A Spicy Land?
Custom Cards forum
Posted on Dec. 15, 2020, 10:51 p.m. by GenericToaster
The idea that I have for this land kind of mimics off of shock lands and Mana Confluence. Its supposed to be playable for early mana fixing, but at the cost of life if you abuse it too early. Here's the idea
Landname
When Landname enters the battlefield, put 3 Something Counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a Something Counter from Landname
Tap: Add 1 Mana of any color to your mana pool, you lose life equal to the number of Something Counters on Landname
What do you guys think? Too strong? Or too much damage? It would be at most 6 damage if you used it every turn
Omniscience_is_life says... #3
I kinda like it, Gemstone Mine bites the dust after the counters are depleted, and that sucks, so balancing not sacking it with punching yourself in the face is smart. I'd play it (he says tentatively, having an average of 50 damage dealt to him every game by lands already)
December 16, 2020 12:36 a.m.
I don't think the damage is bad. I didn't realize you can always tap it for 1 of any color. For some reason I thought it stopped working after the counters were gone.
I run quite a few copies of stuff like City of Brass, Caves of Koilos or similar that never stop hurting you.
The fact that the counters fade even if you do not tap it is nice. Also, that you can use other cards to get rid of the counters anyways. So it is not totally eliminated as a combo piece either.
What would you call the counters? Attunement Counters? Link Counters? Bonding Counters?
December 16, 2020 1:47 a.m.
Currently you will take a maximum of 6 damage to use the land. That's very good, given that Tarnished Citadel sees play. I think you need to make it balanced, either by adding more counters or adding more restrictions.
December 16, 2020 9:27 a.m.
King_marchesa says... #6
I think the fact that it doesn't tap for colorless makes it more balanced.
December 16, 2020 9:36 a.m.
Has the OP changed the card? Otherwise I don't get what people are talking about comparing it to Gemstone Mine.
This card ALWAYS taps for any color. The first after you play it, it also bolts your face. The next turn it shocks your face, then it pings it and then it's free of charge.
December 16, 2020 11:06 a.m.
Seems well balanced and reasonable. I don’t know enough about the entire catalog of mtg cards to know if there are cheap ways to break/abuse this, but it seems solid for now.
December 16, 2020 1:47 p.m.
GenericToaster says... #9
I almost feel that it would be more useful to compare it to something like Transguild Promenade. Its basically taking that card, and giving you the ability to pay 6 life to not pay the tax and to untap it when it comes down.
But yeah, it sticks around once the counters are gone. Its just a land that taps for any color, if you chose to tap it the first turn, you take 3, second turn take two, 3rd turn take one, and after that its just a normal land that taps for anything.
December 16, 2020 6:24 p.m.
GenericToaster: This isn't anything like Transguild Promenade, sorry. Coming into play tapped is one thing, but the fact that you can play this turn one and you can't do that for promenade is a big distinction. Not to mention promenade completely consumes your second turn.
Paying 3 life for mana of whatever colour you want is akin to a turn one fetch into shockland. After that the life loss is negilgible and the kind of decks that would run this (both modern and Commander) would play this turn one and then watch the counters melt away.
The issue with the land is that it's just so much more flexible as far as life loss management than Mana Confluence or City of Brass while still being usefule early game, unlike Transguild Promenade.
December 16, 2020 7:11 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #11
Can't wait to proliferate the counters on opponents' lands like this :D
December 17, 2020 1:30 p.m.
I feel like this might work better in reverse if you want to punish people who use it too much too early.
So like T, add a charge counter to landname : add one mana of any color, you lose life equal to the number of counters on landname.
The more you use it, the more it hurts you, so if you rely on it heavily for early fixing, it's going to hurt later, but if you play it late game, it won't be so bad.
December 18, 2020 5:58 p.m.
GenericToaster says... #13
wereotter that could be decent, but it would need to do 0 damage to the user on their first use, because otherwise it would be strictly worse Mana Confluence, ie both do 1 damage on the first use, and the new card would do more damage on every use afterwards
December 19, 2020 2:18 a.m.
I see your point there. Then I guess you could just alter that to say "lose life equal to the number of counters minus one"
December 19, 2020 12:54 p.m. Edited.
I feel like this land has a place that occupies another design space than Mana Confluence.
Simply making a Mana Confluence with a first turn discount and then a cumulative stacking damage draw back would simply make it useless.
Also the model that it starts expensive and then gets cheaper makes it a lot better in format where you have time. The starting cheap and then getting expensive is a lot stronger in eternal formats with a short time-to-victory timeframe - like vintage and to an extend legacy.
I feel like this card would flourish in Commander. Perhaps it could make do with longer time being a pain, like start with 6 counters, each turn remove one. Whenever tap, it deals damage equal to half the number of counters rounded up. That effectively makes it deal its damage numbers twice before getting cheaper and it extends the period before it gets "good". That would double its damage from 6 over 3 turns to 12 over 6 turns. That actually feels bad, so the starting number could be 5 to reduce it to 9 damage over 5 turns. If you abstain from using it turn 1, reduce the damage to 6 (2 times 2 damage + 2 times 1 damage), which actually seems like a fair trade to effectively have it "enter tapped" / not use.
It needs to feel viable compared to Mana Confluence but at the same time it cannot be too "cheap" too early.
The damage is front loaded, so it is better in slower formats. I think that's a preferable design to ramping the damage.
December 19, 2020 6:16 p.m.
*Edits are not possible but a Mana Confluence with a first turn discount and stacking damage drawback would not be useless - but it would be too closely related to Mana Confluence and quickly overshadowed in usefulness.
December 19, 2020 6:19 p.m.
Very cool idea, and it has its place in MTG, being a very useful and unique ruleset. I would love to have this in the place of the lands that have two sides. I need more rainbow mana for my Rainbow manabase, and this would fit perfectly. I think that Wizards needs to make more rainbow cards and cards that work with differing mana colors to where they max out at 5. Like Chamber Sentry. If I had these mana cards at the beginning of the game, not only would I be able to take a risk and start early losing 3 health per card, I would have a much stronger manabase near turn 3, which isn't that bad. If you are going to lose on turn 3, you might as well have not played. I don't know of any MTG games that I lost on turn 3, but then again I only played Standard, and there were no combos.
MagicMarc says... #2
Is this just a strictly worse Gemstone Mine?
Does it do anything once it runs out of counters?
There are a line of lands with vivid in their name who give you two counters for mana of any color and still always tap for a specific color; Vivid Crag.
December 15, 2020 11:51 p.m. Edited.