Fortifying Cycle

[Zelc]

A while ago, I thought of a possible card that could keep you alive a bit past the point where your life hits 0 (i.e. you survive until you hit -5 life), sort of like a mini-Platinum Angel.  The problem with this was that it would only function as a pretty bad life gain spell and would require other cards to make it interesting.  Then I thought about making this a cycle, so that each could carry their own effect that could be used when your life dropped below 0.  This is what I came up with.

Fortifying Flame

Enchantment
Unless you have -4 life or less, you don't lose the game for having 0 life or less.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 0 life or less, Fortifying Flame deals 4 damage to target creature or player.

Fortifying Undeath

Enchantment
Unless you have -4 life or less, you don't lose the game for having 0 life or less.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 0 life or less, return target creature card from a graveyard to play under your control.

Fortifying Intellect

Enchantment
Unless you have -4 life or less, you don't lose the game for having 0 life or less.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 0 life or less, draw two cards.

Fortifying Purification
{W}
Enchantment
Unless you have -4 life or less, you don't lose the game for having 0 life or less.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 0 life or less, destroy all creatures.  They can't be regenerated.

Fortifying Growth
{G}
Enchantment
Unless you have -4 life or less, you don't lose the game for having 0 life or less.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 0 life or less, put four 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens into play.

Flavor-wise, these are enchantments that allow a plainswalker to operate beyond his limit, as in when he should be dead.  However, once he needs to draw on these enchantments for support, they create all sorts of other effects as well.  Power-wise, they're high risk, high reward (some of their effects may need to be upped).  If you can safeguard them, then you can mana burn yourself down to 0 and enjoy the quite powerful effects.  If you can't, anything from a bounce spell to a Naturalize to four damage will kill you.

The other thing I considered was to allow the player to sacrifice them for an effect if the player had 0 life or less.  This would have required him/her to have a second one of these or something like a Platinum Angel, Lich, or Transcendence in play in order to use the other effect.  Obviously, this would mean that the effects should be bigger.

Current Version:

Fortifying Flame

Enchantment
When Fortifying Flame comes into play, you gain 4 life.
When Fortifying Flame leaves play, you lose 4 life.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 4 life or less, Fortifying Flame deals 4 damage to target creature or player.

Fortifying Undeath

Enchantment
When Fortifying Undeath comes into play, you gain 4 life.
When Fortifying Undeath leaves play, you lose 4 life.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 4 life or less, return target creature card from a graveyard to play under your control.

Fortifying Intellect

Enchantment
When Fortifying Intellect comes into play, you gain 4 life.
When Fortifying Intellect leaves play, you lose 4 life.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 4 life or less, draw two cards.

Fortifying Purification
{W}
Enchantment
When Fortifying Flame comes into play, you gain 4 life.
When Fortifying Flame leaves play, you lose 4 life.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 4 life or less, destroy all creatures.  They can't be regenerated.

Fortifying Growth
{G}
Enchantment
When Fortifying Flame comes into play, you gain 4 life.
When Fortifying Flame leaves play, you lose 4 life.
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 4 life or less, put four 1/1 green Saproling creature tokens into play.

[Jacob Orlove]

The problem with this is that the rules don't actually record you as being below 0 life. You keep track of it, but you're treated as being at 0.

[Zelc]

.  I guess this gets closed then.

EDIT: Wait!  I can change them all to CIP: Gain 4 life, and when it leaves play, lose 4 life.  That way, I can set the threshold at 4 life and it'd still be functionally the same except under stuff like Sulfuric Vortex, etc.

EDIT 2: The problem with this now is that playing two or more of them is a lot worse.

[Slack]

@Jacob Orlove:  I was under the impression that if you had say Platinum Angel in play and you had taken a total of 29 damage over the course of the game you would have to gain back 10 life to not lose when the angel left play.  Wouldn't this work like that?

[Ephraim]

That's exactly how the game works, but any effect that looks at your life total sees you as having zero life. The game knows you're at -9 life, but as far as any card in the game is concerned, you're at zero life.

And on a totally unrelated note, how come Slack's post count doesn't increment?

[Slack]

Ah, I see what you guys are saying.  That makes sense.  Thanks.

I found the post count thing weird as well.  This post included, I have now made a grand total of 4 posts.

[Zelc]

Maybe it's not synched in real time, but once every hour or something?

EDIT: Confirmed.  Post count still at 118.  Or, posts in this forum aren't counted.

[Jacob Orlove]

Or, posts in this forum aren't counted.

Yeah, that was a change I made a few weeks ago.

[Ephraim]

Or, posts in this forum aren't counted.

Yeah, that was a change I made a few weeks ago.

Good thing it isn't retroactive. Without this forum, I have a whopping 378 posts. I'd lose my #3 position. (I wouldn't even be in the top 10!)

Now, for the record, I understand that my post count doesn't really matter. On the other hand, I like having a numeric record of my prolific contributions to the card creation forum.
(Not to worry. After making this post, I checked my personal stats. The software still keeps accurate track of the number of posts made to each forum and subforum. I eagerly await the day that the number of posts I have made in the card creation forum exceeds the total number of posts I've made at The Mana Drain.)

[asmoranomardicodais]

Why doesn't this forum add to the post count? I want my postcount to go up...

[Anusien]

On-topic, I think I like these.  There's a lot of potential here, and it really puts the "Your life total as a resource" in context.  Also, were you intending to not combo with Form of the Dragon?  Is that why you chose 4 life?

[Jacob Orlove]

It's an interesting mechanic, but I really don't like how these are all 4-point lifegain spells.

[Zelc]

On-topic, I think I like these.  There's a lot of potential here, and it really puts the "Your life total as a resource" in context.  Also, were you intending to not combo with Form of the Dragon?  Is that why you chose 4 life?

Never thought of Form, actually.  I just felt that them all being "temporary" 5 point life gain spells was a bit much, especially since the initial concept of it was "1, Artifact: Unless you have -X or less life, you don't lose the game for having 0 or less life".

It's an interesting mechanic, but I really don't like how these are all 4-point lifegain spells.

Yea, that was something I thought about.  However, the 4 point life gain isn't the main part of the spells, and there are artifacts that provide life gain to all colors (Sun Droplet, for example).  In addition, 4 life generally won't make or break games, and if destroyed, the life gain disappears.

By the way, what do you think about the numbers (green and red), and what do you think about white's ability?  White's ability is the only one that doesn't stack for multiples in play, but I couldn't figure out what another mechanic could be for it.  Maybe a double Divine Anthem effect?  That's a bit too conditional for my liking, though...

[Fall-Titan]

its true that white doesnt stack but i think that is ok when you consider that white has the best way of controlling its life and keeping it in the ranges needed

[Zelc]

It seems that no one has much more to say about this cycle, so I'll start the 24h clock.

[Matt]

Closed and added.[/color]