Magic Workstation

[Nintendo Guru]

Anyone else keeping an eye on the Artifact in development for Mirrodin? They just posted the vote for which card goes in.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/160

I have to say that I was a little disappointed because of lack of innovation, but maybe that's because I've had my head stuck in Unglued 2 for the past few weeks. Anyway, here's my thoughts on the candidates.

Mechanic A
You may play land cards in your graveyard as though they were in your hand.

Sack lands will love this mechanic. Strip Mine just feels broken, though. I fear this is too strong for Type 1 and not strong enough for anywhere else.

Mechanic B
If a card would come into play with one or more counters on it, it comes into play with one additional counter instead.

Interesting tweak for phantoms, spikes, amplifiers and faders, but not much help to anything else.

Mechanic C
If a spell or ability would return a permanent to its owner's hand, that permanent stays in play instead.

A blue hoser. Someone was fed up with Upheaval when they submitted this. What happens when bouncing something is part of a cost?

Mechanic D
At the beginning of your draw step, draw a card.
Spells you play cost 1 more to play.

An interesting tradeoff. Not innovative though.

Mechanic E
Players play with their hands revealed.
During each player's turn, that player may play cards in other players' hands as though they were cards in his or her hand.
During each player's turn, other players can't play spells.

Mechanic F
M: You may pay target creature's mana cost. If you do, you gain control of that creature. (This effect doesn't end at end of turn. Mana cost includes color.)

E and F are hilarious for casual, but impractical to play because you have to pay colored mana. E will let you steal other players' lands. F is great for stealing tokens and morphs, since they cost 0.

Mechanic G
M, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Each player secretly chooses a number. Then those numbers are revealed. For each number chosen by exactly one player, destroy all artifacts and creatures with that converted mana cost.

A bluffing game with amazing potential. Do I try to nuke his big creature or hope he'll try and protect it and nuke two things instead?

Mechanic H
There is an additional upkeep step each turn, before the draw step.

Hmmmmm. What card does this remind me of? *cough*

Mechanic I
Discard a card from your hand: Remove target spell you control from the stack and return it to its owner's hand. (The spell has no effect.)

Another blue hoser, and what synergy with Storm! Storm up a bunch of copies, yoink the original, then play it again and double the number of copies plus two.

Mechanic J
T: Choose a player. Add 1 to that player's mana pool.

A funny card. You can help yourself early in the game and then annoy your opponent with mana burn later on. This should cost 2 or else it would suck.

[DaDemon]

[Nintendo Guru]

This ability does not go on the stack though; it is a replacement effect. I smell broken combos.

Free Ensnare. Free untap with Wirewood Symbiote and Quirion Ranger. Free self-mill with Attunement. Free regenerate with Broken Fall. Free counterspell with Daze and Thwart. Free fog with Gossamer Chains. Free card draw with Gush. Constant pipering/timmying with Metathran Aerostat. Undiscovered Paradise indeed. Ovinomancer has suddenly become worse than Visara. And just think about the possibilities with Recurring Nightmare.

[sporkpimp]

...last I checked, paying a cost is neither a "spell" nor an "ability."
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Suggestion for Magic Continuity:
-Remove "Protection," replace with 8 lines of rules text to make game easier to understand! It worked for landhome, didn't it?!?!

[Nintendo Guru]

According to a ruling on Chains of Mephistopheles, replacement effects can be used on costs. Now whether a "spell or ability" includes its cost, I couldn't say. Though I am inclined to think not.

I'm anxious to know what card made it. Haven't they tallied the votes by now?

[Mage of Dreams]

Maro said in a recent article that WotC and You Make the Card was getting overloaded with responses. Between that and him attending Nationals in San Diego I imagine there has been a delay.
As for the rules this is the one that will apply...

T.10.Ruling.3 - Replacement effects can be applied to any costs paid when announcing a spell or ability. [D'Angelo 1999/05/01]

I think your right Guru this mechanic may be broken beyond belief. It also seems a strange mechanic for an artifact, it seems much more an enchantment to me.

[patsen]

For that matter, to avoid the newbie questions, use the Library of Leng clause. Without it, Odyssey symbioties would all be broken.

[sporkpimp]

Patsen: This reminds me of one time when I was playing a blue control deck and the other guy was playing a Big Giant Creatures deck (no other good way to describe it, heh... Piper/Reanimator hybrid). He played Hypnox and claimed that I couldn't counter it because my hand was removed from the game when he put it on the stack.

