Zone Tracking and Searching

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

This is very abstract, so I am not sure how to phrase it. Generally speaking, I want to make a spell that on resolution will allow the caster to look at the zone it was cast from and possibly manipulate some cards in this zone.
How to phrase it in a way that at the same time allows looking into exile - for both face-down and face-up cards - and into hands and libraries, both mine and my opponent? It also needs to look into graveyards, however those are the simplest, due to being public zones.
Thanks in advance.

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spacemonaut
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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

One way to do the "peek at the zone you cast it from" thing might be like this:

"If this spell was cast from your hand, (effect). If this spell was cast from your library, (effect). If this spell was cast from exile, (effect)." And so on.

The effect for exile might include an instruction to "look at any number of face-down cards in exile". I'm not sure what you want to do with the other zones.

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

spacemonaut wrote:
3 years ago
One way to do the "peek at the zone you cast it from" thing might be like this:

"If this spell was cast from your hand, (effect). If this spell was cast from your library, (effect). If this spell was cast from exile, (effect)." And so on.

The effect for exile might include an instruction to "look at any number of face-down cards in exile". I'm not sure what you want to do with the other zones.
Yes, but this is probably the most wordy solution possible. Moreover, the effect would be exactly the same for each zone. I guess I could go with a route of:

"If this spell was cast from your hand, (effect). The same is true for (diffrent zones)."

But I am afraid it would link back only to the zone specified in first sentance.
The effect I have in mind is something along the lines "If this spell was cast from [zone], you may play another card from [zone] this turn." but I want it to work regardless from which zone it was taken, including corner cases like Mindclaw Shaman. But there is a problem that hidden zones are, well, hidden. And as such the spell has to have a way of looking into the hidden zones, the most important of which is your library.

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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

Lorn Asbord Schutta wrote:
3 years ago
The effect I have in mind is something along the lines "If this spell was cast from [zone], you may play another card from [zone] this turn." but I want it to work regardless from which zone it was taken, including corner cases like Mindclaw Shaman. But there is a problem that hidden zones are, well, hidden. And as such the spell has to have a way of looking into the hidden zones, the most important of which is your library.
I think the fact different zones behave differently and have to be interacted with differently does mean you can't make this 100% universal. For each zone you're interacting with, you gotta say how this spell interacts with it.

There's some things to consider for that effect.

- You don't need to be given permission to cast something you own from your hand, so we don't care about that case.
- The same goes for the command zone in commander/brawl/etc games.
- Being able to cast arbitrary stuff from exile is going to erode the exile zone's function as a holding cell, so maybe that's not such a good idea to run with.
- The relative power levels of being given permission to cast stuff from your graveyard, library, or exile are pretty different.

I can picture something like this easily enough:

"When this spell is cast from your graveyard, you may cast another card from your graveyard this turn. When this spell is cast from your library, seach your library for a card and put it into your hand."

But I can also picture just one black card having the first effect, just one blue or white card having the second effect, etc. Bear in mind they'll be able to chain together very strongly, making it hard to get rid of stuff.

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

spacemonaut wrote:
3 years ago
- Being able to cast arbitrary stuff from exile is going to erode the exile zone's function as a holding cell, so maybe that's not such a good idea to run with.
Yes, I know this, but from time to time they allow the pull from exile - Karn, the Great Creator being an example from today's Random Card of Day - and you would need to both find a way to cast it from exile and have a target for it also in exile.
spacemonaut wrote:
3 years ago
But I can also picture just one black card having the first effect, just one blue or white card having the second effect, etc. Bear in mind they'll be able to chain together very strongly, making it hard to get rid of stuff.
This is another reason to have this effect packed in one card. There could be self-exile clause tacked at the end, to further decrease degeneracy. Moreover, if it could work from multiple zones, it would be much more useful, at least for Johnnies.

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Post by spacemonaut » 3 years ago

Perhaps:

"If you cast this spell from a zone other than your hand, look at any number of face-down cards you own in that zone. You may play a card you own from that zone. If you looked at cards in your library this way, shuffle it."

This template means they play the card immediately at instant speed like the Expertise spells, regardless of timing restrictions, and they do that right now or they don't do it at all. That accounts for searching a library—it'd be weird to give you permission to cast a spell from a library until end of turn.

This is borrowing templating from Keeper of the Lens and Lens of Clarity. Note I'm attaching a "you own" to this stuff, so you can't look at or play cards you don't own. There would probably need to be a rules update supporting that an instruction to "look at face-down cards in your library" means "look at your whole library".

I'm not sure how to template it to work from your hand, yet, since I'm currently using that to give myself a "that zone" to refer back to. Maybe we can just use "the zone it was cast from"?

"Look at any number of face-down cards you own in the zone this spell was cast from. You may play a card you own from that zone. If you looked at cards in your library this way, shuffle it."

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Post by user_938036 » 3 years ago

Looking over existing terminology using Search as a catchall to refer to looking into a zone seems fine. The real problem comes from interacting with face down cards in exile because they are a special kind of hidden. Also as zone is well defined due to Skullbriar, the Walking Grave there should be no problem with "Search whatever zone ~ was cast from...." Then whatever effect you want. Though as I said this won't allow you to interact with face-down cards in exile or on the battlefield.

Prelude 3UR
Sorcery
Draw a card
Seach whatever zone Prelude was cast from. You may cast a card from that zone without paying its mana cost.

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

I think both answers could be tied together:

Materialization 2UG
Sorcery
Look at any number of face-down cards in the zone Materialization was cast from. You may search that zone for a permament card, then put it onto the battlefield under your control. If you searched library this way, its controller shuffles it.

Is there anything I am missing in this wording?

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