Cumulocade

[Fistandantilus]

ORIGINAL TEXT:

Cumulocade

Instant
Play Cumulocade only on an opponent's turn.
If Cumulocade is played before your first turn, Cumulocade costs less to play.
Put into play two 1/1 cloud elemental creature tokens with Flying, Defender, and "Sacrifice a cloud elemental token: Your life total becomes 5."
Storm

****

The intent is to help the player to survive some kinds of very fast storm combo decks.

[Titanium Dragon]

This card is terribly inelegant, and has all sorts of nasty consequences. For one thing, it gives blue free removal; yeah, 1/1 flying creatures (Two of them!) don't seem like much, but Orthinopter costs 0 and is a 0/2 flier and sees play periodically, and this gives a huge amount of protection to a counterspell deck - their Savannah Lions that snuck past your countermagic can't get through. It also lets you make large quantities of reset buttons, so if you have some way to spend life, you can quickly reset it to 5 any number of times for practically nothing.

Fundamentally, I think this card causes more problems than it solves, and it is not an elegant or interesting card. It is simply overpowered and slanted to try and help vintage, but it'd be a problem card in and of itself elsewhere and probably in vintage as well to boot.

There are already cards like Cabal Therapy and Duress to help you survive combo decks' early turns; I think going with some way of attacking them where it hurts is what you need to do if you want to hose them. And there's cards like that, such as CotV, the aforementioned discard, Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, ect.

[andrewpate]

Alone this card's ability to let any deck start turn 1 with a 1/1 Flying Defender with a special ability, regardless of what the opponent does, is enough reason to say that it's simply not acceptable.

Furthermore, everything TD says is spot on.  Tsabo's Web, Kataki, War's Wage... these are necessary evils, not desirable answers.  Clunky, obvious hosers to specific strategies are not good design, and even Wizards regrets occassionally needing them.

[Anusien]

Yeah, I started reading the card and the Storm is just so random.  THis might as well say: "Put a "Don't lose the game" token into play."

[asi]

I like the "Your life total becomes 5" part, but hate the rest. Why not making some sort of creature with a sacrifice effect that does this?

Like maybe:

Wizard
1/1
Sac: Your life total becomes 5.

[Glix]

That last suggestion makes sense, but is it really a blue card even?  Your life becoming 5 seems more like a white or perhaps a black ability, considering the modern color pie.  The only precedent for blue getting this kind of effect I can think of is its illusions of grandeur and mediocrity effects.

The original card was poorly designed, but that life becoming effect is interesting.

[Malakai]

I already had a dozen threads of thought going through my head on how to abuse the hell out of this card, then I saw the word storm and almost cried.  It'd be good, too good, for blue with just: U: put two defender 1/1 flyers into play, but it's way better than that. 

maybe this:
False Martyr
WB
2/2
Sacrifice False Martyr: Your life total becomes 5.
His taint furthers the cause.

Hey I bet I broke a rule.  Move it if you see fit.

[andrewpate]

Now it's just another terrible white 2/2 for 2 with an interesting special ability.  Only the best of the best of the best of these guys see play.  Compare to Meddling Mage, True Believer, or Eight-and-a-Half Tails.  Just doesn't fit in what is already an incredibly clogged slot.

That said, I find powerful manipulations associated with maintaining a very low life total to be a rather interesting design space.  Like if the Form of the Dragon/Zur's Weirding combo, or even the Form of the Dragon/Convalescent Care combo, could be expanded somewhat.

The problem with this particular idea is this:  how can you make a creature good enough to be playable while giving it this utility ability and still making the card cohesive.  I mean, there's a very good reason why we have all those white 2/2s.

[asi]

False Martyr

Creature- Cleric
2/2
, Sacrifice a cleric: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. Remove that card from the game.
Remove False Martyr from the game: Your life total becomes 5. Play this ability only if False Martyr is in your graveyard.

Both abilities can be quite strong, though the first one is very mana intensive [probably should read "play only as a sorcery]. The second one can actually be really nice. For example, you could play Thirst for Knowledge in response to Tendrils discarding two of these, then let enough copies resolve to go down to 1-2 life, then use one, let two additional copies resolve, then use the second one. It probably should include some [mana]-payment to balance it's power level.

[Anusien]

False Martyr

Creature- Cleric
2/2
, Sacrifice a cleric: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. Remove that card from the game.
Remove False Martyr from the game: Your life total becomes 5. Play this ability only if False Martyr is in your graveyard.

I like this version, although it needs a higher mana cost, and also the RFG ability should have some sort of payment.  I suggest either mana or sacrificing creatures.

[Malakai]

Any reason why it removes the card from the game instead of just making them discard it?  There's a slight power level issue there; basically, should it be able to take away Loam and Bridge?

[asi]

Any reason why it removes the card from the game instead of just making them discard it?  There's a slight power level issue there; basically, should it be able to take away Loam and Bridge?

I actually just copied the text on Castigate 


So how about:

False Martyr

Creature- Cleric
2/2
, Sacrifice a cleric: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. Remove that card from the game.
,  Remove False Martyr from the game: Your life total becomes 5. Play this ability only if False Martyr is in your graveyard.

[Anusien]

Instead of WB for both, what about BB for the first and WW for the second?  Or even W/B + B W/B + W?

[asi]

I like that idea:

False Martyr

Creature- Cleric
2/2
, Sacrifice a cleric: Target opponent reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. Remove that card from the game.
,  Remove False Martyr from the game: Your life total becomes 5. Play this ability only if False Martyr is in your graveyard.

Certainly a strong card, but the severe mana requirements balance it, I'd say.