delayed fireball

[XellossMetallium]

Delayed Fireblast
XX
Enchantment
----------------
you may only use red mana for X.
Delayed Fireblast comes into play with X delay counters on it. Remove a delay counter on your upkeep step. When there are no counters to remove sacrifice Delayed Fireblast to deal X damage to target creature or player.

0: remove a delay counter from Delayed Fireblast
-----------------

just a silly card thats been on my mind

[gashole]

I'm not sure I understand the point of having delay counters if you can just remove them all at once for the same effect. I also think it's confusing to have to keep track of the original cost of X in addition to the number of counters on it.

[Bram]

Plus, it isn't neither an enchantment nor a red card the way it's worded now. It's an artifact.

If you want it to be the former, you'll need to state it on the card text (because the XX mana cost determines the color or lack thereof), which makes it look silly. Also, I agree with the previous poster. Why would you want to delay the effect if you can just use it for free now?

How 'bout this:

Timebomb
X
Artifact
Spend only red mana on X.
Timebomb comes into play with X delay counters on it.
Remove a delay counter at the beginning of your upkeep.
When there are no delay counters on Timebomb, sacrifice it. If Time Bomb is sacrificed in this way, it deals X damage to target creature or player.
R: remove a delay counter from Timebomb.

That makes more sense to me, and the wording's better, too.

[Jacob Orlove]

You can't have an X that doesn't refer to the number of counters--this will always deal 0 damage.

[Ephraim]

It also bears mentioning that 'Time Bomb' is already the name of a card.

[mouth]

You could just make it a permanent Fireball, like how Seal of Fire and Pyrite Spellbomb are permanent Shock's. If you were inclined to do that, it should read:

Exploding Enchantment

Enchantment
~This~ comes into play with boomboom counters on it.
, Sacrifice ~this~: ~This~ deals damage to target creature or player, where is equal to the number of boomboom counters on ~this~.

Now that I think about it, it's actually closer to a permanent Volcanic Geyser. You could still make it an artifact with a cc of just X and put a "Play this ability as a sorcery" clause in there, which would make it more like a permanent Fireball. Then you'd need to throw that "Spend only red mana on X" sentence in there again. Unless you want to make an incredibly splashable limited bomb.

[gashole]

For what it's worth, this would be my take on the idea.

Delayed Fireball
1R
Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, put a charge counter on ~this~.

Sacrifice ~this~: ~this~ deals X damage to target creature or player, where X is equal to the number of charge counters on ~this~.

R: Put a charge counter on ~this~.

I'm not sure if the single red cost of the second activated ability is too strong, it seems like it would balance the weakness of being an enchantment. I dunno.

[Bram]

It also bears mentioning that 'Time Bomb' is already the name of a card.

It was only a substitute vor 'delayed fireball' which really is a bitch to type 5 times

[Ephraim]

Gashole - that's very similar to Torch Song - strictly better than, in fact, since it has a lower converted mana cost, has provisions to add counters at times other than one's upkeep, and doesn't cost mana to blow up.

[Bram]

And I'd like to add with all tact I can muster at this late hour that it's also a bit, wel, um, boring.

But let's hear from the original poster first!

[gashole]

Ah, I guess I didn't search Workstation hard enough. Filters and searches confuse and frighten me. Now that I know the idea's been done, I agree with Bram.

*Although this card would have been AWESOME in my mana battery-storage land-fireball deck 10 years ago.*

[Ephraim]

Magic Workstation's searching functions are sort of clunky. If I want to do intense searching, I use cardkingdom.com's search engine.