Unease

[Pizzatog]

As you see, I like black discard effects. Its beguile and now this:


Unease
1BB
Instant
Target opponent discards his hand. At the begining of that opponent's next upkeep, he draws 7 cards.
"Effective Necromancy requires an unappealing exterior. The momentary shock this brings to your foe is often enough of an advantage." Necromancer's Handbook


Chaining these together turn after turn is very evil indeed. It was a one mana cost sorcery, but it was just not evil enough for my taste. It's the black time walk effect. . It helps your opponent much more if he does not have that many cards in hand, or if he drew crap. Its a powerful effect and it goes with underworld dreams I guess, and Megrim.

By the way, It used to cost BB, but I added the extra mana because this on a scepter is downright broken as hell.

CURRENT WORDING:

The tempo swing it made was horribly broken, so here is something to correct that:

Unease
1BB
Instant
Target opponent reveals his hand and discards all non-land cards. At the begining of that player's next upkeep, that player draws 7 cards.
"Effective Necromancy requires an unappealing exterior. The momentary shock this brings to your foe is often enough of an advantage." Necromancer's Handbook

[Ephraim]

It really should be a sorcery, though. Casting this during your opponent's draw phase is totally abusive. It's a time walk, plus your opponent has no hand while you do stuff on your turn. Forget this Scepter, this is pretty rude, all by itself.

[Pizzatog]

Thats the whole point of the card. Its supposed to be a black time walk. Except I Wasnt sure if it sould be 1BB or BBB. The card advantage it generates for your opponent over time compensates the turn they did nothing (unless they got instants to play). So you need to a) be able to tutor 4 copies of this, chain them one each turn and actually play something else that helps you win the game at the same time. Play it on turn 1 with the help of dark ritual. I know its powerful. It is VERY powerful... Ill change it though, so it doesnt affect tempo that horribly I'm turning the discard into non land cards. That way he doesnt lose the land tempo (unless youre also playing black land destruction).

[Matt]

You have too many open threads. When one of your ideas gets finished, PM Jacob or me and we'll open this one for further discussion.[/color]

[Matt]

Bump. Thread opened.[/color]

[Jacob Orlove]

I don't really like this.

[Matt]

Bump again, since Jacob put it sqaurely in the middle of a bunch of closed threads. :frown:

[Pizzatog]

hmmm... why dont you like this?

Its evil enough. Dump your hand, now you're helpless for a turn.

[Ephraim]

Its supposed to be a black time walk.

In that case, I cannot give this card my approval. Whether you give your opponent an additional benefit at the end of your free turn is irrelevant to me. Three mana is too little for a Time Walk effect, unless it's Final Fortune. I'd argue that in a format where you're not likely to win with your free turn, the advancement in your board position will outweigh your opponent's free cards. In fact, if you cast this after your opponent's first draw step, off a Dark Ritual, it's a genuine black time walk, no disadvantage at all -- and it's using unrestricted cards (swamps and dark rituals) to do it. Not only that, but if your opponent mulliganed into a hand that they liked, you could totally screw them with this. I'm not sure if I'd go so far as to say that this card is broken at any cost, but it's definitely not expensive enough right now.

[Pizzatog]

Reasons this is strictly worse than time walk:

1) It costs one more black mana.
2) Your opponent doesn't lose tempo in his mana development, he can still play land and instants in response... (Time walk had the added effect of giving you an extra land in your development.)
3) Its useless if your opponent has already emptied his or her hand, or if he doesnt have a lot of stuff left. (It actually works against you). So against fast aggro (goblins, raffinity, madness, combo) it gets to a point where its not that good and actually works against you.
4) It dumps stuff in your opponents graveyard, which against a big chunk of the metagame is a good thing for your opponent.
5) You will usually get 3-5 cards discarded from this in the best case scenario. Much the same with persecute (even though that is a sorcery)
6) Playing this turn 1 or turn 2 requires dark ritual, so basically it involves a 2 or 3 card investment to make your opponent discard 4-6 cards and he will get 7 his next turn. You will not get that card advantage back.

