Bizarro draw-7

[Jacob Orlove]

Disa's Logbook
5
Artifact
5, tap, sac: Shuffle your hand and graveyard into your library. Target opponent looks at the top nine cards of your library and separates them into two face-down piles, then you choose one of those piles and put it into your graveyard. Put the other pile into your hand.
“this flavor text is going to be very moving at some point.�
—Kolbjörn, High Honored Druid

Note: flavor-wise, this obviously comes after [card]Stench of Decay[/card]. Here are the Gatherer searches for Kolbjörn and Disa the Restless

[dandan]

I like it. It costs too much for combo decks, the fact that you don't draw the cards is interesting (Uba-interesting to some I guess) and it is a good skill tester. It needs some decent flavour to match the interesting effect - I think a library of some sort - knowledge available to all, etc.

You could even make a second card that has the same effect but on the opponent. (rather Black Tower, White Tower or should I say Ivory/Ebony Tower)

[Jacob Orlove]

I just love the psychological games you can play with this. Obviously if they do a 5/5 split, you pick randomly, but what if they do a 3/7. Those three cards are probably pretty good, but three is a lot less than seven.

[Harlequin]

Neat card.  Rather gamebreaking in CS... perhapse adding a "use this ability only when you could play a sorcery" type clause will make it less abuseable with mindslavery.

Here are some Idea's for Name - Flavor Text

Prophecy Tablet - The only difference between destiny and prophecy is a choice.

Forgotten Clocktower - For generations the clocktower was frozen at one minute to midnight ... we should have just left it that way

Yawgmoth's Scriptures - The teachings of Yawgmoth should never be recorded

Last Book of Leng - "As a rule, there is an exception to every rule" - Leng's Paradox

[PucktheCat]

I would love the potential to bluff your opponent by splitting the piles like 3/7 or 2/8 and then putting the WEAK cards in the small pile.  If one of the cards is a Yawg. Will, Tinker, etc. and you lose if they get it regardless of how many other cards they get that bluff could be really interesting.

Correct strategy for the player controlling this effect against a good opponent might be to always choose randomly.  You could declare before they even divided the piles that you would take the one on the left if you rolled odd, right if you rolled even.  Then you would hopefully ensure that you they divide the piles evenly.  Then, after you have ensured they are forced to divide evenly you could decide to not choose randomly and choose to take the larger/smaller pile based on your needs at the time.  So good.

You know what this card reminds me of?  The battle of wits in The Princess Bride:

But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

[Anusien]

As for names, I really like Yawgmoth's Scriptures, but that's way too associated with the color black.  Last Book of Leng looks good, but I'd suggest an alternative flavor text:

"Every rule has an exception, including this one."
or
"Never believe what you read.  Including this."

By the way, why did you cost it 6/2?  I'm in favor of something more like 5/3, 5/4 or so.  I'm worried about someone setting up Welder and going nuts.  As long as you can mill one artifact, you can basically turn this into a recurring draw engine for minimal mana the way it is now, and there's no risk of losing your win conditions because it recycles your graveyard.

[Jacob Orlove]

6/2 was because 6 seemed like an appropriate cost, but I didn't want it to activate for free. I think I like it better than 5/3, and I am really not worried about Welder tricks, because he's only legal in eternal formats at this point.

[PucktheCat]

Is there any particular reason this is an artifact?  I mean, there's no reason the effect couldn't be an artifact effect, but there isn't any reason it has to be an artifact either.  I only ask because being an artifact is a pretty big advantage for any card.  This is particularly the case in T1, of course, but not only there.

Anyway, I understand that this is a forum for creating cards that WotC would make now, but it is also intended for us to make cards that we like and want to see printed.  If Matt can object to flavor text that's too "real world" in spite of Niv-Mizzet, I don't see why we can't object to cards that would break Vintage in spite of the fact that WotC wouldn't consider that.

[Matt]

I'd like this to cost 5 to cast, and I don't care about the activation. Even 5/5 would please me more than 6/2.

[Jacob Orlove]

If this was a sorcery, it would have to have a huge casting cost. I didn't want this to be another 7UU twister.

Edit: now 5/5.

Oh, and also, is 10 the right number of cards here? An even number allows for an even split--do we want that?

[jcb193]

Keep in mind this is only one-sided, unlike wheel, twister, memory jar.  10 cards to look through is quite a bit.

[PucktheCat]

Because the choice is blind I think you pretty much get an average of 5 cards.  It costs 6 mana to get 4 cards as an instant (Opportunity).  5 cards as a sorcery might be 7 or so.  As an artifact it seems like 5/5 is about right.  5/6 would make the card utterly safe from casting cost evasion.

Regarding number of cards: an even split pretty much takes away all decisions from the player controlling this effect (no way to choose one pile over another).  9 cards would make sure there is at least some decision for the activator to make.  I like 5/5 with 9 cards.

[Jacob Orlove]

9 sounds good. I was on ten because I stole the exact templating from the card that inspired this one:

Phyrexian Portal
3   
Artifact   
3: Target opponent looks at the top ten cards of your library and separates them into two face-down piles, then you choose one of those piles and remove it from the game. Search the other pile, put a card from it into your hand, then shuffle the rest of that pile into your library. Play this ability only if you have ten or more cards in your library. 


I like my version a lot more.

[Ephraim]

I think the numbers on this card are right where they should be so, uh... good job guys!  From a flavour standpoint, Anusien's suggestion of Yawgmoth's Scriptures (or perhaps "Phyrexian Scriptures" instead) seems like a good pick -- especially since this card was inspired by Phyrexian Portal.  If you choose that angle, I think it'd be cool to have this remove itself from the game instead of just sacrificing it.  Not that I think it's too powerful, but then you have the flavour of the scriptures actually becoming the spells that you acquire.

[Jacob Orlove]

Actually, I have a completely different flavor in mind, but I'm working it out now (I've had my first post open for editing for like an hour).

edit: I'll finish it later.