Interupted Study

[Fall-Titan]

I was trying to think of a blue card that has X in its cost and doesnt just read draw X cards or Bounce X permanents. After i look at the orginal card i realized it was heavily broken so i had to add black into the mana cost and give it a drawback. Heres the card.

Interupted Study
(X)(X)BU- Instant
You may only play Interupted Study During your discard phase.
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with converted mana cost equal to or greater than X. remove that card from the game and put the revealed cards into your hand.

Its an orginal effect so i wasnt exactly sure how to template it. With x being double you cant simply pay 5 mana and empty out your deck so i think its fairly balanced. I was going to add a life loss clause but this thing would get way complicated.

Oh and i didnt know if Interupted Study was taken already but if anyone has any other ideas for the name shoot.

[Fall-Titan]

Current Wording

Interupted Study
(X)(X)BU- Instant
You may only play Interupted Study During your "End of Turn" phase.
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with converted mana cost equal to or greater than X. remove that card from the game and put the revealed cards into your hand.

[TheWellknownBrownie]

Eh. It's a little complicated, but some cards are, and I guess it's not overpowered with the double X and the timing. However, it's the "End of Turn" phase, not the Discard phase anymore.

[MrZuccinniHead]

so, if you cast this high enough and have a low curve on your deck, you pretty much draw your whole deck?

Since it's reveal and not draw, you won't lose the game from not being able to draw either.  I could see this being fun in dragon cuz it can win at instant speed.

EDIT: Dragon wouldn't work cuz it would hit the dragon...duh.

[Fall-Titan]

Yea its reveal not draw but unless you have some way of winning at instant speed then you would deck yourself anyway at the beginning of your next turn. And for most decks to get around force of will, tendrils, minds desire, etc, you would have to pay anywhere from 10 - 14 mana  to reveal your whole deck which is very unlikely. However casting it for 3 off a mana drain isnt that unreasonable. Or even in a very low curved deck simply casting it for 2 can be good. The only debate im having is whether the card should read greater than or equal to X or just greater than X. Anyone care to chime in?

[Freelancer]

Actually casting it off a drain isn't going to happen if you have to cast it during your end of turn step...

I can see this making some sort off wacky low curve UB flying deck in standard that uses this to draw a bunch off cards in the mid-late game...Luckily you realized how insane it is with just a single X in the mana cost...

I like it...

[Fall-Titan]

Sorry i should had said that i was thinking that without the timing issue mana draining into this for 6-8 for your entire deck is easy. Yea this card is definately only good for the right decks but maybe even a combo piece. Thanks for the feedback.

[stolen]

Hmm: a blue/black deck using High Tide and Bubbling Muck, along with Underground Seas and many fetchlands, to ramp up to fifteen mana, Cunning Wish for this and play it for twelve (to get around Turnabout)--

At any rate, I don't like this card.  It's just a silly and overcomplicated excuse  to make another card-drawer.

[Jacob Orlove]

If you built your deck right, casting this for 8 could give you upwards of 15 cards. Given that standard sees turn 4-5 castings of Tooth and Nail, that seems excessively powerful.

[Fall-Titan]

Sure its complicated but alot of cards are. If every card was simple then magic would be a boring uninventive game.

@Jacob- Yea i know getting 10 mana is easy in standard if your playing green. But this card is blue and black. Even with all of the mana retrieval in todays standard running 3 colors is always a risk when your trying to pop out cloudposts or urzatron. Not to mention drawing 15 cards during your end phase in standard isnt like in vintage where you auto win. It does allow you to filter your hand but that is no auto win.

And going back on the complicated issue, which is one of the weakest arguments for not liking a card, Please come up with something better than that or nothing at all. This is not just another excuse for card drawing! This is an original mechanic that has yet to be printed and i dont think just because its complicated makes it unplayable. Have you seen the reminder text on Timestop or even the text on Umezawas Jitte which at first seems really complicated leaving the player with 3 options. Not to mention with the lack of Gold cards lately, some good gold cards (not broken) need to be printed. Anything that requires 10 mana to be good is not broken (Yes even counting tooth and nail). This card requires a deck to be built around it which in essence leaves hate very open to it. Phew, sorry just got a little pissed at stolens comments.

If you dont like cards created by people in this forum then give constructed criticism or create your own cards. Do not hide behind an over exausted argument that has no real backbone to it.

[stolen]

Wow.  My apologies.

Er...

The whole card feels contrived.  It feels very "bottom-up" without a strong foundation.  The name and abilities give me no sense of flavour.  They give me no sense of what this card is; there's no "magic" in it.

Time Stop was a wonderfully elegant card, and despite the lengthy reminder text, the effect is very simple.  The effect, and the card, is truly awesome, and it gives that sense of power and magic.  It's actually great that you mention Time Stop; I would pick that out as one of the most beautiful magic cards ever printed, and an archetype for elegance in Magic card design.  The Jitte, while not my favorite card (in terms of flavor, anyway) still is a powerful, legendary artifact, and conveys that through the card and its abilities.  Both of these I could actually imagine as a magic spell/weapon.  Think of the literature that could be put behind either of these.  Imagine a passage in a book describing the awesome effect of a mage using Time Stop.  Odd that I say this because I despise fantasy literature, but I hope I'm getting my point across that the card is something greater than just a piece of cardboard.

