Elder of Simplicity

[serracollector]

Elder of Simplicty
Creture - Elf Druid Elder
GG
2/2
Nonbasic lands don't untap during their controllers' untap steps. At the beginning of each players upkeep that player loses life equal the number of nonbasic lands they control.

I think the GG casting cost could keep it in check for its great abilitys.  Against Gush, its not as good, but at least can get a few pts of damage in, which can make the difference in a game.

Should it be legendary?

[The Atog Lord]

This is a single card that, for two mana, replicates the effect of an enchantment costing three and an enchantment costing four mana. It seems extremely overpowered.

Also, Wizards never refers to a single player as ``they,'' but rather as ``he or she.''

[Joblin Velder]

I would find a way to play 8 of this.

[serracollector]

Ok, so what would make it more fair?  I mean it is only a 2/2, no shroud or anything.  It does cost double green, so it would mainly only see play in mono green builds, would this, even as is, warrant a mono green build in t1?

[The Atog Lord]

The problem with this card is that it, like Lodestone Golem, combines a lock piece with a fast clock. Even against many Standard decks, he'll lock the opponent off three or so land and deliver three per turn of unblockable damage. He'd be even more backbreaking in Legacy, where many decks have manabases consistent entirely of nonbasic lands. It's one thing to have a card like Back to Basics against those decks, where the opponent has had a chance to cast a two-drop at least. But recall that Magus of the Moon has seen a reasonable amount of play, and he is a 2/2 for 3 that has a similar effect on nonbasic lands. This card, for one less mana, locks out nonbasics while also ending the game in short order. Even if this card is fair for Vintage, it would get banned in Modern and Legacy, and would ruin several archetypes in Standard. And even for Vintage, a Gush deck's ability to work around his drawback using Gush while destroying a non-Gush blue deck would be worrisome.

[serracollector]

Would making it cost GGG and be a 2/1 change things?

[Ten-Ten]

Would making it cost GGG and be a 2/1 change things?

nope.

how about,  Legendary 3/1
and instead "each time a non-basic land is tapped, it deals 1 damage to its controller."

this way even fetching for basics will hurt some 

a smaller Burning-Tree shaman of sorts 

[serracollector]

I really want the critter to be mono green. 

Red has magus of the moon
Blue has Back to Basics.

I would like something for green.

how about your same templating for a 2/1 for GG? 


Elder of Simplicity
GG
Creature - Legendary Elf Druid Elder

Whenever a nonbasic land is tapped,  it deal 1 damage to that player.

2/1

[The Atog Lord]

This new wording doesn't actually compile into anything.

Whenever a nonbasic land is tapped,  it deal 1 damage to that player.

Which player takes the damage? That isn't specified by the card. Do you really want the land itself dealing the damage? Do you really want this to work in conjunction with Twiddle to deal damage?

[MaximumCDawg]

I actually like this concept very much.  It is true that it would obsolete several older, similar cards, but those cards are not strong enough in current Vintage anyway.  I really like the concept of a truly powerful non-basic deterrent in Vintage to go along side Wasteland, because it may well force many-greedy decks to finally get honest with their manabases.  It might even start to stop the practice of every deck running the same blue power cards just because blue is so easy to splash.

How about something like this:

Elder of Simplicity
GG
Creature - Legendary Elf Druid

Nonbasic lands do not untap during controller's untap step.  If a nonbasic land would enter the battlefield untapped, it enters tapped instead unless its controller pays 2 life.

2/1

This way, it's not a win condition, but it is a supremely vicious blow against non-basics.  It gives them a way out, but a painful one.

[serracollector]

@ above:  YES!  That fits perfectly!  Makes fetches cost 3 life, or gives me the chance to waste there fetch (for 2 life albeit, but still great IMO)

[Wagner]

This last card is not green AT ALL though. Green does not do direct damage to players, and green does not give choices, this screams red.

Also, green as pretty much never had cards hating on non-basic lands so far except few creatures that get bigger if your opp has some.

[MaximumCDawg]

This last card is not green AT ALL though. Green does not do direct damage to players, and green does not give choices, this screams red.

Also, green as pretty much never had cards hating on non-basic lands so far except few creatures that get bigger if your opp has some.

Both effects on my suggestion have been in Green for a long time.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=2974
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=135251

@ above:  YES!  That fits perfectly!  Makes fetches cost 3 life, or gives me the chance to waste there fetch (for 2 life albeit, but still great IMO)

Well you wouldn't need to if the fetch never untaps anyway...

[Ten-Ten]

stiil would be best as  and keep as legendary elf , loose the druid....for best flovor. imho.

I actually like this concept very much.  It is true that it would obsolete several older, similar cards, but those cards are not strong enough in current Vintage anyway.  I really like the concept of a truly powerful non-basic deterrent in Vintage to go along side Wasteland, because it may well force many-greedy decks to finally get honest with their manabases.  It might even start to stop the practice of every deck running the same blue power cards just because blue is so easy to splash.

How about something like this:

Elder of Simplicity
GG
Creature - Legendary Elf Druid

Nonbasic lands do not untap during controller's untap step.  If a nonbasic land would enter the battlefield untapped, it enters tapped instead unless its controller pays 2 life.

2/1

This way, it's not a win condition, but it is a supremely vicious blow against non-basics.  It gives them a way out, but a painful one.

this kills gushdecks more than shop.dec though  
not balanced enough...

[Wagner]

Yes, I'm aware both those cards exist, but they are hardly the norm compared to other colors, namely red.

[serracollector]

Red already has so much.  The point is to make it green.

