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Lorn Asbord Schutta
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Post by Lorn Asbord Schutta » 3 years ago

Fitting Name
Instant
Return X target cards from other players' graveyards to their owners' hands.

Suitable Name
Instant
Return target card from other player's graveyard to its owner's hand.


There is - to my knowledge - no such effect yet. It works as a poor GY hate and obviously as a political tool. Some additional synergies is replenishing opponent's hand to break hellbent or to give them cards to discard if you play Megrim effects.
I thought of red, personally, however I am willing for input.

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spacemonaut
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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

It hasn't been done because—why would it? This is a zero sum game. What's good for my opponent is bad for me (and vice versa). Why would I want to draft/buy this card and include it in a deck?

There's very few cards for whom doing this would mean bad things for my opponent, like Golgari Grave-Troll maybe, but I'd rather use the traditional graveyard hate of just exiling it from their graveyard, and that's extremely cheap.

If there is a reason, include it on the card—e.g. it's to refill peoples' hands for cards that care when people discard stuff—include that on the card so there's some reason for me to use it, and let that color the card.

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folding_music
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Post by folding_music » 3 years ago

This was implemented as a cost for abilities around Judgement times - I still think this guy is neat: Spurnmage Advocate
I don't think winning and losing as concepts should stop you designing whatever card you like, but perhaps it should always be an effect paired with another on the same card to provide an immediate point!

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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

folding_music wrote:
3 years ago
I don't think winning and losing as concepts should stop you designing whatever card you like, but perhaps it should always be an effect paired with another on the same card to provide an immediate point!
Lessons #12 and #15 from Twenty Years, Twenty Lessons, Part 2 and Part 3 are both relevant here. Avoid box-checking. Know the audience for your card and design for those audiences. Who's this card for? Why would they use it? Whoever and whatever the answer is, this card can be made more worthwhile for them.

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void_nothing
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Post by void_nothing » 3 years ago

The ...mage Advocate cycle from JUD is indeed the best precedent, and that was green and white.

Not to reiterate what I said in my assessment of your MCC entry, but it's hard to see the case for red. On the general principle that if a color can do something to a certain player it can also do the same to another player I would assume these designs are green.

@spacemonaut Discarding your own hand is usually a bad move; I think unbelievably narrow, seemingly self-harmful cards have a place. There are definitely recur-opponents'-cards mechanics that would be used for something other than pure box checking.
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OneAndOnly
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Post by OneAndOnly » 3 years ago

I look at this as a variant of putting a card from the graveyard to the top of that player's library -- which is usually done to stall them a turn or as denying a reanimation target.

That would make it more of a green-white effect.

@spacemonaut, the nice thing about these forums is that we're not Wizards, and we don't have an audience. It's interesting (to me, anyways) to see what cards crop up when you're not worried about "saleability."

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spacemonaut
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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

The Judgement Advocates are green and white because their effects are green and white — and giving something back to an opponent is a cost. Being graveyard hate colors they make sense, but doing this is a cost, not the whole point of playing the card. (Though I'm sure Judgement had meta-specific reasons you'd consider this a benefit too.)

One with Nothing was made as an "I dare you to build around this" card for combo players. Notably, it costs one mana for your whole hand, not one mana per card. It is also in a colour that cares heavily about filling its graveyard and about discard effects. It has an audience and it engages that audience.

The issue isn't selling cards. I assume that as a design forum we're interested in good design? If nobody would conceivably take and use your card, it isn't a good design. If your card isn't designed for anybody, and you have no idea who would use it, it may not be any good. I'm not *just* asking these questions of the design rhetorically, they're important questions to have answers for. Asking who actually would take and use the card lets us instead design a card that suits them well that has this effect. If you have no idea who would use the card or why, you've got a problem and questions that need to be answered.

So I'll start with this: what colour actually benefits from opponents having lots of cards in hand? Black does, because it likes them being able to discard cards. So I wouldn't put this on an effect that costs mana to return one card — I'd cost one mana for several. But I'd also put this as an ETB on a permanent that cares about discarding, or an activation cost on one of its permanents. Or I'd put it on a curse that gives the cursed player back cards, reduces their hand size (also black), and penalises them for discards (also black).

But a card that just returns one card, or returns X cards for ? I can't tell you who would actually use that and consider the cost reasonable (beyond a black deck that's already gotten infinite mana) which means there's bigger questions to consider before what colour it would be, and once those are answered, we'll have an answer for the colour in front of us.

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Post by user_938036 » 3 years ago

Taking a page from Spacemonaut. These cards could exist and be good as long as they target a specific play pattern. The obvious uses for such an ability are to act pseudo graveyard hate and to give them cards to discard. This means you probably want the ability in black as black is one of the main graveyard hate colors and is the primary discard color. That said, it still has to do something useful for you in specific situations so a 1 card for 1 cost is far too restrictive. Because black is only supposed to get back creatures you can make this get all of them. This obviously still has problems of not being very effective against certain decks but that is obviously going to happen with such a strange card.

Unwelcome Reunion B
Instant (R)
Return all creature cards from target opponent's graveyard to their hand.

