Ancient Monolith

[Machinus]

Ancient Monolith
1W
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes an artifact to be put into your graveyard from play, return that artifact to play.


I thought of this card some time ago when I was half asleep. I can't tell if it's undercosted.

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Current Wording

Ancient Monolith
2W
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes an artifact to be put into your graveyard from play, return that artifact to play.

[Ephraim]

In my opinion, this should probably cost or more than Sacred Ground, after which it is obviously patterned. Land destruction isn't particularly prevalent, nor is it necessarily very good in practice. Artifact destruction, on the other hand, is very common and is frequently very useful. Of course, this isn't especially better than Leonin Abunas, which costs {W}. This protects against mass artifact-kill, so it would probably be solid at {W} and strong at {W} or {W}{W}.

[Matt]

Why is it named as if it were an artifact?

[Machinus]

I wanted to convey a sense of the object from 2001. It has to be something similar to an artifact if is going to grant protection to all of them, but still be more powerful.

[dandan]

Make it an artifact then

[Ephraim]

Make it an artifact then

Would it protect itself, then? That seems to be going a little bit too far. In fact, now that I think about it, this seems very similar to [card]Darksteel Forge[/card], which costs . It isn't quite the same, but I'm beginning to think that my initial cost estimates may have been a bit too small. Although this ability is somewhat weaker than indestructibility, I'd say that a CMC of 5 is probably merited if it isn't an artifact and 7 if it is.

[Machinus]

Make it an artifact then

It is modeled after sacred ground. I don't want it to be an artifact, since it would then be impossible to destroy. Darksteel reactor is way better than this because it makes itself indestructible, and it prevents artifacts from going to the graveyard from play except through sacrifice. This card would put them in the graveyard and return them to play, removing counters and giving summoning sickness. Additionally, it can be destroyed by all enchantment removal. Consider Leonin Abunas, which costs 3W.

The name isn't that important, so I welcome suggestions to fit the flavor.

[Matt]

Yeah, if it's not going to be an artifact, the name needs to change.