Black Creature: Uncommon

[DavidHernandez]

Creature:
Black: Uncommon

Reckless Soul Leech
B
7/7
As part of Reckless Soul Leech's casting cost, pay half your life rounded up.

Whenever Reckless Soul Leech damages a player, you lose one life.

[Jacob Orlove]

Way too strong.

[leviat]

Ack! I think this creature is way to powerful for it's drawback. I would suggest increasing the casting cost to {B} and toning it's P/T down to 5/5.

[MrZuccinniHead]

well it doesn't have evasion or trample or haste.  Maybe adding 1 to the cost?

Triple post deleted. Hitting the Submit button once will usually do the trick  - Bram

[dandan]

Lurking Evil  Enchantment     BBB  
Pay half your life, rounded up: Lurking Evil becomes a 4/4 creature with flying that counts as a Horror.  

Lurking Evil was used, and is a reasonable benchmark. Without Flying it could be a 5/5, even taking the CC to 1BB.

The life loss seems out of place.

I guess if dark deals are your thing you could go the way of the Reaver

1B
As an additional cost to cast this, pay half your life rounded up.
Whever this deals damage to a player, it deals that much damage to its controller.
5/5

That is Tempting Wurm big and Tempting Wurm risky.

[Laurie Cheers]

The life loss seems out of place.

The flavour seems reasonable to me. This is a creature that eats you when you cast it, and carries on eating you.

Simpler, less sick version:

Soul Leech
B
Creature - Leech
5/5
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose half your life, rounded up.

Maybe too weak now, I'm not sure.

[DavidHernandez]

Hm. Originally I was thinking of it as a sibling to Sundering Titan (yeah, Titan costs 8, but with Workshops + Artifact Mana, or Tinker, or Welder it comes in so fast that it's 'high' casting cost is a joke).

By paying 1/2 your life, the idea was that even if it came in on turn 1 you would be at 10, and if it swung once you would be at 9 while the opponent was at 13. After an unblocked second swing, you would be at 8 and the opponent at 6.

Almost even after 2 unblocked swings.

The creatures drawback of "Lose One Life" every time it damages an opponent really stops you from being able to cast a second one.

I chose 7/7 because it forces you to swing a minimum of 3 times. Perhaps a 6/6 would be better (because it forces you to swing 4 times):


Reckless Soul Leech
Creature-Leech:
Black: Uncommon
B
6/6

As part of Reckless Soul Leech's casting cost, pay half your life rounded up.

Whenever Reckless Soul Leech deals damage, you lose one life.

Note the changes in bold. Now you would lose life even if it is blocked, and the opponent would be on a 4-turn clock instead of 3.

Dave.

[Ephraim]

DavidHernandez wrote:
Hm. Originally I was thinking of it as a sibling to Sundering Titan (yeah, Titan costs 8, but with Workshops + Artifact Mana, or Tinker, or Welder it comes in so fast that it's 'high' casting cost is a joke).

This reasoning is a joke. Sundering Titan's high cost may not be meaningful to a Type 1 player, but eight mana isn't quite so easy to come by in Type 2 or Mirrodin Block, where the card was printed. Let's have some perspective here!

[DavidHernandez]

Sundering Titan's high cost may not be meaningful to a Type 1 player, but eight mana isn't quite so easy to come by in Type 2 or Mirrodin Block, where the card was printed.

This is a good point.

This reasoning is a joke.

This is rude.

Let's have some perspective here!

That's what the forum is for.

Back to your comment about Type 2 or Mirrodin Block: That's an important consideration. If the creature had FADING-3 it could work, but Matt has requested no Fading/Morph/etc.

Maybe Kicker could work:

Reckless Soul Leech
Creature-Leech:
Black: Uncommon
B
2/2

As part of Reckless Soul Leech's casting cost, pay two life.

Whenever Reckless Soul Leech deals damage, you lose one life.

{Kicker}: Pay half your life rounded up. Put four +1/+1 counters on Reckless Soul Leech.


Maybe we don't need an Uncommon Black Creature Beatstick at all, but if it can work, it does look more balanced now.

Dave.

[Bram]

You still have a creature that's basically a three turn clock at best (given that most people will hurt themselves for 2 using a fetcher and a FoW or somethign similar) or a 4 turn clock at worst that almost always comes out on turn 1.

This simply wrecks the control matchup. An unrestricted 6/6 for 1 is way, way too good, even with this drawback. Let's take a look at a typical control matchup.

Turn 1.
Me: swamp, this, go to 10. Go.
Him: Fetch something (go to 19)
Turn 2.
Me: play another one. He fows. Beat for six. Me: 9. Him: 12.
Him: whatever
Turn 3.
Me: beat for 6. Go to 8. Him: 6.
Him: whatever.
Turn 4: beat for the win.

