discarded cards on top of my library, I'm two draws behind. If I draw a card at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep, as currently worded, I'll draw both cards (cantrip + regular draw).

Also, the above card was too good because you could draw two cards for 1U at instant speed at any time, even if you weren't targeted with a discard spell.

twinky, this is a one-shot Library of Leng. Therefore, I used the Oracle text for Library of Leng:

You have no maximum hand size.
If an effect causes you to discard a card from your hand, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard.

[Matt]

If I drew two cards right away (on the resolution of Leng's Preservation), there would be two more cards in my hand for my opponent to discard,

Wait, how does that work? It's not like the Hymn comes back and says "discard ANOTHER two!"

[Marco]

No, but why would you want to draw two cards only to have them (possibly) randomly discarded? I guess that means the two other cards in your hand may be saved. And you could just put them back on top of your library anyway...

[Matt]

Actually, now that I think about it, it seems kind of out of place for this to draw you cards at all. I think I would prefer this:

Name
<cost>
Instant
<some narrow ability>
Cycling W
When you cycle ~this~, until end of turn, whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card from your hand, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard.

[Marco]

Actually, I kind of like it. But you're still drawing a card when you cycle it. I have an exam to study for, I'll think about it and post sometime next week.

[Marco]

Well, I've thought about it. And I like Matt's suggestion (I'm a big fan of the cycling abilities on Decree of Justice and Gempalm Incinerator), but I'm not sure what the narrow ability should be. Anyone have any ideas???

[Marco]

I can't think of an original ability to put on this card...

[Marco]

I think I'm going to put this one on the shelf for now, and come back to it later.

[dandan]

It doesn't need to be very narrow, just in the same theme.

How about

W
Put target permanent you control that is the target of a spell or ability controlled by an opponent on top of your library.

['own' is also an option]

(I assume that tokens would disappear in a similar way to the way they do when they go to your graveyard)

That is way less powerful than giving it Protection or making it Flicker but it could be useful rather than only the Cycling being useful.

[Matt]

It would HAVE to be 'own' - you're not allowed to have cards you don't own in any of your zones other than in play - not in hand, graveyard, library, et cetera.

And yes, tokens cannot exist in any zone other thanthe in-play zone.

[Matt]

I'm going to wait until Marco sees dandan's suggestion before adding this.

[Marco]

Thank you. I like it now, but it's a lot of text. It'll all fit on a card, but the font size will be small. Sadly, I don't really think I can shorten it.

[Marco]

24 hour clock? Or too much text?

[Sheera]

Too much text indeed, but loose the cycling triggered ability and it should be all right. (Otherwise it reads as wordy as a card from Ice Age or beyond. )

[Marco]

No, I would rather print the card as originally posted (with a casting cost of W instead of U) than solely as what dandan suggested (everything before the cycling in the current wording post). That would be a different card than what I intended. So the question is, card 1 or card 2?

card 1:

Leng's Preservation
W
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card from your hand, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard.
Draw a card at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep. (Or, just "Draw a card.")

card 2:

Leng's Preservation
W
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever a permanent you own becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, you may put that permanent on top of your library.
Cycling W
When you cycle Leng's Preservation, until end of turn, whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes you to discard a card from your hand, discard it, but you may put it on top of your library instead of into your graveyard.

If we go with card 1, we can add the following card to the master thread:

Card Name
W
Instant
Until end of turn, whenever a permanent you own becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, you may put that permanent on top of your library.

But I will open another thread for it.

[Sheera]

I would choose the first version then, with a simple "Draw a card." line.

[Marco]

Anyone else?

[Matt]

The first one looks good.

[Marco]

Works for me. Current wording post changed (back). 24 hour clock.