By Xion (Xion) on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 04:51 pm:

Siphon: (When this spell is in your hand you may pay up to X life where X is the amount of colorless mana in this spell’s casting cost. If you do, the colorless mana cost of this spell is reduced by X until end of turn where X is the amount of life paid.)

By Xion (Xion) on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 04:52 pm:

Naturally there would be alot of colored mana in the cost of these cards.

By ApocalypsePrime (Jestergoblin) on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 05:42 pm:

. . .

oww.

I wouldn't keyword it.

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - 07:59 pm:

The wording is awful.

"Siphon (When you are playing this card you can pay X life to reduce this card's colorless mana cost by X)

I don't like this mechanic. First, it seems like it would fit on almost any black card but it would be heavily out of flavour for most other colours. Also notice that red for example has no lifegain to counteract the life loss.

Secondly, reducing mana costs is always a dangerous thing to do much like pitch spells and alternate casting costs, it gets abused very fast! Look at the history of Force of Wills, the "free" mechanic in Urza block and others, its just dangerous. Also keep in mind that Wizards desperately try to slow the game down so that it lasts longer than just a couple of turns.

Life is a resource where you can spend every single point as long as it isn't the last one. So you have 19 of them when you are starting the game. This mechanic basically converts life into colorless mana without having to cast a Channel (and Channel is a restriced card!). Look at other cards that convert life into other resources like Channel, Necropotence, Fastbond, they are all restricted. Cards that convert one resource into another will end up in a combodeck and break the game easily.

Xion, for a guy that doesn't like Type I you are dreaming of very Type Iish things ;)

By Nether Overlord (Nightmare) on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 05:44 am:

And here I was thinking it was sad to dream up mechanics in a dream....

By Xion (Xion) on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 06:45 am:

Yeah, its not going to go on anything wicked abuseable. Here is an example of something I made with that mechanic

[Cardname] 4BBB

Creature-Horror (rare)

Siphon: (When this spell is in your hand you may pay up to X life where X is the amount of colorless mana in this spell’s casting cost. If you do, the colorless mana cost of this spell is reduced by X until end of turn where X is the amount of life paid.)

4/4

By ApocalypsePrime (Jestergoblin) on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 09:56 am:

We understand how it works it's just not keywordish, I feel its way too limited in scope. Plus your wording still isn't right and I can't make it work yet.

By Behold Wacky Mod (Bwm) on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 10:04 am:

You can only swap it on bad cards, but in that case, you have a good keyword on bad cards...

Your dude, still is a 4/4 that can come out turn 1 with a Ritual... That makes it strictly better than Phyrexian Negator (a card that by itself isn't really bad)

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 04:30 pm:

Actually its more like a Phyrexian Scuta
5/5 for 3B & 3 life
4/4 for BBB & 3 life

The thing is, to make those cards balanced, the regular mana cost must be very high, read; the card must suck if played regularily. The result is that nobody would ever pay the regular cost as you can see in this example: 6 mana for a 4/4 is horrible!
That means all those cards will always be played using the full Siphon cost. And THAT means you could as well slap a regular "pay X life" on those cards to make them balanced. And that mechanic is already overused in black and out of flavour for most other colours.

By Apprentice (Apprentice) on Thursday, August 04, 2005 - 09:49 pm:

I think a better vareint would be to make the cards really great X-spells but additionally make them pay that much life.

Asteroid Collision-XRR
Sorcery
Spellburn (As you play this you must also pay X life.)
Destroy X creatures.

Umezawa's Death Strike- XXXBU
Sorcery
Spellburn (As you play this you must also pay X life.)
Target player loses X times 5 life.

What do you think of the Death Strike? Is it accurate to the book? Does it make sense? Is it correctly powered?

-Apprentice

By Puschkin (Puschkin) on Friday, August 05, 2005 - 07:36 am:

If you have X in the casting cost, yu don't need the mechanic Siphon/Spellburn anymore. Just add a line that reads "Lose X life.".

The Death Strike is probably correctly powered but I would change that U to R in the casting cost.

By Apprentice (Apprentice) on Friday, August 05, 2005 - 10:58 am:

Umezawa used all of those calors (Blue, Black, and Red) so I will redo the card. I guess you can say "lose X life", but you know Wizard's obsession with Keywords.

Umezawa's Death Strike- XXBUR
Sorcery
Spellburn (As you play this you must also pay X life.)
Target player loses X times 5 life.

What about that? Is it still balanced?

-Apprentice

By Archive Digger (Xdritex) on Friday, August 05, 2005 - 04:43 pm:

Bt the spellburn action makes it more costly. If you have it say you loose x life, then you don't if the spell is countered. bu with the other effect, you loose the life as a cost to play the spell. So even if it's countered, you still loose the life.

By Erik on Tuesday, September 06, 2005 - 05:10 am:

Phyrexian Souldrainer 19B
Creature-Horror
Trample, Siphon
1: CARDNAME deals 1 damage to its controller and 10 damage to all its controllers oppenents. any player may play this ability.
13/11

By Xion (Xion) on Tuesday, September 06, 2005 - 08:32 pm:

It seems that the thread necrophiliac has an affinity for horribly unbalanced creatures with enormous power and toughness and low mana cost.

By Homelands rules! (Psycho) on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 08:02 am:

It does seem so...

By ApocalypsePrime (Jestergoblin) on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 04:02 pm:

\ignore

I wish that was a real command.

By Dimir (Sengir) on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 - 07:10 pm:

make it go away!