Chancemonger

[Rabbit Scribe]

Chancemonger
*none*
Creature: Legendary Goblin Merchant
0/1

Chancemonger is red.

Any time you could mulligan and Chancemonger is in your hand, you may reveal it and destroy target Chancemonger.

Any time you could mulligan and Chancemonger is in your hand, you may put it into play.  If you do, mulligan.

Remove Chancemonger from the game: Draw four cards.  Play this only when you could play a sorcery.

{Reminder Text: Spells without casting costs can't be played}

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This is not as broken as it first appears.  Note that it's not a "four for one:" this guy costs a card right out of the box when we pitch seven for six.  And how good would an opening hand of six bombs and a Chancemonger have to be before you kept it but didn’t play him?  Awfully good, I'd say.  How many to play?  Four or none, it seems to me.  But of course, if we see 30-40% of the cards in our decks over the course of a game, he’ll usually cost a draw, and often two or even three.  What if you don't draw one in your otherwise acceptable opening hand?  Play on with four dead cards in your deck and nothing to show for it?  Yup: it beats mulliganing an adequate hand and ending up kicking yourself in the head as you are forced to take two or three more mulligans.  It would certainly suck to win the coin toss that determines who plays first, drop a Chancemonger, and have your opponent use the first ability of his own Chancemonger to destroy yours.  It would also suck to lose the coin toss, play one, and have your opponent make it go away it on his first turn.  That's why I made him a creature.  It’s unlikely outside of Legacy/ Vintage, but still…

Man, better make it 5 cards!  (edit) Or three

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Chancemonger
*none*
Creature: Legendary Goblin Merchant
0/1

Chancemonger is red.

Any time you could mulligan and Chancemonger is in your hand, you may put it into play.  If you do, mulligan and put a Loot Counter on Chancemonger.

Remove a Loot Counter from Chancemonger and remove Chancemonger from the game: Draw three cards. 

{Reminder Text: Spells without casting costs can't be played}

[Jacob Orlove]

What's up with that first clause?

Also, this is way too strong. Starting the game at 10 cards instead of 7? Sign me up. It gets even worse if you mulligan into a second one.

[Matt]

Givign this no mana cost doesnt keep it form being put directly into play, such as with Elvish Piper, Illusionary Mask, or more commonly, AEther Vial. Broken beyond belief.

[Rabbit Scribe]

Givign this no mana cost doesnt keep it form being put directly into play, such as with Elvish Piper, Illusionary Mask, or more commonly, AEther Vial. Broken beyond belief.

D'Oh!  That was dumb of me.  First step: fix that.

What's up with that first clause?

Also, this is way too strong. Starting the game at 10 cards instead of 7? Sign me up. It gets even worse if you mulligan into a second one.

By "first clause," I assume you mean the "reveal to destroy" bit, not "it's red."  That and the fact that it's legendary means that if you mulligan into more copies, you get one, not none or two or more.  Playing second and ashcanning your opponent's monger is just an amusing bonus.

OK, it was too powerful- sorry.  But in principle, it's not quite as simple as you make it.  More than half the time, it's not in your opening hand.  Now: Matt's right- there were a lot of ways to put it into play anyway, which I stupidly neglected to think about and have eliminated.  As it stands, if you draw an adequate hand but don't draw the monger, you can either mulligan and set off on an unlikely fishing expedition for it or play with four dead cards in your deck.  It also really cramps your style, mulligan-wise.  You sort of have to play him with anything but a dream opening hand.

Three cards?

 

[Rabbit Scribe]

Or for something much cleaner (and weaker):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chancemonger
 
Creature: Human Merchant
1/2

Any time you could mulligan and Chancemonger is in your hand, you may put it into play.  If you do, mulligan and put a Loot Counter on Chancemonger.

 , Remove a Loot Counter from Chancemonger and sacrifice Chancemonger: Draw two cards.  Play this only when you could play a sorcery.

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So now you could mulligan into two or more copies, and post-mulligan the card isn't exactly dead, just lame (although it might start in play and nibble at an opponent for a bit before it goes the way of all flesh).

[dandan]

Isn't the first clause a waste of time? Once this is in play, the active player has priority and can play the sorcery speed effect. Although an opponent (in the very very unlikely event that they have one in hand too) could try to destroy it, the sacrificeis part of the cost at present so the Chancemonger would be gone and the draw cards would be on the stack before an opponent could do anything about it.
It is also very unclear when the NAP could put his Chancemonger into play (since NAP could also mulligan).

