Cycle of Organized Crime

[Ephraim]

This is intentially a 4 card cycle. I am not looking for a {B}{B} card. The idea here was to match black with each of the other four colours. Each card is a crime that may yield a benefit appropriate to the colour with which black is paired. I am particularly pleased with Extortion and Racketeering, as they have a choice that is very much between a black effect and an effect of the comboed colour. Poaching isn't too bad, but Arson feels downright red, with no real black component involved. Suggestions?

Extortion
{W} - Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player loses 3 life; or you gain 3 life.

****

Racketeering
{U} - Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player discards a card; or you draw a card.

****

Poaching
{G} - Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player sacrifices a creature; or you may return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

****

Arson
- Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player sacrifices a land; or you may have Arson deal 4 damage to target creature or player.

[Ephraim]

Current Wording


Beginning of Organized Crime cycle

Protection Racket
{W}
Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player loses 3 life and you gain 3 life; or tap all creatures that player controls.

Smuggling Ring
{U}
Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player discards a card at random; or you draw a card.

Poaching Operation
{G}
Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player sacrifices a creature; or you may return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand.

Shakedown Circuit

Enchantment
Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That player sacrifices a land; or creatures you control gain fear until the end of turn.

End of Oranized Crime cycle

[Kowal]

These are pretty cool, I like the flavor.  I think you should be able to target yourself though.

[brendan]

Nice cards, really colourful. My thoughts are thus:

Although the current wordings are very clean, some of them would be functional stronger if the negative effects were a cost to avoid the second effect. Currently, Racketeering is useless if the opponant has no cards in hand, Poaching is useless if the opponant controls no creatures, and Arson is useless if the opponant controls no lands.

Also, I think the life gain on Extortion should be much higher. It should probably something like 3 loss/6 gain.

If you want to make Arson more black/red, you could change the effect to be a 2 point drain on something, rather than a 4 point bolt. That way the first effect is red and the second effect is black.

[Ephraim]

@Kowal:
If you can target yourself, then you lose the flavour of the cards. Just to use Extortion as an example, why would you ever do anything except gain life? Or would you change the effect or wording somehow to make it a meaningful choice no matter who you target with it?

Extortion might be:
Tap two untapped creatures you control: choose one -- target player loses 3 life or you gain 3 life.

However, that still loses the flavour - it doesn't have the feel of you sending your creatures to give your opponent a damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of choice.

@brendan (not thefram, poor avatar recognition):
That is how I intended the effects to be played. I wanted to be able to push a player so far before each card became useless. In that, Extortion will have the most long-term effect, but not the most useful. After all, if your opponent has no cards in hand, he's perpetually in top-deck mode, which is good. If he's casting every spell he draws, knowing he'll lose it otherwise, then you gain those two creatures back for attacking. If your opponent has no land, you've probably got him locked down pretty tightly. If your opponent has no creatures, you can attack with impunity.

Extortion and Poaching might be reasonable, if your opponent can't chose to penalize himself. Arson would be really broken, though. "Oh, you've got no lands left? Take 4." That's just insult to injury.

[Kowal]

I just think in terms of organized crime, you'd be able to use your own men to screw yourself over to avoid the eyes of the law.

[Ephraim]

Update: I changed Arson completely. I was just drawing a blank for how arson could produce either a red or a black effect. Extortion has been balanced to make the choice more meaningful.

Kowal, if you could explain in greater detail how you'd like the cards to work, I'd appreciate it. I want the cards to remain such that there is always a meaningful choice (ie: either option may be picked under reasonable circumstances), whomever is targeted. Plus, I don't want it to be better to target yourself, in all circumstances. If it's going to be better to target somebody, it needs to be the other player.

[Kowal]

If it's going to be better to target somebody, it needs to be the other player.

Fair 'nuff.

[Matt]

I like these a LOT. The current wordings are balanced and flavorful, and would make a fine addition to any set.

The only problem is that Extortion is already a card, from Mercadian Masques.

[Ephraim]

The name problem has been fixed. The blue card's name has been changed to Smuggling and the white card's name has been changed to Racketeering. That's what I wanted the white card to be called in the first place, but I couldn't think of any other good name for the blue card.

[Jacob Orlove]

Naming a card "terrorism" just sounds bad. Also, the black/clue one is really, really weak. 4 mana AND tapping two creatures to either cycle or make them discard ONE card? It's overcosted and underpowered.

