Caspernicus wrote: ↑3 months ago
Flickerblight Geode 2C
Legendary Artifact (
R)
: Exile target creature, then return it to the battlefield under its owner's control. That creature enters the battlefield with two -1/-1 counters. Activate only as a sorcery.
One touch will send a person flying through the Blind Eternities, only to return missing a portion of themselves.
Private Saboteur ub
Creature — Human Rogue (
R)
Flash
Deathtouch
When Private Saboteur enters the battlefield or attacks, tap target permanent an opponent controls. Each opponent loses 1 life.
When Private Saboteur dies, you may return it to the battlefield transformed under an opponent's control.
1/1
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Undercover Agent
(
UB) Creature — Human Citizen
When Undercover Agent enters the battlefield and at the beginning of each combat, tap target untapped permanent you control. If you do, each opponent untaps a permanent they control.
If Undercover Agent would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.
Faking his death was the easy part.
2/2
Design
Appeal 2.5/3 - Of course, this is Johnny's round, and all three submissions manage to make him want to go brewing immediately. Specifically to this one, Timmy doesn't care about the Geode, while Spike likes a lot the skill required to understand when it's good to activate on your own creatures as blinking or on your opponents' ones as removal. Timmy likes a lot the idea of the Saboteur faking his own death only to infiltrate enemy lines, I'm just not sure how much he likes this particular execution of the Agent specifically. Spike likes a lot the mana efficiency of the Saboteur in particular.
Elegance 2.5/3 - The Geode has a nice tension by pairing together what's usually a positive effect (blinking) with a downside (the -1/-1 counters). No problems with the Saboteur. The Agent is counterintuitive until you realize that "under your opponent's control" that swaps the meaning of "you" and "each opponent". If that detail managed to fool a very enfranchised player like me, I can only imagine how much it could be confusing to less experienced players. That's the only real problem here.
Development
Viability 2/3 - More than colorless, the Geode feels white-black or blue-black to me. It could have easily been blue-black just like the other card, keeping the combo in two colors. The Geode needs to be rare because it can be activated for free, the Saboteur // Agent for complexity, so rarities are correct on both cards in my opinion. No problems with the rules.
Balance 2.5/3 - I see no problems with the Saboteur // Agent. Playable in limited and might also have constructed implications, while costs and rate look good, potentially strong but not as much as to be broken. I'm a little worried by the lack of a mana component in the activation cost of the Geode. Yes, no mana component being there is necessary for the combo to work, but while this combo looks safe, I wonder if this could also open the gates to unhealthy combos. The Geode is also playable in limited and potentially in constructed too. The lack of a mana component in the activation cost is very appealing for constructed especially, and in both categories it's nice how this can turn from "blink your own creature but at a cost" to "kill a creature an opponent controls with toughness 2 or less." I see no problems with either card in casual of multiplayer.
Creativity
Uniqueness 2.5/3 - Default is 1.5. Nothing really new on the Geode, I'd say the -1/-1 counters after blinking aren't worth a bonus by themselves. Instead, +0.5 for that "under an opponent's control" that fooled both me and Ryder at first. As for me, I think I fell into the trap because we are all so used to cards returning things "under its owner's control" or "under your control" that my eyes read that part correctly visually, but my brain went with its own intuition just out of habit. It went something like: "Oh yeah, of course, you get it back! I got it, Leo, you can go on reading the card."
(Picture that like when in The Simpsons the camera zooms in on Homer's forehead and we hear his own brain talking.) It's not unprecedented, but there aren't actually that many cards that return themselves "under an opponent's control". For the Agent, +0.5 for the first ability also actually working against your first intuition ("I have to tap a permanent and let my opponent untap one of theirs? Why would I ever want to do that?"). That's of course until you realize that "you" on the Agent means "your opponent" and "each opponent" means "you".
Flavor 3/3 - Just perfect for both cards. The flavor text on the Geode is very well written in my opinion, and the Agent's one manages to tell a whole story with a single sentence. You're correct that there is no room for flavor text on the Saboteur (I checked in MSE), so that's not a problem.
Polish
Quality 2.5/3 - In the Geode, it should be "...with two -1/-1 counters
on it." (-0.5) All the rest is good.