-SporkPimp

[Nintendo Guru]

Well, they are indeed holding a runoff. The candidates are:

Mechanic A
You may play land cards in your graveyard as though they were in your hand.

A niche card, just begging for combo abuse.

Mechanic E
Players play with their hands revealed.
During each player's turn, that player may play cards in other players' hands as though they were cards in his or her hand.
During each player's turn, other players can't play spells.

The most fun for casual gamers. Playing each other's lands and casting each other's spells. True chaos.

Mechanic F
M: You may pay target creature's mana cost. If you do, you gain control of that creature. (This effect doesn't end at end of turn. Mana cost includes color.)

Tempting, but only useful if you're playing each others' colors; otherwise you can only steal tokens and morphs.

Mechanic I
Discard a card from your hand: Remove target spell you control from the stack and return it to its owner's hand. (The spell has no effect.)

This one will probably offer the most impact to the game. That's why I think I will vote for it.

[sporkpimp]

Mechanic A is needless... it won't have any positive effect on the game (Sacred Ground handles land destruction far too efficiently as is... why even *print* Stone Rain if you have two global L-D hosers?) What it *would* do is encourage degenerate T1 play (Fastbond, Squandered Resources, Strip Mine, Wasteland... you get the drill), which *hardly* needs to be encouraged, heh.

Mechanic E:
Fun casual card. City of Solitude effect destroys blue, and guarantees an enormous casting cost for this card, which means you can't even play it in casual. Woulda been stronger in the days of cards like Aluren and Recycle.

Mechanic F:
You fail to take artifact creatures into account. Given Mirrodin's arty-focus, it's very possible that we'll get some brown meat shoved into our decks soon. (Nice image, huh? ) Also, this seems to give green a painful advantage... mana acceleration + Birds of Paradise. (Which wouldn't matter in a less creaturiffic environment.) This could, on a reasonably priced artifact, be powerful indeed... Mono Green Control seems almost plausible now.

In all honesty, though... this is most useful as either a token-killer (which might be useful in an artifact-heavy expansion), or a Morph-complicator (the opponent can flip over the card in response, meaning that Morphs will still be powerful... just slower). Also, keep in mind that this has an activation cost... traditionally, anything that makes tokens makes a lot of them.

Mechanic I:
Yeah, sure. I vote here, because it sounds useful, but it isn't. With both counter-magic *and* burn nerfed, it's gonna be a rare day when you need to rescue a spell. It doesn't combo well with storm because I've yet to see a deck that can afford to cast a storm spell twice in one turn. The cheapest one is 3 mana... so, you need 6 mana + enough mana to cast spells to make the storm not a complete waste of time. And you can't use it as psuedo-buyback for a storm card (wait for opponent to cast a spell, cast the storm spell, buy it back with discard and let the copy resolve) because it's just not a feasible win condition... discarding a card every turn? This spell is like Babycakes: useless until you're late in the game, and in this environment...
Hence, I vote here because this is the most "niche" card of them all.

[Detonator]

Mechanic K
T: Counter target spell. You lose life equals converted mana cost of this spell.

Mechanic L
Discard land card from your hand: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool.

[Nintendo Guru]

Even though this is now moot, Patsen is right. Changing mechanic C to "if an effect would return a permanent..." would avoid the rules headache.

[patsen]

I've already figured out how to abuse Mechanic A: Fastbond, and cycle through three Lotus Vales. If Fastbond is causing you to lose too much life, use, ditch and recycle Nomad Stadiums. Or, Circle of Protection: Green.

Infinate mana that can't be countered, destroyed, or stopped. It'll have to have a high mana cost, or let both players use it.

Mechanic E:

This better have Cumulative Upkeep...

Mechanic F:

Onslaught block put so much effort into cycling and morph, Mirrodin's supposed to stop it completely? Should have saved Stabilizer for Mirrodin.

Mechanic I:

Do I have to correct all of their cards?

Discard a card from your hand: counter target spell you control. If it goes to your graveyard, return it to your hand instead.
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This is what TV and Computers do to a lad's creativity.

[Nintendo Guru]

Oh joy. Mechanic A won. Let's see how we can exploit it.

[DaDemon]

This is good and bad.

Good: ON Fetchlands means no more mana screw, No more getting screwed by land destruction (not that T2 has many anymore).

Bad: So much for my land destruction decks. They better make "Destroy target land. Remove that land from the game instead of putting it in the graveyard".