Ecological Collapse
Custom Cards forum
Posted on May 7, 2020, 10:21 a.m. by TheCardPool
This card was inspired by TypicalTimmy's challenge to design a white card that explores the exile space. The theme is of a dying world, hence the playing around with lands a bit (as white sometimes does). Also, we all know white is awful at generating card advantage. What if there was a card that gave that to it, but in a weird, limited sort of way? I also made sure all players benefitted from it because I figured a one-sided advantage isn't very white and it makes for an interesting group hug/slug kind of card. Thoughts on this?
Ecological Collapse
Enchantment
Whenever a player casts a spell or plays a land, that player exiles the top card of their library.
At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player may pay . If they do, that player may play cards they own exiled with Ecological Collapse this turn. At end of turn, if that player didn’t play at least two cards from exile this turn, they must sacrifice a land.
TheCardPool says... #3
WizardOfTheNorthernCoast I think you may have misunderstood my intent with the card, or perhaps it's a mistake in wording on my part. By making the land sacrifice part of the same effect, I was tying it to the upkeep payment and was attempting to imply that no players actually have to pay if they don't want to, and if they don't, nothing bad will happen to them. The only way they lose a land is if they choose to pay during their upkeep (an optional effect) and then don't end up playing any cards from exile. If they don't pay the cost during the upkeep (again, a may ability), they just can't play cards from exile that turn and won't have to sacrifice a land regardless of the circumstances.
I intended this card to work similarly to something like Theater of Horrors for all players, but that also gave white a mill strategy. It's pretty much a chaos card but one that could work as a sort of "card draw" for white by accumulating an exiled "hand" of sorts to draw from.
WizardOfTheNorthernCoast says... #2
That seems VERY oppressive, probably unnecessarily too oppressive. Here's why I say that:
You can cheat this into play before T4 easy with the CMC being and . Hello Mana Vault and Sol Ring! Imagine this on T3. It means you either have to spend your next few turns paying for it or lose a land every turn which is retarded. Either make it more expensive or harder to cast (the latter option being the best imo).
It hurts you too, which is dumb if your goal is to generate card advantage. That means you will potentially lose your own lands too unless you build the whole deck around it. This kind of card needs to be an auto-include if you play white; it shouldn't set you back or it'll never see play.
The condition is too hard to meet. You have to pay PLUS play 2 cards off of exile to not lose a land. That's minimum 5 mana to invest to not lose a land. This is nuts considering this can see play as early as turn 2 with a Sol Ring! I'd make it to pay and bring down the condition to 1 card played from exile. That seems more balanced, forcing your opponents to care about it while giving them a chance to handle it.
Also, you should add a text line stating that players aren't affected by the card if they have no card in exile. As it's written right now, it says you have to play 2 cards from exile or lose a land. If you don't have cards to play, you still lose a land and can't do anything about it :)
May 8, 2020 6:12 a.m.