Main Challenge 2/2 - So, it goes like this: you have the Geode and the Saboteur on the battlefield at the same time and the Geode is untapped. This is the initial state, and the one we need to go back to to be able to turn it into a loop. You have priority, it's your main phase, and the stack is empty, so you could cast a sorcery. You tap the Geode to blink the Saboteur. That triggers the ETB of the Saboteur, that waits to be put on the stack the next time a player would receive priority, which will be in a while but remember that. Blinking it with the Geode also means that the Saboteur reenters the battlefield with two -1/-1 counters, which cause the Saboteur to become a -1/-1. A player is now about to receive priority, so before that we have to check SBAs (triggers would be put on the stack after SBAs are done so we're not there yet). SBAs see a creature with toughness 0 or less (the -1/-1 Saboteur), so they put the Saboteur into your graveyard from the battlefield, aka the Saboteur dies, which triggers its own death trigger, that also waits to be put onto the stack the next time a player would receive priority. The ETB trigger is still waiting as well. SBAs are checked again in loop until there are none, and there are no other ones now, so the second check is good and we can move on. After SBAs, but still before the player receives priority, it's time to put triggers that are waiting onto the stack. That happens in APNAP order, but the only two waiting triggers are both yours (the ETB and death trigger of the Saboteur), so you get to choose in which order they go onto the stack. You choose the target for the ETB at this time, as you actually put it onto the stack. That target must and will be a permanent an opponent controls. The death trigger has no targets. The relative order in which you put the two triggers onto the stack looks irrelevant to me in this specific case, but might be relevant in other cases so pay attention to that anyway if you ever deal with something like this again. After the two triggers have been put onto the stack, the active player (you) finally receives priority. Let's assume a priority pass by all players. The topmost object on the stack resolves, that's whichever of the two triggers has been put onto the stack later. If it's the ETB, you will tap the targeted permanent and each opponent will lose 1 life at this time. If it's the death trigger, the Agent enters the battlefield from the graveyard under an opponent's control, NOT yours! This detail is what both I and Ryder missed at first, and it's key for this combo to work as you will see in a moment. After that first trigger, whichever one it is, has finished resolving, there is another SBA check, then put waiting triggers on the stack (assume none of both), then you get priority again. Assume another priority pass by everyone, so the topmost object of the stack resolves, and it's the other trigger, whichever it is. After that has finished resolving as well, both effects have happened, and the Agent will have entered the battlefield (on an opponent's side), which triggers its own ETB, which waits to be put on the stack. After whatever the second resolving trigger was, before you get priority again we have to check SBAs (assume none), then we have to put waiting triggers on the stack. The Agent's ETB goes on the stack now, but who controls it? The Agent has entered the battlefield under an opponent's control, so that opponent is the controller of the Agent's ETB, so all instances of the word "you" in that ability actually refer to your opponent! As they control the ETB trigger, they (and NOT you) choose targets for it now. There is only one target for them to choose: an untapped permanent "you" (aka your opponent) controls. Notice that the ability says "untapped", so they have to target something of theirs that is actually untapped. As that's the only target of the ability, if they control no untapped permanents, not even lands, it might look like they won't be able to choose a target, but they always can as if all other permanents of theirs are tapped, the Agent is now conveniently under their control and untapped, so they can choose the Agent itself if they have no other untapped permanents, so that's not an actual problem and will always work. Anyway, once the target has been chosen and the ability put onto the stack, you (the active player) get priority. Again, assume everybody passes priority, so the topmost (and only) object on the stack resolves, and it's the Agent's ETB. Now they actually tap the untapped permanent of theirs that they targeted, and now, on resolution, "each opponent" of the controller of that ability, which is your opponent, so that actually means "each of your opponent's opponents", which obviously and relevantly includes you, untaps one of theirs, including YOU untapping one of yours! You must choose to untap the Geode here to be able to start the loop again eventually, after all of this is over (we're getting there). And look! The Geode is untapped now! Again, this is what I and Ryder missed at first. After that ability resolves, we check SBAs (assume none), triggers that are waiting (assume none), and then you get priority again. You now have an untapped Geode and your opponent has the Agent on the battlefield. You tap the Geode again targeting the Agent on their side, and you're essentially back to square one. You've made a loop with the net result of making each opponent of yours lose 1 life. The Agent's pseudo-flashback replacement effect has nothing to say about the Geode wanting to blink it, as it's going to exile and not to a graveyard, so it doesn't intervene at all. And as the Agent gets exiled during the blink it goes back to its front face, so it will be the Saboteur again in the exile zone, and you can repeat everything from the point when the Saboteur reenters the blink onwards. You have a loop that causes the event of "each opponent losing 1 life" to happen an arbitrarily large amount of times, enough to win in all formats, even the ones that start at a higher life total (30 life in 2HG, 40 life in Commander). This is definitely enough to qualify for the Main Challenge, and the approach to it has been so creative that you managed to fool both judges at first, including one (me) that's been playing Magic continuously for almost 20 years by now. As soon as I caught our mistake, I sent a pm to Ryder to tell him, and in his very first reply he himself wrote back to me something like "not only that's not a DQ, that's a 2/2 in Main Challenge!" Who am I to deny that?
Subchallenges 1/2 - Both rare cards, aka not common or uncommon. In the free-for-all 3-player game, you combo off in your turn 3 (you played the Saboteur on turn 2 and on turn 3 you play the Geode and immediately use it). Very convenient that if you "only draw basic lands", that includes
Wastes to give you the colorless mana to cast the Geode on turn 3. Freyleyes wouldn't combo off until their turn 4 (they need the Altar on the battlefield), and Subject16 until their turn 5 (they need the Plaguelord on the battlefield). So yes, if you go first, you will always be the one who combos off first, winning every time.
TOTAL 20.5/25