[Ephraim]

I was afraid somebody was going to call me on the R/B card's name. I'll see if I can dig up another appropriate name for it. Also, as I think about it, I've weakened the R/B card's ability enough that I could reduce it's cost and the U/B card's cost to one colourless and the two coloured mana. Would that make the U/B card more competetive, do you think?

[Jacob Orlove]

Okay, here's what bad about the U/B one: since your opponent chooses, either they discard a worthless card, or you get to draw one card. Both options are terrible at that cost, but you don't even get the better one. It could be 0 to cast, and it would still most likely be worthless. It really needs to do more.

[Ephraim]

I changed the U/B one so that the discard is random and you get to dig a little deeper with the drawing effect. Is it approaching worthiness or is it still utter schwaeg?

[Jacob Orlove]

It's a little better, but U/B is also one of the harder color combinations to have the creatures to tap for it. The green, white, and red ones will have a much easier time playing their cards, but the U/B one would be quite tricky, especially in controllish decks. What about going back up to 2UB and making both effects much stronger?

[Ephraim]

I'm not sure how much strong I can make the discard ability before the card obsoletes itself too quickly. If I make it two cards at random, then it'll much more likely empty the opponent's hand so fast that you won't ever get to draw any cards from it.

The blue effect could readily be made 'you draw two cards'. That's powerful, but the opponent does have a choice. What would you suggest for the black effect of the card, though. Poaching Operation covers creature kill, Shakedown Circuit covers fear, Protection Racket covers loss of life. Are there any other strongly black abilities that I haven't touched upon that I could use instead of discard?

[Jacob Orlove]

Whoa, these are enchantments. I thought they were one-shot effects. Yeah, it's probably fine with the current set of abilities. Sorry about that.

[Ephraim]

I kept the random discad on the U/B card, but I changed it back to jus drawing one card. I think that's probably good for the abilities. Should we work on flavour, now?

[stijndon]

The UB one isn't bad at all: It can force them to discard as an instant, making the mdiscard the one card they drew during their draw step when their hand was already emptied. Instant discarding effects are good...

[Ephraim]

I'm not certain that works, stijndon. You'd have to have priority to activate the enchantment, and if I'm not mistaken, there's no time when you have priority between when they draw their card and when they get their first opportunity to play it. Somebody correct me, if I'm wrong.

[Jacob Orlove]

They'd get a chance to cast it, but only if it's an instant. Then again, scepter-chant works in a similar manner, so I don't think this would be uber-broken or anything.

[Ephraim]

Why could they only play an instant? Card plays aren't allowed during the draw phase, are they? And then, the main phase begins, and the active player has priority. At that point, the active player, in this case the opponent, would have an opportunity to play any sort of card he wanted.

[Jacob Orlove]

You can play instants during the draw step. It's the untap step where you can't.

[stijndon]

Well, in tournaments, scepter chant is better, yes. But this is way better in casual environments. And as a single card in limited, where you don't always draft a chant AND a scepter...

I still think that the ability to force instant discard is strong enough to be on the card without needing further enhancement.

[Ephraim]

Okay, that seems to be enough discussion. This set of bad boys has had 3 days to stew. Let's put it on the...

24 Hour Clock

[Jacob Orlove]

I think the black/green one should be 2BG, because either choice increases your ability to use it (if they have fewer creatures, you can more easily use two to activate it).

The white/black one is weak. All the others can get card advantage. And, I'd like to see it at 2WB, just to keep the cycle more symmetrical.

[Ephraim]

I thought the B/G one was appropriately balanced because:
1) It requires you to have a creature in your graveyard, or your opponent has a free option

2) A deck that would have creatures that it would want to return often would be an Aggro deck. In the rock/scissors/paper model, Aggro decks beat Control decks. Control doesn't use many creaures and therefore will often have none in play, leaving them a free option.

Because it is underpowered, I wanted to keep the cost of the B/W one low. I think that in general the B/G and B/W ones are less powerful than the B/R and B/U ones, justifying the equal costing, despite being off-colour.

[Jacob Orlove]

The only issue with the B/G one would be that it's such a limited powerhouse. That thing would be a huge bomb.

And life gain/life loss are very, very weak abilities. It would be much more interesting if it was a choice between, say, all your creatures getting +1/+1 and all of his getting -1/-1.

[Ephraim]

I hadn't considered the case of limited play. I agree, that merits raising the cost to {G}. If I'm going to raise the cost of the B/W one, for symmetry, I want it to be a more powerful effect as well.

Tap two untapped creatures you control: Target opponent chooses one -- That players loses 3 life and you gain 3 life; or tap all creatures that player controls.

[Jacob Orlove]

I have no further objections.