Devilfish Cycle

[Matt]

Great Devilfish
3U
Creature -- Fish
2/2
T: At end of turn, untap target land and target creature.
Enslaved by pirates in the north Honeyed Sea for their brute strength, devilfish are most often used as living barges, towing frieght to and from the Talisian Empire.


Elder Devilfish
1UU
Creature -- Fish
2/2
whenever Elder Devilfish becomes blocked, return another permanent you control to owner's hand.
"It is therefore evident that despite their highly organized schooling patterns, these large monsters possess little more intelligence than the fish they herd." --Talisian research notes


Imperial Devilfish
3UU
Creature -- Fish
4/4
Islandwalk
Tap two untapped blue creatures you control: target land becomes an island until end of turn.
The last devilfish to be captured fought the hardest, and though their masters know it not, patiently plan and wait for the day they will again be free.


Devilfish's Gaze
U
Sorcery
Each player looks at another player's hand and shuffles one of those cards into its owner's library. Each player draws a card.
Old sailor's folklore holds that if you stare into the gleaming eyes of a wild devilfish, you can see its dreams, and it can see yours. However, such stories are difficult to confirm.



The creature cards should go common, uncommon, rare. The spell could be anything really, but it would be a terrible rare, so probably common.

Note the Honeyed Sea reference; I also used it on Irridescent Avizoa.

Thanks to Jacob for filling in the blanks.

[Matt]

Current wording:

Great Devilfish
3U
Creature -- Fish
2/2
T: At end of turn, untap target land and target creature.
Enslaved by pirates in the north Honeyed Sea for their brute strength, devilfish are most often used as living barges, towing frieght to and from the Talisian Empire.


Elder Devilfish
1UU
Creature -- Fish
2/2
Whenever Elder Devilfish becomes blocked, return a permanent you control to owner's hand.
"It is therefore evident that despite their highly organized schooling patterns, these large monsters possess little more intelligence than the fish they herd." --Talisian research notes


Imperial Devilfish
3UU
Creature -- Fish
4/4
Islandwalk
Tap two untapped blue creatures you control: target land becomes an island until end of turn.
The last devilfish to be captured fought the hardest, and though their masters know it not, patiently plan and wait for the day they will again be free.


Devilfish's Gaze
U
Sorcery
Each player looks at another player's hand and shuffles one of those cards into its owner's library.
Each player draws a card.
Old sailor's folklore holds that if you stare into the gleaming eyes of a wild devilfish, you can see its dreams, and it can see yours. However, such stories are difficult to confirm.

[Matt]

Well, fuck it. Twenty-four hour clock.

[Jacob Orlove]

I like them, for what that's worth.

[dandan]

The Elder could return a permanent rather than another permanent you control. Blue has got 2/2 Unblockables before and giving a Boomerang when blocked isn't that stellar (good but not too good)

I can't see why the Gaze isn't an Instant

The Great one isn't that great. Couldn't you improve him to a 2/3?

[Matt]

I actually thought of all those, but here's my reasoning:

Elder: I chose the ability so that people would have to work at using him. It's easy to always bounce something of an opponent's, but you have to be more inventive than that with a self-bouncer. Resetting fading, cumulative upkeep, all kinds of things that use counters such as Trsikelion, CIP creatures like Nekrataal, and so on. He's a sleeper card that looks really bad at first but has a lot of hidden uses.

I thought of making the blue guy bigger but his ability is really good as it is - he's a Clone and a mana myr in one card, almost. If it were any bigger it would be a solid 2nd-4th pick in limited unless we had a lot of Lightning Bolt-level removal.

I made the Gaze a sorcery because it is reminiscient of discard, and it's only barely in-flavor for blue as it is ([card]Forget[/card]).

[dandan]

Aha, great minds think alike!

The Elder looks really bad because he is really bad. He is strictly worse than a Phantom Warrior (ignoring the Lure 'abuse') and if you block him his ability sucks most of the time and can't even save his own butt. At the very very least let him bounce himself. Fish are slippery you know. Would the Boomerang version be too good? I like cards that need TLC too but making Boomerang one of your own permanents an ability should be costed as a disability!!

Gaze - good points, well made. I can't argue with sorcery

The Great Devilfish - Untap a creature and a land was last seen on a commonly used 1cc creature in Stompy if I recall. The 'end of turn' bit is annoying even if it is understandable. Wouldn't a 'use this ability only once per turn' be just as effective in stopping combo but more powerful and interesting. Apart from Mindless Automaton and Krovikan Horror (OK Braids if I stretch it), 2/2s for 4 have a poor track record.

As a complete aside, if Wizards cut Merfolk because they don't like the idea of land-based creatures battling our beloved aquatic friends, how to you think they would react to a bunch of hard haddock?!!!

[Matt]

Yeah, well, Wizards was wrong on that one.

I changed the elder to bounce himself. I think that's fine, since ther're still plenty of uses.

[mouth]

I meant to mention this before, but I was in a rush. The Great Devilfish has very odd wording. In it's current form it has an activated ability that sets up a delayed trigger... I'm not sure if that was intended, it's just kinda weird.

[Matt]

It's intentional. I think it's all right, because little tweaks are good, but only if it's not taking up lots of valuable card space, which this isn't. I also wonder if there's some way to use the fact that the untaps don't happen right away...I don't know.

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]