Mirage Spirit Cycle

[Pizzatog]

Here is the Spirit Cycle to go with the mirage lands. (Refer to topics Drifitng lands and Oroku)
Since my English is not good, help me out with the names and flavour text as well please.


And here are the Spirits:

Oroku Treekeeper
G
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Treekeeper has T: add G to your mana pool.
Sacrifice a Mirage: Add GG to your mana pool.
1/1

Oroku Flamekeeper
R
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Flamekeeper has T: Oroku Flamekeeper deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Sacrifice a Mirage: Oroku Flamekeeper deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
1/1

Oroku Bookeeper
U
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Bookeeper has T: Look at the top card in your library, you may put that card on the bottom of your library.
Sacrifice a Mirage: Draw a card.
1/1

Oroku Gravekeeper
B
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Gravekeeper has T: Target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Sacrifice a Mirage, Oroku Gravekeeper has T: Target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
1/1

Oroku Lawkeeper
W
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Lawkeeper has T: Prevent the next 2 damage dealt to you this turn.
Sacrifice a Mirage, Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you this turn.
1/1



Here are the Mirages Ive made (probably the only 2 mirages:)

Drifting Plane
Land - Mirage
When Drifting Plane comes into play, add one mana of any colour to your mana pool.
Remove Drifting Plane from the game: add one mana of any colour to your mana pool. Play this ability only if Drifting Plane is in your graveyard.

Oroku
Legendary Land - Mirage
Oroku comes into play tapped.
T: Add one mana of any colour to your mana pool for each Mirage in play.

[Pizzatog]

CURRENT WORDING

Oroku Treekeeper
G
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Treekeeper has "T: Target land becomes a 2/2 creature until end of turn."
Sacrifice a Mirage: Target land becomes a 3/3 creature that is still a land. (This effect doesn't end at end of turn)
1/1

Oroku Flamekeeper
R
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Flamekeeper has "T: Oroku Flamekeeper deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
Sacrifice a Mirage: Oroku Flamekeeper deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
1/1

Oroku Bookkeeper
U
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Bookeeper has "T: Look at the top card in your library, you may put that card on the bottom of your library."
Sacrifice a Mirage: Draw a card.
1/1

Oroku Gravekeeper
B
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Gravekeeper has "T: Target player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life."
Sacrifice a Mirage: Target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
1/1

Oroku Lawkeeper
W
Creature - Spirit
As long as you control a Mirage, Oroku Lawkeeper has "T: Prevent the next 2 damage dealt to target creature or player this turn."
Sacrifice a Mirage: Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you this turn.
1/1

[Ephraim]

These are pretty good. They seem reasonably well balanced. Perhaps the white one should tap to "Prevent the next 2 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player." (damage prevention isn't really all that hot that it breaks the card) and should keep the sacrifice to prevent all damage that would be dealt to you this turn.

Also, it's spelled Bookkeeper (double O, double K, double E)

[neppy]

The green one seems like it accelerates mana by too much.

Turn 1 forest, play treekeeper
Turn 2 mirage adding 1 mana, tap forest for G, tap treekeeper for G, Sac mirage for GG, remove mirage for 1 mana.  (6 total)
If both lands are mirages its 8 total.  

Maybe change it to creature pump?  Like tap for +1/+1 and sac for +2/+2.  Sacing the lands allows you to generate mana already so making even more off it seems dangerous.

[Pizzatog]

No.

If black can have dark ritual, which hasnt even been restricted.

And red can have seething song.

And artifacts can have lotuses and whatnot.... I dont see whats wrong with green, being the colour of fast mana and land supposedly having acces to 3 mana in turn 1, involving a 2 card investment and the loss of your land drop. So the best turn 1 scenario is: Play mirage, use mana to play keeper, sac mirage for GG, then remove for one mana. Thats 3 mana turn 1. You invested 2 cards and next turn you will have no land and your keeper wont produce mana. This is supposedly a colour of good fast mana (from land and creature sources, which is from where this mana is coming from), so I dont see why it cant get it... especially since it requires a sizable investment. Turn 3 best scenario is what you explained. 6 possible mana in turn 2, involving 3 cards and being down to 1 mana in turn 4 since you lost your land and your spirit cant be tapped for mana anymore. It would be impossible to get 8 mana in turn 2 if both cards were mirages, because one comes into play tapped, so you cant play keeper, and the other one wont produce any mana in your second turn

I can imagine a combo deck would benefit from this kind of quick mana burst (belcher? long?) but, this 3 mana burst is the result of a 2 card combo, one of which is a land (and will take away your mana drop) and one which is completely useless without the other.

