More artifact mana

[Marco]

Delver
1
Artifact
Tap, Remove two cards in your graveyard from the game: Add 2 mana to your mana pool.

Looking for a new card name.

[Marco]

Current Wording:

Blast Furnace
1
Artifact
Tap, Remove three cards in your graveyard from the game: Add 2 mana to your mana pool.

[Laurie Cheers]

Sol Shovel?

This looks reasonable. Pretty weak first turn, which of course is the point.

[dandan]

Pretty weak first turn in decks that aren't combo decks, strong in recursion combo (OK, I admit that that isn't the fastest combo type currently around), we get the classic problem of a niche card that is too good in some decks and weak in others (the 'normal' use is actually pretty balanced, rather than weak). I am not convinced that combo can't put 2 non-essential cards in its graveyard on turns 1/2 so this looks dangerously strong. Would 3 cards be asking too much?

[Necrologia]

Thanks to fetchlands and stuff this card is pretty much strictly superior to Grim Monolith. It comes down earlier, gives the same amount of acceleration the turn it's played, but it much easier to reuse. In fact, everytime you tap this it's going to get you closer to tapping it next turn.

I love the idea but I think the RFG needs to be bumped to 3 at least. Even then it still seems playable/strong.

[Marco]

3 cards breaks the symmetry of 2 cards for 2 mana, but it that's what it takes...

[Laurie Cheers]

If you're concerned about symmetry, how about upping the cost to 2?

[Marco]

I supposed that's do-able, though unnecessary. I'm tired of creating artifacts with a casting cost of 2. I need some variation.

Edit: Would it make a difference if I made this a Legendary Artifact? (Unlike my gemstone cycle.)

[Matt]

That would probably work.

[Marco]

I'm assuming you meant that making this a Legendary Artifact would probably work? Although, without a lot of cards in your graveyard it's hard to make two of these work any way.

[Ephraim]

It isn't all that hard to get a lot of cards in your graveyard, though. If all you care about is being able to use these to generate a lot of mana, you can burn through your deck with the help of Compulsion, Bazaar of Baghdad, Merfolk Looter, etc... and have a constant source of disposable graveyard.

[Marco]

Agreed. So is this consensus that this should be legendary? If so, I need a good, unique card name.

[Marco]

Change made. 24 hour clock?

[Necrologia]

You might want to come up with a new name. It sounds fine, but sextants in magic tend to help fix mana, ala Barbed Sextant or Braidwood Sextant. Since this makes colorless mana though it doesn't quite work.

[Marco]

That's a valid point. What does everyone else think?

[Ephraim]

Monoliths are known for generating colourless mana. How about "Monolithic Crematorium?" Then, give it the flavour text, The furnaces at the base of the tower provide heat and power for the morticians working above.

[dandan]

I am still concerned that this is basically a Sol Ring and that combo decks might be able to abuse it (abuse = use it once on turn 1 or 2). I am fine with it acting as a Sol Ring to get out fat creatures in casual games   :wink:  but helping combo is not a good idea. Legendary drops the power level by about 0.0001% on turn 1 (OK slightly more but you can still up your Storm count). I really think this needs to remove 3 cards to reduce the chance of combo boost.

[stolen]

And with the new Legend rule, assuming I have this right, the Legendary status is irrelevant for combo, because you can drop one, tap it, drop another one destroying the first, tap it, and twice again.

Even if there was a way to assure that only one is ever played, it's still another Sol Ring, but more copies can be run to ensure that it is found sooner.  The drawback is hardly relevant.  This needs to be toned down; even removing three cards might be too little.

[Ephraim]

That's not so, Stolen. The second one would never have an opportunity to tap for mana. The results of state-based effects are faster than mana abilities. If you were to play a second copy of this, it would be in play only long enough to trigger comes-into-play and/or leaves-play abilities.

If this is broken, I don' think that the solution lies in making it remove more cards. This would be much less broken if its mana cost were . Only once you've done that, if you really want to give it a kick in the junk, make it remove three cards.

[Jacob Orlove]

Raising the cost to 2 is drastic, though. Doubling the cost of mana acceleration is huge.

Raising it to 3 cards, though, seems fine to me. You can get one early boost, and then maybe some more mana later, but it's not a ton of mana all over the place.

[Marco]

Okay, change made.

I like the idea of a furnace (like Phyrexian Furnace), but I don't like "Monolithic Crematorium". I'll try to think of a suitable name.

[stolen]

That's not so, Stolen.

My apologies.  I never actually read the rules text on the new Legend rule...I was under the impression that the second one would replace the first one, not kill them both.  Oops.  Good thing I've never had this come up in a game.

[Marco]

How about:

Dwarven Mantle

[Matt]

I liked 'furnace' better than 'mantle'.

[Marco]

Me too. Dwarven Furnace? (I seem to be on a Dwarf kick lately.)

[Ephraim]

In that case, I suggest either Blast Furnace or Slag Refinery. If it has to be dwarven in flavour, we could come up with some good flavour text (a Dwarven smelting song or something.)

[Marco]

I'm still thinking on this. It doesn't have to be Dwarven, but I like your flavor text idea...

Blast Furnace is interesting...

[Matt]

Blast Furnace is great. I would also approve of Smelting Pool.

[Marco]

Blast Furnace it is.

24 hour clock.

I've been sitting on this one for a bit and I have other cards I want to post.

[Ephraim]

Flavour Text:
"Pump the bellows, keep it burnin'; Steel keeps the world turnin'"
--Dwarven smelting song