I very high casting cost (probably including the discarding of cards as well as mana) would probably be preferrable to no mana cost. Even FoW has a theoretical casting cost up in the top right corner. That would solve the problem of Mask and Aether Vial.

I think the concept of this dude is fine (although Wizards have just made some 'good in opening hand but otherwise sucks' cards) but the application needs more thought.

[Matt]

What is the idea of this card? If the point is to give lucky players some card advanatge, why not make it "{R}, : Flip a coin. If you win, draw a card."? That woudl be infinitely cleaner!

[dandan]

I think the idea is to make a card that is strong if it is in your opening hand but terribly weak if you draw it later. Wizards did exactly that in the latest set (according to the spoilers - giving uncounterable enchantments that, for example, RFG cards rather than let them go to the graveyard.

Seeing as Wizards have just down this avenue, we should consider it fair game.

However the above suggestion suffers from :

1. Being unnecessarily complex
Drop that first clause
2. Could be abused by stuff like Vial
3. Totally unbalanced - for an approx. 40% chance of seeing it in your opening hand and effectively starting the game with 9 cards (and a creature in the GY - minor resource), you risk drawing one later in the game  and getting 1 card disadvantage (assuming no card manipulation/discard effects)

[lordmayhem]

To prevent this from being put into play via other means, why not just make this an enchantment?

Something like this:

Dumb Luck
*none*
Legendary Enchantment

Dumb Luck is red.
(Spells without mana costs can't be played.)
Any time you could mulligan and Dumb Luck is in your hand, you may put Dumb Luck from your hand into play and take a mulligan.

Remove Dumb Luck from the game: Draw three cards.  Play this only when you could play a sorcery.

The fact that its an enchantment, doesn't give it Rector abuse, since Rector can fetch Bargain anyway.

[dandan]

Replenish makes that a bit good, assuming you have some way of getting it in the graveyard.

Having said that why not make it a Sorcery and scrap the whole Sorcery speed clause. This is a one-off effect. Just give it an alternative CC similar to the new Guilpact cards and be done with it.

Until end of turn you may draw 3 cards if you have mulliganed. Play this ability only once.

[Rabbit Scribe]

It's really cool in my head... 

What is the idea of this card?

The  idea was a card that's very good in your opening hand but almost forces you to mulligan, works only once even if you mulligan into more copies, and is completely worthless otherwise. 

"Any time you could mulligan and Chancemonger is in your hand, you may reveal it and destroy target Chancemonger."

In other words, it's Legendary so you can't have two or more in play on your first turn.  If you mulligan into another one, there's a fifty-fifty chance you'll mulligan a third time, because the dead card effectively leaves you with a five-card hand anyway, so at least you don't add insult to injury by shuffling it back into your deck.  I'll broom it, though.

Isn't the first clause a waste of time? Once this is in play, the active player has priority and can play the sorcery speed effect.

As far as mulliganing into more copies, no, it's meaningful.  As far as destroying an opponent's monger as I blithered about above, yep, that would be a waste of time alright. (kicks self in head) (again)

A very high casting cost (probably including the discarding of cards as well as mana) would probably be preferrable to no mana cost. Even FoW has a theoretical casting cost up in the top right corner. That would solve the problem of Mask and Aether Vial.

To prevent this from being put into play via other means, why not just make this an enchantment?

Fair enough.  Letting you draw the cards by removing the specific counter that you can only put into play while mulliganing solves all the vial/ piper/ raise dead/ oath/ etc. problems, though.

Heh.  I hit the post button for that and the board said, "Hey Chuckles, somebody else chimed in while you was scribblin'.  Insofar as they're an odds-on favorite to be smarter than you, ya wanna have a look-see before you post?"  Sweet!

Having said that why not make it a Sorcery and scrap the whole Sorcery speed clause. This is a one-off effect. Just give it an alternative CC similar to the new Guildpact cards and be done with it.

Until end of turn you may draw 3 cards if you have mulliganed. Play this ability only once.

Wow- that's deep. Does this prevent playing multiple copies on your first turn if you draw two in your opening hand/ mulligan into more/ etc?  I'm sure we could live with Wishing them back into the game, Sins of the Past, and other remote contingencies...