bravelion83 wrote: ↑4 years ago
Longing for Love 1RR
Enchantment — Aura (R)
Enchant an unpaired creature you control
Enchanted creature has soulbond.
When Longing for Love enters the battlefield, you may pair enchanted creature with another unpaired creature you control.
Whenever enchanted creature or the creature it's paired with becomes the target of a spell or ability with a single target, if that spell or ability could target the other creature, copy it. The copy targets the other creature.
Ok, so this doesn't work, as wizyard correctly pointed out. As you pair enchanted creature, it won't be unpaired anymore, so the enchant requirement won't be satisfied and this will fall off and go to the graveyard. Now I'm wondering how I could change the wording to make it do what I want it to do. What is it that I want it to do?
• I want you to be able to cast this only on creatures that are not already paired. This was the reason for the "unpaired" in the enchant ability, and also why simply remove that word should (I think) make it work, but part of the novelty was intentionally that you could only cast this on unpaired creatures. The flavor was using soulbond as the Magic reflection of love, which appealed to me because it was something non-combat centric for red to do, and the concept of love does feel very red. If one person is engaged with another person and a third person comes saying "I want you to get engaged with me", the first person should answer "no, sorry, I'm already engaged". And note that I'm willingly not mentioning gender here. That's true regardless of the gender of all three people involved. They could even all be the same gender, but the answer should be the same regardless of it.
• I want it to give enchanted creature soulbond if it doesn't already have it, without the Aura falling off. Flavorfully, I'm making enchanted creature, that's currently single (unpaired), able of fall in love with someone.
• I want it to optionally let you pair enchanted creature with any unpaired creature you control as an etb. If you don't have any unpaired creature at the moment, you will have to wait for the granted soulbond to do its job as you cast your next creature. Flavorfully, this is enchanted creature looking for a partner to get engaged with.
• I want to make this with enchanted creature and the one that it's paired with it: if either one becomes the target of a spell or ability, I want to create a copy of the spell or ability that targets the other. I want this to work regardless of which of the two creatures you target. Flavorfully, this is the representation of love itself: "whatever happens to you, goor or bad, I will be there with you and for you. It will be like if it had happened to me."
• I want this to also work with your opponents' spells and abilities. If one gets
Murdered, the other dies too. Flavorfully, you could picture this as the other creature dying out of the pain of having lost the one it loved. This seemed highly flavorful to me, and also a factor you could use for balance.
I thought I had found a very good representation of love in red, a non-combat centered thing for red to do, and a new original and flavorful use of soulbond, all at the same time and while also managing to play out of my comfort zone. It turns out that what I actually did was a non-functional card. Removing the word "unpaired" from the enchant ability is not the solution, it doesn't meet the first point. Yes, at least the card would be functional (I think), but it wasn't what I was trying to do. Does anybody have some advice on how to make this work? Or if it just can't be done in a functional way? Or how I could achieve the flavor I was going for in another way?
Feel free to come to answer and talk to me. You'll find me back in my comfort zone.
Also, I had completely missed this:
Koopa wrote: ↑4 years ago
@Rithaniel exactly. It's not "Go find a bug" it's "Go find the best bug" so I go out and find a Hercules Beetle but Bravelion found a Monarch Butterfly. Which is better? It's impossible to compare them
Just so you know, [mention]Koopa[/mention], you've just made me a huge compliment. Thank you. Yes, that's what I can already do, I'm aware of it, and I really like it (I think it all shows). But in this period I'm trying to take a few chances here and there to learn something new that I can't do yet, which I assure you, it feels really strange for me to do, but I'll never learn that new thing if I don't even dare to try it. This that I've just said applies to many things in my own personal real life too. Sometimes I try to use this as a playground, a place where you can try to get your mind in the mindset of trying out something new with no real consequences if you fail. And in fact in this case (my card above, Longing for Love) I've failed. And this is just a game, so no problem. But this is what games are for. Letting you play in a safe environment. But what should I do then, stick to what I know I can do well for the rest of my life? And never learn anything new, that, for goodness sake, I might even... like? And now I don't know I like it because I've never tried it out of fear of who knows what? It's what I've essentially done in my whole real life so far, but now for reasons that I won't explain here I find myself in a moment of my life where I'm wondering if that's really the right thing to do. And I have no answer to give myself. So I'm willingly trying here and there to explore new space, both here and in (small and not dangerous things in) real life. I've said even more than I wanted. Thank you again for your huge compliment, Koopa. At least it's one more proof that what I can do, I can do it well.