Stave of Patience

[Ephraim]

Stave of Patience

Artifact

Instants you play at a time when you could play a sorcery cost less to play.

***

1. Stave is an authorized variant of "staff"
2. I was just thinking earlier of different ways that mana costs could be modified in fair ways. Helm of Awakening, for example, affects both players and the Medallions affect only spells of a certain colour. This only modifies instants. I did not, however, want to just have it cause all of your instants (or all instants in general) to cost less. I wanted to so something more interesting with it. The solution I came up with was to restrict when you could play instants at a discount.

Current Wording:

Staff of Patience

Artifact

Instants you play at a time when you could play a sorcery cost less to play.

[prosbloom225]

Stave kinda sounds wierd.  It seems like its real combo friendly for casual play.  I'd cast it at 3 or at least give it legendary status.

[Machinus]

I like this card, but I think you should be explicit about when the discount applies. You should say "during your main phase," "when the stack is empty," and maybe mention that being the active player when the stack is empty gives you priority automatically. However, that might still be too confusing. I think this card is great but it would definitely need reminder text, which would cause the dreaded reference to the stack.

[Ephraim]

I don't think it's absolutely necessary for this to have reminder text. Players seem to figure out how sorceries work without reminder text everywhere. There's no reminder text on abilities that say "Play this ability only anytime you could play a sorcery."

[Matt]

This is such a good idea. Not sure how to cost it though!

[Jacob Orlove]

I originally misread this as "slave of patience" and I was wondering just what kind of card that could possibly be.

I like what this actually is, though.

[dandan]

I also misread it!!

I think this is fine at 2 as if you have a combo and want to go off, Helm does all that this does and a lot more and the 1 discount your opponent gets is rarely an issue for combo (i.e. the opponent doesn't get another turn and FoW costs 0 even before a Helm hits play) Therefore this is only better than a Helm in weirdo decks and combo decks that have an all-Instant combo but would invest in a card and 2 mana in order to go off in their main phase, i.e plan on playing at least 3 Instants with some colourless mana in the CC. That is rather conditional. If we use Helm as a benchmark (and I don't recall many calls for Helm's restriction), this should clearly cost no more and could cost less. I can't imagine this at 1cc (actually I can but I'd rather not) so 2cc seems right.

Giving the opponent a slave of patience to play with is also another intriguing option [joke]

[Anusien]

Very interesting.  In other words, if you play your AKs and your Intuitions main phase, they're cheaper (this is an oversimplification).  I like it, and it's a very intriguing card.  The kind that you immediately try to find a use for.

I think you're right, it can safely cost 3 since it's non-symmetrical.

[Das_Boot]

I think anything more than 2 is wrong.  This will almost never be better than Sapphire Medallion.  The Black and Red cards people play are sorceries or creatures for the most part anyway, and making you play cards mainphase is a huge drawback.  Other formats don't play that many instants, so it is worse there.

[Ephraim]

24 Hour Clock

[Bram]

Closed and added.