Tainted Mongoose

[Nydaeli]

Tainted Mongoose
 
Creature - Mongoose Zombie
Tainted Mongoose can't be the target of spells or abilities.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top card of your graveyard into your library.
Threshold - Tainted Mongoose gets -2/-2.
3/3

Having an ability that punishes you for Threshold is something that hasn't really been done before, and I wanted to try that.  Maybe this doesn't need to be a Mongoose, but that's what I thought of first.

Tainted Mongoose
 
Creature - Mongoose Zombie
Tainted Mongoose can't be the target of spells or abilities.
At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top card of your library into your graveyard.
Threshold - Tainted Mongoose gets -2/-2.
3/3

[SpencerForHire]

Where does the card from your graveyard go in your library.  Does it go on top?  On bottom?  Is it shuffled in?

This seems very relevant to me before I decide how good or bad this card is.

[Nydaeli]

That was a stupid typo.  From your library into your graveyard, is how it should read.  Wow.

[Harlequin]

Flavorwise I'm bothered ... why would a zombie be made weaker by a vast graveyard?

Otherwise it seems neat.  I'm a fan of the idea of using threshold as a drawback.  (incendentally this guy would be really good along side that new Dirge mechanic).

[Anusien]

A 3/3 that quickly turns into a 1/1 isn't exciting.  As a Tainted Mongoose, I feel like you should either make it bigger, or make it gain something else (maybe on Threshold), like Venom.

[zimagic]

A 3/3 that quickly turns into a 1/1 isn't exciting.  As a Tainted Mongoose, I feel like you should either make it bigger, or make it gain something else (maybe on Threshold), like Venom.

Agreed. Nydaeli, are you looking for a drawback to give the creature because he starts off as an untargetable 3/3 for 2? I'd say something more general would be the way to go rather than nuking this dude totally once you get threshold. How about:

Threshold: Other creatures you control get -1/-1

Ok, that's a bit binding. How about:

Threshold: At the beginning of your upkeep put a -1/-1 counter on target creature you control.

Either way, he'll act well alone but won't help out your team at all but he'll stay a 3/3 for 2.

[Darkenslight]

Why not have the threshold ability turn it into something toxic to players like so:

"Threshold 9 - Tainted Mongoose becomes a 0/1 creature with Poisonous 1 (whenever this creature attacks and is not blocked, put a poison counter on the defending player).

[Nydaeli]

Yeah, I guess -2/-2 is a pretty boring drawback, although it does mirror Nimble Mongoose - TSP block has got me thinking way too much about designing variations on old cards.  I definitely don't want to pump it, though.  The idea of the card is to make you want to run stuff like Rotting Giant and Withered Wretch alongside it to keep your graveyard small.  (And yes, Tombstalker from FS.)

Zimagic's idea is pretty good, but -1/-1 counters are fairly inconvenient.  I'm leaning toward straight life loss (Threshold - At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 2 life or something), but that's almost as boring as the original.