Of course, not all cards Wizards makes I like as much as Time Stop, and there are many cards I would have rather them not printed at all.  Second, it is a game, and that comes first; an effect that's good for the game can make a boring card, and a truly inspiring card could be unprintable as it concerns the game.

Now back to your card.  I'll start with your introduction to it:  "i realized it was heavily broken so i had to add black into the mana cost and give it a drawback."  I realize the necessity of making a balanced card, and that adding drawbacks for no other reason than to balance it is perfectly reasonable.  However, and this is particularly in regard to the discard-step drawback, it feels like an ability you put on there solely to make it weaker.  Dawbacks should flow into the flavor of the card, not just be added on for balancing.  Now that I think about it, the black mana also seems very "extra".  This doesn't feel at all like a black card.  It's not being complicated alone that is my reason for not liking it; it feels "cluttered".

In retrospect, I was a bit hasty in my assessment of this as an "excuse to make another card-drawer."  While I'm still not too fond of the effect, I can see the reason to put a new twist on getting cards in a player's hand, and I think that this could become a great card.

As it is, I just don't like it.

Sorry if I still haven't explained myself very well.  Some of it is really just intuition, and that can be hard to put words to.

[Fall-Titan]

Thank you for elaborating more.
Regarding the black isssue: This card has some of the flavor of a tainted pact or Demonic consultation in the fact that you are looking for a card that meets the requirements and then removing that card form the game (Kinda reversed i know). Also to keep this card from being too good and it getting changed by some of the readers in this forum, i decided to be proactive and weaken the card by timing it during the "discard" or "end" step which is a highly black and as far as i know only black effect.

I agreed that the named kinda sucked in my initial post and asked for any ideas regarding it and have yet to see anyone post any. So the name alone would add more flavor to the card if it fit more appropriately. I do not like starting threads without a name for the card is the only reason i even added one.

Now flavour debate: You said you could picture a mage casting time stop as a spell. Picture this- A mage is looking through his spellbook for a particular spell when he is intruded apon by someone or an event causes him to stop. Maybe he got to that spell that he was looking for or maybe he is left with alot of sub-par (In regards to what he was looking for) spells that he has freshly reviewed while looking for that particular spell. Now is where it gets complicated because the black does not fit into this scenario at all. The black was simply in the casting cost to weaken the card and its timing.

I am completely open to suggestions regarding a different way to weaken the card while keeping it UU(x)(x) but i have yet to recieve any. Also if anyone can think of a way that black fits into the cards flavor besides something like "The intrusion was by a black mage" then fire away.

I apologize for my harsh words at you stolen i simply do not like it when people shoot down ideas and do not give reasons of merit for doing so.

[Ephraim]

I think this is an interesting mechanic, although I am not sure that this is the best possible form of it. I definitely do not like the way this particular card has been executed, though. This card would be a perfect place for an additional cost of a discarded card...

Interrupted Study
{U}
Instant/Sorcery

As an additional cost to play Interrupted Study, discard a card with converted mana cost X.
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with converted mana cost equal to or greater than X. Remove that card from the game and put the revealed cards into your hand.

***

This yields tension that just isn't present in the card that you suggested. Your card rewards a tight mana curve or huge mana production, neither of which is particularly interesting. With my suggestion, you have to have a higher-cc card in your hand to discard. The tension arises because the more high-cc cards you have in your deck, the fewer cards this is going to draw for you, but the less likely it is that you'll draw one to discard to this spell.

[Jacob Orlove]

Eph: your version would be fairly ridiculous with one or two high-CC cards and lots of tutors for them (say, Time of Need or the like).

I do like it better in principle than the original version, especially because the two card invesment makes a higher payoff fair.

[Ephraim]

That may be true. I suppose that since the high-mana-cost card is arbitrary, it doesn't really count as a "combo piece" so that this becomes a two-card combo with any reliable tutor. On the other hand, it still requires three cards (one of which is arbitrary) worth of plays to kick this off. Also note that the ridiculousness of mine is still tempered by the requirement that you pay . Suppose that a deck has cards that cost 4 or less, plus 1 or 2 5-cc spells to use with this, it's still going to cost them 6 mana, a discard, and probably a tutor to draw their deck.

[Fall-Titan]

Hey i never said the card was perfect.

I like your version but do you still think it should be end of turn or not? In a mono  blue or most modern control picthing a force of will and paying 5 mana off a mana drain to draw 10+ cards seems really strong. In type 2 your version is justified very well but i think a timing issue arises or maybe we need another way of keeping the card from being BROKEN in type 1.

[Ephraim]

Being playable only during the end of turn phase alters the dynamic of the card -- but I don't think it's a bad idea. Even in Type 2, it changes the way this card would be played, but it doesn't cripple the card. It wouldn't be quite as powerful as it is now, but it would give more incentive to play 3-5 5-cc spells, so it would typically draw a "reasonable" number of cards. I still think it would be playable in a variety of formats with that condition on it, so I have no objection.

[Charlie]

Way too underpowered in this form. Necrologia is way better and still unplayable.

[Fall-Titan]

First of all this is blue not black. Second loss of life requirements and mana requirements are completely different drawbacks. Finally this card is much more flexible in the fact that it doesnt cost 5 mana always. They are similar i agree but i dont think you can compare them to the point of sating necrolgia is better.

[Fall-Titan]

Trash this one mods. Its not panning out very well and i have no intention of trying to master list it so lock this one please.