This is like Negator on acid. Even for the kicker version you go 20-18-9-8-7-win. Can't be done. Now if it said "....you lose THAT MUCH life" this would be printable. But then it would be just plain horrid. I see no real answer other than Laurie's suggestion which turns it into a 4 turn clock leavbing you at 1 and the opponent at 0.

[brianb]

Laurie's version looks like the most reasonable thing I've seen.  If you want to make a T1-worthy beatstick, you'd better give it a hell of a drawback like this to balance it in other formats.  If you lose half your life in upkeep, the life totals go something like:

Turn 1: play it
Turn 2:  drop to 10, opponent 15
Turn 3: drop to 5, opponent 10
Turn 4: drop to 3, opponent 5
Turn 5: drop to 2, opponent dead

Of course, what will really happen is more like turn 1, play this dude; turn 2, play another one of these and duress.  Or even stronger, dark ritual, play two of these and a duress or one of these and a nantuko shade.  The drawback will keep this from being TOO good in limited or even in a mixed T1 metagame, but it will be sideboard worthy at the very least.

[combo_dude]

I agree with Laurie's reasoning. Although I suspect whatever the incarnation of this is, it should definitely be a rare - unless it becomes more akin to Flesh Reaver, which is uncommon.

[DavidHernandez]

Me: swamp, this, go to 10. Go.

Actually, you would go to 8 because you would be paying for the 2 when it comes into play (and the kicker is on top of that).

Laurie's suggesting is great, but it seems to make the creature unplayable.

What if it were:

Reckless Soul Leech
Creature-Leech:
Black: Uncommon
B
2/1

As part of Reckless Soul Leech's casting cost, lose two life.

At the beginning of your upkeep, lose 2 life or bury Reckless Soul Leech.
Reckless Soul Leech cannot be regenerated if it is buried in this way.

{Kicker}: Pay half your life rounded up. Put four +1/+1 counters on Reckless Soul Leech.

?

Dave.

[Jacob Orlove]

I am completely opposed to the idea of trying to "balance" cards by adding more abilities and disadvantages to them. This needs AT MOST one ability and one drawback. Either find a simple, balanced way to make the card, or abandon the idea.

[Bram]

Actually, you would go to 8 because you would be paying for the 2 when it comes into play (and the kicker is on top of that).

Actually you wouldn't since you worded the life loss of two as part of the cost of playing it.

Turn 4: drop to 3, opponent 5
Turn 5: drop to 2, opponent dead

You'd drop to 1. Half of three rounded up is two. Three minus two equals...

I agree with Jacob. This card is looking messier by the minute.

[brianb]

Dave's last version is getting close to the mark.  A little strong, maybe.  I wouldn't make the upkeep optional.  If you can't win and you're stuck with this guy in play, you can just be SOL.  That cleans up the card wording, too.  There might be confusion over the casting cost, too.  Do you pay the 2 life before or after the kicker?  You could just forget the 2 life on casting and bump the upkeep to 3.  That's a more appropriate drawback for a black savannah lion who might be bigger if you have life to spare.  Here's a slightly weaker, cleaner version.

Reckless Soul Leech
Creature-Leech:
Black: Uncommon
B
2/1

At the beginning of your upkeep, lose 3 life.

{Kicker}: Pay half your life rounded up. Put four +1/+1 counters on Reckless Soul Leech.

I'm pretty sure that would be balanced in either the regular or unkicked version.  It still might be a little strong, since you get the option of which one you want.  If it is too strong, the next downward adjustment would be to make it a 2/2 with 3 counters from the kicker.  That should be fine for sure.

[Bram]

I agree that it's cleaner. Bu balanced? C'mon people...we're talking about a 6/5 for 1 measly black mana here! The life loss doesn't balance this. Sure, I understand the math. Me: 20-10-7-4-1, him: 20-14-8-2. Unless he damages himself for 2 with a Fetcher or a FoW, he's winning the damage race. But that's not the point, is it? There's no way this will be the only creature a sui deck plays. Hell, this could be followed up by a Shade off a Ritual on the very first turn. This is giving Sui too strong a weapon.

Or let me put it this way: there is no way in hell Wizards would ever print this, ever.

[Laurie Cheers]

Soul Leech
B
Creature-Leech
7/7
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose all but 1 life.

[Bram]

that should probably be '...your life total becomes 1'.

OK, so yeah. That's probably not broken. But do we want this? Is this interesting? Right now, we're just figuring out ways to 'balance' huge dorks with ridiculously low mana costs. I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm not too keen on that. I don't find it very interesting at all.

[DavidHernandez]

But do we want this? Is this interesting? Right now, we're just figuring out ways to 'balance' huge dorks with ridiculously low mana costs.

Yeah, I agree.

So let's move on to another Black Uncommon Creature. From the results of this thread, I think we probably want to put together a non-fattie. Maybe something with an interesting comes-into-play or leaves-play ability.

Dave.