Orcish Tutor

[Redman]

Orcish Tutor
 
Creature - Orc
1/1

Whenever a player would search their library for a card, that player shuffles their library and draws a card instead.

"Much learning does not teach understanding." - Heraclitus
--

So, despite not having played in months, I looked over the site today and thought, there are really three fundamental problems with Magic today:

1) Games take way too long.  Back in the day, my lunch period was a mere 42 minutes, and we never failed to fit in a full match in that time.  Now you'd be lucky to fit a single game by cutting the subsequent math class.

2) Tutors eliminate the influence of Lady Luck in this fine diversion, and she, being a cruel and vindictive mistress, has decided to take this out on me, leading to a rather disatrous run at the poker tables.
And,
3) No Orc has been printed since Weatherlight (to my knowledge.)

It also bothers me that the tutors, despite the name, aren't creatures of some sort.

So, to rectify this situation, I suggest the above card.  It's really just the beginnings of an idea, and I would like to see some feedback on this, especially since already a nubmer of compromises needed to be made (in my mind, not least of which was me not making this a Summon Orc. I decided that appropriately stodgy flavor text could offset this affront to my dignity.)

 Ideally, I'd like the card to remain a 1R casting cost (since it is a tutor, even if a red one. I orignally wanted the card to read 'Players cannot search their library,' but to put that on a stick seemed a bit too draconian, especially for an Orc.  (Draconic Tutor, perhaps? One thing is for sure, if that was the card text, it would have to be green. )

The reintroduction of randomness does essentially neutralize the tutor anyway, even if it still requires the time input of the shuffle beforehand. It is possible that this could instead simply stipulate the drawing of a card, without the shuffle, but that seemed to go against the whole red=chaos theme. I want to be careful this doesn't break in certain interactions (could be nasty with Land Tax...perhaps a clause to have it apply only to the opponent?)

Also difficult was choosing a P/T - I would ideally want this to be a 2/1 so it would actually get played, but the thouht of a tutor (let alone an Orcish one) taking down a Grizzly Bear is wrong, frankly.  1/2 or 1/3, perhaps, but that is sort of odd for a red card, and still seems a bit overcosted to me.  Maybe 1/2 with an additional R, Tap: Gamble ability?

Anyway, your thoughts?



P.S. Yes, I'm still alive.
--

Current Wording:

Orcish Tutor
 
Creature - Orc
1/1

Whenever a player would search their library for a card, that player shuffles their library and draws a card instead.

"Much learning does not teach understanding." - Heraclitus

[The Atog Lord]

This is some great flavor. Too expensive to maindeck and not a Goblin so it can't be tutored for with Matron, it still lets  red decks shut down searching, something they're not too good at right now.

And I love the flavor text -- it would be the 2nd Magic card with flavor text from Heraclitus, one of the greatest philosophers of all time.

My only comment was that this guy needs to get a job. Orcish Library doesn't have a job type, but were he released today he likely would. Maybe "Orc Scholar" or "Orc Professor"? "Wizard" or "Shaman" could work, but would lack comedic value.

[Matt]

I like it, it does a good job well.

[PucktheCat]

How does this interact with Gifts Ungiven?  Would you get to draw four cards instead of revealing 4 of your choice?  'cause that isn't what you want.  Same question with Intuition.

Leo

[Nibble]

How does this interact with Gifts Ungiven?  Would you get to draw four cards instead of revealing 4 of your choice?  'cause that isn't what you want.  Same question with Intuition.

Those don't create multiple search effects, only one search looking for multiple cards. This guy's replacement effect would only happen once, replacing the entire search with one shuffle-and-draw.

[Marco]

Two thumbs up! I wish this was a Goblin, but I think it should be an Orc...

[Machinus]

This card is really cool. Not only is it a hoser for really good cards, it has some neat small combos too:

Myr Mindservant
Soldier of Fortune
Dwarven Recruiter
Goblin Recruiter

Excellent design.

[Upinthe]

The only card that might be troublesome with this is [card]Sprouting Vines[/card], which becomes a super draw spell.

[Redman]

The only card that might be troublesome with this is [card]Sprouting Vines[/card], which becomes a super draw spell.

Is that really a concern given one of the cards in this combo is a red creature, and the other is a 3cc green spell with not much other application? 

How about Orc Scholar as a creature type?  I'm not really familiar with all the 'job descriptions' that are already out there.

[jro]

I love this concept, and the implementation seems pretty good.  I would note that this makes Land Grant "Reveal your no-land hand: draw a card".  Maybe this should be "opponent" instead of "player" to nuke any unfair combo potential.  By which I don't even mean cards today, but rather that this card might unduly restrict design space in the future.

[Buttons]

He would be a def. sideboard card in alot of decks, including Uba.

I love the card.

Do you guys think he would be mondo overpowered if we just made him R?

He would be a uncommon at 1R, but probably a rare at R, don't you think, or the other way around?

[Joblin Velder]

I don't think it's super busted, but fetches turn into card draw. Figured I'd point that out.

[Ephraim]

This card concerns me. I don't think that it's too powerful, but I suspect that this ability may not be red. Now, don't get me wrong – I'm not the sort who likes to carelessly give abilities to black and blue, just for shits and giggles. I can't ignore, however, that Wizards just printed [card]Shadow of Doubt[/card]. That gives me cause to suspect that a card that nerfs searching is more black/blue than it is red.

[Jacob Orlove]

Actually, it seems most green to me.

[Anusien]

Hard to say.  Traditionally, abilities like this would be blue (see Plagarize versus Pardic Familiar), and red is very low on reusable draw in this fashion.  However, the flavor is very strong.  If you added "Sacrifice a creature" to the ability and make it activated, would that work?

[dandan]

How is replacing tutoring (a U/B) thing with a completely random draw anything but a chaotic effect? Red has a number of library shufflers and remember this doesn't stop you from getting the card you tutored for, like Shadow of Doubt does, it merely changes it to a smaller probablity. Fetchlands might fetch that land you want but they might not. Such is Red.

[Matt]

Yes, I like this in red too. I agree with Dandan. However, this needs some flavor text about how the orcish tutor is changing your learning from focused and intense to just some mindless blather.

[Redman]

About color, I was oringally thinking if this said no searching was possible, it'd probably be a green thing (green tends to not like the fancy magic and manipulation stuff, green prefer face smash...) Anyway, thinking about it more , 1R for this as a 1/1 seems to make more sense than I oringally thought. It's expensive enough to never become a 4 of in every red MD, and still rather fragile for building anything around. 

I can't believe youre making me ditch ancient flavor text... but yeah, any suggestions? I'll pull out my copy of Bartlett's again and see whatI can come up with.

[Anusien]

Flavor text:
Oops, were you doing something?
or something along the lines of an orc being clumsy and/or obnoxious and interrupting you while you're spelling.  I took inspiration from Convolute and Remand's flavor text.
Remand:  "Well, at least all of that arm-waving and arcane babbling you did was impressive."
Convolute: "The words came to the sorcerer's lips but refused to budge any further."