I know its fast, but shouldnt green have a decent mana accelerator by now?... and when I say decent, I mean faster than elves or BoP. Using for a quick mana boost implies card loss and tempo loss, so you better use your 3 mana or 6 mana for something good. In all, I think this is very playable, but not broken at all.


And creature pump is a lot more white than green right now... if I even considered making it creature pump, Id make it into
+1/+1 counters. (which would be a lot more broken I think). The only alternative I would consider for this, would be as a land searcher... but I really like it the way it is.

By the way, Ephraim, thanks for the tips, I changed the white one.

[Matt]

Because Ritual and Lotus and Workshop are mistakes. The green one should tap for its second ability, at the least.

[Pizzatog]

they are mistakes that were never restricted (except for lotus). This is very much less powerful than those cards, it requires a 2 card investment to actually go off. WoTC has printed recently better costed rituals and moxen. Seething song, Cabal Ritual, Chrome Mox, And in champions of kamigawa you have the new mana flare in green and 1R sac a land add 1 to your mana pool. This, in green I dont feel so overpowered, since it requires a 2 card investment and doesnt stay on the board. Much like chrome mox, except tha chrome mox will continue to work the turns after it came into play.

[Matt]

Workshop was restricted for YEARS and Ritual has gotten itself banned from extended. Those cards ARE mistakes. Most cards in type one are. If your argument is "well, type one has better!" then don't even bother.

Five mana on turn two is really, really strong. It's broken unless you're losing more than one card. And this card can do even more than that if your second land is a mirage.

[Pizzatog]

My argument is not T1 is better. If your second land is a mirage, then youre not doing any better until turn three and the boost is a lot worse.

What you are not getting is this:
 The 3 mana boost in turn 1 is a 2 card combo, so...
- You must have both cards in opening hand, of which you have 4 of each in deck.
- You forfeit your land drop next turn, so not only do you lose 2 cards in the process, but you also lose tempo.
- After doing it, you will have no land in play, and a 1/1 vainilla creature (and whatever you cast with the 3 mana).

So this is strictly worse than the broken mistakes and about on the same level as "rituals" not broken (like cabal ritual).

It seems the whole problem is with the green spirit. So if this continues, I'll assume you are all right and I'll change it to:

T: Target land becomes a 2/2 green creature until end of turn.
Sacrifice Mirage: Target land becomes a 3/3 green creature with trample until end of turn.

That is a bit bland, but would it be better in your view?

[Matt]

That would definitely be better. It still may be strong but it's not scary like having six mana on turn two is.

My objection was never about the turn one power (which is pretty poor), but the turn two (tap two lands, tap elf, then sac one or two lands = 5-7 mana, which is the kind of thing that got Grim Monolith banned in extended).

[Pizzatog]

OK, by popular demand, Ill change it. Ive thought about it as well, and I think that  since the mirages produce mana, the spirits should not. I changed it to land animator. k?

[Matt]

Could you explain what you mean by

Sacrifice a Mirage, Oroku Gravekeeper has T: Target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.

? I'm not sure what that's supposed to say.

[Pizzatog]

Edit - Fixed it, it was a typo.

[Jebus]

Gained abilities need to be in quotes.

[Ephraim]

These look pretty good. The blue one might be a little bit underpowered. Would it be fair for its tap ability to be "T: Scry 2"?

[Pizzatog]

Added the quotes. Due to the synergy these have with crucible and the mirage lands, I wouldnt want to add stuff to the blue one. Draw a card is a very powerful ability.

[Jacob Orlove]

The blue one is definitely a little weak here.

[Pizzatog]

With crucible of worlds, I wouldnt want to tweak anything that is U=draw a card, and is reusable.... I mean, whispers of the muse costs 5U to reuse, so I think the blue is balanced as much as it can without becoming broken.


24 hour clock

[Ephraim]

If people are going to be playing this with Crucible as a card-drawing engine, then the tap ability is going to be largely irrelevant. I don't think it would be unfair to make the tap ability playable so that people have reason to use this card in ways besides Crucible combo.

[Pizzatog]

I think the tap ability is good enough. It gives you in one creature what you would otherwise get in a 2 mana artifact. Not only that, but its good card selection, because if you like the card, you can sac a mirage and draw it, and use the mirage you sacced to get mana to actually play it. It chains together pretty well. I think card selection + card drawing on a single one mana card is pretty balanced.

[Ephraim]

Okay, explained that way, I think I like it as-is, then. As far as Darksteel Ingot goes, I think that part of the cost is the fact that it's indestructible, but this does also come with a warm body. Fair enough.