Rootmaze and Primal Order on a stick is a way to incorporate some old green cards, and make them good enough to be playable in t1.

[Darkenslight]

Hmm...how about this design:

Kion, Elder of Simplicity   
Legendary Creature - Elf Druid

{Nonbasic lands ETB tapped unless that land's controller pays 2 life.}

OR

{Nonbasic lands do not untap during their controller's untap step}
"You will not pollute my forests any further"
2/1

[Wagner]

I would remove the pay 2 life clause. Just make them enter tapped, I don't think it's really that stronger and it's more in flavor.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I would remove the pay 2 life clause. Just make them enter tapped, I don't think it's really that stronger and it's more in flavor.

Making duals into shocks is actually quite weak since your opponent gets to choose whether they need an untapped land more than they need 2 life.

[MaximumCDawg]

Thats the point, though.  If you have a 2cc creature that both prevents untapping of nonbasics and makes them come into play tapped... that's super-amazing-strong and probably about as fun to play against as Trinishpere.  Being more realistic, you'd want to make sure an opponent is crippled but still has an out.  Giving them the option of shocking themselves to get a use out of a land lets this happen.  Remember, even then, they won't go for it until they think they can deal with the Elder right away, because otherwise they'd only get one use out of their shockland.

Splitting up the abilities makes the card very printable, but also not very impressive.  If you're going for Rootmaze on a stick, then just do Rootmaze on a stick and don't muck around with non-basics.  if you're looking to hose non-basics, I think you need to do so better than Back to Basics does for it to be playable.

[Wagner]

The 2 abilities on the same card is just too strong. Most lands basically become Lotus petal that cost you 2 to 4 life to activate, it's just nuts. Back to Basics and Moon effects do a lot less than that and cost 3 each, there is no way this would cost 2 with 2 better abilities.

[serracollector]

I think the ETB tapped unless you pay 2 life would be perfect.  Makes fetches cost 5 life (if finding a dual etc).

[Delha]

The 2 abilities on the same card is just too strong. Most lands basically become Lotus petal that cost you 2 to 4 life to activate, it's just nuts. Back to Basics and Moon effects do a lot less than that and cost 3 each, there is no way this would cost 2 with 2 better abilities.

This. CDawg/Serracollector, you guys need to look for a moment past what you're trying to create and consider the big picture. The card as suggested is broken as shit. It either needs to cost more or do less. Given you're trying to create this for a beatz type deck, you're presumably unwilling to cost it higher, so you need to tone it down.

The whole color pie thing is certainly an issue, but I think it's still generally understood that green hates on unnatural things, which could certainly take the form of nonbasics (though it usually manifests in the opposite way, ie by favoring basics). While I think the abilities aren't necessarily too much of a stretch for monogreen, I do think that it forces the card to cost more than it would as red/green. The fact that exactly one green card ever printed deals direct damage for nonbasics, and that Choke is the only green card that approximates B2B says that these abilities are peripheral at best for green, certainly not core. From there, colors that generally serve as a "secondary" source for a given ability tend to do so at a greater cost.

If you want to keep cost down, and keep red out of the mana cost, how about making the damage ability a red-fueled activation? Say Price of Progress for 1 damage per land at ? Or maybe keep 2 dmg per land, but at ? Even after doing so, I imagine you'd STILL need to tone down the Root Maze + B2B portion.

I'm inclined to say cutting B2B is the best way to reach something printable (so you'd keep ETBT and POP). Losing two turns before you can actually use a fetched up Sea is already pretty rough. Also, even without a B2B effect, fetches coming in tapped creates a vulnerability to Waste effects that can be exploited. A 2/1 for and the two abilities listed should already be quite strong.

Addendum: I went to read that MaRo article Steve mentioned in the "new proxy system" thread, and end up link hopping to other articles of his. In the process I came across this...

One of the most common mistakes I see when looking at novice designs is an inability to trust that one aspect is enough to carry the card. So many first designs are overstuffed with every thing the designer can think of. Not only are they wasting a valuable resource, they've so stuffed the card that no element has a chance to shine. Remember the truism above, even in card design: if something can be removed and the card will work, it needs to be removed.

[Nefarias]

I think the best way to have green hate on nonbasics from a flavor perspective would be something like:

"Nonbasic lands lose all abilities and gain ' : Add to your mana pool.' "

And make the name something like Naturalist Groundskeeper or something, just not that awful. The flavor being this guy that goes around and plants trees on nonbasic lands to "purify" them. For play purposes, this is actually almost exactly Magus of the Moon though, so if you wanted to separate the two more you could just go with:

"Whenever a nonbasic land is tapped for mana, it produces   instead of its normal type and amount."

This would still be fairly similar to MotM but allow things like Wasteland, Maze of Ith, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale to still do their things.

The problem with anything that damages is that it's really not green. The problem with anything that makes them EtBT is that it's just worse than Root Maze (though being on a creature could leverage that disadvantage). The problem with anything that keeps them tapped is that it's just BtB. So idk, my suggestions are far from perfect but I kinda like them

[Darkenslight]

What about, "Whenever a nonbasic land would untapped, instead that land remains tapped unless that land's controller pays 2 life."?

Does that seem like a fair tradeoff, or am I barking up the wrong Lotus?

If so, I like the turning into basic forests thing.

[AmbivalentDuck]

What about a Skyshroud War Beast with Green Moon instead of trample costed at 2G?

[Wagner]

What about a Skyshroud War Beast with Green Moon instead of trample costed at 2G?

From a ruling standpoint, it's annoying, you would have to put reminder text that they become forests and stay non-basic.