Get A Clue: Unwitting Conspiracy, Obalt Inspector, Violent Curiosity

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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

Unwitting Conspiracy
U
Instant
Draw a card.

Each player investigates. (To investigate, create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")

"Before you know it, they've pulled you in."
-Grie, Goblin Fixer

Obalt Inspector
1u
Artifact Creature - Vedalken Artificer
Flash

When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, you may counter target spell with converted mana cost X or less, where X is the number of artifacts you control. (To investigate, create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
1/2
???'s Interrogation
G
Legendary Enchantment
Whenever an opponent casts a non-creature spell, investigate. (Create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")

"Curiosity never hurt no one!"
-Enk, Battle Scholar


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Obalt Inspector
1u
Creature - Merfolk Artificer
Flash

When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, investigate, then counter up to one target spell with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of artifacts you control. (To investigate, create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
1/1
Obalt Inspector
1u
Creature - Merfolk Artificer
Flash

When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, investigate. If you do, counter target spell with converted mana cost X or less, where X is the number of artifacts you control. (To investigate, create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
1/1
Violent Curiosity
R
Legendary Enchantment

Whenever an opponent casts a non-creature spell, investigate. (Create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")

"Curiosity never hurt no one!"
-Enk, Battle Scholar

Some Clue centric cards.

I'm a little wary of the power level of Violent Curiosity, which is meant to be reminiscent of Rhystic Study and similar effects.
Last edited by NUMBERS 4 years ago, edited 6 times in total.
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Post by folding_music » 4 years ago

I think it rules that you put Violent Curiosity in red instead of having it follow on in the tradition of Mystic Remora and all that. Might've called it Violent Interrogation? although that might sound more like a sorcery.

I like Clues in general, cool to see you bring 'em back.

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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

[mention]folding_music[/mention] ooh, Violent Interrogation is a great name! But I agree it does sound a little more like a sorcery. Maybe something like:

Violent Interrogation
R
Sorcery

Investigate, then deal damage to target creature equal to the number of Clues you control. (To investigate, create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")

"We enhanced it, with pain!"
-Grie, Goblin Fixer



And I'm a big fan of artifact tokens, clues especially!
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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

Violent Curiosity seems more green than red, with drawing cards based on the opponent doing something "unnatural". And although I understand why it should be legendary (no one should have to face multiples of this without the opponent bothering to do a combo to get that advantage), it therefore needs a legendary name. "Interrogation by [Appropriate Color Character Name]"?
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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

void_nothing wrote:
4 years ago
Violent Curiosity seems more green than red, with drawing cards based on the opponent doing something "unnatural". And although I understand why it should be legendary (no one should have to face multiples of this without the opponent bothering to do a combo to get that advantage), it therefore needs a legendary name. "Interrogation by [Appropriate Color Character Name]"?
These are compelling arguments! The laziest implementation, which would require time travel to work flavorwise (I think, I'm a little behind on lore):
Domri's Curiosity
{r/g}
Legendary Enchantment

Whenever an opponent casts a non-creature spell, investigate. (Create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")

Something flavorful about Domri being incurious generally?

edit: On further thought, I could see this being mono-. Huh.
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Post by SecretInfiltrator » 4 years ago

I really don't see how "discouraging players from playing noncreature spells" is supposed to be considered mechanically red. And the pay-off of card draw eventually is not red either.

Both aspects fit green much more.

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Post by spacemonaut » 4 years ago

Here's a search of noncreature spell punishers. There's also some more specific punishers that care about only a subset of the noncreature types.

They've shown up almost exclusively in G green, U blue, and R red, with the method of punishment varying based on the color combination. Mono-red and red-green have dealt damage to the caster, mono-blue and mono-green tend to have you draw a card (although Heartwood Storyteller does a bit more than that in multiplayer). Then there's a one-off Orzhov card which does lifedrain. There are some other one-off oddball effects, including very old cards we shouldn't read into too far color pie-wise.

This being such a rare category I don't expect you're limited exclusively to whatever's been done before, but they're good indicators. This seems fine in green and would also work in blue. In red it should probably be punishing via damage, although I could conceivably see it pillaging (discard a card, then draw a card). Theoretically in red-green it could deal damage and draw cards.

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Post by spacemonaut » 4 years ago

Obalt Inspector rephrase:
Original wrote:When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, investigate. If you do, counter target spell with converted mana cost X or less, where X is the number of artifacts you control.
Rephrase wrote:When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, investigate, then counter up to one target spell with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of artifacts you control.
The first part of the rephrase lets us still investigate even if there's no spell we can target.

The second part of the rephrase uses a different standard templating for this behaviour. It's functionally identical and optional.

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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

spacemonaut wrote:
4 years ago
Here's a search of noncreature spell punishers. There's also some more specific punishers that care about only a subset of the noncreature types.

They've shown up almost exclusively in G green, U blue, and R red, with the method of punishment varying based on the color combination. Mono-red and red-green have dealt damage to the caster, mono-blue and mono-green tend to have you draw a card (although Heartwood Storyteller does a bit more than that in multiplayer). Then there's a one-off Orzhov card which does lifedrain. There are some other one-off oddball effects, including very old cards we shouldn't read into too far color pie-wise.

