Desperate Measures

[Rabbit Scribe]

Desperate Measures

Instant
Counter target spell, or counter target effect and destroy the source of that effect, or prevent any amount of damage that would be dealt to you by a source an opponent controls and destroy that source.

If the spell or effect you target would cause you to lose the game, or if damage you prevent would reduce your life total to 0 or less, Desperate Measures' casting cost is .  If you cast Desperate Measures in any of these ways, your life total becomes one.
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Desperate Measures
{W}{U}{G}     
Instant
Counter target spell, or counter target effect and destroy the source of that effect, or prevent any amount of damage that would be dealt to you by a source an opponent controls and destroy that source.

If a source an opponent controls would deal damage to you equal to or greater than your life total, you may reveal Desperate Measures, pay {G} and remove Desperate Measures from the game.  If you do, prevent that damage and destroy that source.

[Evenpence]

Sorceries can't counter things.

[Rabbit Scribe]

Sorceries can't counter things.

[Norm4eva]

Ewwwww, this card's wording is going to be really hard to resolve (no pun intended).  "If a spell or effect would cause you to lose the game", for example, doesn't even have a concrete definition when simply speaking about Magic or the way a game was played out - sure, Tendrils put me at 0 life, but you resolving Yawg Will caused me to lose.  I realize the intent of the card but you can't rely on intent to define a card's application - see Worldgorger Dragon.  To put it more simply, there's probably not a clear cut way to define 'caused to lose' so there's probably no good way to keep the card's intention the same.

[Rabbit Scribe]

Ewwwww, this card's wording is going to be really hard to resolve (no pun intended).  "If a spell or effect would cause you to lose the game", for example, doesn't even have a concrete definition when simply speaking about Magic or the way a game was played out - sure, Tendrils put me at 0 life, but you resolving Yawg Will caused me to lose.  I realize the intent of the card but you can't rely on intent to define a card's application - see Worldgorger Dragon.  To put it more simply, there's probably not a clear cut way to define 'caused to lose' so there's probably no good way to keep the card's intention the same.

But you have to target a spell or an effect.  Even if a resolved Yawgmoth's Will will "cause" me to lose the game, I can't target it with Desperate Measures- I can just target the lethal Tendrils you're playing from the yard.

By the way, I assume there's no way to use this to get around Battle of Wits- its "you win" isn't an effect that goes on a stack, right?

[Matt]

This is never going to be the 100% safeguard you want it to be. We came close though, with this from the master list:

Fleeting Salvation
{W}
Enchantment
You may play Fleeting Salvation whenever you could play an instant.
At the end of your next turn, remove Fleeting Salvation from the game.
You don't lose the game for having less than one life.
We are saved, but only for later.

[Nazdakka]

Desperate Measures
 
Instant
Counter target spell, or counter target effect and destroy the source of that effect, or prevent any amount of damage that would be dealt to you by a source an opponent controls and destroy that source.

If the spell or effect you target would cause you to lose the game, or if damage you prevent would reduce your life total to 0 or less, Desperate Measures' casting cost is  .  If you cast Desperate Measures in any of these ways, your life total becomes one.

I'm pretty sure the second clause doesn't work. How do the rules know whether an effect will cause you to lose the game?

[Norm4eva]

Here's the problem with this card: losing the game is a state-based effect.  Checking a player for 0 or less life, drawing more cards than their library allows and having 10 poison counters are just some of the ten SBEs the game checks for before a player receives priority.  Since no one has priority while state-based effects are being checked, there can't even be any triggered abilities to prevent a game loss, much less an entire spell.  Cards like Transcendence work because they invoke the "Can't Rule" as a static effect.  An Instant doesn't exist during the appropriate time to determine whether or not you'd actually lose.  A player can independently determine if a certain spell would make them lose, but again that falls under a person's judgment of what exactly makes you lose the game.  This isn't a simple replacement effect either; you want to counter the object AND predict the entire outcome, which can't be done - how do I know that my lethal Fireball won't be 'countered' by a Lightning Helix?

[Matt]

Aha! I KNEW we already made this card:

Gift of Life
{W}
Instant
Gift of Life can't be countered.
Until end of turn, you can't lose the game and your opponent can't win the game.
At end of turn, if your life total is less than one, it becomes one instead.
"You never truly appreciate life until you're given a second chance at it." -Hazzar Brenklin, journals

It stops any possible kind of win, for one turn, and if you're left at 0 it will heal you to 1.

[Rabbit Scribe]

But mine blows up a Laquatus!

Thanks for taking the time to explain that, Norm4eva.  Howzabout:

Desperate Measures
     
Instant
Counter target spell, or counter target effect and destroy the source of that effect, or prevent any amount of damage that would be dealt to you by a source an opponent controls and destroy that source.

If a source an opponent controls would deal damage to you equal to or greater than your life total, you may pay and remove Desperate Measures from the game.  If you do, prevent that damage and destroy that source.

[Jacob Orlove]

Why is a blue/red card preventing damage?

[Rabbit Scribe]

Why is a blue/red card preventing damage?

The card is supposed to be a sort of super-Hurricane that can permanently deal with virtually any single threat, albeit at a very high cc.  If that threat is lethal, it gets cheap and uncounterable.  Unfortunately, it has been explained that "lethality" needs to be very narrowly defined if the card is to be legal.  Does the idea have merit?  Would reducing the cc and making it three colors ( ~ counterspell; ~ destroy a permanent; ~ prevent damage) make it more appealing?  At least that's centered on the color wheel...

Desperate Measures
{W}{U}{G}     
Instant
Counter target spell, or counter target effect and destroy the source of that effect, or prevent any amount of damage that would be dealt to you by a source an opponent controls and destroy that source.

If a source an opponent controls would deal damage to you equal to or greater than your life total, you may reveal Desperate Measures, pay {G} and remove Desperate Measures from the game.  If you do, prevent that damage and destroy that source.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Three things:

1) That wording doesn't really work like you intended it to either. Say your a ten life, and the opponent attacks you with 3 3/3's, and a squirrel. Combined, those would deal ten damage and kill you, but I don't think your wording allows for you to prevent any of the damage from any of the creatures, since none of those creatures is dealing ten damage.

2) I don't like those colors, sorry. U/R didn't fit at all, but neither does green. I would cost this at either: monowhite, B/W, or probably the best solution, W/U.

3) Lastly, I'm sorry, but I think that matt proved that this card has already been done. I think any attempts at making this card work would be treading on the other card, which does what your trying to do perfectly. 

[Rabbit Scribe]

Meh.  You're right: damage is dealt simultaneously, so even the lowly squirrel lives to fight another day.  Er, if they fight wherever tokens go when the game is over.  I chose green because Hurricane was green, and it can destroy any permanent.  I think my card is substantively different from Fleeting Salvation (although I despair of a name and especially flavor text that cool) insofar as it has value as a versatile, if expensive, control card even if you aren't at death's door, and it gets rid of a permanent (except when it doesn't...  )  but I seem to be a minority of one, so I give- thanks for the input.

Oh well, 0 for 3 ain't bad...

[asmoranomardicodais]

Well, if your looking for a card of that sort, why not:

Force of Desparation
2UU
Counter target spell.
If you are below 5 life, you may play this for instead of its casting cost.


Or make it , or make it remove a card in your hand, whatevar. But it is kinda what you want to do, and I think that it is pretty cool. If you wanna keep this thread going, that would be my route.