Hurkyl's Rebuke

[ghostchild]

Hurkyl's Rebuke
1U
Instant
You may remove a blue card or an artifact card in your hand from the game rather than pay Hurkyl's Rebuke's mana cost. If you do, Hurkyl's Rebuke can't target nonartifact spells.
Counter target spell unless its controller pays [2].

I wanted to explore the design space of alternate costs that lead to alternate effects, whether restricted, enhanced, or just different.
Here's another example of this, on a permanent rather than a spell, and with alternate MANA cost instead:

Yavimaya Baloth
4G
Creature - Beast
You may pay 1GGG rather than pay Yavimaya Baloth's mana cost. If you do, Yavimaya Baloth comes into play with a +1/+1 counter on it.
4/4

I think this concept has tons of room to explore. Thoughts?

[zeus-online]

You could play Hurkyl's rebuke in non-blue decks, thats not good...definetly needs a clause that prevents this (like if you control an island).

/Zeus

[Bram]

Please make a separate thread for the second card.

[parallax]

Alternate costs work better if they're simple and easy to remember and understand. Also, changing targeting restrictions based on how a spell is payed for is tricky, because targets are chosen before costs are paid. Either way, Hurkyl's Rebuke is too complicated.

[Liam-K]

The wording is easily understandable and functions within the rules: if you pitchcast it on a nonartifact, it fizzles is countered due to its target no longer being legal, I believe.

[parallax]

The wording is easily understandable and functions within the rules: if you pitchcast it on a nonartifact, it fizzles is countered due to its target no longer being legal, I believe.

That's part of why I believe the wording is difficult to understand: You can't play this card with the alternate cost at all unless there is an artifact spell on the stack to target.

Why not just make this an Anull variant?