This is a card I could see being printed. It does something, what that something is is for the deck builders to figure out but it does it.

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OneAndOnly
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Post by OneAndOnly » 3 years ago

Depending on its wording, this would also have applications in team-play environments:

Mass Unburial -- 1B
Sorcery
Each member of your team returns up to one creature card from their graveyard to hand.

Another related strategy is in counting cards in hand, a la Sudden Impact and some Kamigawa-era blue cards.

It could also-also be tied into a secondary mechanic that utilizes information about the card being returned: "Return target permanent card in an opponent's graveyard to that player's hand. Spells with that name can't be played this turn." or "That player reveals their hand, and gains two life for each card of the same type revealed this way" or "Reveals their hand, and discards a card with the same type."

I like cards that create new play styles, too. I'll leave my response to @spacemonaut to PMs.

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Lorn Asbord Schutta
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Post by Lorn Asbord Schutta » 3 years ago

folding_music wrote:
3 years ago
This was implemented as a cost for abilities around Judgement times - I still think this guy is neat: Spurnmage Advocate
Thank you! I have no idea how in many combinations of wordings I tried on scryfall i could not get those.
void_nothing wrote:
3 years ago
On the general principle that if a color can do something to a certain player it can also do the same to another player I would assume these designs are green.
I am sorry, but does this principle holds? For instance green can easily self-mill, however milling opponent's is not something green is allowed to do. Bouncing your own creatures is something white does from time to time, but bouncing creatures controlled by other players are not a fair game for white. While I cannot think of any reverse example (only able to affect opponent and not you) it would not be farfetched to allow it to be differianted between colors.
spacemonaut wrote:
3 years ago
But a card that just returns one card, or returns X cards for ? I can't tell you who would actually use that and consider the cost reasonable (beyond a black deck that's already gotten infinite mana) which means there's bigger questions to consider before what colour it would be, and once those are answered, we'll have an answer for the colour in front of us.
Oh right, I see that at least some of the controversy stems from the efficiency of examples provided. I guess that is my fault. I should have specified that the ration provided in those cards is just put as-is, without the exact number-balancing, because I was interested in providing color for the mechanical interaction, not necessarily making the complete card. I understand, that there are diffrent "levels" of GY hate: exiling whole graveyard at once (artifacts, white and black); exiling specific card (artifacts, white, black and green); shuffling cards from graveyard back into library (blue and green). Each of them is progressively weaker and is costed accordingly to its power. Provided mechanic, if it would be a sort of graveyard hate first and foremost - because while enabling some other things, by itself it is only this - would have to be priced in reasonable cost/effect ratio as well.

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void_nothing
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Post by void_nothing » 3 years ago

Lorn Asbord Schutta wrote:
3 years ago
Oh right, I see that at least some of the controversy stems from the efficiency of examples provided.
I would say nearly all of it does lol.

I do concede that the principle I stated doesn't hold for everything. A narrower one that I think does hold is that: Any positive effect a color can do to its controller it can definitely do to opponents, and any negative effect, vice-versa.
user_938036 wrote:
3 years ago
Unwelcome Reunion B
Instant (R)
Return all creature cards from target opponent's graveyard to their hand.
This is a genius design. Particularly the syncing of the name and flavor. Excellent job, user.
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spacemonaut
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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

Lorn Asbord Schutta wrote:
3 years ago
void_nothing wrote:
3 years ago
On the general principle that if a color can do something to a certain player it can also do the same to another player I would assume these designs are green.
I am sorry, but does this principle holds? For instance green can easily self-mill, however milling opponent's is not something green is allowed to do. Bouncing your own creatures is something white does from time to time, but bouncing creatures controlled by other players are not a fair game for white. While I cannot think of any reverse example (only able to affect opponent and not you) it would not be farfetched to allow it to be differianted between colors.
A very recent reverse example is black vs enchantments: it can remove an opponent's enchantments, but isn't supposed to be able to remove its own, since black doesn't get to have a get-out-of-jail-free card on those Demonic Pacts. ("You read the whole contract, right?")
void_nothing wrote:
3 years ago
Lorn Asbord Schutta wrote:
3 years ago
Oh right, I see that at least some of the controversy stems from the efficiency of examples provided.
I would say nearly all of it does lol.
Yes, definitely. I know I can also be harsh or ungenerous in my critiques as well; it's something I'm trying to work on.
void_nothing wrote:
3 years ago
I do concede that the principle I stated doesn't hold for everything. A narrower one that I think does hold is that: Any positive effect a color can do to its controller it can definitely do to opponents, and any negative effect, vice-versa.
I think both these principles are generally fine with some noted exceptions. (The positive/negative distinction brings some weird scenarios so I'd stick with the other as simpler. For example: when you can bounce your own stuff at instant speed that's a positive effect called rescue; when you can bounce someone else's stuff at instant speed that's a negative effect.)
void_nothing wrote:
3 years ago
user_938036 wrote:
3 years ago
Unwelcome Reunion B
Instant (R)
Return all creature cards from target opponent's graveyard to their hand.
This is a genius design. Particularly the syncing of the name and flavor. Excellent job, user.
I agree. :)

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