Drain Tremor

[parallax]

Drain Tremor

Sorcery
~This~ deals 1 damage to each creature. You gain life equal to the damage dealt this way.

An alternate to black's "All creatures get -X/-X." removal. Can kill a horde of weenies or just gain a lot of life. Is this costed correctly?

Claim Souls

Sorcery
~This~ deals 1 damage to each creature. Until end of turn, whenever a creature dealt damage this way is put into a graveyard from play, gain 1 life.

[Anusien]

This is so much better than Tremor it's not funny, but I don't think it deserves 2B.  Either keep as BB or make it affect players and go to 2B.

[Norm4eva]

Nice Squirrel-craft deck, ass.
I think 1B makes this card too good for Limited.  Not that there's lots of X/1s running around in draft, but it makes the Black player able to counter entire attack phases for 1B; the life gain's too cheap for Black is all.

[parallax]

Hmm . . . This is board-sweep +  half-Congregate. I'd rather overcost this than undercost it. It's going to wreck multiplayer games. Is high enough or should it go higher?

[Matt]

I think this effect is brilliant, and I think it should cost 1BB.

[Anusien]

Should it hit players?  Most Pestilence effects do.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Would it be a bad idea to have it and instant? I understand most drain effects are sorceries.. but this one to me is almost begging "Can you make me an Instant? Pleeeeeeeeeeease??"

[parallax]

I think it has to stay a Sorcery. It is a deceptively powerful effect. I don't want anyone sneaking that much life-gain through during an end step in multiplayer.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Heh.. Understandable. Would you have considered it if it was instead?

[parallax]

Not really. It's more a flavor issue than power issue at that point. "* damage to each creature" effects are almost always sorceries. They only appear on instants as a "tweak" to make a card more interesting. Also, it's out of flavor for black to get these effects at instant speed. "Drain" cards are nearly always sorceries. If it were a red card, sure, I'd make an instant Tremor at 3-4 mana. But the fact that it's black, and can come attached to considerable life-gain (Congregate should have been a sorcery) make it sorcery material. Besides, I don't think the card gets much more interesting as an instant. My general rule is to make something a sorcery unless it has to be an instant for some reason.

P.S. Needs a name. Any ideas?

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Yeah, I wasn't serious about making it an instant, although it certainly would have been interesting.

Hmm.. Sorcery, 1 damage to all creatures, gain that much life.. Dark Tithings? Consider that a tithe is a 'tax' of one-tenth of what you have or earn that you give, usually to a religious institution. Black has as much frequency to use religious undertones in its card names as white does, albeit with a 'darker' flavour.

[Matt]

End step nothing, this is far more dangerous in combat.

[parallax]

I want to call it Syphon Body, to combo with Syphon Mind and Syphon Soul, but that doesn't really make much sense, does it?

[jro]

For what it's worth:

We decided that “Pestilence” flavored effects should give creatures –X/-X since dealing damage to all creatures is a very red thing.

Written here.

[Liam-K]

Maro said Congregate was a really bad idea because of multiplayer.  This looks dangerously similar.  That can be a lot of life in casual.

[parallax]

For what it's worth:

We decided that “Pestilence” flavored effects should give creatures –X/-X since dealing damage to all creatures is a very red thing.

Written here.

Consume Spirit says this effect is still nominally black. "All creatures get -1/-1 and you gain that much life." doesn't make much sense. I agree that without the life gain this card is straight red, but this is Drain-flavored, not Pestilence-flavored.

I think the Congregate angle is much more threatening.

[Matt]

What if you only gain 1 life each time a creature actually dies to this?

[parallax]

What if you only gain 1 life each time a creature actually dies to this?

That goes against precedent for drain spells.

More importantly, that's nearly impossible to template: "~This~ deals 1 damage to each creature. Gain 1 life for each creature with lethal damage."

"Gain 1 life for each creature put into a graveyard this way." doesn't work, because the spell doesn't put any creatures into the graveyard.

[Matt]

Would "~this~ deals 1 damage to each creature. Until end of turn, whenever a creature is put into a graveyard from play, gain 1 life." work?

[parallax]

Would "~this~ deals 1 damage to each creature. Until end of turn, whenever a creature is put into a graveyard from play, gain 1 life." work?

That would work. I had considered it earlier but discarded it for flavor reasons. The possible delay between damage and life gain seemed odd to me. I've figured out a new flavor, it's not quite drain, but close enough to be black and works with the mechanic.

Claim Souls

Sorcery
~This~ deals 1 damage to each creature. Until end of turn, whenever a creature dealt damage this way is put into a graveyard from play, gain 1 life.

[Matt]

Yeah that's a better wording. I wonder if there's a way to word it so that the lifegain happens after the spell resolves, but before players can do things. Like when SBEs are next checked.

[parallax]

Yeah that's a better wording. I wonder if there's a way to word it so that the lifegain happens after the spell resolves, but before players can do things. Like when SBEs are next checked.

There are ways to do that, but none of them are pretty.

Gain 1 life for each creature with lethal damage.
Until the next time a player would receive priority, gain 1 life for each creature in play.

[parallax]

This is going to have to do.

24 clock.

Still open to suggestions for improvements.

[Matt]

Name's a little boring.