Imperial Tariff/Imperial Lenience

[Cyberium]

Imperial Tariff
2WW
Sorcery

Each opponent chooses one:

・Sacrifice a permanent with the highest converted mana cost.
・Imperial Tariff's controller gains control of a nonland permanent you own with the lowest converted mana cost.

Entwine - 2 (Opponents choose both if you pay the entwine cost)

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Imperial Tariff is a twist on entwine cards where this time you let opponents choose which option they want, or both if you pay the entwine cost. I also borrowed wording from Soul Ransom for the second clause.

Flavor wise, it's a take on imperial system where peasants either pay their minimal or have their most valuable taken away.

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Imperial Lenience
2WW
Sorcery

If you have fewer cards in hand than an opponent, draw two cards. If you control fewer lands than an opponent, search your library for up to two plains and put them into play tapped.

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Imperial Lenience models after Timely Reinforcements, this time addresses two things white is lacking in EDH. I've always enjoyed white's balancing effect, weird that WotC hasn't looked deep into it.

[spacemonaut]

Nice take on Entwine. : )

Both seem good, although neither edicts nor gaining control are in pie for white, even if those opponents have to choose between them. Like the same way "You deal 5 damage to target permanent or you gain 5 life" is not a blue card. As-is I'd paint it as a mono-black punisher.

Compare this with punisher cards like Risk Factor. Red punishers can offer opponents a choice between you doing a red thing (you deal them 4 damage) and you doing a color break (you draw 3 cards). Your red spell can break the color pie, but if you do, it's because an opponent let you. Crucially, one option is in pie for red.

Taking that as an outline, Tariff needs to do something white and something nonwhite, not two nonwhite things. For example: target opponent sacrifices their most powerful attacking creature, or you gain control of their least powerful attacking creature, would still on theme and a legit white punisher. Call it Wartime Tariff maybe?

Anyway, past that, Tariff needs some templating changes:

• Spells still need to be written from the caster's perspective, even if it's addressing the opponent somehow. "You" always means the spell's controller. Compare with the oracle text for Fatal Lore.
• You need to say "highest among permanents they control" and "lowest among", because otherwise that means the entire battlefield. That might mean permanents they don't even control.
• The second choice can give you control of a permanent they don't themselves control (because they're Zedruu, because someone stole it from them, etc). It can do that, but it probably shouldn't do that: they shouldn't be paying costs with what is now someone else's stuff, right?
• Minor, but Entwine doesn't need a dash before a mana cost. That tends to be reserved for costs other than mana, like these equipments versus equipments that just cost mana to equip.

Each opponent chooses one:
• They sacrifice a permanent with the highest converted mana cost among permanents they control.
• You gain control of a nonland permanent of their choice with the lowest converted mana cost among permanents they control.
Entwine (Opponents choose both if you pay the entwine cost.)

[Cyberium]

Thank you for your detailed reply, much appreciated. I will work on the wording once we settle on the effects.

Both seem good, although neither edicts nor gaining control are in pie for white, even if those opponents have to choose between them. Like the same way "You deal 5 damage to target permanent or you gain 5 life" is not a blue card. As-is I'd paint it as a mono-black punisher.

Compare this with punisher cards like Risk Factor. Red punishers can offer opponents a choice between you doing a red thing (you deal them 4 damage) and you doing a color break (you draw 3 cards). Your red spell can break the color pie, but if you do, it's because an opponent let you. Crucially, one option is in pie for red.

I have to disagree with you about the first ability. White had long history of making people sacrifice permanents, all the way from Balance/Cataclysm/Balancing Act, and more recently Tragic Arrogance. Even in singular target, white has Abzan Advantage, World Queller, and the original Tariff. The first ability is a combination of white's "choose and sac" and its usual "anti-big creature" effects. (In this case, anti-big permanents)

As for the second ability: You're right about red is capable of breaking color pie because opponents make a choice, and it's almost always punishment via damage, white on the other hand does it by "offering" people things, such as Armistice, Truce, and Debt of Loyalty. With that in mind, it's true that Tariff's second ability is lacking in the "offering" department. If we were to keep the control effect, we'd have to offer the opponents something in return; something more than just the entwine choice that could be nullified with 2. Or perhaps we can change it to "gains control of a land" or "create three treasure tokens", both would still be on theme with white's "rich taxing the poor" mentality.

And, Perhaps we can keep the abilities as it is, but change the entwine to: "Each opponent draws a card?" That'd make the spell even more dynamic. To ensure you get both options you have to offer opponents new cards, or suffer the uncertainty of what you may get.

