Hall of Mindplayers

[Charlie]

Hall of Mindplayers
Land
T: Choose a number X. An opponent names up to X cards. Add X mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can't be used to play spells or activated abilites of the named cards.

An attempt to fix Ancient Tomb, but still worry about being abused. How about just setting X=2? Allowing higher seems abusable when you can get away with six cards that cost 4 or 5.

Current wording:

Hall of Mindplayers
Land
T: An opponent names up to 2 cards. Add 2 mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can't be used to play spells or activated abilites of the named cards.

[Matt]

This post does not follow forum rules.

[JAG]

can we post on it?  I assume since it's not locked that we can, but if not, I hope it will be corrected soon.

I'm a bit confused as to the functionality of this card.  I assume you mean "An opponent names X cards....This mana cannot be used to play spells with the same name or activated abilities of permenants with the same name as one of the chosen cards."  Otherwise, this seems strangely over-restrictive (why should it prevent you from using it to play all spells...).

I'm not sure this is a very good fix of Ancient Tomb per se, but I think it is kind of an interesting card.  Unfortunately, I see it as interesting only in seeing in what ways it can be brutally abused.  In that way, it's much like Dream Halls: uninteresting unless it's being broken.

-JM

[Matt]

Well he added a current wording post, so it does now.

[dandan]

At the very least make this colourless mana. At least if an opponent dropped this on turn 1 and said X=21 I wouldn't need to 'waste' my guesses on every Red X spell before seeing a 3 Juggernauts and a Phyrexian Proicessor dropped on my head.

Even restricted to colourless, what would you guess given 21 chances to salvage that game?
Darksteel Colossus, Juggernaut, Pentavus, Triskelion, Processor, Masticore, Smokestack, Karn, Mindslaver, Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, Memory Jar, Chromatic Sphere, Mishra's Helix, every friggin Tome ever printed, every artifact fattie ever, every colour fixer so I don't get shafted by a coloured spell. How safe would I feel after naming 21 cards. Not very safe.

I'm pretty sure this would need an upper limit on cards. Tapping it for 10000 looks like a good way to get a draw.

[Ephraim]

I think that this card is fundamentally flawed. I agree with Dandan that this would need an upper limit to be printable. If you can even declare X=20, your opponent is screwed. It isn't even a skill-testing card then. Having an idea of what may be in your opponent's deck has always been rewarded, but memorizing your opponent's best 20 cards and being able to spout them off on command is asking way too much. On the other end, a sufficiently low upper limit doesn't allow one to name enough cards to effectively stop the mana from being used. In fact, in a lot of ways, just saying X=4, when you have a fistful of cards, guarantees that you'll get to play something with absurd acceleration, even if your opponent does manage to knock out one or two of your best plays. In that case, your opponent is just relying on luck (albeit luck augmented with knowledge of your deck) to guess what's in your hand. Lastly, especially with this generating coloured mana, there are times when your opponent can't avoid a beating. Suppose you're playing a red deck and you have two different firebreathing creatures in play and two different cards in hand. X=3 guarantees that you get to do something with your red mana. I realize that firebreathers may not be all that prevalent in competive games, but you get the gist of my example.

[asmoranomardicodais]

You could do either of the following:

City of NOT GOBLIN WELDER

Tap: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. An opponent chooses a card. This mana may not be used to play the named card.


Or, slightly related:

City of NOT BLUE POWER

Tap: Target opponnent chooses a color. Add one mana of any color but the chosen color to your mana pool.

I'm not sure if the first one fixes the problem, but I like the second one a lot, and I'm sure it does.

[dandan]

Thinking about this, if you have to show your hand AND this generates colourless mana, you could probably get away with X_max=cards in hand. If I have 7 cards in hand, the opponent getting to name 7 effects/spells would nueter the possibility of something bad happening most of the time (but not all, for example Brainstorm, responding to Memory Jar activation etc). Still the chance of generating 8 mana is pretty cool and might be 'balanced'.


Hall of Mindplayers
Land
Reveal your hand, T: Choose a number X where X is equal or less than the number of cards in your hand. An opponent names up to X cards. Add X to your mana pool. This mana can't be used to play spells or activated abilites of the named cards.

[Jacob Orlove]

Here is a much fairer solution:

Hall of Mindplayers
Land
T: Choose a number X. An opponent names up to X card types. Add X mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can't be used to play spells or activated abilites of the named card types. (The card types are Artifact, Creature, Enchantment, Instant, Land, and Sorcery).

[dandan]

Fairer but not as cool. Spike prefers yours, Timmy loves my suggestion. Both suck when you have 1 card in hand  :lol:

[JAG]

I just realized a little rules tidbit: This card must have "Play this ability only when you could play an instant."  For example, consider this situation:

Turn one: play this land, announce Fireball, target opponent, set X at 40, tap the land.  If they name Fireball as one of the cards, the announcement is entirely reversed.  If they don't, they're dead.  This was a problem with Rhystic Cave as well, which is why it got the same errata.

-JM

[dandan]

That was the problem with Rhystic Cave. With this card it is merely 'a' problem, the tapping for 40 mana is 'the' problem.

This needs an upper limit.

[Fall-Titan]

Heres an idea that keeps this card within reason

Hall of Mindplayers
Legendary Land
(T): Remove X cards in your Graveyard from the game. An opponet names up to X cards. Add an amount of colorless mana equal to X  to your mana pool. This mana can't be used to play spells or activated abilites of the named cards.

This makes sure that the opponet has some knowledge of your deck, sets a limit to X, and has a drawback of removing cards in your graveyard from the game, and only allows you to get colorless mana
Yes the card is still good but it has restictions on it...
 Just my 2 cents
 
 
 

[JAG]

actually i'm not sure removing cards in the graveyard as a cost will make this card any good at all.  It cannot be considered a land for deckbuilding, since in all likelihood you won't be able to get any mana from it until well into the game, and even then you can only use it a few times, and you certainly can't generate much mana from it.

I like the way the current wording post is set up.  Seems safe enough that way (although it is probably stronger than City of Traitors that way).

-JM

[dandan]

The current wording is fair. Dull, but fair

[Jacob Orlove]

The current wording is stupid broken. It's like Ancient Tomb, only you don't lose any life.

[dandan]

Jacob is right and I was wrong. Rather lazily I misread the current wording as 2 types rather than 2 cards. Naming 2 cards is not a serious disadvantage. Naming 2 card types would be a serioud drawback.

Hall of Mindplayers
Land
T: An opponent names up to 2 card types. Add 2 mana of any color to your mana pool. This mana can't be used to play spells or activated abilites of the named card types. (The card types are Artifact, Creature, Enchantment, Instant, Land, and Sorcery).

Or the current version would be fine if you have to reveal your hand, as I suggested.