Spellmage Contortionist

[nietzsche]

Spellmage Contortionist UG
creature - wizard
Whenever a player plays a spell [CARDNAME] counters that spell unless its controller sacrifices a permanent.
discard a card from your hand: remove [CARDNAME] from the game until end of turn.  Any player may play this ability.
1/1

I have been designing cool cards for fish over the last few months (ever since i saw UG fish in vintage) and this is so far the only non-incredibly broken one.  It creates a fun game in fish type games where you are trying to choke as much of your opponents resources as possible, but the symmetry makes abusing it harder then it would seem.  It forces players to 2 for 1 themselves on every spell they play, and is not completely terrible at any given state in the game.  Early on its pretty hard to play around, but late game it can be crazy if the game is at a draw, forcing card quality AND quantity.  He is also pretty incapable of winning the game on his own, but he is also nearly impossible to get rid of forever - a pretty even trade off i think.  And of course the final beauty; self sacrifice comborificness.

Current Wording:
Spellmage Contortionist UB
creature - wizard
Whenever a player plays a spell [CARDNAME] counters that spell unless its controller sacrifices a permanent.
discard a card from your hand: remove [CARDNAME] from the game until end of turn.  Any player may play this ability.
0/1

[Anusien]

The point of the CCF is not to design cards to go into a deck, but rather just to design cards for a set in magic.  At any rate, I see no reason for this to be Green at all; it's very clearly a black ability.  You either have to cost this into the stratosphere (like 2UB for a 1/2) or give it an upkeep cost.

[Matt]

I don't think we have to be THAT conservative on the cost since it IS symmetrical, but yes it should be part black.

[nietzsche]

It definitly needs to be black over green, and i have no idea why I made it part green in retrospect.  As for power, for now I'll just make it a 0/1 so at the very least there are no block-dmge on stack- remove tricks theat end with your opponent having 1 less creature.

[Anusien]

Just make his remove from the game ability play only as a sorcery.  That actually makes it rather strategic in terms of what you can do with it, since it means it's also quietly a counterspell hoser.

But even so-called Symmetric effects rarely are.  This is at last as good as Mana Vortex, which was 1UU and affected you first, instead of your opponent.

[nietzsche]

I was mulling over the sorcery speed thing not to long ago.  The only reason i wanted it was that it actually makes this thing killable, which is pretty nice, and it can actually attack your opponent with a sword, pointy stick, or strong sense of curiosity attached to it if it has to.
The other thing i was considering was to make it "remove a card in hand" to try and lower the combo rificness of a card that can both sacrifice your stuff, and put things from your hand in the grave.