ANYWAYS:

These are the things Id consider changing to make it less broken:
1) Make it cost 4 mana so as to stop it from being so easily powered with dark ritual.
2) Make it castable only during your opponents end of turn step (so that he has an empty hand during your turn, but you cant play it in the draw step.)

I would NOT make it a sorcery, because that way it would just be to weak, but I would consider limiting it to your opponents end phase.

Comments?

[Jacob Orlove]

I don't like cards that have gigantic drawbacks, unless those drawbacks make some kind of sense. This just feels very random.

[Pizzatog]

I think its very much in flavour. Your opponent is helpless for a turn. Then actually recovers and sometimes is better off than before. Thats exactly what I want the flavour to be like. A momentary paralyzing shock. The "Drawback" is actually part of the flavour. Its a momentary thing. I think its a good thing to set up whatever game ending thing your going to play (much like duress, but a lot more expensive).

[Ephraim]

It darned well better be "strictly worse" than Time Walk. Time Walk is a broken card. In response to your explanations:

1. The fact that it requires black mana means that this can be cast off a Dark Ritual. No, it's still not as cheap as a Time Walk, which can typically be cast 2nd turn, assuming intelligent use of mulligans, but it's still really, really fast.

2. Your opponent does lose tempo in mana development. You can cast this during his draw phase to make him discard his entire hand (including the card he just drew) before he ever gets a main phase in which he'd be allowed to play a land.

4. This argument is only relevant to Vintage. Although we will perhaps be the only people who ever actually play with this set, it is not intended to be balanced only for a Vintage metagame. It is intended to be balanced for a generic Standard metagame as well.

5. This is just plain wrong. I already detailed the "best case" scenario, which is just that: the best case. You cast this off a Dark Ritual during your opponent's first draw phase. You get two turns before he even gets one. Maybe you meant the typical case. I agree with that. Typically, your opponent will gain 2-4 cards for skipping a turn. Typically then, this will be no better for your opponent than casting Meditate, a card that very few decks can effectively use.

6. All decks trade off between the commodities of tempo and card advantage. Playing a land doesn't incur card disadvantage. So really, if you're playing this on the second turn (we'll say), you're losing two cards (Dark Ritual and this) to make your opponent discard five cards. So far, you're up three cards. You get one of those cards back, during your free turn, so you're up four, then get minus seven when your opponent gets his next upkeep. You're losing three cards of advantage for a free turn. However, I must distinguish that you've only really lost the two cards you invested. You're down cards on your opponent, but it doesn't take much to gain that back in tempo.

[Pizzatog]

You do realize that the current wording says:

Discard all non-land cards, right?

He still gets to play his land.

[Ephraim]

Okay, that makes this marginally less broken. I still think that it's much, much too strong.

[Pizzatog]

The fact is, after a certain point in the game and against a large portion of the metagame, this is a almost if not a DEAD card. You can play Time Walk in any deck at any time and it will still be broken.


That said, would it be less broken if I added. Instant: you may only play this during your opponents end of turn? That way, you can keep your mana open.

[Ephraim]

I think that would probably be fair. It would give you a turn of unfettered freedom and might screw up a nice hand they'd set up or mulliganed to, but it wouldn't rob them of their turn, outright.

[Ocifer]

This card played with Chains of Meph. is an extremely brutal combo that may well be unrecoverable. Take into account that it's cheap and in the same color...

I say bump the mana cost by 2 if your gonna make it at all.

[Laurie Cheers]

If anyone's concerned about the power level, compare it with Suppress.

[Ephraim]

Suppress is slightly less broken than this is. It's playable at Sorcery speed, for one, although that doesn't prevent it from having a similar effect. It prevents land drops, etc. which is one of my initial fears about this card. On the other hand, the way that this was initially worded, if cast on an opponent's turn, it always gave the caster a turn in which to play things during which the opponent had no cards in his hand, in addition to robbing them of their turn. Suppress also gives them back their own cards. This allows them to plan a little bit for their recovery and it means that when cast early off a Dark Ritual, they're not praying that they get something half as good as the hand for which they mulliganed.

