turbo cantrip

[Liam-K]

some name U
enchantment

When ~this~ comes into play, draw a card.

Whenever pay less than 2 mana to cast a spell, draw a card.
Whenever you pay more than 1 mana to cast a spell, sacrifice ~this~.


Might be slightly stupid in gro.  Probably fair otherwise.

[Anusien]

Do we really need Storm: Draw a card?

[Liam-K]

casting a spell is not putting a spell on the stack

[Anusien]

No, my point is that all the spells you cast before the Tendrils to get the storm count up are almost always <=2.  So you get storm for Moxen, Lotus, Ancestral, Brainstorm, Ritual...

[Liam-K]

Yeah I goldfished a few games with this replacing draw7s in pitchlong and I don't know what I was thinking.  Close the thread, this idea is terrible.

[Anusien]

What if you went the other way and rewarded players for playing expensive spells?

[Venven]

That reminds me of the Dragon <thing> auras from Scourge. There were actually quite a few cards in Onslaught block that dealt with cmc, but they all seemed clunky. Which, to me, means that there's a good opportunity to refine the mechanic, maybe keyword it, and open up some interesting design space.

Graft 1
Whenever you play a spell with converted mana cost equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on ~this~, put a +1/+1 counter on this.
0/0

Not to totally hijack your thread, sorry, but there's a certain lack of elegance when it comes to using converted mana cost as an identifier. Compared to colour, type, subtype or rules text, the phrase "converted mana cost X" is umm, gross. It's unfortunate that one of the primary identifiers of a card is limited in it's usability because of that. Well, I'm sure the problem runs deeper. Anyways, this post comes down to this question: can a triggered ability be keyworded in such a way that the 'intervening "if" clause', as well as the effect, functions within the rules and is obvious to the player? I suppose the difficulty in using that keyword is compounded by the open-ended nature of the ability, a lot like kicker.

Anyways, this post is bloated, sorry. I'd like to see a Heartwood Storyteller version of this that symmetrically punishes for playing cheap spells, though.

[Liam-K]

Anusien: I don't like that idea.  Cheaper cards are less effect for less tempo... but less effect for 1 card.  What makes expensive cards playable is the tradeoff in virtual card advantage gained (more effect per card) per tempo lost.  Especially in non-eternal formats this means 1) cost the card into oblivion (recycle) or 2) punt the minimum CMC up to unplayable levels.

This ties into the original card's built-in failsafe... in theory, if you want to do something big, you have to lose the effect for ever.  You can only draw cards as long as little effects are all you need.  If you make this CMC 3+, once it comes down it can basically stay.  If you make it 4+ it's bloody dreadful.