Disrupting Sprite

[Marco]

A straight-forward Stifle effect for my set:

Disrupting Sprite
1U
Creature – Faerie Wizard (Rare)
1/1
Flash
Flying
1U, Sacrifice Disrupting Sprite: Counter target activated or triggered ability. (Mana abilities can’t be targeted.)

Should the activation cost be reduced to U?

[Marco]

Current Wording:

Disrupting Sprite
1U
Creature – Faerie Wizard (Rare)
1/1
Flash
Flying
U, Sacrifice Disrupting Sprite: Counter target activated or triggered ability. (Mana abilities can’t be targeted.)

[Marco]

Kind of boring, I know.  But it works for my set, especially against the effect-when-cycling cards...

[Vicotnic]

Lookes more like an uncommon then rare to me, other then that it seems fine.

[Wagner]

Should definitively be uncommon, also, I would reduce the ability to U or even 1, right now, it's 4 mana for a stifle or a bad body that tells your opponent you have answers.

[Anusien]

Countering activated and triggered abilities is so far always rare.

[Marco]

Countering activated and triggered abilities is so far always rare.

True.  I think this is safer as a rare, but I can probably lower the activation cost to .

[Lil Lobos]

It's a good little critter. I can see this card being useful in quite a few handfuls.

[Matt]

Does he need to sacrifice? I'd rather simplify it if possible:

Disrupting Sprite

Creature -- Faerie
1/1
Flash
Flying
When Disrupting Sprite comes into play, counter target activated or triggered ability.

[BruiZar]

@matt:

I would make him sacrifice. Voidmage prodigy, Spiketail Hatchling, Glen Elendra Archmage and Daring Apprentice all sacrifice when countering a spell. Countering an activated or triggered ability should require a sacrifice. The option you propose would make it much more like Spellstutter Sprite and Vendillion Clique.

[Matt]

Countering an activated or triggered ability should require a sacrifice.

Why?

the option you propose would make it much more like Spellstutter Sprite and Vendillion Clique.

Explain why this is bad?

[BruiZar]

Spellstutter Sprite is comparable to Circular Logic, Spell Blast and Power Sink, it counts the number of cards/mana of a given type. In other words, there is an   in the spell's effect . The proposed card isn't like that at all because it simply counters an effect without any  's.

Vendillion Clique is much more like Duress, Thoughtseize and Venser, Shaper Savant because it handles a card before it is being played and doesn't counter anything, so it isn't comparable to the type of card proposed in this thread either.

All the creatures that have built in hard-counters require a permanent be sacrificed.

These exhibits show that the majority of hard and soft counters on creatures require a sacrifice.

Daring Apprentice
Spiketail Hatchling
Glen Elendra Archmage
Voidmage Prodigy
Brine Shaman
Cursecatcher
Ertai, the Corrupted
Grimoire Thief
Hydromorph Guardian
Hydromorph Gull


However, Voidmage Husher is probably close to what the proposed card in this thread is like.

Please don't put a bunch of images in a thread where just listing the names will do. It can mess up the display or make the thread load slowly. -Matt

[Matt]

So you've established that these abilities usually have a sacrifice. Again: so? You need to argue why THIS CARD should have to sacrifice, not just appeal to tradition, especially in light of Voidmage Husher.

[Marco]

I suppose I could make this a comes into play ability, but it feels more like a sacrifice ability to me...

Also, a comes into play ability can be countered by any number of spells that counter creature spells... a sacrifice ability can only be countered by a handful of spells (Stifle, etc.)

[Matt]

I suppose I could make this a comes into play ability, but it feels more like a sacrifice ability to me...

Also, a comes into play ability can be countered by any number of spells that counter creature spells... a sacrifice ability can only be countered by a handful of spells (Stifle, etc.)

It can still be stopped by a counter if they just counter the creature at the time you cast it...

[Marco]

Of course.

[BruiZar]

Voidmage Husher is from the Time Spiral set. Time Spiral introduced mechanics that would normally not have been printed. As such you can clearly say that Voidmage Husher is the exception to what is considered the standard cost for blue creature-counters.

I think though, that having it around as a permanent stifle is slightly overpowered, especially for only 1U. 2 mana is generally the sweet spot of Aether Vial and combined with stifles and dreadnoughts you can kiss your fetch/strip/wastes goodbye and see a 12/12 trample go sideways pretty consistently and early.

[Anusien]

I missed Husher.  I'm okay with this at uncommon especially as a CIP faerie.

[Matt]

Voidmage Husher is from the Time Spiral set. Time Spiral introduced mechanics that would normally not have been printed. As such you can clearly say that Voidmage Husher is the exception to what is considered the standard cost for blue creature-counters.

Uh, what? Two problems here: one, what do you mean "normally be printed"? The normal printing is whatever they print, which happens to include Time Spiral cards. Wizards has said that they let TSP block include more complicated cards than normal, but that;s not relevant here.

Two, even assuming that what you say was true, your argument does not follow. Just because SOME unusual cards were made in Time Spiral, it does not mean that every card in Time Spiral is a one-off exception, never to be repeated.

I think though, that having it around as a permanent stifle is slightly overpowered, especially for only 1U. 2 mana is generally the sweet spot of Aether Vial and combined with stifles and dreadnoughts you can kiss your fetch/strip/wastes goodbye and see a 12/12 trample go sideways pretty consistently and early.

Which is why I priced my version at 1UU.