Taking that as an outline, Tariff needs to do something white and something nonwhite, not two nonwhite things. For example: target opponent sacrifices their most powerful attacking creature, or you gain control of their least powerful attacking creature, would still on theme and a legit white punisher. Call it Wartime Tariff maybe?

I'm concerned with making this card combat oriented, because it'd make the card useless against non-combat oriented decks, but you are correct that sac/control effect in white would garnish much less complaints from people when it involves combat.

Thanks again for your reply!

[void_nothing]

The best analogy for Imperial Tariff's sacrifice mode is Renounce the Guilds imo. It's a bit fringe and little-used, but this effect can be monowhite. Otherwise though @spacemonaut is totally correct in principle: Punisher cards need to have at least one of their possible effects be on-color, strongly so if possible.

That's why the Odyssey block originals all used direct damage to the face and the Planar Chaos black ones had things like life pay, creature sac, and discard. The creatures among the latter were just virtual vanillas, of course, but the spells were blue effects. Likewise even Odyssey block had a mix of off-color and on-color but undercosted effects besides the damage.

That was a bit long-winded but the point is that these are both interesting designs (although Imperial Lenience feels way too easy to get the maximum mode on, especially if you're playing second).

[Cyberium]

The best analogy for Imperial Tariff's sacrifice mode is Renounce the Guilds imo. It's a bit fringe and little-used, but this effect can be monowhite. Otherwise though @spacemonaut is totally correct in principle: Punisher cards need to have at least one of their possible effects be on-color, strongly so if possible.

That's why the Odyssey block originals all used direct damage to the face and the Planar Chaos black ones had things like life pay, creature sac, and discard. The creatures among the latter were just virtual vanillas, of course, but the spells were blue effects. Likewise even Odyssey block had a mix of off-color and on-color but undercosted effects besides the damage.

That was a bit long-winded but the point is that these are both interesting designs (although Imperial Lenience feels way too easy to get the maximum mode on, especially if you're playing second).

I mixed several white traits to create the abilities for Imperial Tariff, perhaps I didn't add enough "white-umph" to make it more welcoming. If I alter it per my previous reply, using treasure tokens as one of the options, or offer opponents to draw, would it be enough white-umph? To summarize:

Imperial Tariff
2WW
Sorcery
Each opponent chooses one:
・They sacrifice a permanent with the highest converted mana cost among permanents they control, unless you create three Treasure tokens.
・You gain control of a nonland permanent of their choice with the lowest converted mana cost among permanents they control and they draw a card.
Entwine 2

Something along this line. We could also change it so it involves voting.

As for Imperial Lenience, I think it's fine, consider it would be useless when you're even slightly ahead, and 2WW isn't cheap for either of the effect (maybe just fetch one plains but makes it EtB untapped?). You also can't control the outcome easily since it's entirely dependent on your opponents, you might end up fetching lands instead of drawing cards when you need cards.

[Snes]

As for the second ability: You're right about red is capable of breaking color pie because opponents make a choice, and it's almost always punishment via damage, white on the other hand does it by "offering" people things, such as Armistice, Truce, and Debt of Loyalty. With that in mind, it's true that Tariff's second ability is lacking in the "offering" department. If we were to keep the control effect, we'd have to offer the opponents something in return; something more than just the entwine choice that could be nullified with 2. Or perhaps we can change it to "gains control of a land" or "create three treasure tokens", both would still be on theme with white's "rich taxing the poor" mentality.

That hasn't been a part of white's color identity for several years now.

Additionally, modal spells need to have their modes chosen at the time of casting. Making a modal spell that has each opponent chose which mode applies to them doesn't work with the rules.

[Cyberium]

That hasn't been a part of white's color identity for several years now.

The same Maro who permitted Glademuse only recently? Debt of Loyalty and Jabari's Influence at least tackled white's emphasis on beneficiary/combat mentality, where did the design of Glademuse come from? We can explain it as green's worldly-kindness, even then there are "greener" ways to do it (like Fecundity). Maro is definitely not the most accurate person to talk about color pie, despite being the director, ironically.

But he sets the rule, so I guess he has the say here.

Additionally, modal spells need to have their modes chosen at the time of casting. Making a modal spell that has each opponent chose which mode applies to them doesn't work with the rules.

Understandable. If we add a line saying, "As you cast this spell, choose an opponent. That opponent chooses one:" Would this work?

[void_nothing]

Honestly the best thing is to just make the choices part of the effect, and not modes, and to use kicker instead of entwine.

It's not as elegant, but it makes templating the card much, much easier.