Could Black Have "Flickering" Effects?
General forum
Posted on Oct. 28, 2018, 12:40 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
"Flickering" effects (exiling a creature and then returning it to the battlefield, either immediately or later) are typically white (i.e., Cloudshift) or blue (i.e., Ghostly Flicker), but could black have such an effect? I personally believe that it could, but it would be bending the color pie (although not outright breaking it), so would need to be different from how white and blue perform that task, perhaps by incurring a payment other than mana, such as loss of life or discarding cards.
What does everyone else say about this? Could black have "flickering" effects?
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #3
I put the wrong link. I meant Rescue from the Underworld.
October 28, 2018 8:29 a.m.
Returning it to the battlefield immediately wouldnt be the black way. Returning it to the battlefield later can barely be called a flicker effect, but they already have a pseudo version of this in the form of reanimation. Rescue from the Underworld proves my point. But they would never, and should never have a cheap 2 cmc flicker effect. Its not the black philosophy to protect their creatures.
October 28, 2018 1:28 p.m.
Could use Conjurer's Closet and maybe some other artifacts but black already has reanimation as pointed above.
October 28, 2018 1:38 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
xhuggels, I presume that that that means that there is no way that black could have its own version of Story Circle or Righteous Aura?
October 28, 2018 3:48 p.m.
strictly speaking no, however wizards have been printing weird stuff lately. Look at indestructible combat tricks for instance. for a long time Fated Return was the only card in black that did that, and because of that it was incredibly expensive, but look at the nature of the card, graveyard shenanigans and all, it is very black in the nature of how the card works. in kaladesh they printed 2 more, Rush of Vitality and Renegade's Getaway, the latter of the two actually feeling like it should be a white card. In amonket they printed another one, Without Weakness. Exile mechanics in general when it came to black were also targeted towards the graveyard, so something like Vraska's Contempt and all the similar cards that were printed during that time was also a very rare occurrence up till recently.
Im not saying what you OP asked would never ever happen, as i feel like the longer the game goes on the more initial color rules they have to break in order to print new cards. I am saying that it shouldnt ever happen, and if a cheap flicker effect gets printed in black, it would be because WOTC are getting sloppy/lazy with their card design.
October 28, 2018 4:20 p.m.
preventing damage in black is weird. the only example of it is Darkness, which is a silly card. But as i said, 10 years from now im sure this card wouldnt stand alone.
October 28, 2018 4:28 p.m.
xhuggels the reason black has those is becuse regenerate is no longer part of the game.
Demon: But as others have said black has reanimate and its outside of its color pie and those two cards you used as examples are old and the color pie wasn't as defined as it now
October 28, 2018 5:20 p.m.
cause magic evolved with time. thats the point here. eventually in order to print new cards AND balance standard they would have to bend some rules. Regenerate explains the indestructible example, not the exile example. In the amonket block, in order to fight the gods they couldnt leave exile mechanics only in one color since that would make white more powerful than the other colors. adding exile to black helped to balance standard, despite the fact that historically black exile mechanics arent really as straight forward as Vraska's Contempt.
so there are reasons WOTC may want to bend color rules when it comes to printing cards, but outright breaking them is sloppy. personally i feel like those exile mechanics were poorly designed and didnt reflect blacks philosophy. Power at the expense of all else. gaining life AND exiling a creature/plainswalker without any drawbacks whatsoever on the same curve other colors would cast similar spells, and instant speed compared to sorcery speed isnt the black way. This is a case of breaking instead of bending. they are doing that more often nowadays.
October 28, 2018 5:39 p.m.
Short answer: No. Long Answer: Noooooooooooooooooooo.
Without joking, this is not black's schtick. Flickering with white/blue and that is it. Black gets cards like Abnormal Endurance and Supernatural Stamina which function similarly, albeit with a different flavor than flickering, and while they do not allow to be flickered out of combat, they allow the creature to deal its damage and kill something before dying.
seshiro_of_the_orochi says... #2
I think the closest thing to black flicker/blink would be something like Journey to the Underworld or maybe some variation of it. How about this wording:
sacrifice a creature: return target creature with the same converted mana cost from your graveyard to the battlefield. Exile if it would be put into your graveyard.
October 28, 2018 8:28 a.m.