[Pizzatog]

Any time, instead of getting back the hand I mulliganed for (3 or 4 non-land  cards?) Id much rather have 7 random cards next apart from the lands in my hand. That is the same case with any good deck. That is why wheel of fortune is so broken. This is a wheel of fortune only targetting your opponent. Except that it lets him keep any land in his hand.... think about it.

[brendan]

Is this really that much better than mana short?

[Pizzatog]

24 hour clock

[Ephraim]

Did you decide not to make it playable only at the end of your opponent's turn or did you forget?

I was talking with Jacob Orlove the other day about this card and this is the conclusion we reached: If the ability is good enough to actually merit giving your opponent seven cards, then the ability is liable to win you the game before they get their seven cards. If it isn't powerful enough to do that, then it's probably stupidly weak. I'm not going to object to this card anymore, though. My objections have been heard and although I disagree with the rebuttals, I haven't been ignored.

[Pizzatog]

I decided to keep it as is, otherwise its stupidly weak.

Ephraim, you summed up better than I did what I think makes this card balanced. In the right scenario and time, this card is powerful enough to give your opponent 7 new cards and actually have a chance at winning. In the wrong scenario, its just stupidly weak and gives your opponent the means to completely crush you. It even goes in flavour. A momentary shock can either give you the advantage you need to win, or actually give your opponent the will power he needs to beat you.

[Jacob Orlove]

I was speaking about the "draw 7 cards" drawback in general. For this specific card, you can play it on their upkeep, but then you basically get a mana short effect and give them a bunch of cards. This really isn't good. I'd rather see this both do less and have a smaller drawback.

[Pizzatog]

The whole point of the original wording of this card is the complete opposite:

Huge Effect - Huge Drawback

Normally wizards balances it like this:

Huge Effect - Huge Drawback which it usually that it Costs a lot of mana.

But the kind of momentary effect this gives, I think requires a lower mana cost (at least not ridicously high) and the ability to build a deck that makes the huge drawback not so great. Cards like this, so far have only been seen in creature form (eater of days, leveler?). WoTC has printed cards with a huge drawback. I don't see the problem with this card... after all, as you said, its basically a black mana short (since now the opponent gets to keep his land) and not even that good. Whats the big deal now? I just don't get it.

[Jacob Orlove]

But with a card like Leveler or Phyrexian Negator, the drawback is an intrinsic part of the card. This sort of has the drawback tacked on randomly. Like, it would be basically the same if they drew 5 or 8 cards instead. Leveler and Negator are defined by their drawbacks. This is not.

[Pizzatog]

I think that I said in an earlier post what the drawback is about, and I think you are not understanding how the drawback is a part of the flavour of the card.

Unease. What the flavour is about is a momentary paralyzing shock in which the opponent can't do anything. It is momentary though, and he will recover and get a new breath to continue fighting. That is what I wanted with the card. I did not tack on a random drawback on it, actually I thought of the drawback before I even thought up the ability.

Discard you hand = momentary shock or helplessness. To do it more in flavour I even wanted to have potential for being cast in turn 1.
Draw 7 cards next turn upkeep = after the original shock, opponent recovers and thinks clearly again, maybe even is stronger than before.

Can I explain the flavour more clearly?

Now, the drawback states 7 cards because that is what a full hand of cards looks like and thats what I wanted before. After the tweaking, though, to make it less powerfull I made it to discard non-land hands, but I kept it at 7 hands. Seven in magic is a number that usually means to start again, or to have a full head once more. So, here 7 cards means that the shock is over and the opponent gets a second wind. I dont know how to make this clearer... I guess it could be draws a number of cards equal to the number discarded, but I think 7 is better. It implies seeing new solutions and fightning back.