SixFootTurkey wrote:@Havtorn
Well, uncommons are seldom sought after rares... Artificer's Trap on the other hand, seems too strong. Even if all you do is counter a three-drop, you're spending four mana to counter a three mana spell, and getting three power and three toughness over three bodies in the air, at instant speed... One of the downsides of counterspells is that they are reactionary and don't develop your board. Having a counterspell that develops your board needs to be considered accordingly. (This is especially true for an unconditional counter that only has a single point of colored mana.).)
The thing with Spell Blast is that you never know how much mana you need to keep open, so comparing it to fixed-cost counterspells becomes very tricky. The closest cards in effect to what the Artificer's Trap is trying to do is Draining Whelk and Mystic Genesis, since they leave a board presence depending on the cmc of the casted spell, but both have fixed cmcs that allow you to plan ahead. They're pretty expensive, true, but they counter anything and you actually hope your opponent plays something as large as possible.
Maybe the solution here is just to remove X from the thopter count and just make it a single thopter. That doesn't have anywhere near the same "HA! Gotcha!" potential, but perhaps anything better would be too good.
SixFootTurkey wrote:@Aarhg (take two)
How about just make part of it a static ability: "Players can't attack, block, or use activated abilities of creatures they don't own." Splitting the ability in two adds additional utility, as well as cutting at least a few words out.
This will mean that other Mind Control and Act of Treason effects significantly worse, even the ones in Orilec's owners deck. Which there will probably be a few. I think that could totally work, but he might be a bit overcosted then.
SixFootTurkey wrote:@Havtorn
If you're using 'arrest' as filler, I would recommend not doing so without making it clear - i.e., using brackets. I would also not recommend filler when something being too wordy is the issue at hand, as it defeats the purpose of the new wording. If you are using the term intentionally as a new word, I also advise against that. It is not an existing keyword (and couldn't be thanks to a card of the same name), there is no existing terminology that does what we want, and inventing a keyword for a specific card is non-ideal.
The 'Arrest' thing was an attempt to keep the character count down and tidy up the whole thing while trying to change the actual effect of the card Aarhg wrote as little as possible. The fact that "Orilec, Keeper of Peace" is a mouthful to begin with didn't help.
I got the idea that maybe instead of making a keyword you can just use Creature Type, like with Boldwyr Intimidator.
It's still kind of wordy, but now Act of Treason-ing him will not make him shut down, he won't take his prisoners with him, and it won't affect other mind-controlled creatures.
Changelings get a bit shafted, but I'm sure that's not the first time that would happen.
If multiplayer wasn't an issiue you could move almost everything to the static ability:
But I have no idea how that would work in a 3+ player game with more than one Orilec in play.
SixFootTurkey wrote:@I don't know if Plauge of Locusts is necessarily green; Maro has stated that Hornet Queen was a color pie break, that it was a mistake. (I would guess Hornet's Nest as well, but a lesser one.)
You're right, tbh I mostly made it green because I immideately associate self-mill with golgari, and there already was a flying insect with deathtouch that happened to be green, but just making the enchantment mono-black won't change much and makes more sense.