Hidden Temple
Custom Cards forum
Posted on Dec. 12, 2015, 1:35 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
Temple of the False God is a very nice land, but it suffers from two major problems, in my mind.
First, it cannot produce any mana if its controller controls too few lands, making it useless if it is played too early in the game. Second, its name refers to a specific character in the story, so that limits in what sets it can be reprinted.
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods is a partial fix of that card, but still has problems. First, while it can generate mana without other lands, the conditions under which it generates 2 colorless mana are ridiculously restrictive, and second, its name still refers to specific beings in the story.
Therefore, I have created a land that addresses both of those issues, as seen, below:
Hidden Temple Show
Land
: add 
to your mana pool. If you control five or more lands, add 
to your mana pool, instead.
This land has a generic name, so it can theoretically be printed in any set on any plane, and it also is useful at any point of a game, but becomes more useful later, when its controller ideally controls more lands.
What does everyone else have to say about this? How well did I do with this card? And could someone please help me fix the spoiler tag so that all of the card text is within it?
CastleSiege says... #3
The reason those two lands have restrictions is because lands that tap for 2 or more mana are very powerful. Let's take a look at a few:
As you can see, all of these lands have some sort of drawback or restriction (though Ancient Tomb and Mishra's Workshop are busted regardless). The land you proposed is too powerful as it has almost no drawback whatsoever. It would be more fair as a functional reprint of Temple of the False God, just with a different name. Tapping for before 5 lands hit play makes it too good.
December 12, 2015 3:08 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #4
As was said, downsides or shortcomings are used to balance the power of various effects. I don't think it's wise to assume that a downside is a mistake or something that should be remediated; card designs are very much intentional.
Also, reprintability is not a great issue. Cards like Temple of the False God and Shrine of the Forsaken Gods don't need to be printed in every Standard set; it's perfectly fine to have a variant of them printed in one set for flavor and function (Shrine of the Forsaken Gods was printed for exactly that reason). Beyond that, they can still be reprinted at WOTC's leisure in supplemental releases like Commander decks, Masters sets, and so on.
December 12, 2015 8:40 a.m.
FAMOUSWATERMELON says... #5
You say that the name Temple of the False God limits how many times it's printed, but it's been in 6 different sets so far...
December 12, 2015 9:33 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
Note that all of those except Scourge are a supplemental release.
Also, although Karona is "the" false god, the name could potentially refer to others.
December 12, 2015 9:45 a.m.
CastleSiege says... #7
Just look at the printing of Temple of the False God from Duel Decks: Elspeth vs. Kiora. It's referencing how Kiora was fooling the Tritons by pretending to be Thassa during the events of Theros, hence she is a false god.
December 12, 2015 10:31 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
What about increasing the threshold for the circumstances under which the land produces 2 colorless mana, like so?
Hidden Temple Show
Land
: add to your mana pool. If you control five or more lands, add to your mana pool, instead.
Now, it is halfway between Temple of the False God and Shrine of the Forsaken Gods, so is it more balanced, now?
Again, I am having problems with the spoiler tags, so can someone please help me with them?
December 12, 2015 10:39 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #9
That's just a strictly better version of Temple of the False God. Think about other cards that have this kind of functionality. For example, the Urza lands require you to control three different lands before you get the benefit.
December 12, 2015 10:43 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #10
I made a mistake in my above post: here is how the land should look, now:
Hidden Temple Show
Land
: add to your mana pool. If you control six or more lands, add to your mana pool, instead.
Now, how is it?
December 12, 2015 10:43 p.m.
I still don't like it. Obviously there exists a continuum here when we're talking about the land count required to add 2 instead of 1. We all agree that requiring a count of 1 land would be beyond OP while a count of 15 would be laughable. There must therefore be some middle-ground where the effect is balanced. However, what does fishing for that space give us? Is it interesting? The way I see it, the investment is minimal to turn this thing on. You'll eventually hit it just by playing the game. That's why I like the idea of lands ramping mana more in the form of Blighted Woodland. Here we're talking about a significant investment yet the land still comes in untapped and taps for 1. That's still nice.
Arvail says... #2
Whenever you're just making strictly better or worse versions of existing cards, you have to carefully consider why you're doing so. Your version certainly is accessible, but with it comes implications of its use. As is, I'm worried that people would just throw it in decks because of its very limited trade-off and hitting large amounts of mana almost incidentally simply through playing the game. Ancient Tomb is already a powerhouse in EDH.
December 12, 2015 2:59 a.m.