Taking U/B control to stupid new levels
Custom Cards forum
Posted on March 9, 2015, 7:08 p.m. by square711
Manufacturer of Disbelief
Legendary Creature - Human Artificer
2/1
~ cannot be countered by spells or abilities unless there is another card named ~ in the battlefield.
Whenever a spell is successfully countered, you may pay 1 life. If you do, put a 0/1 colorless Construct artifact creature token onto the battlefield. It has "sacrifice this creature: counter target spell unless its controller pays 2 life".
Some things I had in mind when I came up with this: I wanted something that's in Dimir colors, is an uncounterable 2-drop, generates sac fodder and can be the difference in a control mirror match. And I wanted it to be incredibly powerful without being ban-worthy, sorta like Dark Confidant and Snapcaster Mage (which are both 2-drops, Humans, and in Dimir colors, not to mention designed by players. See where the inspiration came from?).
Thoughts?
Yeah, I agree that paying 2 life to not get countered isn't much of a drawback. I actually thought about making it a Force Spike-like ability, as well as paying 
instead of 2 life to generate the token. I ended up choosing life for flavor reasons (although, now that I think about it, involving sacrifice is probably enough to justify the card being black) and because I got the feeling that spawning a copy of Force Spike whenever you counter something seemed too good. Chipping away at the opponent's life seems more acceptable, because you're expected to have actual counterspells in hand when you play this - thus, what these tokens really do is potentially turn every Negate into Countersquall - or at least that's what I was aiming for :P
Oh, and at one point I also considered using Phyrexian mana, but then it would seem terribly out of place in any set that doesn't take place in Mirrodin/New Phyrexia.
Anyway, I'm glad you like the idea, and thanks for the feedback!
TristanTaylorsVoice says... #2
Not really a control card, more like a tempo one. Giving your opponent the choice isn't particularly good, so perhaps making it a Force Spike like effect would make it more playable. I like the direction you chose though.
March 9, 2015 8:08 p.m.