This being such a rare category I don't expect you're limited exclusively to whatever's been done before, but they're good indicators. This seems fine in green and would also work in blue. In red it should probably be punishing via damage, although I could conceivably see it pillaging (discard a card, then draw a card). Theoretically in red-green it could deal damage and draw cards.
Yeah, I think is where I would want to home this, thanks for the research suggesting that's where it belongs!
spacemonaut wrote:
4 years ago
Obalt Inspector rephrase:
Original wrote:When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, investigate. If you do, counter target spell with converted mana cost X or less, where X is the number of artifacts you control.
Rephrase wrote:When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, investigate, then counter up to one target spell with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of artifacts you control.
The first part of the rephrase lets us still investigate if there's no spell to counter.

The second part of the rephrase uses what appears to be the standard templating for this behaviour.
Oh gosh, thank you! I tried to template it off of spellstutter sprite, but I see how my adding the investigate in the middle throws things off. I'll update it accordingly!
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Post by spacemonaut » 4 years ago

I've edited my message actually, I realised that's not necessarily the standard templating. But it's one of them. There's a lot of places Wizards could use an X but doesn't because they can define that value immediately without it.

I just realised Nezahal, Primal Tide comes from a tribal set where every strategy is highly creature focused, and that's the only time blue's had a noncreature spell punisher effect recently. So I'm guessing it's tertiary and situational for blue, or something like that.

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Post by SecretInfiltrator » 4 years ago

NUMBERS wrote:
4 years ago
Obalt Inspector
1u
Creature - Merfolk Artificer
Flash

When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, investigate, then counter up to one target spell with converted mana cost less than or equal to the number of artifacts you control. (To investigate, create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
1/1
Fun fact: This card would be misplayed a lot. People would control two artifacts and try playing this to counter a spell with converted mana cost 3 a lot. And it wouldn't work. Designer's shame.

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Post by void_nothing » 4 years ago

Yeah, that needs to say "if it has" and not "with".
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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

SecretInfiltrator wrote:
4 years ago
Fun fact: This card would be misplayed a lot. People would control two artifacts and try playing this to counter a spell with converted mana cost 3 a lot. And it wouldn't work. Designer's shame.
Ah, I was intending to avoid this problem with the original wording (as the original intent was for to be able to counter a CMC 3 spell in such a case). Is there a way to achieve that? (Would 'if it has' work?)

Thanks for the catch all!
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Post by SecretInfiltrator » 4 years ago

Something like "counter [up to one] target spell if [a certain condition is met]" would work since using that wording you only check the condition during resolution.

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Post by spacemonaut » 4 years ago

That would work; we can cross check against a card like Exert Influence which has in its rulings:
Check the creature's power as Exert Influence resolves to see if it's less than or equal to the number of colors spent to cast Exert Influence. If it's greater, Exert Influence will finish resolving with no effect.

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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

I think I'd go with a much lazier fix for Obalt Inspector (drop the investigate, making it an artifact creature, go back to the spellstutter sprite wording), as I think it's currently a bit above the rate I meant for it to be. But I'm still curious how to address this type of situation as I'd like to do something like:
Cursory Dismissal
1U
Instant
Investigate. Counter target spell unless it's caster pays for each Clue you control. (With the goal of it counting the Clue it just created in this count.)


Is it even achievable?
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Post by user_938036 » 4 years ago

Cursory Dismissal functions exactly as you imagine it does. The previous problem was when you select targets and restrictions on targets. Also, spells have controllers, not casters.

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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

user_938036 wrote:
4 years ago
Cursory Dismissal functions exactly as you imagine it does. The previous problem was when you select targets and restrictions on targets. Also, spells have controllers, not casters.
Oops, that awkwardly slipped by me on the wording.

Updated:
Cursory Dismissal
1U
Instant
Investigate.

Counter target spell unless it's controller pays for each Clue you control.

They all know.


I'll also update Obalt Inspector to be less of a headache (for me anyways).
Obalt Inspector
1u
Artifact Creature - Vedalken Artificer
Flash

When Obalt Inspector enters the battlefield, you may counter target spell with converted mana cost X or less, where X is the number of artifacts you control. (To investigate, create a colorless Clue artifact token with ", Sacrifice this artifact: Draw a card.")
1/2
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Post by spacemonaut » 4 years ago

Obalt Inspector being an artifact themselves is a perfect way to neaten out that effect and give you a +1 artifact count before you have to choose targets. It would work exactly the way people expect. Nice one. It looks like it's probably on rate too.

Cursory Dismissal is nice. Instants and sorceries don't get to have more than one ability (for some reason) except in very rare circumstances, so it would instead be: "Investigate, then counter target spell unless ..."

Would you mind me posting a couple of designs working within this Get A Clue set's mechanics in a new thread? (If you'd rather I didn't, that's 100% okay.)

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Post by NUMBERS » 4 years ago

spacemonaut wrote:
4 years ago
Would you mind me posting a couple of designs working within this Get A Clue set's mechanics in a new thread? (If you'd rather I didn't, that's 100% okay.)
Please do!

At some point I'll even try to get to making a Custom Set thread to share things in a more unified space.
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